Path Of The Dragon (A Dark Fantasy Cultivation Wuxia Xianxia Progression Series)

Chapter 115 Transportation Pad

She scanned the room again and the presence moved. Its aura was cold and wrong somehow. It was only at the fourth star of the Expert rank, but somehow it made her skin crawl, and her hair stand on end every time her spirit sense brushed against the creature.

Wings fluttered and a noctilith dived down at her from the ceiling, its mandibles coated in green flame. Jie held the door with her right arm and shoulder as she sent out a finger of light at the creature with her left hand. Dragon lightning qi lit up the room like a blue sun for just a moment as it arced through the air and hit the noctilith dead center on the head. Its head exploded and it dropped to the floor, still twitching. As it writhed on the floor, Jie noticed that pieces of its carapace were missing already, exposing rotting, dead flesh within.

Pan Tian, Ithilix, and Xue all slipped under the door and Jie set it down behind them as gently as she could. Though it still landed with a heavy thud even so.

Her friends studied the body but kept well away from it.

"Is that... an undead noctilith?" Pan Tian asked.

"This one thinks you're correct," Ithilix said.

"Creepy," Jie said, "think I should hit it again just to be safe?"

"That's probably wise," Pan Tian said, "the undead can be quite stubborn about not staying dead."

Jie hit it again with another finger of light attack. The flash and boom didn't bother her all that much as anything that noticed it would surely have noticed the first one and the door opening. Her attack blasted fresh chunks out of the noctilith, but its only movement was from the force of her attack and the spasms her dragon lightning qi caused.

"Well, it's your kill, so make sure you get the beast core," Pan Tian said as she patted Jie's shoulder and moved on to inspect the circular platform, "wherever it is..."

Jie sighed but scanned the room with her spirit sense. It didn't take long to find the core since it wasn't veiled. She ripped it free of the hunk of rotting flesh it was embedded inside and stored it in her storage ring.

"Huh..." Pan Tian said after using a scroll of wisdom on the circular platform, "it says it's a transportation pad. No power though, so it's useless."

"Should we try and take it?" Jie asked.

"No. This pad was built long before this was a dungeon for Crimson Academy students. There's no telling what'll happen if we start breaking things. A door is fine, but a strange device none of us understand? That's just asking to activate some well-hidden security measures that'll kill us all," Pan Tian said, "besides, the statues get angry if you do things like that."

"They do?" Jie asked, "why haven't they scolded us for breaking anything before now?"

"Because we're just doing what we're supposed to be doing. But the hunt happens every year. If we start doing things to interfere with that... the statues can get quite deadly," Pan Tian asked.

"Have they ever killed anyone because of it?" Jie asked.

"Yup," Pan Tian said, "I've never seen it happen, but my brother has. It sounds like a terrible way to die."

"Okay... don't mess with things that make the statues angry... noted," Jie said.

Pan Tian identified the chests with white glowing runes as extremely durable stone chests with an enchantment that protected against undead. But, the second any of them touched one, the runes died and they could slide the top off easily, exposing the treasures within.

Two of the chests were packed with a total of twenty-eight bloodfruit ranging from the eighth to the ninth star of the Expert rank and sixteen twin moons pills. Another was filled with arak-made weapons that seemed crafted out of noctilith chitin, and a fourth was filled to the brim with glittering jewels and a blue, metal scarab the size of Jie's face that gave off a mysterious aura.