Chapter 4: Tomb Raider

I woke up the next morning, and for a moment I felt a sense of panic when I realized that I didn't know where I was. Then my memories came back to me and I calmed down. Mu Rong Shu and I had set up camp near the entrance of the tomb we were supposed to explore.

"You're finally awake." I blinked and put my glasses on, only to catch sight of Mu Rong Shu sitting next to me, her sleeping bag already rolled up and kept.

"How long have you been up for?" I asked, feeling a little guilty. "You could have woken me up."

"Nah, there's no need to. I'm a light sleeper." Mu Rong Shu waved my apologies away. "I'm not used to sleeping long hours when outside. Once I got up, I couldn't go back to sleep. I've been trained in similar operations when I was young, so I'm built differently. So don't worry about it."

"All right. Let's get some breakfast and we will get going."

After packing up and eating some rations, the both of us proceeded deeper into the tomb. To our lack of surprise, the interior of the tomb was sufficiently lit. There weren't electrical lights or burning torches, but the smooth stone corridors were illuminated by glowing spirit crystals that were embedded into the walls like accessories or decorations.

I summoned my war spirit and had him drift ahead to check for any traps. Being made of spiritual qi, he was sort of like a ghost and thus more impervious to physical harm that Mu Rong Shu and I were. That didn't mean he couldn't be destroyed, but as long as I was alive, he was effectively immortal. I could spend my qi to regenerate him.

Wait, that sounded familiar. It almost made me sound like some Shadow Monarch from a story where only the protagonist could level up…

Twirling his spear about, my war spirit destroyed traps. He obliterated a series of blades that hung from the ceiling, ready to swing down and perforate whatever explorer unfortunate enough to step onto the trap. He sourced out pits and removed the spikes from the bottom. He even destroyed a gigantic boulder that was meant to crush passers-by if they accidentally stepped on a pressure plate. Then he wrecked a bunch of crossbows that were aiming at the tight corridors, ensuring they wouldn't be able to fire their arrows.

Having a war spirit was so convenient.

"What's with all these cliché traps, though?" I grumbled. "This is a cultivator world. I was expecting spirit arrays and esoteric formations. But they are using cliché traps right out from an Indiana Jones movie."

"You should remain on your guard," Mu Rong Shu warned. "These cliché traps might just be a diversion from the real ones."

"Oh, okay." I transmitted a mental command to my war spirit to make sure he knew that. To my surprise, there weren't any spirit formations and killing arrays defending the tomb. Come to think of it, we found no treasures or relics so far, so that made sense.

The treasures and relics would be protected by powerful killing arrays and spirit formations. Of that I had no doubt. These cliché traps were just a teaser, probably to make us lower our guard like Mu Rong Shu said.

"Still, this is actually a nice change of pace," Mu Rong Shu said, stretching her arms as she walked beside me. Despite her relaxed expression, I could tell that she was subtly but cautiously eying her surroundings and watching for traps. As an assassin, she was better than me in that regard. She smiled. "I enjoy exploring tombs with you more than assassinations."

"You don't have to be an assassin if you don't want to," I assured her. "You haven't been one for ages now. You can be an explorer like me!"

With the emergence of tombs, the vocation "explorer" had become quite prevalent. People like me were hired to explore the tombs and recover lost relics and spirit treasures dating from the ancient past. Given the thinning of qi in the environment and growing scarcity of cultivation resources, many people were willing to pay a high price for treasures that still had very pure spiritual qi and could help with their cultivation.

Mu Rong Lao was one of them.

Strangely enough, many of these tombs were erected around ancient cultivator emperors and lords who stubbornly hung onto their worldly possessions and material belongings even after death, hoarding their treasures, relics and techniques to themselves and refusing to share them with anyone. They would construct these tombs to zealously guard their belongings, setting up traps and spirit arrays to kill anyone bold enough to steal from them after death. Apparently they also held onto the belief that they would either come back to life in the far future and could thus reclaim their treasures immediately, or that if they buried their material objects with them, these things would follow them to whatever afterlife they ascended to.

Thus far, I had never heard of anyone coming back to life from the dead. As far as I knew, once you were dead, you were dead. There was no technique or treasure in existence that could bring the dead back to life. As if such a convenient thing would exist. Moreover, most people who raided tombs – like me – would discover that the corpses of these long-dead emperors and generals had long rotted away, reduced to dust after eons. Sometimes you would see bones, but most of the time even their skeletons would have decomposed after so long.

Ironically, the whole point of cultivation was to extend one's lifespan indefinitely, and many of these cultivators had lived for centuries, if not millennia. But even they couldn't escape death eventually.

"Explorer, huh?" Mu Rong Shu mused. Then she shook her head and giggled. "No thanks. I would like to become a musician instead. Maybe we'll find an instrument among the treasures."

"That would be cool." I nodded thoughtfully, remembering something. "Don't you have a concert at the weekend?"

"That's right. You had better be there."

"Oh, I will." I nodded. Honestly, I wasn't that interested in music, but my wife was one of those invited to perform in the concert at the Yin Yue Auditorium. After quitting the profession of assassin three years ago and marrying me, she had begun to learn the erhu and guqin instead, focusing her energies on music instead of the killing arts. "You supported me in my endeavor, so it's my turn to cheer for you. I wouldn't miss your concert for anything."

Mu Rong Shu was about to say something, but I stopped her with one hand suddenly, peering into the darkness. Despite the corridor being mostly illuminated, there were still pockets of darkness here and there, and honestly, the spirit crystals weren't very bright. Shadows continued to dance at the edge of our vision, seeming to hide creatures beyond our comprehension.

"Wraiths," I whispered. "Be careful."

My war spirit was already on a war footing, his spear raised and pointed toward the spectral beings that lurked in the shadows. Ghostly figures emerged from the darkness, swarming toward us. The first wave was mercilessly cut down by my war spirit, his great spear cleaving through huge numbers of them and dissipating them into gray wisps of yin energies.

Both Mu Rong Shu and I moved forward. Unlike the clumsy, staggering movements of the wraiths, we moved gracefully, our motions sharp and precise. Our hands slammed into the nearly intangible figures, the qi wreathing our bodies allowing us to mortally wound the otherwise slippery spectral existences. The gray, featureless phantoms burst apart with sick moans, the wisps of yin qi swirling harmlessly around us.

Individually, they posed no threat to us, but they came in such numbers that they almost overwhelmed us. However, I refused to back down. With a glance at my war spirit, I plotted my next move.

Spinning his great spear above his non-existent head, my war spirit resembled almost a whirlwind, the massive weapon cutting through the hordes of wraiths effortlessly. In a single, deft stroke, he slammed the blade of the spear against the ground, generating an incredible shockwave that washed over the corridor, ripping the poor wraiths apart in an instant.

I grabbed Mu Rong Shu and raised a hand, shielding us with a gigantic yin-yang symbol. The black and white circle cracked a little, but it otherwise weathered the immense attack. The wraiths on either side of us were blown to bits, and my wife wasted no time finishing them off. While she pressed on with the attack, I covered her back.

That was how we worked together – my wife spearheading the offense while I was in charge of the defense.

"I feel sorry for them," Mu Rong Shu remarked as she stomped on one last wraith, erasing the poor soul from existence. I nodded sympathetically.

Wraiths were remnants of deceased explorers, their spirits damned to wander the corridors of the tomb forever. These large, complex tombs were usually covered by an enormous spirit array that bound the souls of the dead to its interior through a curse. Anyone who died within the interior of the tomb was condemned to serve as its ghostly guards for eternity (or as long as the tomb endured, anyway). The only bright spot was that they lost all semblance of self and sentience and were not aware of their suffering.

We didn't feel any guilt for killing them, but we did feel pity for them. Nonetheless, by killing them, we freed their imprisoned souls from suffering and imprisonment. So we were actually doing them a favor.

This was one of the reasons why explorer was a highly risky vocation. You didn't just risk losing your life – even after death, your spirit was forever trapped here, awaiting release via being killed by a cultivator. Trying to imagine that sort of grisly fate sent a cold shudder down my spine. I shook my head, trying not to think too much about it.

On the other hand, Mu Rong Shu was quick to move on. Perhaps it had something to do with her being a former assassin. But she was already moving past my war spirit to check on the passage where the wraiths came from.

"If there are wraiths here, then the central chamber must be nearby."

"Yeah." I made to follow her, but I paused for a moment to check on my war spirit. He was currently drawing all the yin qi to himself and I could see him expanding. Killing ghost-like entities was beneficial for him. It was also one of the reasons why I explored tombs whenever I had a chance. Of course, tombs weren't something that conveniently popped up whenever you wanted one to, so it wasn't as if I could grind by hunting down whatever wraiths I could in whatever tombs. Wraiths also were finite, so once I killed them all, it wasn't as if they were going to magically respawn.

Like I said, once you were dead, you were dead. There was no technique or treasure in the world that could resurrect you.

"Wait a second for my war spirit to absorb all this qi," I called out to Mu Rong Shu. She nodded understandingly and came to a halt, looking sheepish.

"Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot about that. All this yin energy would be extremely beneficial to your war spirit's growth, right?"

"Yeah." My war spirit was made of the same type of spiritual qi as these wraiths, so absorbing them would only help him grow stronger. I could see him slightly grow, with several parts of his body slowly being restored. His left arm had more armor now and I could see his abdomen. At this rate he would get legs soon.

"You know what, I'll scout ahead and check for any traps before returning here. Take your time." Mu Rong Shu was a little restless. Before I could protest, she was gone in the shadows, her speed as impressive as ever. I shook my head before calling out to her.

"Be careful!"

Knowing my wife, that was exactly what she would be.