The next morning the remaining Xiao clan members received the announcement and dropped their heads.
They had to do a mission every week now.
Each mission often lasted a week or at the very least three days.
The mission that Wu Gen and Lou Ben went through inside the undead trench only lasted sixteen hours and that was because they found what they needed early on.
Lou Ben approached Brother Su Sheng about his experience inside the undead trench: "Brother Su Sheng, I heard last time you entered that you and brother Kai Yang saw a fast and mostly intact undead. Have you been back yet?"
Su Sheng had short black hair that reached his forehead, he wore the white Xiao robes, and had sparkling brown eyes.
Su Sheng looked at Lou Ben: "oh brother Lou Ben, I don't think two people should go alone inside there. you saw the state that brother Kai Yang is in. If the two of us didn't have a good partnership in using our techniques then brother Kai Yang would not be here today!"
Lou Ben nodded: "Yeah, I saw that he was heavily injured…"
When Xiao Kai Yang came back to the tavern he was bleeding through his white robes.
The Xiao clan never received a second pair so he had to get them repaired inside the village.
The injuries he sustained were not light too!
When he returned to the tavern, Lou Ben wanted to make sure he wasn't bitten, he knew about enough zombie movies on earth to be cautious.
Unfortunately the undead trench is a new type of dungeon that appeared so there was hardly any information about the monster and the injuries.
Many adventurers entered but the ones that came back only received scratches but no bites so that question was still unanswered.
Lou Ben sighed: "Well, I'm going to go through the undead trench for one of the mission board notices. I was wondering if you and brother Kai Yang would join me. This time I plan on seeing where those stairs in the middle lead to."
Su Sheng opened his eyes: "Are you kidding? I barely survived, brother Kai Yang has to find a tailor for new robes, and we lost half of our crystals from this one fast undead!"
Su Sheng was not happy about Lou Ben wanting to delve deeper into the undead trench. Why would he go back so soon when they haven't gotten enough aura stones to cover their losses?
The truth was that Su Sheng and Kai Yang were the first to notice that the life of dao masters heavily rely on aura stones.
You need aura stones for crystals, materials, pills, food, and in order to get aura stones you need to spend aura stones on all the above!
Su Sheng sighed: "Look brother Lou Ben, if you supply all the supplies for us to venture inside for five days then we can go. I don't want to be inside for five days but we need to be cautious!"
Su Sheng only agreed after he thought about his losses and how he has to make back his profits, especially now that a large portion of their earnings are going to the treasury.
Su Sheng was one of the few that were highly addicted to visiting the palace of sweets. Originally inside the palace of Xiao he was a regular sweeping servant so he has yet to find a partner.
Lou Ben nodded: "Yeah no worries, the mission board this time has a very lucrative notice. Someone wants a first time map from what's beyond those stairs!"
"Besides that, there are the other regular missions about resources and clearing out a few areas."
As Su Sheng agreed, he went to knock on Kai Yang's door.
Lou Ben went to see Wu Gen, he wanted to get a loan from him, seeing that he was now the tavern manager and treasurer, he should help out his fellow brothers to complete some important missions.
The following morning Lou Ben met Su Sheng and Kai Yang on the first floor of the tavern.
Brother Kai Yang had long black hair, it was almost like Lou Ben, but Kai Yang liked to add a braid on the side, it reminded Lou Ben of a certain character in a fantasy movie but he couldn't place his finger on which exactly.
Kai Yang was lean and tall.
The partner of Kai Yang was Su Sheng, he was a bit short compared to Kai Yang. The two made a good pair of adventurers inside the Xiao clan.
They were the first to venture inside the undead trench when it was open.
Kai Yang sighed: "Oh brother Lou Ben, If you didn't put up the crystals for this mission then we would have been at a huge loss."
Kai Yang had straight forward personality, most of the Xiao clan memebers did, after all they had to kill their fellow brothers the first day they entered the clan.
Kai Yang was also very strong willed, when he was attacked by the fast undead he was able to coordinate a heavy attack with Su Sheng to survive!
This kind of character was what Lou Ben wanted to have for himself.
He felt that he was strong willed but being alongside someone like Kai Yang made him question if he would also be able to do something like that when push comes to shove.
So he was happy to get these two people to come along with him.
Lou Ben smiled: "You two are worth it. If I could get Wu Gen to join us too then I'm sure we would have no issues whether it be the undead trench or the phoenix valley deep in the mountains!"
Kai Yang laughed: "Brother Lou Ben, the phoenix valley is far out of our league for now, but I'm sure after a few of us enter the third small realm of the atmospheric realm then it would be a different story!"
Su Sheng nodded: "Let's get started. I got an updated map. Let me share it."
Su Sheng passed around a jade slip with the current outline of the undead trench.
There were a few hallways that opened up since the last time Lou Ben entered, it has only been a few days since.
After a few hours of walking inside the forest, the party of three saw the small but eerie opening to undead trench, and the two expressionless guards in front.
Lou Ben tossed six aura stones and walked through the entrance.
This time Lou Ben had a different mission and besides that, he wanted to challenge himself to be calm under pressure.
Lou Ben sighed as he looked into the thin hallway: "Brother Kai yang, brother Su Sheng, let's make sure we have each other's back."
The two others nodded and walked behind Lou Ben.
They activated the technique Atom Search and followed the route toward the middle.
There weren't many encounters with the undead.
The way towards the inner portion of the flat labyrinth was bare.
Kai Yang whispered: "Looks like another party came and cleared the way. I didn't see a single resource or corpse."
Time went by and the party made it towards the middle where the stairs were.
This time Lou Ben spent eighteen hours going through the labyrinth-like trench. The first time was full of encounters and resource plunders, a stark contrast to what it is now.
Lou Ben sighed: "Looks like the party before stopped here."
He saw that the door down the stairs was closed and dust paved the way on the floor. There was no hint that anybody had ventured down yet.
The door itself was wooden with glyphs on the outer portion, the door handle was a large ironclad circle.
Lou Ben nodded to himself: "Looks like we will be the first. Let's go see what's behind!"
Lou Ben led the party down the close walled stairs and reached the door.
When he opened it, no sounds were heard, it opened as if it was in pristine condition!
He couldn't read the glyphs so he didn't pay any mind to it, but when he opened the door he was extremely surprised!
Kai Yang opened his eyes: "What is that?"
The party lost their breath at what was waiting inside the room!