"That's…a spirit beast?" I scratched my head and crouched in front of the poor puppy. It shrank back, looking afraid of me. Mu Rong Shu nodded, standing by my side and watching the black puppy.
"The child of the Cerberus we just fought, I believe."
"Damn, doesn't that mean we killed its parent?" I didn't feel guilty exactly, but I felt bad for the puppy. If we hadn't killed the Cerberus, it would have killed us, so I felt no regret in attacking it. But the puppy was…well, it was innocent.
Of course, there was the possibility that the puppy was faking its helplessness and was planning on attacking us, but that was super unlikely. I sensed no hostility from it, just plain fear.
Well, I should take a risk. I was a summoner, after all. Taming spirit beasts was my specialty. If it attacked me, I would have some way of dealing with it.
"You all right?" I extended a hand to the puppy. It hesitated before placing a paw on my palm. Then it licked my fingers tentatively. Even though I had killed its parent right before its eyes, it bore no ill will, which was weird.
I glanced at Mu Rong Shu, who looked just as confused. She then shook her head.
"The puppy didn't see us kill its parent. It only appeared after its death. I think it's a remnant of the formation, a…spell that created it as a successor."
"In other words, it might not even be a child of that Cerberus from earlier, but something summoned by the formation?"
"Yes." Mu Rong Shu frowned. "I'm not very familiar with formations, so I don't know the details, but I'm sure I would have detected this puppy if it had shown up earlier."
Mu Rong Shu was a former assassin, so if there was anyone whose senses I could trust, it would be her.
"The formation seems to be the type to continue summoning guardians in order to protect the tomb," Mu Rong Shu explained. Right now, she was examining the spirit array instead, poking at it with her fingers and tracing the runes. "But because I tampered with it and partially dismantled it, it lost most of its power. That's why it was only able to summon a weakened Cerberus. Subsequent summons would diminish progressively, which is why we have a puppy now."
"Take care of the formation," I told her. "I'll see if I can take care of the puppy."
"You're not going to kill it, are you?" Mu Rong Shu frowned. "It's such a poor thing."
"Seems like a boy, actually," I remarked after observing the puppy. Then I patted his head. "I'll call him Xiao Hei. And no, I'm not planning on killing him. I'll establish a contract with Xiao Hei and make him my contracted spirit beast, just like this guy here."
I gestured at the war spirit, who did a salute with his spear. Apparently he seemed pleased to have company now.
"Oh, yeah. That makes sense." Mu Rong Shu nodded. Then she looked a little guilty while dismantling the formation, glancing at me with some sadness. "…it was my fault that you lost your original spirit beast back then."
"That wasn't your fault," I assured her. "The blame for that lies solely with the Zhao family. They are the ones who stole everything from you. If anything, I'm grateful to you and the Mu Rong family for taking me in after the Zhao family kicked me out."
Closing my eyes, I briefly recalled to that moment three years ago, when grandmother disowned me and banished me from the Zhao family, taking the spirit beast I had raised throughout my childhood and handing it over to my brother. At that moment, I vowed vengeance on the family who treated me as nothing more than a tool…a stepping stone for my brother's rise to the position of patriarch.
And now they wanted me back? I wasn't fooling myself. They simply saw me as his replacement. So they could fuck right off.
One of these days, I would settle the debt with the Zhao family. I didn't intend to take back anything – I had no interest in the position of patriarch, nor did I covet the Divine Dragon spirit that was the symbol of our clan. But I wanted to trample them into the dust.
Unfortunately, I wasn't powerful enough to pull that off.
Placing a hand on Xiao Hei, I closed my eyes and began an incantation. Arcane symbols drifted around me while I weaved the spiritual contract into being, linking the soul of the small spirit beast to mine. The glowing runes descended into Xiao Hei's body and disappeared inside him, sealing the covenant.
"No matter how many times I see that, it never fails to amaze me," Mu Rong Shu said, approaching me now that she had successfully erased that last formation. I glanced up and raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"You only witnessed this spirit beast contract once before." That was when I did it with the war spirit. At that time, he was only a spear. A floating spear as if held by an invisible person. It was only after I meticulously cultivated for three years that he looked the way he did now.
"Details." Mu Rong Shu waved my statement away. She then turned to the massive doors. "I wonder what's inside."
"Only one way to find out." I kicked the doors open and the both of us cautiously stepped inside, half-expecting there to be more formations inside. My war spirit and Xiao Hei followed, the latter looking around curiously.
There was nothing. No spirit beasts, no wraiths, no killing arrays. Just a few ancient relics here and there, and a single coffin that was laid out in the center of the chamber.
The ancient artifacts ranged from gleaming weapons to a spirit lantern. There was even a guqin, lying inside a wooden case – a treasure that was revealed only when Mu Rong Shu opened it. Her eyes widened.
"This…"
"You can keep it," I told her with a smile. Mu Rong Lao had stipulated that his granddaughter could pick whatever treasure she wanted from the tomb, provided we handed over everything else to him. My wife beamed and gave me a hug.
"Yay! Thank you, husband!"
Mu Rong Shu picked up the guqin and ran her hands over its wooden surface lovingly. She tested out the strings, and I could sense the faint emanations of qi that rippled across the chamber. Sweet notes hung in the air, reverberating pleasantly.
"Just in time for the concert too," Mu Rong Shu said happily, hugging the guqin to her chest. She glanced at me and grinned mischievously. "It's not as if the audience can tell anyway."
"Yeah, and I think practicing music on it will help refine your qi sense and cultivation." I nodded in approval.
We packed the other relics into our storage devices, which apparently created an extradimensional space that could theoretically hold an infinite amount of items. Not that anyone actually tested its limits. That was where we placed our sleeping bags, rations and bottles of water in, carrying what was a huge amount of equipment without them showing up physically. Yeah, you were wondering where the sleeping bags and stuff came from when we weren't even carrying backpacks, right? In these convenient devices.
I visited the coffin last, carefully approaching it. Xiao Hei sniffed at it curiously, but I waved him back. It wasn't as if the person lying inside would suddenly sit up and shout boo, but this was a world of cultivation, so it paid to be cautious. While there was no precedent for the dead being resurrected, that didn't mean the tomb owner wasn't malicious enough to fill his coffin with traps and the like.
There could be a spirit beast lying in wait inside, ambushing us the moment we slide the lid off. Or opening the coffin would trigger a killing array. There were so many things that could go wrong. I hadn't survived this long as an explorer without getting complacent.
Thankfully, the owner of this particular tomb chose not to booby-trap his coffin. After prying the lid loose and sliding it off, I peered inside and saw a mummified corpse lying inside. Despite the embalmment, not much of the physical body was left. The skeleton wasn't even whole, which most of the bones having crumbled away, leaving decomposed rags behind.
What was left of his hands were clutching a roll of scriptures to a half-broken chest cavity that was missing most of its ribs. I reached out and pulled the scriptures loose. This was the true treasure of the tomb, the reason why I risked opening the coffin despite it being laced with traps. The scriptures bore the ancient and powerful techniques of these tomb owners, most of whom were champions and grand masters during their heyday.
Most cultivators coveted such techniques, seeking them out to increase their strength. Unfortunately, this wasn't a summoning technique, so it was of no use to me. One thing about cultivation wasn't that the more you knew, the better or stronger you became. You needed the appropriate techniques for the right person. You couldn't ask a doctor to suddenly learn engineering skills, or a botanist to become a professional musician. You could certainly dabble here and there, but you would never reach the pinnacle of your chosen specialization if you wandered too frequently.
Quantity didn't mean quality.
That didn't mean there wasn't anyone willing to shell out a high price for such techniques. The powerful families, in particular, had divisions of experts dedicated to researching these techniques and trying to integrate them into their own family techniques, combining them to produce a superior version. I didn't possess such resources, but the Mu Rong family did, so I would just pass it to Mu Rong Lao. If he deemed it unsuitable for the Mu Rong family, then he would sell it to a family who wanted it and make a tremendous profit. And my wife and I would get some royalties because we were the ones who recovered it.
"Excellent, it is well preserved." I dusted the scriptures off and placed it inside the storage device. Then I grinned at Mu Rong Shu. "All right, no point sticking around here. Let's go before someone else arrives."
"Good idea." Mu Rong Shu brushed the dirt off her dress and then grimaced. "I can't wait to return to civilization and take a shower."
"Yeah, and I promised you a new dress when we get back."
"I'm holding you to that, dear." Mu Rong Shu wagged a finger at me. Then we left the chamber behind, shutting the doors behind us. The both of us then followed the winding corridor and exited the tomb in less than half the time we took to explore it. Mostly because we had already eliminated all the wraiths and other dangers inside the tomb, so we could move at a brisker pace. By now, I had dismissed both my war spirit and Xiao Hei, allowing them to rest inside my soul sea. Without any visible threats, there was no point expending qi to maintain their existences in the real world.
"Ah, I'm so glad to see the outside again!"
Mu Rong Shu stretched herself when we stepped outside of the tomb, staring at the sky. By now, it had gotten dark, our exploration having taken up a whole day. I watched the sky for a moment and then shrugged.
"Looks like we'll have to camp out here again. We'll leave first thing tomorrow when the sun rises."
"Now that makes more sense." Mu Rong Shu nodded toward the darkening sky. "When we're outside, it'll be easier to move during the day."
"I just hope nobody sneaks up on us while we are sleeping."
"Unlikely," Mu Rong Shu assured me. She winked mischievously. "They will probably have the same opinion as you – the moment night falls, they will stop to make camp. Most likely, they will only reach the tomb during the day, when it's still bright."
"Yeah." I nodded, glancing at the night sky that was full of stars. Taking out my sleeping bag, I unrolled it in the same spot where we camped last night and prepared to squeeze inside it. "Let's hope nothing untoward happens."