Chapter 3: Water Mansion
Chen Mobai saw the turtle shell and felt a slight pain in the healing wound on his right hand.
Here’s what happened.
Half a month ago, he had just broken through to the fifth level of Qi practice. His superstitious mother was so happy that she took him to their old family temple deep in the mountains to burn incense, hoping for good results in his college entrance exams.
As he was offering the incense, someone pushed him from behind. He stumbled and grabbed a turtle shell placed in front of the deity’s statue to steady himself.
The turtle shell, having been exposed to incense smoke for many years, wasn’t very clean. A sharp edge cut his right hand, causing an infection. He was so weak he could barely stand and had to be hospitalized for half a month.
Upset that her beloved son had to be hospitalized, his mother argued vehemently with the monk who ran the temple, hoping to get a refund for the 188 points of charitable deeds she had donated.
The monk, however, was not easy to deal with, possibly because the temple was very poor. No matter how much Chen Mobai’s mother protested, he wouldn’t refund the donation but compensated with two talismans for warding off evil spirits.
In the end, the monk relented a bit, allowing Chen Mobai’s angry mother to take the turtle shell, intending to burn it to dispel bad luck.
But the shell still hasn’t been burned.
Open fires were banned in the city, and all unused resources had to be recycled and buried by geomancers to maintain the generation cycle of spiritual energy on the planet.
Only companies with approved licenses for alchemy and artifact-making were allowed to use fire.
Chen Mobai rolled his eyes and got up, intending to throw the shell into the trash, hoping the geomancers would bury it tomorrow.
But as soon as he touched the shell, a silver light flashed.
Caught off guard, Chen Mobai was enveloped in the silver light and disappeared from his room.
…
He didn’t know how long had passed.
Chen Mobai’s consciousness returned, and he slowly stood up.
Looking around, he realized he was no longer in his room but in a mysterious cave mansion.
He couldn’t tell where this cave mansion was, but one thing was certain: he was underwater.
Looking up, he saw a blue expanse.
The cave mansion was surrounded by a thin, semi-elliptical light shield, with fish and crabs bouncing off like they hit rubber.
After waiting for about ten minutes and still no sign of any senior expert, Chen Mobai began to explore.
The cave mansion was indeed small. Besides the main hall where he stood, there were three side halls.
The middle hall seemed to be a cultivation room, and Chen Mobai didn’t know if anyone was inside. He took a wooden armor talisman from his pocket, a life-saving talisman.
A first-grade medium-level talisman capable of withstanding attacks from a sixth-level Qi practitioner.
Feeling somewhat secure with the talisman in hand, he placed a coin on the ground and rolled it toward the side hall door.
As the coin reached the door, a blue electric light flashed, vaporizing the coin into a mist.
Seeing this, Chen Mobai was distressed.
The one-yuan coin was worth one point of charitable deeds.
Made by fusing dried spirit stones with other minerals and metals, it contained one point of spiritual energy for authenticity and was the basic currency unit of their planet.
Chen Mobai only got five yuan a week as pocket money, carefully earning 80 points of charitable deeds from cutting talisman paper.
Losing a coin made him hesitant.
After waiting a while and seeing no movement from the triggered restriction, Chen Mobai couldn’t resist. He rolled coins toward the other two side halls.
Two different sounds and light effects caught his attention.
The restriction on the left side hall door, like the middle hall, vaporized the coin with a blue electric flash.
But the restriction on the right side hall door manifested a blue ripple, pushing the coin back.
Chen Mobai stepped aside to avoid the returning coin. He picked it up after confirming it wasn’t affected by the restriction.
He approached the right side hall door, cautiously testing a few times before confirming the restriction wasn’t harmful and trying to break it.
But without talismans for breaking restrictions and only basic inner energy skills taught at school, he struggled.
Regretting not buying the ‘Water Sword Talisman’ he’d been eyeing, which cost 30 points, Chen Mobai tried in vain to break the water ripple restriction.
12Considering the strength of the restriction and his talisman’s power, he figured the ‘Water Sword Talisman’ would have sufficed.
Exhausting all his knowledge and seeing no alternative, Chen Mobai returned to the main hall and sat on the central array base to meditate and recover his energy.
“What’s this?”
To his surprise, his phone showed a spiritual energy reading of 60.
“This is a second-grade medium-level spiritual vein.”
Alarmed, Chen Mobai realized this cave mansion belonged to a wealthy family or a high-level practitioner. If caught by the owner, he’d be in trouble.
“How did I get here? The turtle shell…”
Remembering the shell, Chen Mobai searched the cave mansion but found no sign of it.
“What do I tell my parents?”
With his parents about to return from work, Chen Mobai resorted to dialing 110, hoping the sect’s law enforcement would locate his phone and rescue him.
