Cultivation Begins From The Desert
Chapter 71: Puppet Beast, Corpse

Chapter 71: Chapter 71: Puppet Beast, Corpse

Inside the "Thousand Machines Grotto Heaven," Zhouyang entered with protection and immediately saw Chen Pingzhi, who had gone ahead, being continually pushed back under the attacks of two puppet beasts, looking quite embarrassed.

The two puppet beasts were a lion and a tiger. The lion was crafted from some kind of spirit wood, similar in size to the lions in the natural world, but its eyes were crimson red, able to release a flame beam spell to attack enemies, and also spit out crimson fireballs from its mouth for an assault.

The puppet tiger beast was also similar in size to an ordinary tiger, but its body was mainly composed of metal.

Compared to the lion’s long-distance attacks, the tiger beast was clearly more skilled at close combat. Its four claws were refined from Tier Three Spiritual Gold, capable of releasing claw beams several feet long to withstand Chen Pingzhi’s flying sword attacks. It could also unleash a silver-white sword qi technique from its mouth for ranged attacks, and its body’s defense was much stronger than ordinary Tier Three Lower Grade demon beasts.

Both the lion and the tiger beast emitted energy much stronger than Zhouyang, a Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator, although not as strong as Chen Pingzhi at the Sixth-Layer Foundation Establishment, Zhouyang estimated they were at least equivalent to cultivators at the Foundation Establishment Third-Layer to Fourth-Layer.

Given Chen Pingzhi’s Sixth-Layer Foundation Establishment power, even if these two puppet beasts were quite strong, he wouldn’t usually be as embarrassed as he was now.

However, earlier while attacking the guardian array of the grotto, he had expended a lot of magical power and was suddenly ambushed by two puppet beasts without preparation, failing to deliver even seventy percent of his strength.

If he weren’t from a big clan like the Chen Family, with formidable cultivation technique divine techniques and treasures, he wouldn’t just be embarrassed now but would have been injured or even fallen.

Upon entering and seeing this situation, Zhouyang couldn’t help but loudly ask, "Elder Chen, would you like junior to assist?"

On hearing this, Chen Pingzhi’s expression changed, hesitating.

From his perspective, naturally, he didn’t want Zhouyang to intervene. After all, once Zhouyang made an effort, however small, he would have to share at least ten percent of the bounty with him.

But given his current situation, insisting on not letting Zhouyang intervene would not only look significantly bad, severely offending Zhouyang, but he himself might not be able to take down the two puppet beasts before him.

After thoughtful consideration for a while, he finally bit his teeth and nodded: "Xiaoyou can intervene, but be careful not to damage the bodies of these two puppet beasts. We can slowly drain them of their spirit stones and spiritual power."

Zhouyang understood Chen Pingzhi’s intention. If the puppet beasts’ bodies were intact, after draining their spiritual power, they might obtain two valuable treasures.

But if they were damaged, in the cultivation realm, few knew how to refine and repair such puppet beasts. By then, finding someone to repair them would be difficult.

So, even though he knew that he wouldn’t have any share in the intact puppet beasts afterward, he still smiled and said: "Rest assured, Elder, junior knows what to do."

The intact puppet beasts were not his share, but their value was incomparable to broken ones. Even if he only received ten percent share later, it would still be worthwhile.

With Zhouyang’s involvement, Chen Pingzhi’s situation instantly improved greatly.

Though Zhouyang did not exert his full strength, he helped block most of the lion beast’s attacks, leaving only the tiger beast’s close-range attack, posing little threat to him, a Sixth-Layer Foundation Establishment cultivator.

In about two or three moments, the two puppet beasts gradually exhausted the spiritual power of their spirit stones and stopped.

"Finally they stopped!"

Seeing the two puppet beasts cease their attacks, Chen Pingzhi, already sweating on his forehead, let out a big sigh of relief, waved his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his forehead, and turned to Zhouyang with a wry smile: "This time I’m lucky I brought you, else I might have really overturned in the gutter, caught by these two puppet dead objects!"

"Elder speaks too heavily. With Elder’s methods, even if you cannot defeat these two puppet beasts, you would surely have retreated safely." Zhouyang also put away his magical artifact, smiling and shaking his head, expressing humility.

Seeing this, Chen Pingzhi nodded slightly and chose not to say more polite words.

What Zhouyang said was indeed true. Had he not feared damaging the two puppet beasts, he could have ended the battle long ago with trump cards, not needing Zhouyang’s help.

With a wave of his large sleeves, Chen Pingzhi stored the two immobilized puppet beasts into his storage bag before speaking: "I will keep these two puppet beasts first, and at the end of this adventure, we will calculate Xiaoyou’s share of the bounty."

"Everything as Elder Chen said." Zhouyang’s eyes flashed with envy, but he had no objections.

Though Elder Clan Leader Zhou Minghan once said Chen Pingzhi was inherently greedy and arrogant, Zhouyang didn’t believe he would default because of this.

Defaulting in the cultivation realm is not unheard of, but the price of defaulting is not something everyone can bear.

High-tier cultivators defaulting on low-tier cultivators could ruin their reputation and be despised; however, if same-tier cultivators default on each other, they’d better be ready for retaliation.

If a cultivator intends to take revenge or plot against another cultivator, the days of the schemed person will definitely not go well, especially for a clan cultivator like Chen Pingzhi, who can’t afford to easily offend cultivators of the same tier.

Otherwise, even if Chen Pingzhi’s cultivation is high and he isn’t afraid of revenge, can’t others secretly come to kill the low-tier cultivators of the Chen family in retaliation?

When that happens, even if the Chen Family Ancestor takes action to kill the person, Chen Pingzhi’s outcome will definitely not be good.

This reasoning, Zhouyang couldn’t believe that Chen Pingzhi would be unaware of.

Seeing that he did not object, Chen Pingzhi breathed a sigh of relief, and his impression of him improved considerably.

One must know, during the times when cultivators team up for exploration, sometimes the greatest danger doesn’t come from the array restrictions and demon beast enemies inside those secret realms, but from the team itself.

Throughout history, countless exploration teams have engaged in fratricidal conflicts, slashing at each other over treasures discovered in predecessors’ grottos, not stopping until lives were lost and the struggle settled.

Zhouyang wasn’t afraid of Chen Pingzhi reneging, and Chen Pingzhi inviting Zhouyang over was also not afraid of him daring to make a move against himself.

The matter of the two going out on an adventure together had been explained to his elder brother Chen Ping’an by Chen Pingzhi.

If Chen Pingzhi fails to safely return to the clan while Zhouyang does, then Chen Ping’an would certainly implore the Chen Family Ancestor to have Zhouyang go to the Chen family for investigation. At that time, with the Chen Family Ancestor’s methods, Zhouyang would be guaranteed to divulge every incident that happened along the journey without missing a word.

Once it’s discovered that Zhouyang committed any misconduct, the outcome awaiting him and the Zhou family would be the entire clan being uprooted by the Chen family.

The two continued to delve deeper into the grotto, still with Chen Pingzhi leading the way and Zhouyang following. Whenever anything was discovered, Zhouyang would merely watch Chen Pingzhi retrieve it, at most asking a few questions when encountering something he didn’t understand.

The interior space of this grotto was quite large. After passing through the hall guarded by puppet beasts with Chen Pingzhi, they visited a total of seven or eight stone chambers. Each chamber yielded some results, and in one stone chamber used for artifact refining, they even found a tier three lower grade artifact cauldron.

Finally, the two arrived at the deepest part of the grotto - the seclusion chamber.

Arriving at the seclusion chamber, they exchanged glances, then Chen Pingzhi first spoke: "No remains of the grotto’s owner were found in the previous bedroom. Either this person perished outside, or they passed away sitting in this seclusion chamber."

"Elder Chen is right, I also suspect the same." Zhouyang nodded, acknowledging his guess.

In such grottoes left by senior cultivators, if there is no succession or destruction, one can actually infer something about the person’s background and character during their lifetime.

Generally speaking, only those loose cultivators who prefer being solitary and unfettered would hide their grottos so thoroughly that after death, no one knows the location of their grotto, leaving no one to excavate the treasures left behind.

Of course, there’s another scenario where some high-tier individuals casually establish a temporary grotto or a grotto branch outside. These temporary grottos and branches are not significant to those high-tier individuals, even if abandoned, they wouldn’t feel troubled, hence ordinarily, no one knows about them.

However, judging from the previous experiences in several stone chambers, Zhouyang and Chen Pingzhi had already concluded that the grotto’s owner during their lifetime undoubtedly did not surpass the Foundation Establishment stage, and with the financial capabilities of Foundation Establishment cultivators, it is evidently impossible to establish such a branch grotto outside the main grotto.

"I’ll break the door."

As the lead of this exploration, Chen Pingzhi was naturally determined to maintain control. Seeing the seclusion chamber door still flickering with magical power’s spiritual light, guarded by an independent small array, he waved his sleeve, once again sending out his flying sword to strike.

This independent small array guarding the seclusion chamber generally serves to warn and prevent disturbances to the person in seclusion inside, with the defense being almost negligible to Foundation Establishment cultivators.

After Chen Pingzhi released his flying sword, it only took a few strikes to break the array’s protection, shattering the entire seclusion chamber’s door with a "boom."

With the door shattered and scattered on the ground, the situation inside the seclusion chamber became completely visible.

Zhouyang focused his gaze, seeing within the not-so-large seclusion chamber, just like most Foundation Establishment cultivators’ seclusion chambers, there was a cold jade bed. On the bed lay a skeletal corpse with its head drooping facing the outside of the door. From those empty eyes, he seemed to still feel the dissatisfaction and resentment of the corpse owner from before their death.

"As expected, this guy seems to have failed to open the Purple Mansion, causing his Sea of Consciousness to explode, leading to his demise!"

Chen Pingzhi’s face showed delight as he voiced his speculation, promptly stepping into the seclusion chamber, aiming directly for the storage bags hanging at the waist of the corpse on the cold jade bed.

Seeing this, Zhouyang couldn’t help but frown; Chen Pingzhi seemed a bit too eager.