Chapter 0320: The eye at the bottom of the lake
With his cultivation now completely restored, Ning Cheng’s Profound Core 8th Level strength was almost equivalent to a late stage Soul Essence Cultivator. The journey that previously took him about half a month to complete, now only took just the time it took for half an incense stick to burn, before he finally arrived at his destination.
There were many messy footsteps on the banks of the White Robed Ghost Lake and even a broken beast carriage. Ning Cheng knew at once that many more people had come here after he left.
The fact of Ma Ang being able to obtain a huge fortune from the White Robed Ghost Lake was already known to many people and the scene in front of him only accentuated that fact. Ning Cheng swept down with his spiritual consciousness and found that the lake was still filled with Aquatic Essence Tendons; however, he was not able to find anything unusual.
At this moment, the moonlight was still obscure, so Ning Cheng did not find any white robed man walking around the lake.
Ning Cheng jumped into the lake, causing the lake water to automatically part to two sides around him. This lake was not very deep, so with Ning Cheng’s restored cultivation, even if he wanted to directly go to the centre of the lake, it would not be impossible.
There were many corpses strewn about at the bottom of the lake, some of them appeared to have apparently died recently.
Ning Cheng came to the spot where he had found the rusty long spear. At this point, he was able to observe each and everything clearly with his spiritual consciousness, but still was not able to find anything unusual.
Just as Ning Cheng was about to leave, a frightening scene appeared within the range of his deployed spiritual consciousness. A huge blue green eye shape suddenly appeared at the bottom of the lake. Ning Cheng checked it over and over again with his spiritual consciousness, before he became convinced that it was indeed an eye. Moreover, it was only a single eye, while at the same time the eye at the bottom of the lake kept staring at him, with a jet black dagger inserted just atop the eyeball. This dagger nailed the eye to the bottom of the lake; this kind of scene was both impactful and frightening at the same time.
It was as if a portrait of a single eye was painted at the bottom of the lake with the dagger inserted into the centre of its pupil right above the portrait. However, Ning Cheng was aware that this thing in front of him was definitely not a portrait.
Ning Cheng stared at this eye for only a moment, before he felt a burst of dizziness erupting inside of him forcing him to avert his gaze. But when he looked again, the eye had disappeared. However, a voice mysteriously appeared inside his mind, ‘quickly remove the dagger’, however the Mysterious Yellow Bead in his Zifu quickly washed away these kind of distracting thoughts.
He was currently a Profound Core 8th Level Cultivator, so how could he even feel this kind of dizziness? This place was definitely not a common place. Ning Cheng was originally intending to pull out the dagger under the influence of the voice; however, in the end he changed his mind.
The next moment, Ning Cheng rushed out of the White Robed Ghost Lake. Even if the dagger was something truly precious, he didn’t want it at the moment. From the exchange from before, he was aware that his strength was currently insufficient to own such a thing; moreover, this White Robed Ghost Lake was also a bit weird.
……
Ning Cheng once again returned to his lodgings, while still thinking about it. He felt that the eye was somewhat familiar looking to him, as if he had seen it somewhere else. Moreover, he was also familiar with that kind of dizziness.
“I understand.” After thinking about it for a little longer, Ning Cheng couldn’t help but mutter to himself in shock; he finally understood why he felt that eye to be so familiar.
One month ago, when he had just entered the Ya Lun City, he had taken a glance at that Princess Man. That Princess Man had a blue green crystal on her forehead. At that time, when he had taken a look at that blue green crystal, he immediately experienced a bout of similar dizziness.
Wasn’t that blue green crystal shaped somewhat like an eye?
With that in mind, Ning Cheng immediately speculated that Princess Man, at least, had some connection to the White Robed Ghost Lake. There was even a possibility that even Princess Man might not be aware of this connection, so for the time being it seemed that it would be better to leave her alone for now.
Luckily, his cultivation was restored now; otherwise, this place was really full of suffering and torment for him.
Ning Cheng shook his head. He put aside the matter regarding the White Robed Ghost Lake and reached out for the rusty long spear. He let his spiritual consciousness to seep into the long spear; however, there was not even the slightest response. It was like mud being thrown into the sea.
Ning Cheng started refining this long spear in his hands. But after a full hour, he still did not get a single response from this long spear. It looks like even with his present cultivation, he might just not be able to refine it at all.
Since he could not refine this long spear, then there were only two options for such a thing to happen, the first was that this long spear was not a magical weapon, rather was something constructed from an advanced level material that Ning Cheng had never heard of before. If it were not a magical weapon, then of course he would not be able to refine it. Of course, there was also the possibility that this long spear’s grade was simply too high, causing Ning Cheng to have no way to refine it.
Thinking of this, Ning Cheng took out a high grade knife type spiritual artefact from his ring and began scraping the rust off the long spear. By the time the sky outside had turned bright once more, Ning Cheng finally managed to scrape off all the rust from the long spear in his hands.
In his hands was a black coloured iron rod, seeing this Ning Cheng was almost sure that this so called long spear in his hands was not an advanced grade magical weapon, rather it was just a rod made out of some unknown iron like material. It was just that one of the ends of this iron rod was shaped like the tip of a long spear, which made him presume that it was an actual long spear.
“Can only use it as a simple spear.” Ning Cheng muttered to himself in disappointment. What he lacked the most right now was an actual advanced level attack type magical weapon.
His Cosmic True Devil Axe was still unfinished, so it was not possible to truly use it like a magical weapon.
His Profound Break Spear was cracked, and as a medium grade spiritual artefact, it was starting to not be enough for Ning Cheng to keep relying on.
Ning Cheng swept out with his spiritual consciousness and saw that both Xu Yingdei and Yin Kongchan were sitting outside. He immediately opened the door and went out, before speaking, “Come on let’s go to the princess’ mansion now. We won’t be coming back here again.”
Taking the two of them, Xu Yingdei and Yin Kongchan, with him can also be considered as helping the two of them. Otherwise, once he went to the princess’ mansion alone, he did not know if Xu Yingdei and Yin Kongchan would appear there or in the Ya Lun City’s Prince’ mansion.
“Have you been able to recover your spiritual consciousness?” Yin Kongchan looked at Ning Cheng and asked.
Ning Cheng gave a casual reply, “Will only barely be able to protect ourselves. That Embracing Yang God Tactic really is a good thing.”
Although he had said that, but his heart was full of contempt, that Embracing Yang God Tactic was simply shit, he finally had no choice but to rely on his partner, the Mysterious Yellow Bead.
Hearing that Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness was able to recover a bit, Xu Yingdei immediately stood up in surprise and at the same time gave a long sigh. Although she did not speak, but her expression showed her thoughts.
“Ah….” Yin Kongchan was the first to give out a startled cry, before her face turned a little weird to look at. However, the next moment she only bit her lips and also chose not to speak.
Ning Cheng on seeing this kind of expression on Yin Kongchan’s face immediately knew as to what might have caused it. Yin Kongchan’s body was too sensitive to be described. Last night his spiritual consciousness had only glanced at her, but even in the absence of her cultivation, she was still able to perceive it through a sixth sense of sorts.
Now that she knew that he had recovered a part of his spiritual consciousness, it made her certain that he was responsible for the matter from last night.
Ning Cheng simply gave a cough and spoke. “Let’s not delay anymore and let go.”
Seeing Ning Cheng go out, Xu Yingdei and Yin Kongchan just exchanged a look with each other before following him out.
……
Ning Cheng had just arrived at the doorway of Princess Man’s Mansion, when Princess Man already heard the news.
“Take him to Imperial Brother and just say that Imperial Brother wanted to find him for something.” Princess Man, who was practicing swords in the garden, impatiently gave the orders to the returned guard.
“Yes.” The guard hastily gave a reply, but hesitated to leave.
“What’s the matter?” Princess Man frowned.
The guard did not dare to look up, but spoke with his head still bowed, “That Ning Cheng did not come alone. He also brought his women with him.”
“Huh…” Princess Man was surprised as she thought; did this person already know that Imperial Brother planned to take away his two women? Or was he simply bringing his women around with him?
“You can go and bring him here, and also pass the message along to Imperial Brother.” Princess Man put the dagger on the wooden table beside her, while sitting down at the table.
When the guard went out, she gave a sneer as she thought, “So what if you bring your women here?”
Ning Cheng, along with Xu Yingdei and Yin Kongchan, followed the guard into Princess Man’s garden.
One had to say, as the princess of Ya Lun City, her garden was truly quite big. It was not only large, but it also contained a variety of attractive and fragrant flowers. There were even facilities for resting, exercising and even entertainment in this place.
“I heard that the princess wanted to see me, so I decided to make a special trip here.” Ning Cheng spoke in a leisure tone as he directly walked up to a bench and sat down, while carefully looking at this Princess Man sitting before him.
Yin Kongchan and Xu Yingdei also sat down on both sides of Ning Cheng, but did not talk.
Princess Man on seeing such arrogant attitude coming from Ning Cheng immediately went into a rage. Even the veins on her hands were standing out. This Ning Cheng not only did not kowtowed towards her when he arrived, but also was directly looking at her. This was an act equivalent of going against the heavens in her eyes!
“Your courage is truly not small at all, good, good……” Princess Man sputtered out a few words in an incoherent manner.
Ning Cheng simply ignored Princess Man’s words. He deliberately stared at the crystal point on Princess Man’s forehead for a long time. Sure enough, he found that the crystal point on her forehead had a hint of a similar aura that he felt from the eye at the bottom of the White Robed Ghost Lake. However, the effect it had on him currently was almost zero. At the time when he did not have access to his cultivation, just a look at it was enough to let him feel dizzy, but at this moment even if he consciously started at it, it was not able to produce even the slightest of effect.
At this time, Ning Cheng was speculating if this Princess Man’s brother was trying to gather people for that eye in the White Robed Ghost Lake. Ning Cheng could feel that the eye at the bottom of the White Robed Ghost Lake was too scary. Causing Ning Cheng to feel a sincere fear.
Ning Cheng decided to not bother with that eye for the time being. But as for Princess Man who had caused him to suffer being stabbed twice, he would definitely not let her off.
“Actually I am very timid by nature. Last time, because of your orders, I ended up getting a few scars at the place where I had to stab myself.” Ning Cheng slowly spoke.
Princess Man suddenly grabbed the dagger on the table and coldly stared at Ning Cheng while saying, “This time I will personally dig out your eyes.”
Finished saying, she then threw a cold glare at Xu Yingdei and spoke, “Last time it was you who plead for him, so this time you will cut out your tongue, and then strip off your clothes, before letting someone walk you through the streets of Ya Lun City.”
Just as Princess Man readied her dagger towards Ning Cheng, a dozen guards immediately rushed forward and surrounded the Ning Cheng trio.
It was also at this moment that the dagger in her hands suddenly fell to the ground, before it suddenly gave a ‘jingling’ sound. Then the dagger, just like an elastic ball, bounced back up and went straight through Princess Man’s left shoulder. Princess Man immediately panicked, quickly trying to pull out the dagger. However, before she could even get a grip on the dagger, it once again suddenly fell to the ground. Then it once again bounced back up, before it passed through her right shoulder.
Princess Man immediately screamed, before she hastily plucked out the dagger. This time, she held onto it with all her strength. The dagger no longer fell to the ground; however, her hand involuntarily rose up, causing the dagger to once again pass through her left shoulder. However, this time it passed through a different location than what it passed through the first time.
“Ghost….” Princess Man’s shrill voice, at this moment, could be heard by almost the entire Ya Lun City. However, at this moment despite all her struggles, her hand involuntarily raised the dagger moving it towards her eyes.
“Bang….” A faint light rose from the crystal point on Princess Man’s forehead, causing the dagger that she was seemingly about to stab into her eyes to be blown away by the light, before it instantly shot to the ground.
