The stone forest below looked a bit strange, and none of them rashly entered it. Instead, they switched to Ding Ruozhao to take the lead, flying directly over it from above.
The surrounding sky was the same as outside. Dragon Old Man had already checked it and found no array power.
They flew cautiously for a while, and when they had flown over half of the stone forest on the ground, Ding Ruozhao suddenly changed direction and headed towards a place on the left.
Seeing this, Zhang Ling and the others quickly followed, obviously because this woman had discovered something. Their divine senses immediately probed towards that direction.
On a thick stone pillar more than fifty zhang away from them, they could see some traces of buildings. Upon closer inspection, there was a black stone door opened on it.
This discovery made them overjoyed.
This meant that there might still be items left behind by ancient cultivators, which greatly increased their chances of finding treasures.
In a few breaths, they flew to the front of this stone pillar. They first circled around the stone pillar, which was more than twenty zhang in diameter. The stone door was only opened in the middle section.
After Dragon Old Man indicated that there was no array guarding this place, Ding Ruozhao raised her hand, and a ray of light burst out, hitting the stone door. With a bang, the closed stone door was directly shattered into pieces by her. Everyone's divine senses probed inside.
"Hehe, there's actually a cultivator's remains," Qing Mang Daoist laughed and walked in first.
The furnishings in the stone room were very simple, with only a stone table and chair and a white jade platform in the corner, on which sat an old man in a gray robe.
Qing Mang Daoist flicked his finger and grabbed an item from the ancient cultivator's body.
The gray-robed old man shook slightly, and the robe on his body instantly turned into dust, and the white bones scattered on the ground.
Everyone's eyes turned to the thing in Qing Mang Daoist's hand, which was a purple storage bag. He shook the bag upside down a few times, and the things inside poured out.
A whole piece of five-element spirit stone concretion, several knives, swords, and other magical artifacts, as well as several books, were all the things inside.
Everyone glanced at it and lost interest.
With their eyesight, they could naturally see the value of these items at a glance. Most of the things inside had basically turned into waste products. The only thing of value was that spirit stone concretion.
However, judging from the level of spiritual energy, they were all low-grade spirit stones, at most only a thousand spirit stones.
Although they were a little disappointed, they carefully examined the things on the ground. Some ancient texts and other information were what they valued most at this time.
After a while, Ding Ruozhao held a copper plate and said softly.
"Our guess is correct. This is very likely the base of the Kunshan Sect."
The token was the ancient cultivator's identity plate, with the two ancient characters 'Kunshan' engraved on one side. In addition to this token, there were also basic books and two jade slips.
The books were basically stuck together, but this was not a difficult task for everyone. They used their divine senses to penetrate the pages and saw the words on them.
Most of the books were related to spells, but there were also two that recorded cultivation methods, one wood attribute cultivation method and one earth attribute one.
However, they were all basic cultivation methods and not the top-tier cultivation methods that Zhang Ling was looking for.
The remaining two jade slips, however, made everyone feel difficult, and most of the information on the jade slips was blurred and unclear.
However, they did not leave immediately and began to check the rest of the stone house.
Zhang Ling looked around a few times and walked towards the remains of the ancient cultivator who had turned into white bones. He waved his sleeves gently, and the white bones scattered on the ground.
Underneath was a piece of white jade without any impurities, the size of a zhang. There was no spiritual power on it. It was ordinary jade.
Seeing this, Zhang Ling smiled in his heart, thinking that he was a little too sensitive. The others were also carefully exploring various parts of the stone house.
In this kind of ancient ruins, as long as a cultivator can enter, they will dig three feet into the ground to search.
Zhang Ling bypassed the white jade platform and planned to check the wall next to it, but he stopped after only taking two steps. He suddenly heard some extremely subtle sounds in his ears.
The sound was very small, like the sound of something breaking. With his current senses, he couldn't hear it without listening carefully.
In two breaths, Zhang Ling determined the source of the sound and turned to look at the white jade platform again. The sound was coming from it.
At this moment, he smelled a faint fragrance. This made his face sink, and he quickly held his breath to prevent any poisonous smoke.
He glanced at the others, and they didn't seem to have noticed anything unusual. But this sound and the faint fragrance were obviously not a good sign.
Zhang Ling didn't hide anything and reminded them.
"Everyone, there are some discoveries here."
Zhang Ling's words attracted everyone's attention.
"What did Fellow Daoist discover?" Ding Ruozhao frowned and looked at him and asked.
Zhang Ling just said two words expressionlessly.
"Smell."
"What smell?"
"Eh, there seems to be a faint fragrance."
They were all Golden Core cultivators with keen senses. After Zhang Ling said this, they immediately noticed something different.
At some point, a faint fragrance had floated into the stone room they were in. Following the source of the fragrance, everyone looked at the white jade platform.
This white jade platform was crystal clear and very beautiful, but it was just a piece of ordinary jade and had no value.
While everyone was observing this white jade platform, suddenly, with a crack, a cracking sound came from the white jade platform.
Then, cracking sounds continued, and countless cracks appeared, and a wisp of red smoke emerged from it.
Seeing this scene, everyone retreated a distance. Zhang Ling also instantly retreated to another place.
"What is this?"
Someone asked, but before anyone else could answer, a strange hissing sound came from outside the stone house. Hearing these sounds, everyone's expressions changed, and their bodies flashed with spiritual light as they rushed out of the stone house.
When they got outside, a layer of colored mist had spread out. In the mist, thick shadows like pythons were sweeping towards everyone.
In an instant, everyone was surrounded.
Zhang Ling only had time to glance at the situation before he saw a giant centipede as thick as a water bucket and like a python pouncing towards him.
A yellow light flashed on his body, and he was several zhang away. Then, a blue long sword appeared in his hand. The sword light flashed, and the giant centipede was cut in half, spilling a piece of green blood.
Then, Zhang Ling released the long sword. After the blue flying sword left his hand, it buzzed and danced around him, forming more than a dozen blue sword shadows.
