Chapter 489: Entering the Forest
The moment he stepped into the fog, the world behind him seemed to be gently wiped away by an unseen hand.
The wind was gone.
The sea of clouds was gone.
Even the brilliant sunlight outside the peak had vanished.
Su Ming's foot paused for an instant, his spiritual energy instinctively tightening within him. Almost immediately, he reconfirmed the position of the Grand Teleportation Talisman hidden in his sleeve.
Fortunately, there was no killing intent.
At least, not yet.
The white mist didn't rush at him, nor did any backlash from prohibitive runes crawl into his limbs and bones. The fog simply wrapped around him quietly, carrying a touch of damp coolness, then slowly receded.
His vision gradually cleared.
Su Ming looked up.
Before him was a forest.
Not the desolate ruins he'd imagined as a typical secret realm entrance, nor a blessed pocket dimension overflowing with spiritual energy. It was a forest so silent it was almost oppressive.
Towering ancient trees rose up.
Each tree was astonishingly tall, thick trunks shooting straight upward, their canopies only spreading at extreme heights. Layers of branches and leaves intertwined, cutting the sky light into fragments. Only a few rays of sunlight managed to slip through the gaps, piercing the floating mist to cast slanted beams of light through the woods.
Within those beams, extremely fine dust particles drifted, and moisture flowed through the air.
The air was as damp as if it had just rained, filled with the mingled scents of earth, moss, rotting leaves, and wood—quiet, heavy, carrying a faint, ancient fragrance.
On his shoulder, Shadow had been holding its head high with a "This lord has claimed a new territory" sort of swagger. But after taking in its surroundings, its golden eyes visibly narrowed. Its tiny claws silently gripped the fabric of Su Ming's shoulder as it looked left and right, its feathers pressed flat against its body.
Su Ming didn't move.
He first closed his eyes, activated the Aura Concealment Art, and let his energy aura sink deeper.
When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was truly settled.
Spiritual energy.
The concentration of spiritual energy here was at least several times that of the outside world.
Su Ming even had the illusion that breathing here was more like cultivating than actually practicing techniques outside.
"This place…"
Lin Yu's voice rang out in his Consciousness Sea, carrying a rare lack of teasing.
Just as Su Ming was about to speak, his gaze suddenly dropped downward.
Beneath his feet lay a path.
A stone path.
It was half-covered by fallen leaves; if he hadn't looked down, he would have almost mistaken it for the ordinary forest floor. The stone slabs weren't wide—only enough for two people to walk side by side. The gaps between the slabs were extremely narrow, filled with bits of moss and withered leaves. The stone surfaces had originally been carved with patterns, but most of those patterns had been worn smooth by time, leaving only faint, barely-there traces that looked extremely pale in the slanted light.
The path began right at his feet and stretched deep into the forest.
No forks.
No breaks.
The mist floated gently ahead, and the path's end appeared and disappeared within it, not looking very far. At Su Ming's current pace, if he truly wanted to walk there, it would probably take him about half an hour.
He stared at the path for two breaths, but instead frowned.
Too simple.
Too simple for a secret realm.
The Formation Peak Secret Realm—Xuanheng had specifically mentioned it. Yet, all he saw upon entering was a forest, a path, and an end that seemed close at hand.
What was this?
It was like someone painstakingly built a ten-thousand-year-old ancient gate, only to place a simple country lane behind it.
Su Ming didn't buy it.
He was the type of person who never believed in a clearly laid-out easy path.
"Master, what do you think?"
His voice wasn't loud, his gaze still fixed on the path ahead.
Normally, in situations like this, Lin Yu would either throw out a couple of sarcastic remarks first, or say, "Don't move, check for traps first." But this time, there was actually a moment of silence in the Consciousness Sea.
The next moment, Lin Yu drifted out of the ring.
His soul body was now far more solid than before. From a distance, it no longer looked like a blurry shadow but rather like a cultivator's spirit wrapped in a faint jade-like luster. But right now, this usually talkative "master" was being uncharacteristically terse.
He didn't look at Su Ming.
He didn't look at the surrounding trees either.
From the moment he emerged, his gaze was fixed on the stone path.
More precisely, it was fixed on what lay beneath the stone path.
Su Ming watched Lin Yu's profile.
He rarely saw his master wear such an expression.
"Master?"
Su Ming couldn't help but call out again.
Only then did Lin Yu slowly come back to his senses.
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was lower and steadier than usual.
"This path is longer than you think."
Su Ming was taken aback.
"Longer?"
"Mm."
"But up ahead—"
"What your eyes see is the path," Lin Yu said calmly, his gaze still fixed on the ground beneath the stones. "What it truly wants you to walk is more than this stretch."
After that, he didn't explain further. He just waved his hand.
"Let's go."
Su Ming glanced at him but didn't press further.
After all their time together as master and disciple, he had long understood Lin Yu's habits. If his master wanted to explain something, he would continue on his own. If he didn't want to, asking ten more questions would be useless.
But at this moment, Lin Yu's mind was indeed churning with immense waves.
What Su Ming saw was just a stone path.
But in his eyes, this path wasn't a path at all.
At least, not just a path.
Beneath that layer of blurred stone, three layers of formation lines were pressed.
The first layer followed the stones, like flesh and blood veins, naturally attached to each slab as it grew.
The second layer sank deeper, slowly cycling like an invisible underground river, gently lifting the spiritual energy of the entire path.
The third layer was even more hidden, and more ancient. It wasn't a carved formation of the common sort. It was as if a certain way of thinking had been embedded directly into the mountain's momentum, into the earth veins, into the very concept of "the path" itself.
Lin Yu understood its flow pattern in a single glance.
Not deduced.
Not analyzed.
But instantly understood—because this was almost identical to the formation principles he had worked out on his own over these years.
It wasn't a surface similarity.
It was a deep-rooted connection.
He hadn't learned from anyone.
No one had taught him.
Countless years ago, someone had arrived at this very point. Now, he himself had come to the same answer.
Only two words rose in Lin Yu's heart.
"Of course."
So he hadn't gone crazy. He hadn't thought wrong. And he hadn't been straying further and further in his self-derived deductions.
Su Ming didn't know what waves were crashing through Lin Yu's mind.
He just took another look at the stone beneath his feet. After confirming there was no obvious killing intent, he slowly lifted his foot and stepped onto the first stone slab.
The moment his foot landed, the ground beneath him vibrated, extremely faintly.
It wasn't a physical vibration. It was a stir at the level of spiritual energy. It was as if something that had been sleeping for a very long time was gently awakened by his footstep, trembling silently along the bottom of the stone slab.
_Hum._
Extremely faint. Extremely brief.
If Su Ming's divine sense weren't so meticulous, he would have almost mistaken it for an illusion.
Shadow on his shoulder also let out a cry, its head lowered, staring at the stone slab.
Su Ming didn't continue forward. Instead, he crouched down.
He reached out, carefully brushed aside the fallen leaves on the stone, and gently scraped away the damp moss clinging to it. The stone surface gradually revealed its original form, and the previously blurred patterns emerged.
He stared at them for a moment, and his expression slowly changed.
"They're not carved…"
Su Ming said quietly.
Those patterns didn't look like marks left by an engraving knife.
They were too natural.
So natural that they seemed to have been born within the stone itself, growing together with the slab. The edges had none of the roughness from a knife cut, none of the breaks or stiffness common to engraved marks. Instead, they resembled tree rings or water veins in jade—something formed by heaven and earth itself.