/*unedited*/

Within the dark dungeon pa.s.sage, two people are panting heavily after a long bout of fighting. The countless number of monster corpses are around them bathing the pa.s.sage in green blood.

s.h.i.+n Jiao leaned on the wall as he tried to catch his breath while BeiBei Ji is lying on the floor with her robe in tatters.

s.h.i.+n Jiao could admit that the young woman is a great fighter. From what he saw while fighting, if the young woman truly entered the fight in the forest then s.h.i.+n Jiao would never have an easy time defeating the Nian elite cultivator's army.

"How are you? Are you hurt anywhere?" s.h.i.+n Jiao asked while taking out a flask of water from his spatial tool.

The woman didn't answer but from the movement of her chest, she is breathing calmly.

"Did she just fell asleep?" s.h.i.+n Jiao thought.

"Hmm… this place is too weird… Wait… how about…" s.h.i.+n Jiao suddenly thought of something.

He then concentrates a little and his absolute sense began scanning his surroundings. And as soon as his absolute sense came out, s.h.i.+n Jiao was dumbfounded on what he saw.

"What… what is this place?" s.h.i.+n Jiao muttered as he looks at everything in confusion.

Using his goggles and the gla.s.ses, s.h.i.+n Jiao can see that he is currently inside a dungeon-like place. But now that he used his absolute sense, he immediately saw that he is actually lying on the ground in a huge cave. The area is lit by a luminous crystal which emits some strange energy. And beside him is a young woman wearing the Nian clan robe.

Then s.h.i.+n Jiao tried to expand his absolute sense to the whole cave and found that there are others inside it. But it seems that they have all died a long time ago because only their clothes remain and their bodies are already skin and bones. But what surprises s.h.i.+n Jiao is that they did not decompose. Their corpses are still intact.

"The sleep of death… I guess from the looks of the people around this cave, I can count more than a hundred people… What's going on?"

Then s.h.i.+n Jiao began scrutinizing the luminous crystals around the cave and was surprised at what he found.

"These are… these are huge mind stones… wait a minute. This place is a natural formation of a trap array."

Then suddenly s.h.i.+n Jiao saw in the middle of the cave, a small pebble stone is forming slowly. From the looks of it, there are two of them.

"d.a.m.n… is this what I think it is?" s.h.i.+n Jiao thought as he realized something.

"Judging from the number of corpses and the number of forming pebble in the middle, it seems that the mind stones are formed through extracting the mind of a cultivator, right? If this is true then, this is very scary."

Then s.h.i.+n Jiao canceled his absolute sense and his mind went back to the dungeon-like place.

"This… this is like a virtual reality game. Hmm… I can use this in creating a virtual environment. This way, both mortals and cultivators have a chance to use it… haha… This trip is not useless. I guess it's all thanks to this girl." s.h.i.+n Jiao turned to look at the woman with her tattered clothing.

He then took out a blanket from his spatial tool and covers her body.

"d.a.m.n, even the content of my spatial tool is not safe in this place… hmm… Maybe I can make a program to prevent this and only the data I wanted for people to see can be used. Or how about a blank slate with saving and loading system…" s.h.i.+n Jiao began to think of a plan on how to use this new discovery of his.

After some time, the young woman slowly woke up and found that she is lying on the ground with a warm blanket.

"Umm… Where…"

Hearing the woman's voice s.h.i.+n Jiao woke up from this thinking and turned to see the young woman.

"h.e.l.lo! Welcome back!" s.h.i.+n Jiao said with a smile.

When the woman heard his voice, she felt a little surprised but remembers that a while ago she is fighting those endless monsters with the young man. And she was saved by him many times in that fight. Hence her vengeful feelings have subsided a little.

"What… what happened? I… I just pa.s.sed out from exhaustion." She muttered with a little confused look on her face.

"Well, you did… but that's not the most important thing right now." s.h.i.+n Jiao said with a little hesitation.

"You see… We… Hmm… We are actually trapped inside a cave. And this is all just illusions in your head. I wanted to go out but I was afraid that if I leave you in this confinement you would be trapped inside this almost realistic illusion."

"You mean… you mean that this place is just an illusion?" BeiBei Ji asked in surprise.

"Yeah… so if you want to get out, follow me now okay?" s.h.i.+n Jiao said with a smile.

"By the way, I'm s.h.i.+n Jiao… you are?"

"I… I'm BeiBei Ji, of the Nian clan… senior… I… I would like to say sorry for my clan's action towards you. I know that there is an enmity between you and my clan. But I hope that you don't take your revenge in all of us. There are many people in the clan who are innocent. Please spare them." BeiBei Ji said while bowing her head low.

"Haha… I know… I'm guessing you know who I am right? And why the Nian clan is hunting me."

"Umm… No senior, I'm actually in the dark with this. All I know is that the clan asked us to hunt down a slave who escapes with the clan's precious treasure… they didn't tell us anything else."

"Haha… Your clan elders' greed has no bound… Enough about this. Follow me."

The two walk along the dark pa.s.sages for a couple of hours. By combining his spiritual sense and absolute sense, s.h.i.+n Jiao was able to pinpoint the exit of the complex maze.

On their way, they fought against different kinds of monsters. They have to fight because; the wound that these monsters inflict affects the real body. They discovered this from their first fight hence they didn't dare to be careless.

After some time, the two arrive in a seemingly endless pa.s.sage.

Suddenly, s.h.i.+n Jiao stopped.

"This is our exit." s.h.i.+n Jiao said pointing up.

When BeiBei Ji look at which direction s.h.i.+n Jiao is pointing at, she felt a little confused.

This is because where s.h.i.+n Jiao is pointing is the ceiling of the pa.s.sage. No matter how hard she thinks about it, she still could not see anything.

"Senior, are you sure that this is the right way?" she asked with doubt.

"Yes, I'm sure. I told you that these are all illusions right?"

Although a little bit confused and doubtful, BeiBei Ji still followed s.h.i.+n Jiao.

She jumps up towards the ceiling with her hands protecting her head.

But as soon as she was about to hit her head, she suddenly saw everything around her went blank.

Feeling a little dizzy, she slowly opens her eyes. But no matter how hard she tries, it seems that her mind is unable to fully wake up. This feeling made her heart panic.

s.h.i.+n Jiao followed BeiBei Ji and also jumps towards the ceiling. And he too felt the same way.

But s.h.i.+n Jiao is stronger than BeiBei Ji. Hence it didn't take him long enough to feel his consciousness returning back to normal. But for the young woman, she is still struggling. However, this is already good enough for normal cultivators. BeiBei Ji is only able to wake up because of her strong mental fort.i.tude, yet still, it is not strong enough to overcome the mind stone's energy.

When s.h.i.+n Jiao is able to wake up, he immediately turned to looks at the center of the cave and found the two forming pebbles shattered on the ground.

"My guess is right… that would have been my and BeiBei's mind."

"The strength of the mind stones in this place is really terrifying." s.h.i.+n Jiao said as he can feel his consciousness being overcome slowly.

"But since I'm already here, then these things are already mine." s.h.i.+n Jiao thought with a smile.

Waving his hand his black katana flew out and strike a stone at the ceiling with a think yellow hue. As the fist-size stone fell s.h.i.+n Jiao caught it and store it in his spatial tool.

Then he proceeds to harvest the rest of the mind stones in the cave.

When he has already taken everything, the cave turned dark with a little illumination from the remaining moonstones at the ceiling.

Then BeiBei Ji slowly got up while holding her head.

"Ow… my head hurts… that… that was a really strong energy." she muttered as she staggered.

"This is a natural forming mind stone cave. I didn't destroy the walls because I can see that there is a flow of three strong Qi energies… after a few years, this cave will have another mind stone array trap." s.h.i.+n Jiao thought as he suddenly realized something amiss in the surrounding.

Then he decided to do something.

Taking out a shovel, s.h.i.+n Jiao began to hollow a portion of the cave. While he is doing that, BeiBei Ji inspected the area and began gathering the things of the deceased cultivators.

After some time, s.h.i.+n Jiao has already put up a teleportation formation from this place to the cave inside the dark forest in the outskirts of the town of Crows under the Heavenly Crow sect.

He didn't know how far they are from Great Wu city hence he decided on his nearest teleportation spot.

"Hey, BeiBei let's go!" s.h.i.+n Jiao called.

After the two traveled inside the mind labyrinth, s.h.i.+n Jiao just called the young woman BeiBei while she called him senior.

"Senior, look I found a lot of stuff. There are many spatial tools in here."

"Let's divide that after we get out of this place." s.h.i.+n Jiao said as he waved his hand and a small gate slowly appears.

"Hmm… unstable? I guess the distance is more than 1,000 kilometers." He muttered as he adds more low-grade spiritual stones in the array.

When it reaches around 3,000 spiritual stones, s.h.i.+n Jiao's forehead is already covered in sweat. This is because he realized that the distance is not what he expected it to be.

But still, he has earned a lot of spiritual stones from his partners.h.i.+p with Prince Mingsha Wu; hence this is not a problem for him.

When the gate is already stable, he heaves a sigh of relief.

"Let's leave now." s.h.i.+n Jiao said as they both jump through the spatial gate.