Chapter 432 - 401: Another Wave of Golden Cores

Chapter 432: Chapter 401: Another Wave of Golden Cores

The surge of Spiritual Qi pushed the seawater away, carving out a waterless void on the ocean floor. Gazing up, it was as if a massive, transparent bowl held back the entire Black Tortoise Calm Sea.

The Spiritual Qi eruption had occurred at the precise location of the Undersea Palace.

Thus, after passing through the vortex, the group found themselves right at their destination.

Hearing Chen Che’s voice, the group, caring little whether they were drenched in sweat or seawater, immediately stood at the ship’s rail and gazed at their surroundings.

With numerous Luminous Beads scattered about, this section of the seabed was illuminated as brightly as day.

On the sandy ground, a field of rubble and ruined walls stretched as far as the eye could see.

The city walls, which had once stood hundreds of yards high, and the shattered Glazed Jade Tiles hinted at the palace’s former prosperity and sprawling scale. But because its Array had been broken, allowing the sea to rush in, it had all collapsed into this ruin.

The ground was covered in corrosive marks left by the seawater, yet now it was as dry as a desert.

Looking up, the dark sea became their sky, cutting them off from the world above. Extending their Divine Sense, they could even feel some members of the Aquatic Race who had been swept into the vortex, struggling desperately.

But they didn’t last long before the vortex tore them to shreds, leaving not even a trace of flesh and blood behind.

"Valley Master Chen, the Spiritual Boat is broken..."

Just as the group was taking in the scene created by this awesome force of nature, Lu Qinglian’s voice cut in, spoiling the moment.

Chen Che immediately turned around.

Sure enough, large sections of the Spiritual Boat’s deck had been stripped away, revealing the splintered frame beneath. The on-deck cabin had completely collapsed, and parts of the boat’s surface were shattered. Clearly, it had all been violently torn apart by the seawater while passing through the vortex.

In addition, the mast was broken.

"More than half of the Spiritual Boat’s Array Foundations are shattered. We can’t activate the Array anymore."

Lu Yuntian ducked into the cabin, emerging a moment later with a frown.

"Can it be fixed?"

Chen Xi asked nervously. Without the Spiritual Boat, the journey back would be several times more difficult. The fate of the Aquatic Race members torn apart by the vortex was proof enough of that.

"The main hull of the Spiritual Boat isn’t damaged, so the repairs won’t be hard. It’ll just take some time and a good deal of Materials."

Lu Yuntian’s words put everyone at ease.

The Lu Family had made its fortune with Spiritual Boats, and as the Patriarch, he was naturally an expert. The Lu Family had been the ones to repair the Spiritual Boat the last time it was damaged, too. After the group exchanged glances, Chen Che immediately proposed they set up camp to repair the boat while simultaneously scouting the area.

After all, this palace was the reason they had come in the first place.

Everyone immediately got to work.

"Sea Ruins!?"

Meng Changtu, drawn by a massive boulder, walked right up to it. It was seventy or eighty feet tall, and he had initially mistaken it for a section of a wall. But when he brushed aside the clinging seaweed and kelp, he discovered it was actually a stone stele.

Two large, extravagantly-carved words remained on the stele.

"That must be the name of this place."

Chen Che glanced at it and speculated, "Generally, steles like this are placed at the entrance of a palace... But this palace is huge. It’s nearly the size of Primordial City."

’Only a Nascent Soul True Monarch could have moved an entire palace like this to the bottom of the sea, and into a trench no less.’

"Do we need this stele?"

Meng Changtu called out, riding his Mudskipper Shrimp over. He had circled the area and spotted them.

When Chen Che and Meng Qianxun shook their heads, two Mudskipper Shrimps yanked the stele with their giant Claw Clamps. They uprooted it like a giant radish and carried it, step by heavy step, over to the Spiritual Boat. Upon seeing it, Lu Qinglian and her husband were overjoyed.

The stele was made of Celestial Crystal Stone, a Tier Four High Grade Ore. It was completely free of impurities, clearly having been refined beforehand. It could withstand immense Spiritual Qi and external pressure, making it the perfect material for the Spiritual Boat’s Array Foundation.

The original Array Foundations on the Spiritual Boat had shattered because they had to endure not only the frantic influx of Spiritual Qi from the group but also the immense pressure of the seawater while passing through the vortex.

"What extravagant wealth!"

Chen Che exclaimed in admiration.

’To use such a huge piece of refined ore just to make a Boundary Stele.’

"Here’s a sword... what a shame."

The old man stepped on something hard. Sensing something was off, he casually reached down and pulled the broken half of a longsword from the sand.

All of its Spiritual Qi had dissipated, making it impossible to determine its original Grade.

Chen Che spotted an exquisite porcelain bottle up ahead and walked over. However, the moment he stepped on it with the slightest pressure, it shattered like common pottery. A cloud of powder puffed out from the fragments; it had clearly once been a Jade Bottle filled with Pills.

"The seawater pouring in, the bombardment of Spiritual Qi... it must have destroyed all the Spirit Treasures in the palace. Anything that survived this must have been at least a Tier Four item. What an absolute waste! I can’t imagine how many Spirit Treasures were lost."

Meng Qianxun’s heart ached just thinking about it.

’If I could get my hands on even a tenth of it,’ he thought, ’I’d have the confidence to challenge the Primordial Sect itself. A shame there’s no chance of that now.’

"Even if they could be salvaged, the Primordial Sect and the Star-Picking Sect would have been first in line. If this place hadn’t been destroyed, people like us would never have had the chance to set foot here."

Chen Che said with a chuckle.

"You certainly have a philosophical outlook."

Meng Qianxun had always thought his grandson-in-law had an excellent temperament.

"There’s no choice but to look at it that way..."

Chen Che smiled and shook his head. He’d already forged this mindset from exploring the ancient tombs of Major Cultivators, or visiting museums from before the Calamity of Heaven’s Fall. All those dazzling treasures were displayed for all to see, separated only by a pane of glass that blocked Divine Sense.

There were plenty of Tier Four items, to say nothing of Tier Three.

The Zhurong Daoist School had even more on display, and everyone knew the price for daring to take any of it.

The two continued on, discovering more lost Treasures along the way. In the face of the massive Spiritual Tide, it was a luxury for any of these items to have remained intact.

With every new discovery, Meng Qianxun felt his heart bleed a little more:

"No wonder the Star-Picking Sect and the Primordial Sect gave up on this place. Under these conditions, not even one in ten thousand Spirit Treasures could have survived intact... And these were all Treasures left behind by a Nascent Soul True Monarch!"

Spiritual Artifacts and Magical Treasures don’t last forever just because they’ve been forged.

Much like iron tools, they require constant maintenance to prolong their life. A Treasure left untouched for several thousand years will naturally lose its power as its Spiritual Qi dissipates. Of course, enduring an external Spiritual Tide over a short period will also cause a Spirit Treasure to be destroyed.

Unrefined raw Materials, on the other hand, are purer and thus more likely to survive under these conditions.

Chen Che glanced back. Having received the Boundary Stele, Lu Qinglian and the others were painstakingly scraping the characters off its surface, trying to figure out how to cut it into uniform pieces to serve as Array Foundations for the Spiritual Boat.

Meanwhile, Meng Changtu, riding his Mudskipper Shrimp, was rummaging through piles of palace rubble, searching for Materials to repair the Spiritual Boat. Every movement kicked up a long trail of dust like a dragon’s tail.

Chen Xi held an Engraving Pen, laboriously carving stroke by stroke onto a piece of the cut Celestial Crystal Stone. Because of the stone’s high Grade, each incision was a struggle, and the True Essence she had to Activate stirred up the surrounding sand.

The once-silent seabed gradually came to life with their activity.

"It’s so vast, so vast..."

Walking through the ruins and listening to the old man’s continuous muttering, Chen Che couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer size of the Undersea Palace. ’Even in ruins, it’s this massive. What must it have looked like when it was still intact? No wonder the two Major Sects couldn’t explore the whole palace, even when they worked together.’

"Each new Layer of Cultivation is a new heaven. A Realm represents one’s fundamental power, and the gap between Golden Core and Nascent Soul is simply too vast."

Meng Qianxun couldn’t help but sigh as well. He stepped up onto a pile of rubble and gazed into the distance.

They were on the outer edges of the palace, where the Spiritual Tide was weakest. The deeper one went, the more violent the eruption had been, which was why the ruins spread out in a radial pattern from the center.

The two of them spoke as they walked.

"For now, all we can do is search these ruins for any Magical Treasures that might have luckily survived. If we find none... once we pacify the Spiritual Qi in this zone, the sea above should calm down. Then we can head for home."

Chen Che nodded. Just as he was about to speak, a loud crash echoed from the camp behind them.

’Are there other people on the seafloor?’

He whipped his head around, his gaze instantly locking on.

"Yu Yunko?"