The Portal of Wonderland

While the Form Assuming Ceremony was underway, Shi Mu—with the help of the intel he had gathered—already circumvented and bypassed every post and sentry by taking the longest, most indirect route to reach the Heaven Ascension Peak. Finally he reached the bottom of the mountain where an unremarkable cliff stood.

Shi Mu hid himself in a thicket close by.

Standing before the cliff motionlessly were four muscular tiger-headed demon men.

They radiated an indomitable aura. Their yellow- and black-striped furry arms were either crossed in front of their chest or gripping a sword resting on their shoulders. It seemed that they were all Xian Tian level Demon Commanders.

They were not the only ones standing guard; a few yards from Heaven Ascension Peak was another sentry post guarded by four Xian Tian level half-transformed demons.

With enemies possessing power levels like that, not even an Earth-rank powerhouse would be able to kill them without leaving a single trace or making noise.

Shi Mu looked over the four Demon Commanders and studied that particular cliff carefully. He closed his eyes and thought for a while, before reaching for a green charm and slapped it on his body. A red light shone in his hand and a crimson longbow appeared in his grasp.

As he drew back the bowstring, his magically-enhanced vision made the four Demon Commanders appear as close as if they were right in front of him.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The two arrows bolted out from the bow at the same time and two of the tiger-headed Demon Commanders’ throats were pierced.

The other two tiger-headed Demon Commanders were aghast. They were just about to react when a blur of green flashed before their eyes—it was Shi Mu, who managed to teleport himself before them without a sound. His right hand readied with a sword while his left hand balled into a fist before he swung both hands at once.

The two Demon Commanders were felled wordlessly just like that: one was rent into halves with the sword, while the other’s head was smashed into pieces like a watermelon in a collision.

Shi Mu took out his Beast Soul Pouch, storing the four Demon Commanders’ Beast Souls into it, then burnt their corpses completely with a fireball.

He flipped his hand and revealed a dark-red crystal—it was a Soaring Flame Crystal!

Shi Mu pointed the crystal toward the cliff and recited some incantations under his breath. At once, a beam of light shot out from the surface of the crystal and bore a hole in the cliff, sparks flying.

Shi Mu had to suppress the giddiness in his chest by taking a deep breath before sneaking into the hole.

He tread a narrow, tenebrous little path before reaching a wide clearing.

A golden glint flitted in his pupils as he scanned the surroundings warily. After making sure that there were no more sentries or other deterrents, he strode out slowly.

He had been here before in his dreams, but to really be here was no less moving to him. It was the very same clearing in his dream; the twelve gigantic grey pillars were an exact copy of what he had seen in his dreams. The only difference was that the whole place looked a lot more antique as the passing of time left its mark.

When he was boring an opening out of that cliff with the Soaring Flame Crystal, Shi Mu was still embroiled in doubt; but now he was more and more convinced that the white ape he had seen in his dream was none other than the White Ape Demon King who led an army to conquer the entire Western He continent in the past.

Even so, a few scenes in his dreams still remained as much of a mystery as before.

Not that he had the luxury of time to muse about them now.

He did not touch any of the grey pillars and instead carefully avoided them by walking from the side. Then, recalling the scene in his dream, he went into one of the passages leading out of the clearing. The passage led him to a spiral staircase carved out of rocks that advanced upwards.

According to his dream, the white ape and its posse had dashed through this particular staircase swiftly. Although they had encountered a myriad of floors, they did not stop at any of them. Hence, Shi Mu had an approximate mental image of the secret room, yet he had no inkling of the exact level where the white ape and its men had stopped.

He did estimate it to be at least ten floors or above.

Over the days when he snuck around Heaven Ascension Peak, Shi Mu obtained some information by eavesdropping on a fully transformed chief of the Moon Bear Tribe. Combining this with what he remembered from his dreams, he knew of two floors with a secret room that fit the description of the one in his dream. One was on the sixteenth floor, the other on the twenty-first floor.

The interior of the passage was very dark, cold, and humid, sometimes punctuated by a decaying, gamy stench. The moss-covered stairs flowed with a sticky green fluid that made the steps slippery.

The golden lights in Shi Mu’s eyes flickered, revealing a few incredibly fine runes carved onto the handrail. These were probably left by the demon race as a sort of alarm system. Should he accidentally trigger one of them, he was sure that a loud cacophony would ensue and alert the guards.

Shi Mu was sure that with his current capabilities and powers, he would have zero problem overcoming a dozen fully transformed demon guards, but it would probably cost his chances of success.

After all, even though the Azure Monkey King left the peak to preside over the Form Assuming Ceremony, Shi Mu was not sure that the king did not leave some secret alarms such that every minute intrusion would alert him over the distance—and when that happened, Shi Mu knew the king would race back here at once.

Shi Mu was not pig-headed enough to think that he would be able to sneak under a Heaven-rank powerhouse’s radar. He was sure that he wouldn’t even be able to undo the seal and obtain the White Ape’s Blood Essence.

With the help of his amazing eyesight, Shi Mu carefully climbed the staircase as he navigated his way around all kinds of tricks and booby traps hidden along the passageway and the floors.

Not every floor was heavily guarded, it seemed. Where patrols were available, Shi Mu passed through most of them without much effort using his abilities and his green cloak. In more difficult cases, he would just wait in the passageway until the guards shifted their attention for a brief interval, then he would seize the chance to cross the floor.

Shi Mu did not have to make a single stop for the first ten floors. He began stopping in his tracks and to examine the area in the shadows starting from the eleventh floor. He reckoned that the internal structure of Heaven Ascension Peak may have changed over time. Moreover, the Moon Bear Tribe guard’s information may not be completely true either.

The odds of returning to Heaven Ascension Peak in the future were slim, so Shi Mu was not keen on wasting this chance.

Shockingly, the architecture of the eleventh to the fifteenth floor bore no semblance to the structure he had seen in his dreams.

When he finally reached the sixteenth floor, his eyes caught glimpses of bright light radiating from ahead. Like the other floors, it had a wide clearing of about a hundred yards. The difference was that this area was filled with limestone emitting a faint glow which brightened the room.

At the far end of the clearing was a stone-carved room with no secret spells on its entrance. On the two sides of the clearing were a few more passageways that lead to God-knows-where.

Shi Mu was pleased that despite the size of the area, there was not a single guard in sight. After all, this was one of the two floors suspected to be where the white ape and his men had stopped in his dreams—even the design of the area looked similar.

Shi Mu had to contain his excitement as he examined the area with his golden eyes.

Just as expected, on every inch of the limestone boulders were scribbled saturated rows of runes. Some kind of transparent rays of light resembling cobwebs connected the boulders. Similar webs blanketed the whole area, leaving only a very narrow path that could be tread safely.

Should one step into any of these web-like transparent lights, who knows what would happen next.

Fortunately, Shi Mu possessed incredible eyesight as well as a vigilant disposition, or else these little booby traps would have likely eluded him.

He took a deep breath and released his Spirit Sense all over the area once more, making sure that there were no other guards in the vicinity before carefully making his way to the secret room.

Just as he was about ten yards away from the door, he heard soft echoes from one of the side passageways. His heart skipped a beat as he quickly extended his Spirit Sense, only to discover two Xian Tian-level fully transformed guards heading his way.

Shi Mu hastened his pace warily, making sure he was not touching any of the transparent light on the floor.

The two guards finally entered the clearing and stood outside the stone room. They pushed it open and entered without hesitation.

The door was barely shut tight when another string of voices could be heard coming closer and closer.

“Tsk, tsk. This Form Assuming Ceremony only happens once in a decade, but I still can’t join it this year.”

“Well, if we remain as competent guards for a few more years, Lord Azure Monkey would personally bestow us with the Transformation Orb. By then there wouldn’t be any point of joining that ceremony anymore.”

“… Hmm?”

“What?”

“I smell something unfamiliar in the air. Did someone just enter here?”

“Oy, methinks your canine nose is a little too sensitive. There’s only the two of us today—who else would come here? It’s the sixteenth floor!”

“Good point. Let’s just check downstairs.”

The voices finally faded into the distance.

Shi Mu breathed a sigh of relief and pressed his ear against the door of the stone room once more, listening carefully. After making sure he wasn’t spotted, he turned and faced the secret room, his eyes studying the sight.

However, it took only a second for him to grumble in dismay.

It wasn’t that this particular secret room was protected by any sort of traps. The problem was, despite its semblance to the one in his dream, the interior of the room was nothing like it.

He didn’t plan to leave too soon though, especially not after he had just come in.

A row of cabinets sat on a side of the room with a few elegantly-crafted green bottles adorning its shelves.

He took one of the bottles and opened its lid. In an instant, a bloody mist wafted out of the bottle along with the thick scent of blood

His heart skipped a beat as he quickly stuck the lid back onto the bottle. It seemed that the bottle contained an unknown species’ blood essence—and a pretty high-ranking one at that.

Shi Mu kept all of them without much hesitation. He made some rounds inspecting the room, discovering a few oddly-shaped herbs. Some of them looked quite familiar.

He slapped the back of his head as the memory struck him: these were the exquisite herbs Master An said the Earth Serpent Tribe needed for Transformation Orb production.

Shi Mu took out one of the green bottles and studied it carefully. It was said that the key to making a Transformation Orb was the blood essence of humans and barbarians, and he was holding a flask full of it.

The reason why Transformation Orbs were hard to produce was because obtaining blood essence is an incredibly daunting task.

Shi Mu shook his head helplessly. None of these things were valuable to him but he stored them inside his Storage Ring anyway.

He checked the place again until he concluded that the white stone door in his dream was indeed not here.

Shi Mu shook his head and chuckled mirthlessly.

He rested for a while before coming close to the secret room’s door, pressing his ear up to the door and listening intently. After making sure no one was outside, he quietly left the secret room.