Shin; Inside the cave

Shin didn't know much time he spent walking inside the cave but he didn't care either, this was the only way he could go since he was too weak to swim against the current of the waters.

After turning around a corner Shin stopped in his steps as he saw the tight dark tunnel change, in front of him there was a big spacious room with sunlight coming from high above the ceiling from some small holes. Inside the room humans skeletons were scattered all around on the grounds but they all had something in common, all of them had their head and hands facing a single spot and on there a giant size throne stood seemingly unharmed from the passage of time with a bright orange color that was reflected by some rays of sunlight and on the throne a single seemingly human sckeleton was seated looking over the others.

'Even in death he emits such a terrifying aura.. I can't even imagine what sort of cultivation it had before'

Even if all of the skeletons in the room where Peak Legend ranks their auras would be almost non-existent after so much time has passed so it could only mean that each one of those were much more powerful than a peak Legend rank.

Even before the Age of Darkness, when Humanity started to decline, these people should have been considered a powerhouse of their own era and just in this room alone Shin could count at least fifty skeletons.

'What is this place…'

Warringly looking around Shin could only sigh as he wasn't able to feel if there were any traps so taking his chances he started walking toward the closest skeleton, the skeleton still had some rags that once were this person's clothes along with a now covered in rust sword.

"I guess even these types of artifacts weren't able to withstand the passage of time."

As Shin was about to walk over it his eyes fell on the right hand of the corpse, his gaze fixated on the now dim green round ring on one of the fingers.

'An interspatial ring!?'

Interspatial rings where the common storage device used in Glory City and by all cultivators and while the ring in itself wasn't a precious treasure for Shin the object inside of it would be another matter altogether, the time inside the interspatial ring passed a lot slower than the time outside but after so much time it was inevitable that any sort of elixir, pill or precious herb would already be rotten and non usable but that didn't mean that there weren't other precious things he could find like for examples a Legend rank weapon.

'Glory city has only a single Legend rank and that guy isn't even interested in making Legend rank equipment or inscription, because of that any weapon or inscription scrolls that I find would be priceless inside the city.'

Cautiously taking the ring off the finger Shin spread his own soul force inside to look at the content inside and was gladly surprised not only at the size of the space inside but even at the content of it.

'Except for the herbs and medicine that are unusable there are actually a lot of Black Gold rank weapons along with a half-step Legend rank spear.'

Part of him expected a lot more to be honest but just this was enough to let the Akagawa clan rise and even become the most powerful clan in Glory city.

"It's just a shame I don't use a spear…"

While the spear and the halberd were that different the moves made from the Akagawa halberd arts would put too much strain in a spear and while it was ok for the moment when he would reach the legend rank or even just the Black gold this Half-Step Legend rank spear would quickly crumble after a dozen of uses.

'Maybe we could use it to exchange it for some other treasure…'

If he were to announce that he would exchange an Half-step Legend rank weapon then all of the masters of glory city would immediately run over and be ready to even sell off their own daughters or granddaughter just to increase their own possibility especially the free demon spiritualist that didn't have the backing of a clan, maybe even the city lord would be willing to arrange a marriage but Shin wasn't so sure especially since he wasn't sure yet if he was the greedy type.

Putting away the ring for the moment he turned toward the other skeletons as his mouth curved slightly, maybe falling inside this place wasn't a bad thing. As he thought of that he proceeded to take each and every one of the rings he would find in this room.

It was only 30 minutes later that he finished checking each one of the corpses, out of the 80 dead masters he was able to find only 40 interspatial rings and of those 40 only ten had something valuable, after checking each one of those rings Shin understood something.

'Each and every one that came here knew that their chances of coming back were slim, everyone had their main weapon out so those became unusable but other than a couple of Black golds spare weapons there weren't any other powerful weapons near.'

As he looked at the treasure neatly divided in front of him a sudden thought came in his mind.

'Could it be that it's not that they didn't bring any other spare weapons but they were destroyed during the fight?'

From each one of the positions he could clearly guess that this wasn't an army A against army B type of battles but all of these master came in precisely to kill the skeleton seated in the throne, as for that skeleton Shin still didn't dare to approach it so he still didn't check for any interspatial ring.

Shaking his head he decided to think about that later and concentrate on the treasure he gained from the other spatial rings, most of these were filled with unusable medicine that probable were used to heal after or during the battle, other than that he gathered a total of 20 Black Gold rank weapons in good condition and about 40 Black Gold rank weapon in bad condition, for the weapons in bad conditions they could be used as study research or if they were repaired they would be at least peak Gold rank or even Half-Step Black Gold rank.

"With these our own force would increase in force so that the next time the Dark guild attacked we would be ready to defend and counter-attack!"

Unfortunately there weren't any type of armor and the little amount of Inscription scroll had been already used or their power already scattered away.

Putting everything away, Shin took a long breath before facing the last skeleton that wasn't looted.

"Mh? Is this the skeleton of a human?"

Until now he never looked at the skeleton sitting on the throne for much time so he didn't noticed until now that it actually had a pair of small balck horns on top of his head plus its bones weren't the normal white or yellow but after passing an hand to move the dust form it it was revealed that it was a deep gold color.

"Could it be a Demon beast? But if it reached the level of having a human form then its strength had to be at least the peak of Legend rank."

Shin didn't have any idea at what this creature in front of him actually was and it didn't need to; he was interested in the crimson interspatial ring on its right hand.

Cautiously taking it out he could feel an oppressive aura pressing down on him as if clenching on his heart as if trying to squish it.

'Even after death his bones are able to emit such a fearsome aura… This definitely is above a Legend rank and even beyond.'

Finally slipping out the ring the aura immediately stopped as the skeleton seemed to lose a lot of luster.

Sending his soul force inside Shin frowned as he saw the large amount of books inside of it, fortunately almost 70% of them were still in pristine conduction and from what he could quickly discern the resort only had some damage done not by the passage of time but by other causes.

Taking them out one at the time he started reading the title of this book as a look of understanding passed on his face. Each book was either a martial skill or cultivation method from ancient time and each one was from different sects or different heritage so the reason that these masters died trying to kill him was either to take back what was stolen from them or to steal this fortune.

'Each one of these will be really helpful not only to me but even Glory city of glory as a whole… Now I just need to find a way so that the Sacred family doesn't get a single one of these.'

While it seemed hard to prevent the Sacred family from putting their hands on any one of those book it wasn't actually that difficult, humans are easy creature just by giving a precious treasure like a powerful cultivation method then they would surely protect it like a family heirloom he just needed to select the right people to exchange it to and also arrive in an agreement where he would come out on top.

'I'll also have to select some for myself later…'

As he was about to descend from the high throne he stopped as he looked in the middle of the chest, there he found a chain holding a small flat rectangular jade stone, the stone was azure in color and in gold color there was the drawing of a strange four winged beast, deciding to examine it later he took it and put it around his neck hiding it under his clothes.

'Now I need to get out…'

Looking up he revolved his soul force readying himself to jump and then spread his wings to fly into one of those small holes but he stopped as he felt his soul force seep into the throne.

'Wait! This throne is actually a Legend Rank treasure!?'

He had heard a lot of times of cultivators creating special treasure like a furnace or even umbrellas and making it of the Gold rank or even Balck gold rank in some rare case but he never heard of someone making a whole throne into such a treasure, especially a Legend Rank.

"If all of those Black Gold rank masters from Glory City heard that someone wasted the materials to make a Legend rank weapon into a throne then they would surely die by vomiting blood."

Shin could only laugh at that but he was not certainly leaving this thing here, pressing his hand on the throne he felt tremble for a moment as if against the idea but then it went inside the Interspatial ring like nothing happened.

'...No, let's first think about how to get back home…'

Gathering his momentum he jumped high toward the ceiling and as his body stopped flying upward he spread his crimson wings and flew right into the biggest hole he could see.

Finally seeing the sky Shin was overcome by emotions but he claimed himself as he understood that right now he was still in great danger, not only he had to find Naoki but the forest was lurking of Demon beasts and even a single Silver rank would be able to kill him in a matter of seconds.

'Flying high in the sky would leave me without protection so I can only try to reach the entrance of the ravine and backtrack from there.'

Sighing he started to slowly walk, he didn't dare to jump around especially with the new treasure in his interspatial ring he felt as he was carrying an even heavier weight on his shoulder.

…

The moon shone bright in the sky as a sole girl gazed it at it with a difficult expression, this girl was Xiao Ning'er when she was small she has always been treated kindly by other as she was the only daughter of the clan head everyone tried to make a lasting impression on such innocent little girl maybe even hoped to arrange a marriage with their own sons but soon this sort of life disappeared just like a cloud disappears from the sky.

Sighing she closed the window as she back to today, last night she was able to sleep peacefully without any sort of pain and woke up even feeling refreshed this didn't happen in months as she would always wake up more tired than ever and that was if she was even able to sleep at all as the pain was so great that she wouldn't be able to even scream.

'All of this is thanks to Akagawa Shin…'

Thinking back to the guy who helped her couldn't contain the blush growing on her face as the memories of the other night resurface in her mind. While it was embarrassing to remember the fact was that thanks to him she now had a greater chance of freeing herself from the arranged marriage so freeing herself from a miserable life as a trophy wife.

'Still.. I wanted to bring him lunch today, I even took it easy like he said and didn't attend the morning lectures but to think that even he would be absent from the lessons… '

Not only the morning lessons but she couldn't find him anywhere during the whole day so she had to give up for today and return to her own room and hopefully she would have more luck the next day.

Alchemy association

As Eiko finished demonstrating how to make an elixir to his only student he was about to end it for the day and go rest for the night but stopped and looked cautiously at the window.

Seeing this Yang Xin couldn't help but be confused until she saw a gust of wind enter from the open window with a person clothed in black, she immediately stood up ready to call sound the alarms so that the guards would come rushing in but she stopped as she saw Eiko rushing to the side of the new man looking worried he even took out a Blood recovering pill as he feed it to the man and it was at that moment that she recognized who that was, the man was the same that accompanied that monstrous talented young master just the other day but for him to come rushing here looking like he fought a death battle she didn't know what to think.

"Eiko… Infinite Forest… young Master… eighth hundred miles nord before turning four hundred mile east after reaching a giant mountain…"

Saying that he collapsed as his eyes glazed over, Yang Xin rushed forward taking out other recovering pills but stopped as he she Saw Eiko shaking his head.

"He's fine but he won't be able to move for the next weeks, most importantly I have to go, if I understood it correctly then the young master is in danger in the infinite forest!"

Standing up he started walking toward the door before opening, there a guard from the Akagawa clan stood on guard.

"Go to the clan estate in the capital and gather as many people as you can and have them come to the infinite forest and follow this signal!"

Saying so he took out a scroll before putting his soul force in it and activating it, the scroll shined as it became a shining seal and a small orb of light, first Eiko put the Seal n his own arm before handing over the orb of light to the guard, that was a Black Gold rank inscription scroll and its use was to trace an already prepared signal in this case the signal that he just put in his arm.

"Yang Xi I have to go but please take care of him."

Turning toward the stunned Yang Xi he was about to jump off the window when she regained her senses and stopped.

"Wait, I can prepare a couple of people and help you search for him, it will be a lot faster than simply waiting for the people of your clan, especially since your main house is at the other side of the city."

Eiko looked directly at her as she squirmed under his firm gaze but after a couple of seconds he smiled.

"Then I will have to trouble the Alchemy Association. But you still go and have at least one great Elder help in the search."

The guard nodded before rushing out, Eiko took out the same spell and put another signal on his arm and handed the receiver to Yang Xi.

"I will go first, tell the others that I will repay anyone that can find him."

Even if he helped around the alchemy association he knew that not everyone would take time out of their day to help him but as long as he promised benefit then even the grand master alchemists would go out to help.

'Maybe having him growing up with Naoki was a bad idea, they really are similar getting in such troubles at a young age… At least let's hope he would have gained something from this…'

Another chapter finished at lightning speed because I had the afternoon completely free, I know that I will be occupied tomorrow so the next chapter would probably come out the day after tomorrow or the day after that.

Shin gained a lot more than he thought but first he has to actually return alive.

I feel strange to post two short chapters in such a short time between them but I guess it's better than holding it without any reason.

Again if you find any errors please tell me about it so that I can fix them, thank you for the support and see you later!