Venturing into the ruins, they encounter a formidable foe; the wanderer’s ingenuity breaks the deadlock.

The syrup-like patterns on the threshold of the apothecary shop shimmered with an amber luster under the scorching sun. Shen Yi crouched down and tapped the bluestone slab with his knuckles, the echo sounding as hollow as a rap on rotted wood.

The "Evil-Repelling Bell" at Gao Yao’s waist suddenly shuddered, its tinkling chime startling a murder of crows feeding on the eaves.

"A mass grave," Ming Yue said, fiddling with a copper-coin divination board. The three coins pointed sharply to the northeast. "The eye of the formation is buried among the dead."

Ten miles outside the city, the barren hills were shrouded in a greenish-gray miasma, with tattered soul-summoning banners snapping in the wind.

Shen Yi kicked aside a fragment of white bone, his boot tip striking a stone stele carved with ancient seal script. He channeled spiritual energy into his palm to brush away the moss, only to see a dark red fluid oozing from the fissures in the inscription—it was identical to the sap of the infant-lotus roots from the previous night.

"Look out!" Qing Feng’s longsword left its sheath, striking down a diving putrid corpse-vulture just as its beak grazed the back of Shen Yi’s neck.

As the foul-smelling blood splattered onto the stele, the dried seal characters began to squirm like living creatures, knitting together into glowing, spectral runes of a hidden grotto. A muffled grinding of gears echoed from deep underground; the seven nameless steles slowly shifted, revealing a passageway illuminated by flickering ghost-fire.

Just as Shen Yi prepared to step forward, a burst of wild, spark-filled laughter exploded behind him.

Twelve Flame-Maned Steeds trampled the mist. The cultivators in the saddles wore dark, tight-fitting tunics embroidered with gold-thread sun motifs. The leader’s forehead bore a fire-cloud mark that pulsed like molten lava.

"Cultivator Shen certainly knows how to pick a gravesite," Lie Yang said, flicking a poisoned nine-section whip. The scorpion-hook at the tip grazed Ming Yue’s temple. "Pity that the burial goods in this tomb should have been named 'Lie' long ago."

Qing Yu toyed with a poisoned dagger, tracing a phantom line a half-inch from Shen Yi’s neck. "I heard your cultivation license was just revoked? Why not change professions to tomb raiding? My master might toss you a scrap to eat." Behind him, eight mid-stage Qi-refining cultivators closed in, their waist chains clattering.

Gao Yao’s icy silk ribbons coiled toward Shen Yi’s wrists to pull him back, but he countered by gripping her pulse point.

Shen Yi’s tongue swept over his canine tooth. In his dantian, the spiritual energy map of the God-Level Farming System was flashing wildly—the cracks in the stele perfectly traced the outline of the "Earth-Vein Dragon-Beard Ginseng," the primary ingredient for a Foundation Establishment Pill.

"Brother Lie, do you know what this is?" Shen Yi suddenly grabbed a handful of humus. Tender green vine sprouts emerged from between his fingers. "Where earth energy stagnates, Yin-puppets are born, but if neutralized with living energy..." As the vines touched Qing Yu’s dagger, they grew explosively. Under everyone's gaze, the poisoned blade sprouted a cluster of purple bellflowers.

Lie Yang’s pupils constricted.

The third-tier spirit rat in the cage at his waist suddenly went mad, gnawing through the black-iron bars and bolting toward the passageway.

Taking advantage of their momentary disarray, Shen Yi flicked out the thorn seeds hidden in his sleeve, which silently took root in the cracks of the bluestone.

"Playing god!" Lie Yang whipped the vines to pieces, sending a flock of corpse-vultures into the air. "Capture that farmer alive! I’m going to turn him into a human fertilizer statue!"

Eight chains wove into a net of entrapment. The mechanical bird Ming Yue threw collided with the chains, spraying sparks everywhere.

Shen Yi shielded Gao Yao as they retreated, his back suddenly hitting a cold stone stele—the bag of infant-lotus seeds in his system inventory was turning scorching hot, and a gray skill icon unlocked during last night’s harvest flickered with light.

Qing Feng’s sword parried two chains, but his shoulder was grazed by a poisoned hook, drawing blood. "Brother Shen, they’ve blocked the Xun position!"

Shen Yi stared at the fire-cloud mark on Lie Yang’s forehead, suddenly recalling the rhythm of the candy-maker at the market. As the ninth chain whistled through the air, he deliberately exposed his left flank, his hand already forming the third stage of a hidden seal.

Amidst Gao Yao’s cry of alarm, the system panel popped up a notification: [Spirit Plant Mimicry] skill unlock countdown: ten seconds.

Shen Yi’s fingers completed the gesture within his sleeve, and a golden light exploded in his mind. The spiritual energy swirling in his dantian collapsed into a vortex, as if someone had scattered seeds of "Breath-Concealing Grass" through his meridians.

"Hold your breath!" he commanded in a low voice. He gripped Qing Feng’s bleeding shoulder with his left hand and used his right to coil Gao Yao’s silk ribbon around Ming Yue’s waist.

The spectral light erupting from the infant-lotus seeds in the system inventory wrapped around their clothes like a spiderweb, and a faint, milky scent drifted through the air—the smell of the spiritual fluid from the night before.

As Lie Yang’s whip lashed out with sparks, the thorn seeds on the bluestone suddenly bloomed into pansies of seven colors. A thick mist erupted from the petals, and the chains of the eight cultivators tangled together with a loud clatter, shredding only a fleeting afterimage.

"Cheap tricks!" Qing Yu flung twelve poisoned daggers, but the cold light plunged into the mist as if into cotton.

The treasure-hunting rat circled frantically in the empty haze. Lie Yang’s fire-cloud mark flared, and scorching spiritual energy swept across a hundred-foot radius, startling the corpse-vultures into slamming against the barrier, spraying black blood.

Ming Yue stared at the copper filings remaining from his mechanical bird, suddenly noticing that the humus on the soles of Shen Yi’s boots was fading. Those crushed fungal threads glowed with a faint, bioluminescent light, forming a crooked arrow on the ground pointing deep into the ghost-fire tunnel.

"Follow the fungal carpet," Shen Yi’s voice transmitted into their ears as he bit his fingertip, flicking a drop of blood toward the cracks in the stele.

The phantom of the Earth-Vein Dragon-Beard Ginseng shimmered in his system map, and the resonance with the infant-lotus seeds sent ripples through the moss on the tunnel walls. Gao Yao’s silk ribbon brushed Shen Yi’s bleeding finger, and the frost instantly froze the scent of the soul-tracking incense.

As the four of them slipped into the darkness following the fluorescent fungal threads, Lie Yang’s furious roar echoed behind them: "Dig three feet deep if you have to, but find that farmer!"

"Brother Shen, this 'deceiving the heavens' trick..." Qing Feng clutched his poisoned shoulder, watching in shock as the fungal threads wove into a hemostatic net over his wound. "It’s even more exquisite than the concealment arrays of our Heavenly Mystery Pavilion."

Shen Yi flicked a fluorescent spore off Ming Yue’s hair and pulled out a crumpled oil-paper bag with a roguish grin. "My Heart-Illusion Grass failed last month, but I refined some scent-concealing powder—want some five-spice flavor?"

The blue ghost-fire illuminated the wall murals, and the mottled cinnabar paintings seemed to come to life, entangled by the fungal threads.

The nine-tailed fox being hunted by the celestial soldiers in the mural suddenly turned its head, its blood-red vertical pupils fixed on the shadows where the four were hiding. Shen Yi quickly grabbed a handful of spore powder and tossed it at the mural; the killing intent in the fox’s eyes instantly turned into a naive expression, and its fluffy tail rolled a night-pearl to Ming Yue’s feet.

"There’s spiritual pulse fluctuation ahead!" Gao Yao clutched her chest; the Ice-Soul Technique she practiced was resonating with the cold-attributed spiritual energy.

Rounding three broken bronze doors, they entered a cavern that opened up into a vast space. Seven stalactite columns encircled a source crystal the size of a basketball, with golden, dragon-shaped mist frozen within its frost-like patterns.

As soon as Ming Yue’s mechanical bird touched the three-yard perimeter of the spiritual source, its wings were instantly encased in ice crystals.

Shen Yi’s system inventory shook violently. The phantoms of the infant-lotus seeds and the Earth-Vein Dragon-Beard Ginseng joined end-to-end on his spiritual map, forming an incomplete Taiji diagram.

"Mystic Ice Jade Marrow!" The spirit-sensing bead on Qing Feng’s sword hilt exploded into powder. "This is used for refining..."

The sound of whistling air cut off his exclamation, and the neighing of the twelve Flame-Maned Steeds caused ice cones to cascade from the cavern ceiling.

Lie Yang’s whip shattered the final bronze door, sparks scorching the surface of the spiritual source. "Brother Shen, you certainly know how to pick a coffin—this spiritual source is a fitting burial object!"

Qing Yu’s poisoned dagger flew past Shen Yi’s ear. The moment it struck the spiritual source, the frozen golden mist began to boil.

Eight chains formed a Dragon-Imprisoning Array, pressing down from above, while the mechanical beast Ming Yue threw had its joints frozen by the chill of the source.

Shen Yi shoved Gao Yao behind the spiritual source, the thorn seeds hidden in his sleeves growing instantly to weave a barbed vine net across the ice.

"Catch this!" Shen Yi slapped the oil-paper bag onto Qing Feng’s chest, and the five-spice concealing powder exploded into a pungent smoke within the chain array. He took the opportunity to bite his tongue, spraying his vital blood onto the agitated infant-lotus seeds. The [Spirit Plant Mimicry] icon finally lit up.

The fire-cloud mark on Lie Yang’s forehead flared, and the temperature in the entire cavern soared.

As the nine-section whip transformed into a giant red-scaled python, the infant-lotus in Shen Yi’s palm bloomed, and a phantom identical to him emerged from the petals. The illusion flashed a middle finger at Lie Yang with a rogue’s grin, then turned and dove into the boiling golden mist.

"Tear him to pieces!" Lie Yang’s roar brought down more ice cones as all attacks shifted toward the spiritual source.

The real Shen Yi pulled Gao Yao into the shadows of the stalactites, only to see Qing Feng staring at the heart of the spiritual source with constricted pupils—something was slowly stretching its claws within the golden mist.