Chapter 439 - 413: Aftermath of the Seabed Seal

Chapter 439: Chapter 413: Aftermath of the Seabed Seal

On the small island outside Luoxia Port, Li Yuan sat cross-legged on a reef, once again sinking his perception into the rock layers beneath him.

The lingering wave of the seal he had detected yesterday was still undulating slowly on the seabed. Using the permanent entry that helped him discern directions, he quickly locked its source to a southeasterly direction.

However, through the seawater and rock strata, this kind of long-range detection was ultimately limited. He could only determine the general direction, not the specific depth.

’I have to go down there myself.’

Li Yuan stood up, leaped off the reef, and landed on the shallow beach on the north side of the island.

’No rush. I’ll get my gear ready first.’

Li Yuan took out the Tidal Jade Pendant and equipped it directly.

[Equipped: Tidal Jade Pendant (Intact)]

[Water Vein Overview (Green)—Divine Sense range in aquatic environments increased by 50%; Water Spiritual Power perception accuracy increased by 30%]

[Permanence Condition: Meditate at a Spirit Vein node on the seafloor for a total of 50 hours (0/50)]

The moment the pendant’s phantom image merged into his equipment slot, Li Yuan’s perception of the surrounding sea area sharpened dramatically. The previously vague flow of the water veins became clear, and even the lingering wave of the seal on the seabed was much more distinct than before.

Li Yuan sensed for a moment to confirm the effect was working, then turned and walked toward Luoxia Port.

He could dive directly to the deep seafloor, but the efficiency would be too low. It would be best to have a ship as a relay point to reduce the Spiritual Power consumption of tunneling through the water.

He suppressed his aura and re-entered Luoxia Port.

The Su family’s dock was still bustling. Three medium-sized merchant ships were being loaded, with movers carrying wooden crates back and forth.

His perception once again swept over the gray-and-white-flagged fast boats moored to the south.

Two narrow, long fast boats were unloading cargo. Crates were hoisted from the bottom hold, carried onto the dock by a few silent crew members, and loaded onto a pushcart covered with gray cloth. The cart was headed toward the northern side of the port area.

Dark Evil Insight penetrated the wooden planks and ordinary seals on the crates, touching the extremely faint Demonic Qi marker on the bottom layer.

The frequency signature was identical to the one he had scanned yesterday.

The pushcart finally stopped in front of an isolated stone warehouse in the northern part of the port. The warehouse had no sign, with only a single expressionless Early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator standing at the entrance. After the cart was pushed inside, the stone door immediately closed.

Li Yuan memorized the warehouse’s location and the flow of goods, then retracted his perception.

Li Yuan found the Su family manager who had received him the day before and got straight to the point.

"I’d like to rent a small Pearl Collection Ship to go out to the open sea and collect something. Half a day should be enough."

The manager didn’t ask any further questions. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Renting out Pearl Collection Ships was a standard business in Luoxia Port; it was commonplace for Loose Cultivators to rent boats to gather Spiritual Materials in the nearby sea. The manager called over a boatman and pointed to an old, single-masted boat at the end of the dock.

"That one will do. It has a diving anchor and a storage hold. Twenty Spirit Stones for half a day, fifty for the deposit. You’re responsible for any damage to the ship."

Li Yuan paid the Spirit Stones.

The small boat left the harbor, following the coastline in a southeasterly direction.

The boatman was a young man at the Late-stage Qi Refining, nimble and extremely skilled at handling the boat. Li Yuan stood at the stern, scanning the surrounding sea surface with the passive perception of his Dark Evil Insight.

The port gradually receded into the distance.

The boat continued onward, entering the open sea.

About an hour later, his Geomantic Spiritual Nexus perception locked onto the target area. The strongest signal from the seal’s lingering waves beneath the seabed was directly below, less than two miles to the east.

"Stop the boat."

The boatman deftly dropped the diving anchor, and the small boat came to a steady stop on the sea’s surface.

Li Yuan vaulted over the side and into the sea, sinking straight down like a fish.

The water was his home turf. With the simultaneous boosts from his Water Acceleration and the Tidal Jade Pendant, his tunneling speed was even faster, and his perception grew ever clearer.

By the time he dived to a depth of about six hundred and fifty feet, the lingering wave from the seal on the seabed was no longer just a vague directional signal.

It was no longer the indistinct directional pulse he had sensed from the island but an energy trajectory whose specific form he could now distinguish. The residual wave wasn’t spreading uniformly but was radiating outward, with several energy threads extending from a central point beneath the seabed, each one pointing toward deeper regions of the sea.

Li Yuan continued his descent, following the trajectory with the strongest signal.

The silt layer was about thirty feet thick. After passing through it, the ground beneath his feet became hard rock.

The rock layer was interspersed with a large amount of calcified remains of corals and shellfish, indicating that this seabed had been a shallow sea area hundreds of years ago, or perhaps even longer.

Another two hundred and twenty feet down, Li Yuan’s perception touched a hard, flat surface.

’Not natural rock.’

’It’s a stone slab.’

Li Yuan stopped and focused his Divine Sense on that surface.

’A stone-paved road.’

The stone slabs were about four feet wide and six inches thick, made of some kind of dark gray rock that had been treated with Spiritual Power. The surface of the slabs was covered by a thick layer of coral and shells, but beneath the calcified material, the neat seams between the slabs and the artificial cut marks on the edges were still discernible.

The stone road extended from the northwest, winding southeast through the silt and rock, its direction perfectly coinciding with the radiating trajectory of the seal’s lingering wave.

’Architectural ruins from the era of the Profound Nether Sect.’

This road had existed at the bottom of the sea for at least several hundred years. Coral and shellfish had completely buried it. If not for the deep perception of his Geomantic Spiritual Nexus combined with the Tidal Jade Pendant, it would have been impossible to discover.

Li Yuan continued deeper, following the path of the stone road.

The stone road was intermittent, with some sections having been crushed or overturned by geological movements, but its general direction always pointed toward the deeper southeast.

After descending another four hundred and fifty feet, the Tidal Jade Pendant’s perception captured a more concentrated point of energy convergence.

’The center of the seal’s lingering waves.’

It was located over a thousand feet beneath the seabed. Energy radiated outward from that spot, spreading in all directions along the stone road and the natural fissures in the rock, eventually decaying into a part of the background noise of the undersea Spirit Vein.

The energy concentration at the center was more than ten times higher than at the edges, but it was still much weaker compared to the sealed area in Mozhou.

Li Yuan did not approach the center rashly. Over a thousand feet beneath the seabed, the water pressure and rock density far exceeded that on the surface. If he triggered a backlash from the seal’s remnants, escaping would be extremely difficult.

He instead searched laterally along the direction of the stone road and discovered an anomalous area about three hundred feet from the center.

’A patch of calcified coral.’

The shape of this coral cluster was clearly different from its surroundings. Ordinary deep-sea coral grew in branching or fan-like shapes, whereas this patch consisted almost entirely of plate-like structures, stacked layer upon layer as if wrapping something in the middle.

Li Yuan used his Spiritual Power to peel away the outermost calcified shell.

Inside the coral shell was half of a stone stele.

The stele was about five and a half feet tall and two feet wide. Its upper half was broken and missing, leaving only the base and the lower part. The stone of the stele’s face was identical to the stone road beneath his feet—dark gray, Spiritual-Power-treated rock.

The surface of the stele was covered in dense Array Patterns.

Li Yuan recognized the style of the Array Patterns at a glance. It was the standard inscription system of the Profound Nether Sect, completely congruous with the array inscriptions used in the Sub-Palace’s mist Array and the Jade Bead crafting archives.

He scanned the stele’s surface carefully with his Divine Sense, imprinting and archiving the path and position of every Array Pattern.

There wasn’t much text on the stele. Most of it was eroded and blurred by the seawater, but a few remaining passages were still legible.

The content was highly consistent with the "terminal branch" entry recorded in the Mozhou Jade Bead archives.

The inscription mentioned this node’s designation number, its function, and its hierarchical position within the overall sealing system. According to the inscription, this undersea node was a terminal branch on the outermost periphery of the sealing system, belonging to the same system as the Mozhou Spirit Vein Core and the Skeleton Ridge ruins, just on a different level.

The Mozhou Spirit Vein Core was the main trunk. Skeleton Ridge was a relay node. This place was a terminal.

The three were interconnected through the Earth Vein and undersea Spirit Veins, together forming a sealing network of vast coverage.

After he finished imprinting the entire inscription, Li Yuan used his Spiritual Power to close the calcified coral shell, restoring it to its original state.

Just as he finished, a demonic aura shot toward him from behind.

An eel-like Water Demon at the Mid-stage Foundation Establishment burst out from the coral reef, obviously disturbed by the fluctuation of Spiritual Power moments ago.

Li Yuan raised his hand and cast an Ice Cone Skill. In the deep-sea environment, Water Magic coalesced with astonishing speed. The ice cone formed almost instantly and pierced directly through the Water Demon’s vital point.

The Water Demon struggled only twice before sinking.

Li Yuan swam over, cut open the Water Demon’s abdomen, and retrieved a thumb-sized, grayish-blue Inner Core from within.

The moment the Inner Core was in his hand, his entry perception triggered.

[Equippable item detected: Tide Scale Pill (Intact)]

[Equipment Entry Preview: Swift Water Tunneling (Green)—Increases water tunneling speed by 30%, increases Water Magic power by 30%]

[Permanence Condition: Reach Foundation Establishment, accumulate ten hours of underwater tunneling (0/10)]

’A green entry. An increase of thirty percent to water tunneling speed, stacking on top of my Water Acceleration, is a solid buff to my underwater mobility.’

’And it also increases the power of my Water Magic by thirty percent.’

Li Yuan put the Tide Scale Pill into his storage bag, cleaned up the traces of the Water Demon’s corpse, and ascended toward the surface.

When he returned to the Pearl Collection Ship, the boatman was squatting on the deck, chewing on dry rations. Seeing him surface and flip onto the boat, he asked casually.

"Find anything?"

"Just a few ore chunks, nothing valuable."

The boatman asked no more questions, weighed anchor, and headed back.

By the time the small boat returned to Luoxia Port, it was nearly dusk, and the lights of the port were beginning to flicker on. Li Yuan returned the boat at the dock, got his deposit back, and walked along the main street toward the outskirts of the city.

As he passed the northern part of the port district, he deliberately slowed his pace.

The gray-and-white-flagged fast boats were still moored at the southern dock, but there was no more unloading activity on their decks. The stone door of the isolated warehouse was tightly shut, and the Early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator at the entrance had been replaced by someone else, but he stood there just as expressionlessly.

Li Yuan took the opportunity to glance at the isolated warehouse. Its stone door was still tightly shut, a clear sign that this secret channel was still in stable operation.

He had already memorized the cargo’s route and the warehouse’s location. There was no need to stir the pot and alert them just yet.