Seeing Yang Kai’s attitude suddenly become so off-putting, the Saintess couldn’t help grumbling, “I never expected you to come save me! You should just worry about yourself!”
After saying so, obviously somewhat annoyed, she was not willing to keep talking with Yang Kai.
Seeing her like this, Yang Kai breathed a sigh of relief.
During this exploration, he didn’t know what would happen; perhaps there would be great danger. If this Saintess was to latch on to him, it would severely restrict his movements. He preferred to act alone without having to concern himself with other people’s wellbeing.
Although this woman had indeed granted Yang Kai passage on her ship, they were essentially still strangers, so Yang Kai felt no obligation to protect her safety.
In Yang Kai’s opinion, she was just another flower that had grown up in a greenhouse who thought she could prove her ability by showing off a bit of her skill. Once she suffered some real pain, she would come to realize the world was not such a friendly place.
After waiting for what seemed like a long time, the Seven Family Alliance’s cultivators finally finished their preparations and selected outsiders gathered into seven teams under the directions of the yellow-faced old man.
When Yang Kai was signing up before, he had simply chosen one of the seven families at random and it wasn’t until now that he learned he had joined the Hai Family’s team which was actually led by the yellow-faced old man.
There were roughly forty people in this team, each of whom looked like they were not weak, one or two of them having even reached the Transcendent Realm. As for the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess, she was with a different family’s team.
The yellow faced old man came forward and cleared his throat before addressing the crowd gathered before him, “This old man is Hai Wang Gu, a Protector from the Hai Family of the Seven Family Alliance. For this time’s expedition to the bottom of the sea, this old man will be leading you. Once we enter the Ancient Ruins, I hope you will all obey this old man’s orders and not act on your own so as to avoid unnecessary accidents! En, in addition to all of you, my Hai Family will be sending more than a dozen masters. Let us all act together. Since you’ve chosen to accompany my Hai Family, this old man will try his best to maintain each of your safety, but I will say this up front, if any of you does anything to disrupt the harmony of the group, don’t blame this old man for acting ruthless.”
Saying so, he swept his eyes over the crowd coldly, but received no challenge from any of the foreign cultivators.
Hai Wang Gu nodded with satisfaction, “That being the case… may the Heavens bestow good fortune on us, let’s go!”
Finishing his speech, Hai Wang Gu immediately took off, the forty or so foreign cultivators and the Hai Family’s masters following soon after, all of them flying over to the sea.
At the same time, the other six families began moving as well.
As they sped along, Yang Kai secretly spied on the number and strength of the people the Hai Family had dispatched. There were only a dozen or so of them, but in addition to Hai Wang Gu, there were actually two other Transcendents while the rest were all at the Peak Immortal Ascension Boundary, which meant that although their numbers were smaller, their overall strength was actually greater than the outsiders.
Obviously the Hai Family had sent all of its elites and were in full control of the situation.
The other six teams also had a similar configuration.
After a short time, everyone arrived above the ocean and Hai Wang Gu tookout a disc-shaped artifact. This artifact gave off a glittering silver radiance and emitted a strong energy fluctuation. It was at least a high quality Spirit Grade artifact.
“Gather around, this old man will use this to bring us to the seabed,” Hai Wang Gu beckoned to the crowd.
Everyone obediently moved towards him.
Hai Wang Gu then poured his True Qi into the disc-shaped artifact, and suddenly, a silver light curtain roughly ten meters in diameter appeared and wrapped everyone up. Soon after, the silver bubble began sinking into the sea.
Seeing him reveal such a method, many people’s expression became solemn.
Although Hai Wang Gu had not used too power an artifact or Martial Skill, simply being able to lead a few dozen people into the depths of the sea was still quite impressive.
Watching the changes in everyone’s mood, Hai Wang Gu couldn’t help showing a somewhat smug look on his face.
Surrounded by the blue ocean, the deeper they dove, the darker it became. This deep darkness gave many people a creepy feeling, most of the cultivators here had never dove into the sea before after all so they were understandably somewhat nervous, some of them even quietly shuffling closer to Hai Wang Gu, as if looking for some sense of security.
Yang Kai swept his eyes around the area and quickly spotted size other bright lights in the water, obviously the other six families were using their own means to rush to descend to the bottom of the sea.
The silver light barrier created by Hai Wang Gu was extremely tough, not allowing a single drop of sea water from the outside to penetrate it. Staring outside the light shield, the cultivators could see various colourful fish swimming about, adding a slight bit of brightness to the otherwise dreary scenery.
As they continued to dive, the expression on Hai Wang Gu’s face gradually became somewhat strained.
The sea in this area was unfathomable deep and the lower they went the higher the pressure became. Even though he was a Transcendent Realm master, using an artifact to maintain such a large-scale barrier required a massive amount of his True Qi.
The silver light curtain seemed to be under a great deal of stress and slowly began to deform, becoming less rounded than before as the space inside even started to shrink somewhat.
The cultivator who perceived this couldn’t help turning towards Hai Wang Gu and wrinkling their brows, wondering whether this old man would be able to insist until they reached their destination.
After diving for a while, Hai Wang Gu suddenly said, “Everyone, the old man must ask for your help, contribute some of your True Qi to help this old man maintain the operation of the artifact or we may not be able to reach the bottom of the sea.”
Hearing his request, many people silently cursed in their hearts.
This old fox clearly had plenty of spare capacity and was simply acting as if he was having a difficult time. Clearly he didn’t want to use too much of his own True Qi so he could maintain his peak state and had thus asked everyone else instead.
Seeing the silvery light barrier continue to shrink towards them though, even if they knew the old man was lying, the gathered cultivators didn’t have any choice and quickly began pushing their True Qi towards Hai Wang Gu’s artifact.
Hai Wang Gu smiled and nodded, quickly guiding this influx of True Qi into his the appropriate spirit arrays inside his artifact.
Yang Kai also contributed, supply a stream of True Qi reasonable for someone at the Immortal Ascension Seventh Stage, secretly sneering in his heart as he did so. Everyone here had the same idea about preserving their True Qi and were only willing to contribute the minimum necessary, hoping that others would pick up the slack so they could gain an advantage in the coming exploration.
Before they even reached the bottom of the sea, everyone was already playing such games, so when they got there, it could only be imagined how chaotic things would become.
After accepting everyone’s True Qi, the silver light curtain really did stabilize and expand back out.
But after a while, Hai Wang Gu once again made a similar request.
This process repeated itself several times yet there was still no sign of the so-called Ancient Ruins. Everyone had burned through a large amount of True Qi and were slowly becoming impatient, some of them even opening complaining.
Hai Wang Gu however just stated calmly, “There’s no need to become anxious, we’ll be there soon, the depth of the seabed here is not something you can imagine.”
This continued for another stick of incense worth of time before someone suddenly pointed below and shouted excitedly, “Look, it’s the bottom!”
Everyone quickly turned their eyes in the direction this man was pointing and suddenly felt their spirits rise. Down below them, there were a number of colourful lights shimmering, and amongst these lights was a massive set of ruins.
“Ancient Ruins!” Everyone could not help but exclaim.
“It looks like we’ve finally arrived,” Hai Wang Gu smiled slightly, increasing the silver light curtain’s rate of descent.
A short time later, the group arrived at the periphery of the Ancient Ruins. Even from the outside, it was obvious to all that these Ancient Ruins occupied a vast expanse of land, at least several dozen kilometers in each direction. Amidst the ruins were several deserted palace-like structures as well as numerous houses arranged in neat rows; of course, many of these buildings had already collapsed, leaving behind only the wreckage.
Most impressively, around the outer perimeter of this huge Ancient Ruin was a transparent barrier that, even though they were on the seabed, kept the inside ruins perfectly dry.
Outside this barrier, countless pieces of coral grew and swayed in the flowing sea water, many of them giving off a soft glow, providing a kind of eerie illumination.
Seeing all of this, everyone couldn’t help feeling somewhat nervous, wondering what kind of dangers lay inside.
Hai Wang Gu actually had a leisurely expression as he continuing to maintain the operation of his artifact and directly led everyone into the ruins.
The outer barrier which was blocking the sea actually didn’t provide any resistance to their intrusion and the group of several dozen people easily passed it and entered the Ancient Ruins.
Hai Wang Gu took back his artifact and let out a light breath before lifting his old face, his eyes flickering with anticipation.
“Since we’ve arrived, we should move quickly, the other six groups should also be here by now!” Hai Wang Gu said.
Everyone’s expression turned black as they stared at his calm and relaxed appearance, all of them realizing this old fox had really been using them before.
In order to maintain the operation of the artifact, most of the people had experienced fairly heavy consumption, but Hai Wang Gu was still bursting with energy.
Proposing they immediately move out was obviously because he didn’t want to give them any time to restore themselves.
As he spoke, from positions not far away, the other six groups also arrived.
Without even enough time to curse, the foreign cultivators all took out some restorative pills and swallowed them down, quickly following after Hai Wang Gu while circulating their Secret Arts to supplement their consumption of True Qi.
In order to avoid other people’s suspicions, Yang Kai also followed suit, casually tossing a pill into his mouth.
After entering this Ancient Ruin, Yang Kai felt that a rich flow of Yang Attribute energy coming from a certain direction. This abundant Yang Attribute energy seemed to flood the entire ruin, causing the ambient temperature to actually be somewhat warm.
However, he did not immediately leave the team and head in that direction. This Ancient Ruin was filled with unknown dangers so he planned to follow along with this group to first explore the situation before setting off on his own.
The crowd was dazzled as they walked forward.
At first glance, it was obvious the age of these ruins was quite old, at least several thousand years. Who knows what kind of great force this once was that, for some unknown reason, had wound up being sunk into the depths of the ocean.
Everyone was paying close attention to their surroundings, fully releasing their Divine Senses, searching for any place there might be hidden treasures.
As Hai Wang Gu was walking at the front of the crowd, he suddenly said, “If anyone discovers anything, please first hand it over to this old master. Don’t worry, after leaving these ruins and returning to the surface, this old master will ensure that everyone gets their fair share, my Hai Family absolutely won’t take everything here for ourselves. Of course, the more you contribute, the more benefits you will get in the end. This policy also applies to my Hai Family!”
He spoke righteous words and made solemn vows, but after eating a big loss at this old fox’s hands, no one here was willing to believe him again.
