When I saw Shen Ming's mouth curling upwards, I had an ominous feeling.
Did he notice something wrong? Oh no, should I just run? There's no way I could. Should I use the teleportation talisman?
And then I heard him letting out a sigh.
"It's only natural, but the number of disciples monitoring us now is… Insane"
That's it...?
Phew…
For now, I could tell that I was safe. No matter what, he wouldn't be able to connect me with Ye Han. When Shen Ming met Ye Han for the first time, it was said that he sensed a kind of malice from him.
Not just him, Shen Ming could recognize every villain at a glance by sensing their 'malice'.
But he wouldn't from me. Because I wasn't Ye Han, but an average human from Earth. Although I only had partial control over this body's 'emotions', I had full control over its 'intentions'. And 'malice' belonged to the latter.
Most of those disciples monitoring us were hiding. But, Shen Ming appeared to know the exact number of people watching us.
I nodded back.
I wanted to use the fate calculator to see what would happen if I went with them, but I couldn't find a chance to take it out.
Even If I took it out secretly, I was pretty sure Shen Ming would notice it, so I decided not to do anything.
After some time, I led them both inside my cave. According to the map, the only entrance to the large ruin was through my cave.
Shen Ming surveyed the area and headed directly toward a corner of the wall. He seemed to have noticed something.
"Did you find anything, brother Shen?" Xiao Yating asked in my stead. It was obvious from how Shen Ming was staring at the wall.
"I think..." Shen Ming replied as he touched the wall. As a cracked protagonist, every action done by him had a certain significance and meaning. He trailed his fingers down and halted at some point.
"Knock. knock"
He knocked the spot where his fingers stopped. Surprisingly, the voice it produced did not feel like a wall made of stone. Instead, it resembled a musical instrument. With a powerful punch, he shattered the wall, revealing an inner wall.
Another type of rock, which appeared hard and spherical, made up the inner wall. Without thinking much, Shen Ming gave it a light push and the 'wall' rolled inwards like a ball.
It was actually like a tunnel slide.
Heh, as expected of our cracked protagonist. We only entered here a minute ago and he already found the entrance.
The insides were eerily dark and there was no way we could see the end of this tunnel to know what awaited us. What if this isn't even a tunnel in the first place?
Thankfully, the one guiding us was Shen Ming. And I believed in his plot armour.
Shen Ming turned around and looked at us to see who was willing to go first. Seeing neither I nor Xiao Yating wanted to, he decided to do that himself. He should… that's our protagonist right there.
He summoned a flame in his right hand, squatted down and touched the surface of the tunnel with his other hand.
"It's… Ice"
The ice looked black and impure. It seemed to have no property of melting, which was evident from how long it had been there. Centuries, or perhaps even longer. The flame used by Shen Ming was no ordinary one, it was a beast flame. Even so, it did not affect this ice.
Don't know if it can still be called 'ice' but the texture seemed cold and moist, just like any other ice.
It seems the tunnel's maker designed it so others could use the ice as a lubricant to slide through, effortlessly.
"I'll go first," said Shen Ming, in a tone resembling that of a righteous leader.
After looking at us once more, he laid half his body into the tunnel before going in.
After he was gone, we both took out our lighters, mine emitted a bright crimson flame while Xiao Yating's looked rather normal. Of course, his lighter was way cheaper than mine.
Xiao Yating followed suit, and eventually, it was my turn.
Phew… finally got some time to check the results. I had to check if it showed something like 'nothing'. If it did, I could just run somewhere else and change my appearance.
After making sure they both were gone, I put down the lighter, took out the fate calculator from my robe and wrote-
[Ye Han accompanies Shen Ming and Xiao Yating to explore the large ruin.]
Instead of showing results, It started burning and disappearing. This meant that there weren't any possible rewards I could get. But, that might not be the case.
I tried to write it in more detail, thinking my wording might be the issue. But the outcome was still the same.
Previously, when I saw such an outcome, I came up with two explanations. One was that there weren't any possible rewards. The other was that the fate calculator couldn't calculate the outcome. But I ignored the latter as the first one seemed more plausible.
Either way, I'm sure I wouldn't die since the fate calculator didn't show 'nothing' as an outcome.
After putting it back in my robe, I took the lighter from the ground and quickly went inside.
Shen Ming could adjust his body temperature easily because he had a fire affinity. But, I wasn't him, so I could only rely on the lighter to keep my body warm.
Not gonna lie, this felt just like a long amusement park ride which I kind of enjoyed, if not for the freezing temperature.
Soon enough, I encountered a faint light signalling that this ride was about to end.
At that moment, I lost control of my speed. I tried using qi to quickly stabilise myself but the gravitational pull here was different from that above. I hurtled through the air until I collided with something. Presumably, it was the boulder that Long Chen pushed inside back then.
I didn't feel much pain, but I felt my head spinning.
The black ice on the ground was slippery, making it quite difficult for me to get up. Once I did, I formed a layer of qi under my foot to avoid tripping.
I looked around and found myself stunned.
"So Large." I couldn't help but exclaim.
The atmosphere was freezing as a black fog shrouded the entire ruin. Yet, it failed to obscure the colossal mountains of black ice from view. One could easily suspect this to be an entirely different world.
There weren't any light sources here but the darkness wasn't as oppressive as it had been inside the tunnel.
Shen Ming and Xiao Yating walked over quickly, after hearing an "Aaaaaaaah" from nearby. It was none other than Zhao Fan holding a crimson lighter.
"Is there anything wrong? Senior brother Zhao?"
Xiao Yating asked with a confused look.
"Ah…"
What? You're saying that you didn't 'come in contact' with the boulder? Was it just me? No way.
"...no" I replied.
Afterwards, I looked at Shen Ming, who was holding a large piece of black ice in one of his hands. Noticing my gaze, he said in a calm tone-
"These ice have special properties and are suitable for both cultivation and forging. We should collect as much as we can."
The ice indeed was very useful, he might have thought of giving it to Su Liang, who had the ice affinity.
The three of us busied ourselves collecting the ice. Shen Ming was using his hand to punch the ice into huge chunks before storing them in his storage ring. Xiao Yating was using a blade while I used a dagger. My efficiency was no less than Shen Ming's even though I was using a dagger.
Shen Ming had a strong body as a body cultivator but mine was rather weak. We could still be considered equal since I've already finished my first cycle of rebirth whereas Shen Ming hadn't even entered the rebirth stage.
Like that, a few hours went by and we finally decided to move on deeper into the ruins.
We talked very little… No, it was me who talked little, because I knew a single word could expose me. Feeling awkward was better than getting exposed, after all.
As we went further, the black fog was getting denser and colder. We halted at some point because of the ginormous structure in front of us. Two Icebergs had collided, forming a pathway between them. The structure was so large that it stretched up miles into the sky- I mean the roof. We went right through the path and encountered a stunning sight.
A faint star was glimmering amidst the foggy plains. An entire range of mountains formed a circle which connected with the icebergs we just came through. It seemed the star was the only light source throughout this place.
A star in the middle of a circle? What a beautiful theme.
"Strange..." Shen Ming muttered with a weird look.
We all felt the same. Ever since we walked past those icebergs, there seemed to be a slight vibration hitting our toes.