Chapter 48: Who Dares to Seize Heaven’s Gift of Longevity?

Although the shaman’s status was lofty, Ye Chen now understood that a shaman was merely someone raised high and cajoled with flattery; if one spoke of acting with unchecked authority, the shaman likely did not yet possess such standing.

The reason was simple. As the shaman, of course one was important within the tribe, but the shaman’s strength did not appear especially formidable.

In the end, it was still strength that spoke.

Only power was real and unerring.

Ye Chen had no intention of probing too deeply. He was merely piecing together the chain of events, and if the shaman had been kept in the dark about certain matters, that would not be unreasonable.

From the bones alone, nothing could be discerned. But if the bone token were brought out, there was no telling what sort of unusual change might occur.

Only, Ye Chen was not foolish enough to do that.

A thunderous crash rang out. Earth splattered as a profound and wondrous force struck the wall of the well. There was the clang of metal against stone, but beyond that, no particularly miraculous change occurred.

Even the wall of the well could not be pierced.

That was not normal. The wall looked nothing special, yet Ye Chen’s divine power was no empty boast.

This could only mean that the dry well, though plain on the surface, was in truth anything but ordinary.

Ye Chen hesitated for a moment, lowering his gaze to look around as he searched for a solution. Yielding helplessly was not his nature, but even with divine power, he seemed unable to uncover anything more.

Suddenly, a thought stirred in his mind. The hidden realm rumbled into motion, and an immeasurably vast and mighty aura surged toward the dry well.

Since the mountain would not come to him, he would go to the mountain. He absolutely could not take out the bone token; the consequences would be far too severe. Once its aura leaked, surviving would become very difficult.

Ye Chen did not want to encounter some colossal enemy at the very start. If he could not withstand even a single move or two and was instantly slain, that death would be far too miserable, leaving him no room even to struggle.

If he truly died like that, he feared he would be most unwilling, would he not? Of course he would. He was still but a small nobody, and to die so suffocatingly, without ever becoming a divine dragon of the nine heavens, laughing proudly across heaven and earth, how could he submit and bow his head to become mere dust?

The power of the hidden realm continued to spread. It and the dry well were like the two sides of a mirror, never truly blending. At that moment, the power of incense and faith began to thunder.

Thread by thread, the power of incense and faith descended, as though a golden halo were rising, like divine radiance, bright and dazzling, filled with extraordinary and inconceivable splendor. It stole all the world’s brilliance. In an instant, like a sun of divine light, it shone across the four directions, and the entire dry well was illuminated brilliantly.

Such was the peculiarity of the power of incense and faith: it changed with Ye Chen’s will, making thought become reality. With that power as a bond, the dry well seemed to become part of the hidden realm.

The real and unreal blurred, truth and falsehood became indistinct. Rippling water vapor shimmered and turned into a blaze of reflected light, making heaven and earth resplendent.

The bone token then flew over and touched the bones. A thunderous explosion seemed to sound, and cracks appeared across the bones. In an instant they crumbled into dust, after which a gust of wind came and swept the dust away.

Though the bone token had been used, the surroundings were all part of the hidden realm, so there was no need to worry about any aura leaking out. It was perfectly safe.

When the bones turned to ash, inconceivable changes followed.

As the dust dispersed, a crystalline current could be seen spiraling within, shimmering like rippling water, as though some special mechanism had been activated.

The heavens and earth shook violently. Brilliant divine light burst forth. If not for the hidden realm encompassing all directions and containing all manner of marvels, such a change would likely have attracted the gaze of powerful enemies.

After all, this looked very much like a great treasure had been born. Who would not be tempted?

By then, all manner of ill-intentioned people would have come rushing over, and the entire Bamboo Tribe would be like a speck of dust, to be brushed aside with a single sweep.

They were too weak, and thus had too little ability to withstand risk. A trace of malice was enough to crush them. They had to be exceedingly careful.

After the currents converged, a vast crystalline radiance emerged, magnificent beyond measure and compressed to the extreme, becoming a towering great sword capable of cleaving mountains and seas.

The sword light gleamed. With the slightest sweep, sound vanished from heaven and earth, and all color disappeared. Everything seemed to become a two-dimensional black-and-white painting, like a silent film, stripped of its proper depth. All things turned pale and colorless.

Yet very quickly, like a hidden thread of grass-ash and snake-trace, the lost brilliance returned swiftly, like a streak of dawn light splitting open the dim curtain of night.

Ye Chen recovered himself and discovered a subtle difference. Within the intersecting flow of light, there appeared a towering spiritual vein, vast as mountains and seas.

That vein looked like a heavenly dragon, its entire body clad in unimaginable divine radiance.

But in the blink of an eye, all that radiance was reined in, returning to simplicity and truth. It no longer seemed so ostentatious. At first glance, it was like the most unremarkable weed in the ground, or an ordinary green stone by the roadside. Yet how could Ye Chen dare to look down on it?

“Is the spiritual vein really about to break its seal?”

Ye Chen was startled. “The disturbance won’t be too great, will it? If this gets out of hand, people will die.”

“How strange. What is the relationship between the bones and the spiritual vein?”

Ye Chen could not quite make sense of it. “By all rights, the two should have nothing to do with each other. But the moment the bones turned to dust, the spiritual vein grew even more violently restless. If they had no connection, I’d never believe it.”

He wanted to get to the bottom of things in order to uncover hidden dangers within the tribe, yet the high-ranking members of the tribe, when their heads were turned to mush, would not show Ye Chen any mercy.

Before the hidden danger had even been found, a new problem had arisen. What was to be done about this spiritual vein?

He had never imagined it, truly never imagined it. They absolutely could not allow the spiritual vein to cause some enormous upheaval and send a large number of Bamboo Tribe members down the road to the underworld. Ye Chen did not want to die so soon.

There had been no trouble at all, and then this happened.

Ye Chen’s heart sank slightly, though he did not regret it. After all, this dry well was a time bomb; it was not as though ignoring it would make it safe.

“The reason the tribe’s upper ranks collectively lost their heads is still unclear. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that an invisible thread is tying these things together.”

Ye Chen’s eyes were dark. Borrowing the power of the hidden realm, he could see black light rising upon the spiritual vein, faint and indistinct, carrying a trace of ominousness.

From this, one could see that there was far more to this spiritual vein than met the eye.

“There is deathly qi here. How could a spiritual vein carry deathly qi? Was a corpse buried here by someone?”

A beam of divine power, sharp as a blade, struck through, shattering the boundless divine radiance of the spiritual vein into scattered sparks.

As the divine light dispersed, a skeleton could be seen within, its body revealing a crystal-like form.

Ye Chen stood frozen, staring dead at the skeleton.

“Who buried a skeleton here?”

The shaman said coldly, “Was someone unwilling to die directly? Did they want to use the spiritual vein to be reborn? Nonsense. Were they not afraid of becoming a monstrosity and bringing chaos and upheaval?”

The shaman was furious. “Was this done by someone from the clan?”

Yet after careful thought, he still could not determine who, exactly, had secretly committed such a ridiculous act.

Even if it were buried within the spiritual vein, it would be of no use. All of this was nothing but the product of unwillingness in the heart, a futile attempt to seize back heaven’s allotment of life. Laughable to the extreme.

But if it truly became a strange and twisted thing and stirred up trouble within the tribe, then under sudden and unforeseen circumstances, there could very well be heavy casualties. How could that not enrage the shaman?

Too outrageous. Who could be so heedless of the greater good?

The shaman very much wanted to burn that skeleton to ashes, but he did not dare act rashly. After all, the skeleton was seated within the spiritual vein, and he feared provoking some unpredictable change.