Whoosh!

The shadow of a rope darted out, plunging into the nearly 90-degree vertical cliff. Ning Tao grabbed the end of the herb-collecting rope and leaped. He gathered his thoughts and the herb-collecting rope rapidly shortened as he flew towards the cliff face. When he finally stopped, his body was already 100 meters aboveground. He launched himself on his tiptoes and dropped with his rope down into the cave on the cliff wall.

This was the beauty of the herb-collecting rope, an exclusive magic tool of the owner of Sky Clinic. No cliff was so steep that he could not climb, nor was there any spiritual material on precipitous rocks or cliffs he could not pick.

Standing outside the cave entrance, Ning Tao peered in. A little inside the cave, there was a mist of water vapor. But he could only see a section of the cave. It was pitch-black farther in and he could not see anything more at all. Gusts of sinister wind blew out from the cave. Even he could feel the cold.

Thump!

Above the cliff face came a thump.

It was a pebble from Jiang Hao. She was reminding Ning Tao to pull them up.

Ning Tao retracted his gaze. He turned around and stared down at Jiang Hao and Qing Zhui, who were still under the cliff. Then he waved his arm and threw them the herb-collecting rope.

One end of the herb-collecting rope lodged onto the ground. A rock was suddenly split open, its fragments scattering.

Qing Zhui and Jiang Hao grabbed the herb-collecting rope. Jiang Hao tugged the rope. After all, it was 100 meters aboveground in the night. She felt that Ning Tao was unable to see her and Qing Zhui clearly. This was indeed the case. Without summoning his state of looking, Ning Tao could not see either of them below him. But he could feel Jiang Hao’s forceful tug of the rope, and so he started gathering it.

As Ning Tao’s hand rapidly gathered the herb-collecting rope, Qing Zhui and Jiang Hao soared up like passengers on a rocket. They soon plunged into Ning Tao’s arms.

Ning Tao opened his arms and encircled Jiang Hao and Qing Zhui’s waists, helping them dissipate the inertia on their bodies. This time, Jiang Hao did not freeze his arm.

“Come, let’s go in and take a look.” Ning Tao released their waists and coiled up the rope, walking into the cave at the same time. After coiling the rope, he put it back into the medicine chest and took out a tactical flashlight.

A bright beam of light shone into the cave interior. Suddenly, the trio found their vision suddenly illuminated. The hidden depths of the environment were presented clearly before their eyes.

The river flowing out from the darkness occupied one-third of the entire terrain. At its widest, it was about 10 meters wide; at its narrowest, five to six meters. The river water was clear and limpid, the stones and sands on the river bed easily discernible through the water. But as they walked farther in, the river became deeper and deeper. Soon, they could no longer see the stones and sands on the river bed. The river had widened from five to 10 meters to the width of a reservoir!

The land on either side of the river extended to the left and right, but the terrain became more and more complicated and difficult to walk.

“Go left or right?” Jiang Hao asked when they reached a gap where the “reservoir” flowed out to the river.

“No hurry. Let me see what the Soil-seeking Inkstone says.” Ning Tao squatted down and opened his medicine chest, taking out his Soil-seeking Inkstone. He poured 30 ml of ink into the inkstone. While waiting for the Soil-seeking Inkstone to direct them, he bit his finger and drew a blood lock symbol on the rock face.

From what he could see, this cave was a large, complicated Karst cave. It was impossible for them to explore it all at once. There was spiritual energy in this cave, suitable for ordinary practitioners and demons to cultivate. It was necessary for him to leave a blood lock here.

After Ning Tao drew the blood lock, Qing Zhui had wanted to suck his finger. But when she saw Jiang Hao standing just beside them, she brutally suppressed this thought.

Ning Tao rinsed his bitten finger in the river water. By the time he raised it again, the bleeding had stopped. The wound was rapidly healing, without leaving any scar.

In the Soil-seeking Inkstone, the black ink surged to the middle. The ripples were quivering very vigorously.

Ning Tao said excitedly, “There really is a treasure in this place!”

Qing Zhui glanced at the Soil-seeking disk. “It is pointing at the center of the reservoir. Let me go down the water to explore.” Saying this, she made the gesture to undress.

Ning Tao held her back. “Don’t be impulsive. Let’s skirt around it and then make a decision. If you went underwater so recklessly, you might encounter a vicious demon and be in grave danger.”

Jiang Hao said, “That’s right. Let’s skirt around it and observe first. If there’s a need to go underwater, I will freeze the water. Then you won’t need to undress.”

Qing Zhui was speechless.

Ning Tao let Jiang Hao carry the tactical flashlight while he held the Soil-seeking Inkstone, walking to their left. The reservoir was far bigger than he had imagined, and the cave gradually took on an oval shape because of it. The black ink from the inkstone continued to ripple as he walked deeper in, its pointed arrow continually shifting. It was always pointing in the same direction.

After a distance of one kilometer, a dead body suddenly appeared among a pile of rocks. The clothes on its body had almost weathered away, with only a small portion left. Its blood and flesh had withered in the wind, leaving behind a shriveled, emaciated corpse. Only its hair was well preserved. One glance and anyone could tell it was a blond Caucasian male. Its build corroborated this too. The man had been very tall when alive, at least 1.9 meters in height.

Jiang Hao asked, “Could he be a member of the exploratory team from the West that Fan Huaying mentioned?”

Ning Tao answered, “Very likely so.”

The trio walked over and discovered two rusty oxygen tents in the rubble, as well as diving masks and swim fins. They had almost completely weathered away.

These gears pointed in the direction of the reservoir, shrouded in darkness. There was only one member of the exploratory team on the shore. Could the rest have dived into the water and not resurfaced?

Jiang Hao started searching the dead body. She pulled out a wallet from its tattered pockets, so worn and torn that it no longer looked like a wallet. She gingerly opened it and found a wad of rotted paper currency inside.

“U.S. dollars. He must have been an American,” Jiang Hao said. She pulled out all the rotted paper and finally a little toy from the wallet. She glanced at it and suddenly flung it far away, almost as if her finger had been pricked.

“What was it?” Qing Zhui asked curiously. “Why did you throw it away?”

Jiang Hao’s face was full of embarrassment. “Don’t ask.”

It was a condom.

Ning Tao said, “There’s only some money change and no information on his identity. This is quite in line with the style of the Black Fire Company. Each time they dispatched an agent, they would prohibit him from carrying anything to identify himself.”

Jiang Hao was visibly affected. “The agents of Black Fire Company… Aren’t they the men who assaulted the botanical garden of the Blueprint Biotechnology Company? How did the Black Fire Company know that place and send agents there?”

Ning Tao answered, “I don’t know either. This is just a guess of mine. It may or may not be the case. But no matter what the truth is, we are at least certain that those men aren’t simple.”

Qing Zhui said, “Let me go underwater and investigate.” Before Jiang Hao could speak, she added, “I won’t take off my clothes.”

Jiang Hao seemed very calm, but there was some awkwardness on her face.

Ning Tao thought for a moment and then said, “Fan Huaying said that a team entered this cave. None of them got out. But there’s only one body here, so the rest must have died underwater. Don’t think about going underwater for now. There must be something in this reservoir. The more precious its treasure are, the more likely some ferocious being is guarding it.”

Qing Zhui felt somewhat frustrated. “So what should we do now?”

Ning Tao said, “Let’s walk farther in and investigate.”

The trio continued to walk farther in along the edge of the reservoir.

After a distance, the reservoir gradually narrowed. Jiang Hao shone her tactical flashlight at the end of the rock wall. That rock wall seemed to have dammed the reservoir like a floodgate. But it was clearly not a floodgate, as there were many perforations on it. The holes were not large and the largest was no more than 15 centimeters in diameter. If there was water behind them, it would have seeped in. But judging from the size of the holes, no human being could crawl through them, not even a child.

Jiang Hao shone the tactical flashlight to the other side of the reservoir. One glance and they could see the rock wall and the pebbled “road” underneath it, extending in the direction of the cave entrance.

“We have reached the end. But there’s nothing here,” Qing Zhui said dejectedly. “It seems we can only go underwater to investigate.”

Ning Tao looked at the Soil-seeking Inkstone in his hand. The ripples in the black ink were still pointing at the center of the reservoir. He was having a headache. It seemed that they must indeed go underwater to discover the treasure in this cave. But those horrific tales from the Pointe-Noire settlement and the deaths of the exploratory team put him in a dilemma. Qing Zhui was a snake demon and she could survive in a mire, let alone underwater. But he was worried about the risks she must take.

Ning Tao left another blood lock at the “floodgate” near the bottom of the cave. Then he said, “Let’s go back from the other side. First let’s go to that position corresponding to that dead body.”

The trio walked back from the other side of the reservoir. The terrain along the way was still craggy and full of odd-shaped rocks, but these were nothing but ordinary stones. The Soil-seeking Inkstone was always pointing at the center of the reservoir. The closer they moved to the center, the stronger its ripples.

After about half an hour, they came to the center of the reservoir. Jiang Hao shone the tactical flashlight at the opposite side but could not detect any corpse. Judging from the paces they had taken, this reservoir midway up the mountain must be at least three kilometers long. The width in the middle must be one-and-a-half kilometers wide. The distance was too wide for the tactical flashlight to shine to that corpse.

“Brother Ning, do you have an idea?” Qing Zhui asked. She seemed eager to go underwater to see what treasures it would yield, and dig it out for Ning Tao. She had always wanted to give the best to Ning Tao, including herself.

Ning Tao said, “Let me consider again.”

There was a sudden rumble overhead, like a mountain toppling!

Jiang Hao frantically raised the tactical flashlight, shining at the top of the cave.

Suddenly, a mass of black shadows hurtled down like dark looming clouds.