“How could this be?”

“The demonic mist, it has all vanished… look elders… the demonic creatures, they are dying…”

Cultivators from the Heavenly Crane Sect looked on from behind the protective formation as the golden light subsided. When it did, they could see the old landscape and the creatures that roamed it. Now without the demonic Qi swiveling around, they were succumbing to the holy Qi instead.

“This strange spiritual energy… it really was the Golden Dragon…”

The elder that arrived after Zhang Dong’s appearance was now scratching his long beard. At first, he didn’t believe his junior and thought that the man that went inside must have been an impostor. Now, on the other hand, he wasn’t that sure.

“This complicates things, the blasted Azure Emperor probably sent him here to clear out the sect and take all the knowledge and treasures for himself, this won’t do, we must investigate!”

“But Senior…”

One of the other nascent soul elders called out but the main elder just raised his hand.

“I know, we will not engage in anything stupid as a battle with the Emperor’s sworn brother, this doesn’t mean that we will relinquish all of the knowledge and treasures that was left over by the Soaring Dragon sect, he is but one man, even if its the Golden Dragon he can not possibly go through something as large as the Soaring Dragon Sect.”

“Ah, Senior is wise!”

Everyone started nodding at each other. It seemed that the Golden Dragon did most of the work for them. The miasma was gone and the monsters inside were dying. They were human cultivators so the holy energy inside would not hurt them, it would be the opposite it would actually invigorate them instead.

“My brothers, it has not been long since the one called the Golden Dragon came here. This grand purifying magics that he has used has probably drained him of most of his Qi. While he rests we will come and take the treasures for ourselves yet, if you meet this Emperor’s Brother do not engage him in battle, even if he is weakened we don’t know the true extent of his might!”

After the announcement, the group of nascent soul masters pushed beyond the protective formation. There were five of them and along with about two hundred core formation experts they made up quite the large battle force.

With so many people on their side, they hoped to quickly go through the rubble and take some of the Soaring Dragon Sect’s secrets with them. Manufacturing techniques of fabled artifacts, pill formulae, and maybe even some hidden techniques that they could make their own.

…

“Whew… that took more out of me than I thought, good that I absorbed all of those dead souls beforehand…”

Zhang Dong was floating up in the air while looking at a giant hole in the ground. Now that the miasma was gone he could see the entire sect or at least what was left of it.

The hole in the ground was truly deep and even with the thick mist gone, it was hard to see the bottom. It made it seem that the explosion was in the shape of a column instead of one that went equally in all directions.

‘It’s as if it was stuck in a different dimension or something…’

While gathering his strength he started looking around. His system map was brought up as he was interested if he would be able to see a blacked-out spot. Regretfully he didn't, which told him that there was no dimensional cube here.

It seemed that Wang Long was not directly transported here. From what little he knew, Wang Long had started out as a young master but not one that was favored over the other ones quite yet. Only after he took the spot of his character and used the system did he start rising in the ranks. Thus it was possible that his arrival spot was at some branch city.

He achieved what he came for, Wang Long’s energy signature was implanted in his system. Before leaving though he took up the lotus position and started spreading his spiritual sense in all directions. This would help him check if there was something that he had missed and also allow him to rest momentarily.

‘I seem to have some visitors in the distance… still have some time until they arrive.’

The first thing he noticed was the large energy signatures that were coming from the direction that he arrived. It was clear to him that the cultivators from the other sect were here to check things out. The Heavenly Crane sect was somewhat on the same standing as the Long Clan, so he would not be able to talk them down with his newfound status.

‘...This is…’

While searching for possible pockets of spirit stones he discovered something else. A faint life signal that was quite hard to make out. When he prodded more and double-checked with his system map it was clear that there were survivors there.

Without thinking much about it, Zhang Dong popped a few recovery pills that he took from his sect and descended towards that area. Where there were people there could be some treasures but also maybe other answers to where Wang Long had gone.

A golden light surrounded his whole form and quickly changed to a drill. This allowed him to burrow underground to reach an open cavern.

“These walls are thick, did Wang Long failed to discover the people hiding inside, or did he just not care anymore?”

Zhang Dong mumbled while walking towards the area where he felt the faint life signal. This whole place was surrounded by several formations that made discovering anything with spiritual sense difficult. If he didn’t reach a new level with his cultivation he might have not been able to discover anything.

“This looks like… a vault?”

When he arrived the first thing before his eyes was a large circular slab of metal. It looked like a huge door to a vault. The walls had many characters and runes on them, the whole place was quite intricate and created from resistant metals.

“It looks quite sturdy but there is some damage here…”

After his little holy nova that covered the entire city, almost all of the creatures were eradicated. Even the ones that were previously in this corridor but before he came here they were still probably banging on this large door.

“It seems that the creatures that were outside were able to destroy parts of the mechanism, even if the people that were inside wanted to, they would not be able to come outside a strange design indeed”

At first, he thought that this might have been some kind of panic room, but one that locked people inside lacked reason. It was as if this was designed to lock itself if anyone used force from the outside. This gave him an idea that instead of a panic room, this was some kind of treasury.

“Let’s see… this should do it…”

Zhang Dong looked around and with a wave of his finger produced some spiritual energy. This energy combined with the damaged materials on the ground which started to float into the air. Soon the broken parts that were dislodged from the walls were being pieced together.

The scratches and bite marks were obviously created by the monsters that previously filled this tunnel. After his arrival, they all had turned to ash and even when they were this deep underground they succumbed to the massive holy energy output that he was able to produce now.

Even with his expertise, it wasn’t that easy to piece this thing together, he even had to use some of his own crafting materials as the spirit runes were too damaged. But he was still able to repair this mechanism and with one last wave of his hand, the large vault-like door was now opening.

‘This is…’

“W-who goes there!”

Not much time had passed since this whole disaster struck this sect, so he did not expect to see any malnourished survivors. When he opened up the thick door he discovered various people inside but most of them were women and children. A group of them were now holding various bladed weapons and pointing them at him.

“Lower your weapons, I am not here to hurt you.”

Even when he called out to them in a gentle voice it didn’t calm their nerves. It seemed that they were stuck in this reinforced prison without any way of knowing what was happening outside. Probably as Wang Long was destroying the sect, the women and children were rushed here.

“Please calm down.”

He could only repeat himself while floating forward, this indicated his level of power somewhat as no core formation cultivator was able to fly. When he glanced again he counted about fifty people, the strongest of them was an older woman at the nascent soul level; she looked quite tired and also injured. Even then she remained at the front with a large glaive in her hands.

It was clear that they didn’t trust him at all, who would? He was some kind of unknown person walking in after they spent weeks being locked away. While this tightly locked vault could keep the monsters and decrepit souls away, it probably didn’t dampen the sounds that much. Having to listen to the wails of undead creatures outside was probably not something he would want to sleep to.

While he was trying to calm the women down he took some time to look around. The inside of this vault was well lit and some of it was clearly shifted around. But the main reason behind this vault was obvious, books filled with knowledge and various weapons were everywhere.

‘It really was some kind of treasure vault, probably belonging to another elder… maybe this granny?’

It didn’t seem that the people here were very trusting of him, which wasn’t much of a problem. If he was in their shoes, a strange good looking cultivator that appeared out of thin air would look like a trick an enemy would play.

Luckily for Zhang Dong he didn’t need to be very political here. If he showed his overwhelming might and that they had no chance against him anyway, they would have to calm down. Thus he lit up the place with his overwhelming holy aura to show that he was not someone that needed them to stand down. No, even if they resisted they would have no chance against him.

“Now let’s all calm down and put away those weapons.”

The nascent soul granny found herself unable to move and the large two-handed glaive fell out of her hand. Everyone quickly realized that they were at the mercy of the person that just appeared but for some reason, they felt that he was not someone that they should fear.

“Good that’s better, now… I want to ask you a couple of questions if that’s fine with you?”