Tang Li Xue used her [Swap] skill to exchange her location with her perfect copy again.

She decided to let her perfect copy chat with those people in the center hall, while she met again with Yaya and the white-colored Wind Riding Bird.

Tang Li Xue unsummoned her martial soul, the [Golden Winged Serpent], and stored the white-colored Wind Riding Bird back into her space pouch before taking out the communication talisman to contact Instructor Mei Lan.

But it seems the golden barrier also made any people inside it unable to use any form of communication to contact any people outside the barrier, so Tang Li Xue could not contact Instructor Mei Lan too at this moment.

'Sigh… Looks like I must wait for them to lift the golden protection barrier before I can contact Instructor Lan… I have no other task to do for now. I can use this free time to look around this Lin Family's palace. Perhaps it can be useful for me later if I know more about this place.' Tang Li Xue decided in her mind.

Of course, Tang Li Xue also did not want anyone to see her here when her perfect copy was still in the center hall, so she activated her [Ethereal Form] before leisurely looking around the Lin Family's place with Yaya and Little Loki.

After more than one hour of walking all over the place inside the golden barrier, Tang Li Xue more or less knew every corner of this Lin Family's place.

Of course, her perfect copy also did not remain idle in this one hour. Her perfect copy chatted with some people in the center hall, trying to find the whereabouts of the half Ancient Martial Art Manual in this Lin Family's place.

Unfortunately, all the people in the center hall were really tight-lipped, so Tang Li Xue's perfect copy still has not managed to find any information about it.

Meanwhile, the real Tang Li Xue subconsciously walked back toward the old looking temple again. She already looked around this place before but failed to find anything worth her notice.

"This place is really strange! There is clearly nothing here, but why is this place guarded so tightly by many armored guards?" Tang Li Xue frowned and murmured while in deep thought.

With her [Ethereal Form], Tang Li Xue easily passed through the locked door without being detected by any guard, then she stealthy slipped inside the old looking temple again.

The interior of the old temple looked simple. 

The lighting in the old temple was also quite dim since there were only several candles used to illuminate the temple's interior.

There were several warrior statues with different poses lined neatly on the left and right sides. 

There was also a big altar in the front with several plaques placed in that altar.

The atmosphere seems really eerie, but that was all. There was nothing strange in this temple at all.

Even after Tang Li Xue searched around repeatedly for so many times, she still failed to find anything suspicious.

Tang Li Xue frowned deeper. 

She closed her eyes and pondered for a while. 

Her sharp nose felt really uncomfortable because the smell of incense inside here was too thick.

"Eh… Wait a minute… I already sniffed the smell of incense before, but the scent should not be as thick and annoying as this! It seems like… they are trying to use this smell of incense to cover something!" Tang Li Xue murmured and widened her eyes as she realized this.

Tang Li Xue did not hesitate to push her [Extrasensory Perception] to maximum!

Her [Extrasensory Perception] still failed to find anything, but it managed to detect the faint scent hidden by the smell of incense!

"This is… the smell of blood?! The smell is really faint, but… I am sure this is the smell of blood. If I trace it back to the source of this smell… I should be able to find something useful, right?" Tang Li Xue smirked as she tried to use her [Extrasensory Perception] to find the direction of this blood smell.

It did not take her long to find the source of blood smell was coming from the underground of the old looking temple.

It seems she must trigger some kind of mechanism to open the way to the underground, but Tang Li Xue was too lazy to do that since it was too time-consuming and no one could tell if it was actually a trap or not.

Rather than doing something risky like that, she better used her [Ethereal Form] to passed through the ground and find the hidden way in the underground.

Tang Li Xue found a long dark corridor under the ground. 

At the end of the dark corridor, there was a very long spiral staircase heading deeper into the underground.

The deeper Tang Li Xue entered the underground, the more pungent the smell of blood has become.

When she arrived at the most bottom part of the underground way, not only she smelled the pungent smell of blood, but she also smelled the disgusting smell of rotting corpse here.

If not for the effect of her [Indomitable Will] skill, she would probably already puke out because of the unbearable stink.

"Is this the hidden dungeon to imprison the criminal or their enemies?" Tang Li Xue murmured while looked around the dungeon.

Tang Li Xue also apologized to Yaya and Little Loki first before storing them back into her system pet storage.

Just from the unbearable pungent smell alone, Tang Li Xue could already guess that this place was not a nice place to look at.

That was why she would not let Yaya and Little Loki see it.

…..

There were so many prisons here separated by thick walls and steel doors.

Inside some prisons, there were some dried corpses where the rats started to gnaw on them.

There were also some of the prisoners that remained alive by eating the cockroaches and rats here.

It was so dark here, and Tang Li Xue could only see everything clearly thanks to her [Night Vision] skill.

'It seems there is nothing worth my notice here. I will take a quick look at its interior swiftly before going out. Who knows if they dare to throw me into here later if they know that I am lying to them?! At least I would already know all the routes here, so I can escape quickly from here.' Tang Li Xue thought carefully.

It only took a few minutes for her to reach the deepest part of this dark hidden dungeon.

There was a huge prison here, and there was also a pool of blood in the middle of the prison.

Drip… Drip… Drip… Drip… Drip…

Tang Li Xue had just realized that the blood in the pool actually came from above, so she looked upward.

Her topaz blue pupil was dilated when she saw something so horrible that sent a chill onto her spine.

Even with her [Indomitable Will], Tang Li Xue almost could not hold down her urge to throw up.

Above this huge prison, a huge creature was hanged there with a lot of chains embed deep into its flesh.

It was hard to recognize this huge creature because it only looked like a big lump of meat.

But Tang Li Xue could guess from the shape, that this big lump of meat was actually the female lizard. 

In Tang Li Xue's information, this female lizard was taken by Lin Family as a hostage to be exchanged with the other half of the Ancient Martial Art Manual.

However, it seems Lin Family also given up on the exchange after they heard the news about the thirty flying big lizard heading toward their residence one or two days ago.

So they decided to take every valuable part of this female lizard's body from its body!

They pulled all of its scales to make armors with it.

They also pulled all of its fangs and claws to make weapons with it.

They even skinned its outer layer skin to make clothes, because even without its scales, the lizard race still has a thin layer of skin with beautiful shiny color.

They also took out its pair of eyes as an ingredient to make accessories.

While its tongue, limbs, and tail were also ingredients for rare and delicious delicacies.

As for the reason why they did not kill this female lizard and let it live until now.

It was because the blood from Lizard Race was really valuable since it contained a dragon's blood. Although their dragon bloodline was very thin, but it could be made into many kinds of supplements and life-prolonging elixir.

Lin Family planned to squeeze out every worth from this female lizard by not killing it!

They wrung her blood dry like this, but still feed it with some cheap elixirs. Those cheap elixirs were not enough to cure the fatal wound of this female lizard, but it was enough to let her blood regenerate continuously.

Moreover, the body of the Beast Race was really tenacious, and they were not easy to die unless their head got cut or their beast core was taken, especially Lizard Race because they have the strongest body amongst the Beast Race.

Tang Li Xue felt really sorry for this female lizard.

Maybe... No... The death was definitely much more comfortable to it than live like livestock like this.

'What should I do? Should I just kill her to release her from all of her sufferings?' Tang Li Xue considered it carefully.

This matter was quite important, so Tang Li Xue did not dare to act rashly.