Chapter 74: Beneath Blackstone

The investigation team returned shortly after breakfast.

Lin Yuan noticed them before they reached the tavern.

Dust coated their boots and the lower edges of their robes. Zhao Wei walked at the front with one hand resting near the saber at his waist, while Shen Yao followed with her narrow wooden case tucked beneath one arm.

Neither looked as though they had slept much.

Lin Yuan stepped outside to meet them.

Zhao Wei slowed when he saw him.

"Something happened here?"

"Twice yesterday."

Shen Yao’s tired expression sharpened immediately.

"What happened?"

"The spiritual Qi shifted."

She stopped walking.

Lin Yuan explained what he had experienced.

The first fluctuation had occurred while he was cultivating upstairs. It had been faint and lasted only a few breaths.

The second came after dark.

That one had been much stronger. Spiritual Qi throughout Blackstone had shifted noticeably, enough that one of the Ironhoof Beasts in the stable had reacted.

Lin Yuan left the Territory Core out of the explanation.

As far as he could determine, Blackstone’s spiritual environment itself had not changed. The disturbance had come and gone without leaving any obvious effect behind.

Shen Yao listened without interrupting.

When he finished, she asked, "You’re certain the overall environment remained stable?"

"Yes. The Qi moved, then everything returned to normal."

She glanced north.

Zhao Wei followed her gaze.

"The reversal we found yesterday?"

"Possibly."

Shen Yao rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"We confirmed that one section of the channel reversed toward the south. That doesn’t prove Lin felt the same disturbance, but it gives us enough reason to test closer to Blackstone."

Zhao Wei nodded.

Lin Yuan found himself appreciating the caution.

For days, travelers had turned every strange light and every patch of exposed stone into rumors about ancient treasures, hidden inheritances, or lost sects.

Hearing someone simply admit what she did not know was almost refreshing.

Shen Yao looked toward the northern edge of his territory.

"I want to test the ground near the developed area."

Lin Yuan had expected that.

"How much digging?"

"None unless the probes react."

"Good."

They entered the tavern first.

Su Mei had already noticed them and brought tea without being asked.

Shen Yao accepted hers and drank nearly half the cup before opening her wooden case.

At the same table, Zhao Wei spread several rough maps across the wooden surface.

The drawings were practical rather than neat.

Lines marked exposed sections of worked stone. Small symbols showed collapsed ground, Qi measurements, and the places where earlier disturbances had been strongest.

Lin Yuan recognized Blackstone near the lower edge of one map.

Shen Yao pointed at the southernmost confirmed section.

"The flow reversed here."

Her finger moved slowly toward Blackstone.

"Everything beyond this point remains buried."

"How far is that from my territory?"

"Far enough that I wouldn’t have connected the two before yesterday."

Zhao Wei leaned over the map.

"The section was already bending south."

"It was," Shen Yao said. "But direction alone wasn’t enough."

She looked at Lin Yuan.

"What you felt gives us a reason to check. Nothing more."

"That’s enough."

Less than half an hour later, they left the tavern.

The sight of the investigation team carrying formation equipment across Blackstone attracted attention almost immediately.

Qiao Ren looked up from his stall.

Duan He stepped outside.

Several travelers began following at a distance until Zhao Wei glanced back at them.

Most suddenly decided they had already come close enough.

Shen Yao stopped near the northern edge of the developed territory and opened her case.

Inside rested thin metal probes, small formation plates, measuring strings, chalk, and several tools Lin Yuan could not identify.

She selected one probe.

"Where were you during the first fluctuation?"

"Upstairs."

"And the second?"

"Near the market."

Her gaze moved between the tavern and the market.

"Different positions. Good."

"Why?"

"If both disturbances had happened in the exact same place, I’d first suspect something local to that area."

She walked beyond the Travelers’ Market.

The first probe slid into the dry ground.

Shen Yao pressed two fingers against its upper end and waited.

Nothing happened.

She moved east and tried again.

Still nothing.

For the third test, she chose a low stretch of bare earth farther west, where the developed territory gradually gave way to wasteland.

The probe went down.

Several breaths passed.

Then the metal trembled.

Barely.

But Shen Yao felt it.

Her head lifted.

Zhao Wei stepped closer.

"You felt that?"

She nodded and pulled the probe free.

Several paces south, it reacted again.

East produced almost nothing.

West made the vibration stronger.

Some of the exhaustion left Shen Yao’s face.

She planted a second probe nearby, then placed a small formation plate on the ground between them.

Weak light moved across the engraved markings.

Zhao Wei crouched beside it.

"There’s something below us."

"Something is interacting with the probes," Shen Yao corrected.

Lin Yuan glanced at her.

"You really don’t like guessing."

"I’ve seen what happens when guesses become reports."

There was enough irritation in her voice that Lin Yuan suspected she had experienced exactly that before.

Shen Yao checked the plate once more, then stood.

"I want to open the ground."

Lin Yuan looked toward the tavern.

The site was far enough from the market, the stable, and the main road that a small excavation would not interfere with business.

"How large?"

"Small to start. If we find nothing, we fill it again."

"And if you find something?"

"We stop and decide what to do before opening more."

Lin Yuan nodded.

"Do it."

Two investigators brought digging tools.

Lin Yuan took one as well.

Zhao Wei looked at him.

"You don’t have to help."

"It’s my territory."

Lin Yuan drove the tool into the soil.

"If people are digging holes in it, I’d rather know what they’re uncovering."

The surface layer came away easily.

Below that, the earth became harder and mixed with stone.

The morning sun climbed higher.

A few curious travelers remained nearby at first, but the sight of several people digging through dry soil proved less exciting than the rumors had promised.

One by one, they drifted back toward the tavern.

Qiao Ren remained.

At some point, he found a stool and placed it beneath a patch of shade.

Lin Yuan looked over.

"Planning to help?"

Qiao Ren leaned back comfortably.

"I’ve decided moral support is more valuable."

"From twenty paces away?"

"It’s safer there."

Lin Yuan shook his head and returned to digging.

For a while, they found nothing unusual.

Zhao Wei wiped dust from his hands.

"We may just be following a weak disturbance from farther north."

"Possible."

Shen Yao crouched inside the shallow trench and pressed her palm against one wall.

Her expression slowly changed.

"Stop."

Everyone froze.

She brushed loose earth away with her fingers.

A pale surface appeared beneath the soil.

At first, Lin Yuan thought it was ordinary stone.

Then Shen Yao cleared away more dirt.

A straight edge emerged.

Too clean.

Too precise.

Zhao Wei stepped into the trench beside her.

Together, they exposed a wider section.

Worked stone.

A shallow groove had been carved across its surface.

Shen Yao immediately became more careful.

She put aside the digging tool and cleared the remaining dirt by hand.

The groove curved across the stone before splitting into two paths.

One branch disappeared beneath the northern wall of the trench.

The other angled south.

Shen Yao opened her wooden case and removed a rubbing taken from one of the structures discovered farther north.

She placed it beside the exposed stone.

Lin Yuan knew little about formations.

He still saw the resemblance immediately.

The cuts were made in the same style.

The spacing matched.

Even the small angled markings along the groove followed the same pattern.

Zhao Wei’s voice lowered.

"Same structure?"

Shen Yao studied the two for several moments.

This time, when she answered, there was no uncertainty.

"Same system."

Lin Yuan stared at the stone beneath his feet.

Until now, the buried structure had belonged to somewhere else.

Something beneath the northern wasteland.

Something travelers could argue about over bowls of noodles and cups of wine before continuing down the road.

Now he was standing above it.

The mystery was no longer somewhere north of Blackstone.

Part of the same structure had been beneath his territory all along.

His gaze shifted toward the Wandering Cloud Tavern in the distance.

The building looked exactly as it had that morning.

The market still had customers.

Smoke still rose from the kitchen.

Nothing on the surface had changed.

Yet the ground beneath all of it suddenly felt far less simple.

Shen Yao traced the exposed groove.

"I want a little more uncovered."

Zhao Wei frowned.

"We’ve already confirmed the workmanship."

"We confirmed the connection. I want the direction."

He studied her tired face.

"You should rest."

"After this."

Zhao Wei clearly disliked the answer, but stepped aside.

They widened the trench carefully.

More worked stone appeared.

The groove continued southwest.

Toward the developed part of Blackstone.

Lin Yuan crouched at the edge and followed the line until it vanished beneath the soil.

"How certain are you that it continues toward the center?"

"I’m not," Shen Yao said. "It could turn. It could split again. It could even end somewhere ahead."

She looked toward the tavern.

"But if the direction stays consistent, then more of the same structure lies beneath Blackstone."

Lin Yuan said nothing.

This was no longer a rumor repeated by passing cultivators.

He could reach down and touch the evidence himself.

Zhao Wei climbed out of the trench.

"We stop here."

Shen Yao did not argue.

Digging farther without preparation could damage something they still did not understand.

More importantly, continuing the excavation in the open would attract even more attention.

Unfortunately, they had already attracted enough.

Several cultivators now stood beyond the investigation team.

Most kept a reasonable distance.

One man did not.

He wore dark traveling clothes and carried a long blade across his back.

His gaze remained fixed on the exposed stone.

"That’s connected to what you found north?"

Zhao Wei turned toward him.

"This area is restricted."

"I’m only looking."

"Then look from farther away."

A few people standing behind the man immediately stepped back.

He stayed where he was.

Instead, his gaze shifted toward Lin Yuan.

"This is your land?"

"It is."

Something changed in the man’s expression as he looked from Lin Yuan to the trench.

"Interesting."

Lin Yuan did not like the calculation behind that word.

Shen Yao climbed out and began returning her tools to the wooden case.

"This area is restricted. Keep your distance."

The man glanced at the exposed groove again.

"People are already saying there’s something valuable beneath Blackstone."

"People have been saying that for days," Lin Yuan replied. "So far, they’ve mostly been wrong."

The cultivator smiled faintly.

"Maybe this time they aren’t."

Zhao Wei stepped between him and the trench.

"You’ve seen enough."

His voice stayed calm. He didn’t need to release his aura for the warning to be clear.

Once the man looked at Zhao Wei properly, the difference between them became obvious.

After a short pause, he gave a shallow nod.

"Of course."

He turned away.

His companions followed.

Lin Yuan watched them disappear toward the road.

Around the market, conversations had already started.

Qiao Ren finally rose from his stool.

"This is going to become annoying."

Lin Yuan looked at him.

"You watched us dig for half the morning, and that’s your conclusion?"

"I needed sufficient evidence."

Lin Yuan decided he had heard enough from him.

The team spent the rest of the afternoon securing the excavation.

Most of the trench was filled again, leaving only a small section accessible for later testing.

Shen Yao reinforced the exposed edges.

Zhao Wei placed an Association marker nearby.

Lin Yuan added something simpler.

A wooden sign.

Restricted Area — No Entry Without Permission

Near sunset, Su Mei came out carrying food for the group.

She stopped in front of the sign.

"Will people listen?"

Lin Yuan glanced toward several cultivators near the road who were doing a poor job of pretending not to stare.

"Most of them."

Her attention shifted toward the remaining exposed section.

The discovery had been easier to treat casually when all of it was somewhere north of Blackstone.

Now it was beneath the place where she lived and worked.

"Do you think this will cause trouble?"

Lin Yuan looked across the territory.

The tavern.

The Travelers’ Market.

The stable.

The people moving between them.

When he first arrived in Blackstone, there had been almost nothing here worth noticing.

Now people had reasons to stop.

Reasons to trade.

Reasons to stay.

And apparently, reasons to wonder what might be buried beneath the ground.

"I think most people will behave."

Su Mei caught what he had left unsaid.

"And the ones who don’t?"

"I’ll deal with them."

She studied him briefly, then held out a bowl.

"Eat first."

Lin Yuan blinked.

"What?"

"You’ve been digging since morning."

He accepted the bowl.

"That almost sounded like concern."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Keep talking and I’ll give it to Zhao Wei."

Lin Yuan immediately started eating.

Su Mei walked away, shaking her head.

By nightfall, nearly everyone in Blackstone had heard that something had been discovered.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed to agree on what.

One table claimed the Association had found a formation core.

Another group was convinced there was a secret chamber beneath the market.

Someone else had already transformed the discovery into an ancient sect inheritance filled with lost techniques and treasures.

Lin Yuan stopped correcting people after the fourth attempt.

What mattered was much simpler.

The structure existed.

And part of it was beneath his territory.

The tavern remained louder than usual long after sunset.

More dishes left the kitchen.

Wine jars emptied faster than normal.

Several travelers who had planned to leave decided to stay another night.

Lin Yuan noticed all of it.

Under normal circumstances, he would have been pleased.

More customers meant better business.

Better business meant faster growth for Blackstone. ℯℯ𝑙.

Tonight, however, every additional traveler also meant another pair of eyes watching the ground.

Later that evening, Lin Yuan stepped outside.

The night air was cooler.

A few lamps still burned around the market.

Several unfamiliar cultivators lingered near the road.

They were not eating.

They were not drinking.

They were not even speaking.

They were watching the restricted area.

One of them noticed Lin Yuan.

Their eyes met.

After a moment, the cultivator looked away.

Lin Yuan’s expression cooled.

Blackstone had become useful enough to attract travelers, and Lin Yuan had welcomed that growth.

Now it had become interesting enough to attract something else.

Greed.

And sooner or later, someone would decide that a wooden sign was not enough to stop them.