Chapter 479: Catching Up
Shirong thought in deep and stayed in the cave for a few more days. This was to figure out his plans and also to stabilize his condition.
Even if he had woken up, his body was still reeling from the lingering trauma. It was more of a non physical shock and it would take a while to heal on its own. This was something Lin Mu and even the system had not thought of.
Shirong used some pills to recover faster and ended up spending ten days in the cave. But after that time, he had recovered fully and was almost in his optimum state. The only problem was the mental block, which he was still unable to get rid of.
“I’ll have to talk to ancestor about this… only he might know what it is exactly is.” Shirong muttered to himself.
He then stood up from the floor and walked to the only source of light in the cave. This was the entrance of the cave, which was blocked by a boulder. Shirong didn’t know how the Immortal Crystal Armament managed to do all this, but he knew that it cost the spear heavily.
~Sigh~
Letting out another sigh, Shirong looked at the boulder.
~BOOM~
~THUD~
Shirong then kicked the boulder, letting out a little frustration. The heavy boulder shot forward and flew off the side of the mountain before falling to the bottom with a loud thud.
~Roar~
~Chirp~
~cry
The sounds of agitated and startled beasts could be heard, as they had a rather rude awakening from the fallen boulder. A few unfortunate beasts had also managed to get crushed underneath the boulder along with a lot of trees.
Shirong though, could care less about it and flew out. He didn’t even know where he was, thus the first thing he did was to get a grasp of his surroundings. His spirit sense spread around and observed everything.
After the ten days of recovery, Shirong’s spirit sense worked like normal and it was no longer strenuous for him. In fact, he realized that his spirit sense had even grown by a little. He didn’t know how but didn’t question it, just grateful that he got something out of it.
“Hmm… this area doesn’t seem familiar. No signs of humans either, mostly just beasts.” Shirong muttered to himself, having seen the area.
He then picked a direction and hoped that he would reach a familiar area. Shirong thus traveled for about an hour and found an area that he recognized.
“Huh? Those hills… I’m near the Ivory Heron Dynasty?” Shirong said in shock.
While he knew that he was no longer in the Dread Coil Marsh, he didn’t know where he exactly was. He was surprised that the Immortal Crystal Armament had managed to take him this far despite the fact that he was unconscious.
“I need to get to the capital and learn what exactly happened…” Shirong muttered.
‘No wait, before that,’ Shirong looked at his appearance.
He was still in the tattered robes and was covered with dirt and dust.
“I need to clean up.” Shirong said as he looked around for some water.
He soon found a lake nearby where he took a bath. But while he was taking a bath, he found something weird about the lake.
“Why is the depth of this lake so even at some points?” Shirong discovered.
It was like some had manually dug out channels below the water and when Shirong spread his spirit sense around, he found that they formed an exact square.
“Truly strange…” Shirong said, unable to find a reason behind it.
Unknown to him, this lake was the same place where Lin Wu had hidden the platform at. Once Shirong was all clean, he put on some new robes and flew towards the capital city of the Ivory Heron dynasty.
He reached there after a few hours and directly went to meet the one person who could answer him directly, Yu Guowei. Shirong went to the administrator’s office but surprisingly the man wasn’t there.
“Where did he go?” Shirong wondered.
He took out his communication jade slip and tried to contact him only for him to get no response. Shirong furrowed his brows as he got a bad feeling about this. His spirit sense spread around, but he couldn’t find the man anywhere nearby either.
“Let’s see if I can ask someone,” Shirong muttered and quickly found the clerk who was responsible for Yu Guowei’s meetings and other minor works.
“Where is Yu Guowei?” Shirong asked directly.
The clerk who was busy writing down some documents looked up in irritation. He felt displeased that someone would disturb his work and even ask something of him with such a disrespectful attitude.
But when he saw who had just spoken, his heart dropped and he almost let out a Welp.
“It’s… it’s you… senior Shirong!” The clerk recognized.
He had seen Shirong meet with Yu Guowei before and also knew just how much respect the man showed him. While he didn’t know of Shirong’s true identity, he could tell that that the man had a great importance, not to mention the spirit Qi fluctuation that were coming off his body placed him at the Nascent Soul realm.
Neither of these two things were something he could take lightly and thus he quickly perked up.
“Tell me where Yu Guowei is,” Shirong repeated.
“Lord Yu is at the royal palace. He has not returned for the past week and has been there the entire time.” The clerk answered hurriedly.
Hearing this, Shirong was confused. While it was normal for Yu Guowei to go to the royal palace, as he was an administrator and had a higher rank than most officials. It was highly unusual for him to stay there for such a while.
It would make sense for other guests to stay there, but not for an administrator like him.
“Why so long?” Shirong asked.
“Huh? Senior, you don’t know what happened?”
Hearing the tone of the clerk, Shirong was a bit baffled.
‘Could it be related to the marsh as well? Did the news spread about it?’ Shirong wondered.
“No, what happened? I haven’t been here for a while.” Shirong questioned.
“The entire Ivory Heron Dynasty, Bing Kingdom and Burrow Light kingdom are in an uproar. The Dread Coil Marsh is burning and has become an area of absolute death.” The clerk answered.
Hearing this, Shirong was convinced that something truly problematic happened while he was unconscious. It was either the doing of the Immortal crystal armament or the skull god.
Even though the spear had given him some memories, they weren’t fully intact and some parts of them were still fragmented for him. This was intentionally done by Lin Wu, as giving a concrete set of memories was only asking to get found out.
There were bound to be inconsistencies between the fabricated memories and reality, and thus it was best to keep things vague. These fragments allowed Shirong to form his own opinions and conveniently fill in those gaps.
“How did that happen?” Shirong questioned.
“We do not know that… or at least the commoners don’t. The king, his ministers and advisers are discussing about it. There are even envoys from the other two kingdoms here to join in on the meetings.” The clerk answered.
“I see… very well,” Shirong said before abruptly leaving.
The clerk was left standing for a few seconds before he took a breath of relief and sat back down. He pushed out the excess thoughts and got back to work. The current workload for him was even higher since the administrator was not here and he could not afford to slack off.
Shirong who had left the administrator building, didn’t go to the royal palace. Rather, he decided to understand the ground reality among the commoners first.
‘It would be problematic if I barged into the royal place and demanded to speak with Yu Guowei. Besides, there is still my sister and the others. Who knows if they have spies here as well.’ Shirong thought to himself.
Having done that, Shirong walked around the city listening to the words of the commoners. He could hear a variety of conversations and eventually, he found a few that were what he wanted to hear.
Shirong was currently sitting in a common tavern, and there were many other patrons in the establishment. They ranged from commoners all the way to some middle level official of the city.
“Can’t believe something even worse could happen in that god forsaken place.” One of the men sitting at a table away from Shirong spoke.
“I know, right? Dread Coil Marsh was already an area where humans seldom entered and now it has just become a burning hell.” Another man spoke.
“Who knows what’s happening around these days. There is surprising news every day. The other day I even heard that the Frozen cloud sect has taken up a new chief disciple who is greatly talented.” A plump woman dressed in dark blue robes said with a sigh.
“We used to call that place hell to enter, and now it’s literally hell. Hahah! It suits it. There was nothing worth there, anyway.” Another man joked.
“Wonder how it happened, though. It was all of a sudden, too. One day it was fine and then there was fire blazing everywhere. My father’s half brother’s sister-in-law’s son lives in the Burrow light kingdom and he said the people there have no idea either.” The first man wondered.
“Yeah, it’s confusing. Some people even said that some strong beast appeared there and caused devastation. Can you imagine how ridiculous that sounds?” Another person spoke, catching Shirong’s attention.
