Cultivation Nerd: Chapter 253

Chapter 253 - A Cryptic Stage

We spent five months on the road after the Molten Sky Island incident, traveling through every kind of biome imaginable. Forests, mountains, open fields, deserts, swamps
 even a sect buried beneath a graveyard that practiced strange and borderline heretical techniques.

Most of these sects were small powers clinging to relevance. Like that graveyard sect, half of them were cultivating the wrong way entirely.

What was it with graveyard sects always getting it wrong? This was the second one I'd stumbled across, and the pattern was starting to look intentional.

The majority were minor sects with leaders who'd either hit the peak of Qi Gathering or barely broken into Foundation Establishment but lacked the resources or comprehension to refine their cultivation with proper elemental alignment.

Still, I had some success. A decent number of those clans agreed to join our side, eager or maybe just desperate to be included in the power struggles of giants. Some refused. Some probably didn't even understand what they were agreeing to. But overall, we'd made progress.

The best thing, though?

Speedy's shell had finally healed.

That was a massive weight off my shoulders. Summer had come and gone, and I'd started to worry. Until that crack vanished, I hadn't dared approach any major powers. Not with him at risk.

During the travel, I'd also been playing around with Level 4 arrays some the old librarian had left behind. Some were left by that immortal too, ranging from level 4 to 7. The ones left by the immortal were truly something. Even after all these years, they were powerful but a bit clunky by modern standards.

Still, they made for great practice.

Some were even fun. There was a house-building array that summoned a small hut out of nowhere, simple but entertaining. I hadn't come across anything like that in current array libraries.

Now, we sat around a cozy campfire, logs arranged in a circle like we were pretending we weren't wandering battle-ready cultivators. Fu Yating was talking, animated as always when she was relaxed, and Wu Yan, who usually said little, was actually listening.

She was telling Wu Yan about some suspected affair in the last clan we visited. 

We'd grown closer. Fu Yating and I planned things together now. She was surprisingly chatty once she opened up. Wu Yan remained quiet and thoughtful. But she was always listening.

Meanwhile, I stared into the fire.

During these months, I hadn't advanced in my cultivation at all. 

I'd reached six-star Qi Gathering, and absorbing the Qi I needed for the next breakthrough was getting harder. Some of the regions we passed through were nearly barren of spiritual energy. I'd resorted to Spirit Stones for optimal absorption. Thankfully, Song Song had given me 48,000 of them. More than a small sect would ever see in their lifetime.

I didn't take that for granted. But my cultivation speed was secondary to my other problems. 

Now that Speedy had recovered, we were heading toward a major power.

And yet
 the weight of that decision pressed on me.

Despite his insane defense, Speedy wasn't invincible. I usually relied on him to block the first full-powered attack in any fight. But that was a dangerous assumption.

This would likely be the last major power I tried to approach.

I didn't mind risking my life for Song Song's ambition. She'd done the same for mine and still would if it came to it. But I wasn't willing to gamble with Speedy's life.

Or Wu Yan's, for that matter.

In the end, as we crossed over a hill, the landscape opened before us... and there it was.

An ancient, abandoned city lay nestled in the valley below, half-swallowed by time and nature. Crumbling towers and weathered stone walls jutted out from the ground like the bones of a long-dead giant. Vines coiled around broken arches and spilled down rooftops, covering everything in a blanket of green, as if the forest itself had claimed the city in silence.

Mist clung to the edges of the ruins, drifting lazily through the streets like fading ghosts. From this distance, it looked peaceful. Serene, even.

I stood there, unmoving, taking it all in.

We had arrived.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Fu Yating asked, frowning. “That’s why I asked you to let me look at the map. What if we’re lost? I haven’t bathed in two days, and that is a nightmare scenario for a lady like me. Do you want a stinky wife or something?”

I ignored her dramatics and focused on the structure in the distance. We were close enough to see the streets clearly from our elevated vantage point on the hill.

We drew nearer, our footsteps slowing as the ruins loomed larger. The city wall was fractured, its gate long gone. In its place stood a jagged gap, where a massive, rotting slab of wood still clung to a rusted hinge. It swayed gently with the wind, creaking faintly. Its surface was blackened with age, worn thin and splintered.

Inside, the city was a ghost of its former self.

The roads were cracked and uneven, veins of moss and grass breaking through fractured stone. Buildings leaned awkwardly, windows shattered or missing entirely like empty sockets staring out like the hollow eyes of corpses. Some walls still stood, though scarred with time and held upright only by the vines that wrapped around them like restraints.

There was no sound. No birdsong. No wind through the alleyways. Just silence, thick and unmoving, like the entire place was holding its breath.

No people. No animals. No movement.

Just the ruins.

Fu Yating wasn’t wrong to wonder if we’d taken a wrong turn. The absence of animal life was an obvious clue. But unless someone knew what they were looking at, they might just assume this place had been wiped out by a plague or poison or
 something worse.

“I know you know a lot about cultivation,” Fu Yating said, glancing around cautiously, staying close to me. “Do you think ghosts are real?”

I thought of an immortal who’d once left a thought projection behind; it was a near-perfect imprint of mind and will. About as close to a ghost as one could get.

“Probably,” I shrugged.

“Wait, actually?” Her eyes went wide, flicking from me to the empty city around us.

“Why? You scared?” I asked. “It’s mid-day. Ghosts probably won’t come out until night. We’ve got a good six hours.”

I tried to hold in my smirk, but she noticed. Her cheeks puffed in a pout as she turned away, though she still stuck close to me.

I wasn’t sure if she was really scared of ghosts. But either way, it was funny.

Around the city, several towers stood, some broken, others still holding firm against time’s decay. We didn’t stop to investigate. We kept walking.

Ultimately, we reached the back of the city’s enclosed walls, opposite the entrance. There, half-hidden in the shade of collapsing towers, was what looked like a catacomb.

And at its entrance stood a cross.

While crosses existed in this world, as did crucifixion as a form of torture. But they didn’t carry any real religious meaning here. Seeing one above a catacomb was
 strange. It might imply some kind of belief system had once been tied to this place.

The most plausible explanation?

A devout Christian had transmigrated.

Then again, it could’ve been anything. Maybe it had eroded into a cross. Or maybe the guy who built this place just liked the shape. People were weird like that.

“Wait, don’t tell me we’re going into graveyards underground,” Fu Yating said, already halfway into resisting the idea.

“You’re free to stay here,” I offered.

She looked up at the sun. It had already passed its peak. We’d walked slowly through the ruined city, and a few hours had slipped by.

“Whatever,” she sighed. “If I die, I’m so going to haunt you.”

“That would actually be interesting,” I said, rubbing my chin. “I’ve never been haunted before.”

Though
 I might need to teach her an Earth Grade Technique that allows the spirit to remain after death. I didn’t have anything like that yet.

“Don’t say that!” Fu Yating snapped, clearly not amused.

Perched silently atop Speedy, Wu Yan stared down at us behind her porcelain mask. Unreadable, as always. Speedy himself seemed unbothered. He just yawned as we began descending the worn stairs into the catacombs.

The moment we stepped inside, the smell of rot hit us like a wall.

I’d been on battlefields before. I’d smelled death. But this was worse. Older. Heavier. It hit me hard enough to gag.

Fu Yating didn’t just gag; she threw up. Her stomach’s contents splattered across one of the skulls embedded in the wall.

“Oh heavens, sorry-” she gasped, trying to wipe it away, only succeeding in smearing it further.

“Analyze the situation,” I said, my voice calm but pointed.

She froze.

We’d grown more comfortable with each other lately. Too comfortable, maybe. She wasn’t as alert, not as cautious. Either she’d let her guard down
 or she was hiding it better. Or maybe she wanted me to think she’d let it down.

Damn it. I didn’t want to think about this all the time.

But my words had the intended effect. Her panic faded. She stood still for a long moment, eyes scanning the corridor.

“This is the hideout of some great power, isn’t it?” she asked. “A major sect or clan?”

I raised a brow.

Huh. She guessed it on the first try.

“Yes, but what made you think this was a great power? After everything we've seen lately, what makes you think I’m dumb enough to walk into something like that?” I asked, genuinely curious how she landed on that assumption.

“I could see you exploring some ancient ruin just because it sounded fun. But that would let down Song Song too much. We all know how much of a dog you are for her-”

“Can we skip the passive-aggressive commentary and get to the point?”

Fu Yating huffed, arms crossed, her voice echoing through the damp stone corridor. “It’s just that you’ve been more cautious lately. More deliberate.”

She looked at me sideways, eyes narrowing like she was reading a scroll only she could understand. “The moment we approached the city, you stopped talking as much. You were scanning everything, doors, walls, the ground beneath our feet. And you didn’t ask questions. Which is very unlike you.”

“You didn’t even seem curious,” she continued. “You already knew something was off. Most people wouldn’t have noticed anything in this wreck of a city, but you? You were tracking patterns. Looking for disturbances.”

She tapped her temple. “And when we entered the catacombs, you moved like someone who expected traps. You were studying corners, measuring passageway width. Stuff that wouldn’t matter unless you were plotting escape routes.”

Fu Yating turned to face me fully, her voice low and serious. “You didn’t say it out loud, but your behavior screamed it. You knew there was something down here. And judging by how careful you’ve been, it wasn’t just ruins you were worried about. You were expecting resistance. Which means
”

She let it hang, then finished, “This is the base of a major power within the Blazing Sun Sect’s territory. No minor sect makes you worry this much.”

Holy shit, I didn’t expect her to go on such a long rant. Couldn’t she have said all that with fewer words?

“Well, normally even major powers wouldn’t act as brazen as Molten Sky Island. But I learned from that situation it’s better to be careful with things like this,” I admitted.

We kept walking, descending deeper into the darkness. The stairs wound downward in a tight spiral, like a screw burrowing into the earth. There was no light, so I conjured a marble-sized lighting array at the tip of my finger.

It was an ancient version I got from the immortal’s archive. The newer model made a floating fist-sized orb that followed you around, but this one felt cooler and it used way less Qi.

Plus, I’d been experimenting with turning it into a laser array for a finger-gun technique. So far, no success. Probably impossible with something this low-tier, but hey, a guy can dream.

Just as I was mulling over that side project, I felt it.

Wait
 what?

How the hell was something like this even built so deep underground?

Suddenly, thousands of Qi signatures flared into existence within my senses. The weakest were at Body Tempering. The strongest? Core Formation, anywhere from one-star all the way up to five.

Yep. This was a major power’s base.

And those heavy hitters?

They’d definitely sensed me sensing them.