Chapter 522: Chapter 522: The Chasm

The cyan dragon possessed such keen eyesight. Taking into consideration the fact that he thought plucking these herbs would not be worth it, Zen didn't think twice about it and headed straight into the center of the herbal garden.

A handful of the elders had been collecting these aforementioned herbs crazily. Imogen and Letitia didn't stop them whatsoever.

The Cloud Hall had its very own garden full of herbs just as well, but these herbs were worlds apart in terms of quality compared to those of the Cloud Hall. These elders appeared as if they were more than willing to put their lives on the line just to set foot inside the Immortal Mist's celestial tomb, because they were so eager to search for their own opportunities, and also, they wanted to receive their own share of benefits. For that very reason, Letitia also permitted all of these elders to harvest these herbs themselves.

In regard to the disciples of the Cloud Hall, each and every single one of them looked as though they were in cloud nine.

The herbs they were picking were regarded as high-level herbs in the Cloud Hall, and every bit of it would be worth a ton of money. The fact of the matter was that the elders at the Virtual Tribulation Realm themselves considered them as high-level herbs as well. So, it should come as no surprise that the disciples at the Internal Elixir Realm gave these herbs so much significance.

Despite the fact that they didn't dare to take the herbs in the middle of the herbal garden like the elders, they were already deeply contented with merely picking the ones which were at the garden's edge.

Zen leisurely walked over to the center of the herbal garden. Everyone among the elders simply cast sideways glances at him without paying him much attention.

Zen tilted his head looking at the ground and scanned the area. The herbal garden had been completely filled with black soil, but at that point in time, he noticed a patch of brown soil that was about the size of a palm just beneath his feet.

“Is this what you refer to as the Swelling Earth?” Zen asked out of curiosity.

“That is correct. Just go ahead and dig it out. It will be of use to you when the time comes,” the cyan dragon casually responded.

Without uttering another word, Zen pulled out his long sword, and with a swoosh, he pierced it right through the ground. Making four cuts around the earth, he carefully pried the Swelling Earth out.

This object's appearance was like that of a brown lump of earth, but in contrast to what Zen had in mind, it was exceedingly heavy. Even with the arm strength Zen possessed at that point, it still felt quite heavy. The moment the Swelling Earth had been taken out, it began flowing ceaselessly, taking the shape of a small brown ball which gave off a metallic luster.

It appeared that this object was neither metal nor earth; truly quite a fascinating thing.

“What's that thing you're holding in your hand?” Emanuel's eyes glimmered as he approached Zen and stretched out his hand.

The other elders also got curious and shot him a glance to see the small brown ball Zen was holding. They might not have been able to recognize what it was, but it was easy to tell that it couldn't just be some ordinary object.

Letitia tried her best not to do anything to get involved. Generally speaking, the objects within the herbal garden would normally become the property of whoever it was that found them.

Still, Emanuel was the first to react among the elders. From the looks of it, it was apparent that he had intended to catch Zen unawares and seize the Swelling Earth away from him.

With a quick flip of his palm, Zen swiftly evaded Emanuel's grip. Thereafter, in just a blink of an eye, Zen stored the sphere of Swelling Earth inside his space ring. Giving Emanuel a dull look, he asked, “What do you think you're doing?”

Emanuel just laughed it off and told him, “It was nothing. It just piqued my curiosity a little bit, so I wanted to take a closer look.”

Zen let out a deep sigh and turned his head to check around the area to see if there were any other herbs which he could make use of. He was aware that Emanuel was interested in stealing the Swelling Earth, but sadly for him, Zen had fast reflexes. If Emanuel had succeeded in snatching it away from him, it would prove to be quite hard for him to take it back. He also thought that Letitia wouldn't want to step in and pressure Emanuel to hand over the Swelling Earth.

Also under the assumption that Letitia wouldn't get involved, Emanuel had made up his mind to immediately take advantage of the situation and grab it as soon as he could. Unfortunately, he had not taken into account the possibility that Zen would be so quick to react. ℞á𝐍ò฿ƐŜ

It didn't take too long before the herbal garden in its entirety had already gotten fully harvested by everyone in that crowd. As a matter of fact, even the roots of those herbs had not been spared.

When they were done gathering all of the herbs they could find, they didn't stay for too long and moved forward.

At this point in time, something suddenly came to Zen's mind—he had seen the word “Gift” written at the entrance of the herbal garden. He found it quite bizarre that a herbal garden could be found in such a place, and the word “Gift” was even written on the ground as well. The only logical reason he could think of was that the owner of this celestial tomb must have intentionally designed it to be this way.

Enchanted lamps, a passageway, gift... Everything seemed as though Immortal Mist himself had been enticing people to visit this place and take away his belongings. Zen couldn't shake off the ominous feeling for he had no clue whatsoever what could be the Immortal Mist's reason for doing it. Regardless of that, since he was already inside anyway, he had not much of a choice but to keep moving forward.

Just a few moments after passing through the herbal garden, everyone came across a huge door. This door in particular was so peculiar—embedded on it were a number of much smaller doors. These doors had been laid out in a row. Giving it a good hard look, Zen counted about forty-five small doors.

“Why would there be so many small doors in it?” With her eyebrows deeply knit, Letitia glanced at the doors.

“We should just all walk into the same door,” suggested Saint Morphens.

It would be better to move together as a group when traversing an unfamiliar space. Recklessly moving on your own was strictly forbidden. Saint Morphens' suggestion was the natural course to take.

Letitia was a bit reluctant at first, but she went ahead and swung a small door open. The instant she walked through, the door was shut behind her.

“What just happened?” Zen and Imogen furrowed their eyebrows simultaneously out of surprise.

“Could it be that only one person can enter each door?” Reaching out to push the door, Zen discovered that it wouldn't budge no matter what.

Imogen pointed her walking stick toward the door and tried to ram it.

Boom!

Aside from a muffled sound, the small door simply remained unscathed.

All of the people shot glances at each other in utter horror. God knew what Letitia could have come up against upon entering that door.

The look on Zen's face went dark. Stretching out his arm, he reached for another small door right next to the one Letitia had chosen, and opened it. He went in just as well, but on the very instant he had done so, he felt an immense force dragging him further in. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't resist the mysterious force pulling him in, so much so that he didn't have a chance to go back anymore.

The door immediately flung shut behind him.

Now, it wasn't as surprising that Letitia somehow let the door shut behind her as well. There was no way for her to go back where she came from upon walking into the door after all.

At the end of it, Zen had found himself in the middle of a jet-black space. Setting aside the light shining in front of him, everything else had been swallowed by the darkness.

“There's nothing else I can do but to grit my teeth and keep moving forward.” Zen paced forward and got himself engulfed by the darkness, with nothing but the light at the end of that passage guiding him. Soon enough, he stepped into the light and exited the dark tunnel. By then, he suddenly found himself on some kind of platform, which was about ten feet long and five feet wide.

“Zen!” Letitia's voice came from his left side.

Confirming that Letitia was safe and sound, Zen was finally able to feel at ease. She was there standing on a platform right next to the one he was on.

The gap between the two platforms was but a couple of feet. A mature person could probably make it through with just a single step, but the second Zen tried to walk over to where she was, an emerald green enchanted barrier stopped him in his tracks.

“What's the meaning of this?” Zen had confusion written all over his face.

Leaning over toward one side of the platform, Letitia used her fingers to inspect its bounds. As her fingertips got into contact with the edge of the platform, an emerald green enchanted barrier promptly rose up as well. “An enchanted barrier has been put up around the platform. I don't think there's a way for you to get through it.”

Realizing the futility of trying too much, Zen decided to examine the things around him in the meantime.

They were in a massive, ring-shaped dark chasm. He tried to peer into the seemingly endless darkness, and true enough, he couldn't see the bottom at all. The only thing he could lay his eyes on was the multiple layers of the darkness, making it look as though this was actually some kind of gateway leading to perdition itself. That being said, in front of Zen, as well as to both his left and right sides, was a blanket of an emerald green enchanted barrier. Even if he were to decide that he wanted to jump straight into that darkness, he wouldn't be able to do so.

This chasm could be anywhere between four or five thousand feet wide. Upon looking around, Zen took notice of the fact that there were nine areas somewhat identical to the one surrounding him. And within those areas, there were about forty to fifty platforms sticking out.

“Nine.” For a while, he had been so deep in thought. The number “nine” probably stood for the nine enchanted lamps.

Taking into consideration that all of the nine enchanted lamps had been enkindled, it would be reasonable to think that nine powers should have entered the celestial tomb. But in spite of that, they didn't chance upon any other powers on their way there, so it appeared that they were actually heading to different paths and would eventually gather in this place at some point.

With that being the case, what was Immortal Mist's intention?

Could he have possibly fabricated an overwhelming death trap to lead everyone to this mysterious place?

While Zen was still pondering about the situation, Imogen had also passed through the small door already, stepping foot onto a platform to the left of Letitia's. And one by one, the other members of the Cloud Hall appeared on each of the platforms.

Moments after each person had filled a platform, someone suddenly showed up right in front of Zen.

“Septuplets of Ethereal Spirit! Members of the Ethereal Spirit Sect!”

Then, Zen saw more people continuously appear on the platforms right in front of him. At the end of it all, he counted around thirty-four of them. This just showed that the Ethereal Spirit Sect had dispatched at least thirty-four people to enter the celestial tomb this time.

“Imogen, I never would have imagined that the Cloud Hall would actually possess an enchanted lamp.” The instant Xander stepped foot onto his platform, a smile crept onto his face.

Imogen, albeit faintly, politely smiled back at him and responded, “Never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought that one of the nine enchanted lamps would somehow end up being in the hands of the Ethereal Spirit Sect.”

In all of the Central Region, lots of warriors had been wondering who possibly could have been taking care of the nine enchanted lamps for the past hundreds of years. And at that point, it was clear as day that the answer to that question was about to be revealed.

“Zen!” A somewhat playful voice called out to him from the Ethereal Spirit Sect.

Zen shifted his gaze over to where the voice was coming from and let out a feeble smile. As it turned out, it was Brent, the one who was a divine-level talent from the Ethereal Spirit Sect.

“You still owe me a fight!” No matter how childish the voice sounded, it was still rather coherent and firm.

Shrugging it off, Zen replied, “We'll see about that if the opportunity presents itself.”

When Zen had actually withdrawn from the Martial Arts Contest at the last minute, Brent was the one who had gotten most dispirited. He had always lamented the idea that he wasn't able to get the chance to fight Zen head-on. It reached the extent that he even mentioned it repeatedly upon coming back to the Ethereal Spirit Sect.

“I'm going to take your word for that!” Brent blurted out while pulling a face.

“Hmm.” Zen just gave him a weak response. In this situation, he couldn't be bothered to worry about the little child.

During the Martial Arts Contest, Eddie had mentioned at some point that he was a holder of an enchanted lamp. With that in mind, he should also be showing himself any minute now.

And while he had been pondering about that, a strong and powerful voice suddenly resounded throughout the chasm, “It seems we meet again, boy.”