Kiso turned around to face the two of them, reaching a hand into his clothes with a crafty smile on his face.

Chapter Twenty Two –

Julian watched as Kiso reached into his clothes and pulled a rolled piece of parchment out.

“This is…” Julian’s face couldn’t help but change. He knew the ancient artifact was a string bound roll of parchment, although he hadn’t mentioned it to Kiso and Yuni.

Kiso carefully watched Julian’s reaction when he took out the parchment. When he saw the obvious excitement on the prince’s face he quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

“Since you seem to know what this is already, I’ll save you the guessing game. From your reaction this is probably the artifact you previously mentioned.” Kiso carefully knelt down, unrolling the parchment and pressing it open on the floor.

As the map came into view, Julian’s face brightened for a moment only to be quickly replaced by a frown a second later.

“Kiso…What…Did you do?” Julian’s voice trembled causing Kiso to look down at the parchment.

What had previously been been an illustration of the Sangrad Mountains, was now completely blank.

“Ah? That’s odd, it was a map of the Sangrad Mountains last time I checked..” Kiso was surprised but not nearly as agitated as Julian.

“I wonder where the ink went?” Yuni wondered aloud, equally indifferent.

Kiso took out his vial and opened it to inspect the inside, only to discover it was still empty.

Seeing Kiso open the vial, Julian raised an eyebrow, “Just now that ‘ink’ seeped through the parchment, disappearing. Don’t tell me you two poured the liquid in the vial onto the artifact?”

Kiso hesitated for a moment, then nodded, “Right, after we poured the ink from the vial onto the parchment, it became a map of the Sangrad Mountains, which led us here. That’s a good thing right?”

Julian chuckled with a bit of difficultly before saying, “I suppose it couldn’t be helped, you two didn’t know better.

Actually, ‘the parchment’ written on the side of the vial, refers to an ordinary piece of parchment. The creator of the tower above never possessed the artifact, so he was probably just careless in his description.

In other words, no matter which piece of parchment you poured that liquid on, it still would have become a map.”

When Julian finished speaking, both Kiso and Yuni’s mouths were open.

“If he never possessed the artifact, why would he bother to seal this place off with such an elaborate defensive formation?” Yuni couldn’t help but ask.

Julian pondered for a moment, then guessed, “Well, he probably stumbled across this place by accident and sensed the powerful spiritual pressure within the cavern. The man was most likely a powerful expert in formations, yet finding the hidden technique absolutely requires the artifact. Since he could sense the cavern’s profound energy yet couldn’t find anything extraordinary on his own, he probably just created the tower to seal it off while he went to search for more information regarding its contents.

As for why he made so many ‘keys’…Let’s see.. Maybe he spent his lifetime searching for the information to no avail, thus made several keys leading to its location in hopes someone might be able to unlock its secrets.”

Kiso nodded, it was a fairly good guess.

After nodding, Kiso’s brows furrowed and he said, “There’s still one thing I’m not clear on in that case. I originally thought that the ink and parchment I possessed to be two parts of the same artifact. Yet your information falsifies that.

So then I ask you, how do you know that this parchment isn’t just another piece of regular parchment?” Kiso was actually rather nervous about this point.

Julian just smiled, pointing towards the parchment.

Following his finger, Kiso looked down. Actually, he was pointing to the string laying on the ground beside the parchment.

“Kiso, don’t tell me you are unaware what kind of string that is?” Julian’s tone suggested Kiso should know, yet he didn’t.

Shaking his head Kiso said, “Although I can feel the spiritual pressure it contains, I don’t know..”

Julian smiled and suggested, “Kiso, pour some spiritual pressure into that string.”

Picking up the string, Kiso sent a small thread of spiritual pressure into the string. Tiny black sparks, representing Kiso’s spiritual pressure, flowed along the string, causing it to twist and bend. After several tens of seconds, the string had completely changed shape. From a loose string used to tie parchment, it became a stiff object.

That object, was a key!

Nodding, Julian said, “As I thought. The thread used in that string is one of a kind. Actually, rather then thread I should say that string is made of hair!

After centuries, how could strands of hair still contain spiritual pressure?

There’s only one explanation, it’s the hair of a god!”

“Ah!” Kiso connected the dots as well, it all suddenly made sense.

Yuni’s mind was still focused on the goal and their conversation at the moment was simply a means to an end. She impatiently inquired, “So, now that we know we have artifact, how do we find the hidden technique?”

Julian smiled, “Simple! Follow me.” Julian turned while motioning for them to follow.

Julian led them across several long stone bridges connecting the islands toward a particularly well lit corner of the cavern.

When they reached the corner, Kiso and Yuni’s eyes sparkled.

Tiny little insects harmlessly floated around emitting a faint blue glow. In this corner of the cavern, several thousands of them gathered surrounding a magnificent alter. Carved from a beautifully smooth jade stone, the alter had several jade steps curved in a half moon leading up to a platform. Atop the alter was a pedestal which had a square imprint in the center with a small hole above it.

Yuni couldn’t hold back and started to excitedly dash towards the pedestal when Julian suddenly shouted, “Stop!”

Nearly tumbling forward, Yuni balanced herself before spinning around to pout, “What is it now? We’re one step away, don’t you want to see what this entire thing is all about?!”

Her words caught the support of Kiso as he glanced towards Julian, waiting for an answer.

Julian breathed a sigh of relief, “Yuni, look at the ground in front of you. Read what it says and you’ll thank me.”

Yuni glanced at a small metallic plate embedded in the jade stage below her feet.

The plate read: Yuka’s Alter of Divine Wind, WARNING – If you are below the fifth stage of spiritual pressure, do not proceed as your body will wither and perish from my alter’s protective formation.

Yuni tilted her head curiously as she turned back to Julian, “How are you supposed to know what stage of spiritual pressure you possess?”

Julian’s smug smile instantly disappeared as he mouth dropped.

“You..You don’t even know that much?” Julian shook his head, he had thought these two were experts based on Kiso’s spiritual pressure display earlier.

Kiso frowned, he had actually heard a little bit about the stages of spiritual pressure from Elder Sage. That information was in name only though. Elder Sage had purposely neglected to elaborate, stating that it was irrelevant and he should just focus on cultivating.

“Julian, just consider us two a couple of country bumpkins who are ignorant to what color the sky is. We truly have no idea how to assess spiritual pressure stages.” Kiso answered for Yuni.

“I see..” Julian’s mocking expression withered as he held out his palm materializing a fist-sized clear crystal.

“This is something any spiritual pressure cultivator should know about.. It’s called a Stage Crystal.

When a cultivator pours spiritual pressure into this crystal, it will change color. That color represents what stage of spiritual pressure your at. You can even tell how far along the stage your are based on the intensity of the color.”

Yuni’s eyes sparkled as she sent a mental message to Kiso, “Kiso, it’s just like the Black Thunder Pillar at the youth trials! This prince’s name is even the same as the elder back then!”

Kiso nodded, although he suspected the Black Thunder Pillar was a somewhat primitive version. After all, he had cracked it with his spiritual pressure.

Julian continued, “The colors of the stages from one to seven, seven being the greatest, are: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white.

Although there are spiritual pressure stages beyond seven, this crystal cannot handle them and would simply crack under their spiritual pressure.

Here, I’ll give a demonstration.”

Julian’s face became serious as he gather spiritual pressure into his palm, pouring it into the crystal.

Gusts of wind circled around Julian’s palm as the crystal turned bright yellow.

Sighing, Julian gave an awkward smile, “As you can see, I’m at the third stage of spiritual pressure and thus cannot even approach the alter. In fact, when I first entered this cavern I was only at the early third stage. That bright yellow you saw just now represents the late third stage. Being alone all this time I devoted every second to cultivating and barely managed to approach the fourth stage.

Here, give it a try.”

Julian tossed the crystal to Kiso.

Kiso couldn’t help but smile as he clenched the crystal. Gathering spiritual pressure into his palm, black lightning began to dance across the surface of the crystal. A few moments later the crystal turned an extremely bright green.

“As I thought, the color of our lightning represents our spiritual pressure stage as well. Does that mean there are stages beyond black?” Kiso wondered to himself.

If Kiso wasn’t surprised by the result, the same cannot be said for Julian as he stared at the crystal in Kiso’s hand slack-jawed.

“Your actually at the late fourth stage of spiritual pressure! You might be able to break through to the fifth stage within the next few years! It seems we might have some hope of obtaining the hidden technique after all..” Julian’s voice was extremely excited and he had a mixture of respect and relief on his face.

He quickly added, “To be honest, I discovered this alter long ago. After reading the plate, I almost lost hope as I knew my spiritual pressure was at least a decade away from reaching the fifth stage. Who would have thought such a good stroke of luck would float down to meet me…”

As Julian was speaking, Kiso tossed the Stage Crystal to Yuni. Rather then listening to Julian, he was much more interested in learning Yuni’s spiritual pressure stage.

Yuni was equally excited, yet a bit nervous too.

She caught the crystal and immediately poured spiritual pressure into her palm.

Prismatic lightning sparks surrounded the crystal, turning it a dull green.

Just as Julian was finishing up his little speech, his words suddenly cut off and his jaw dropped again. “Heavens! Even Yuni is in the fourth stage?! This senior is truly a failure of a cultivator…Wait, how old are you two exactly?”

Kiso and Yuni’s smiling expressions grew a tinge haughty as Yuni replied, “Although Kiso is a few months older, we’re both fourteen. Actually, Kiso will be turning fifteen in a couple of weeks!”

Julian’s legs gave out as he feel to the ground.

“Geniuses! You two are truly geniuses! Even in my entire empire there are only a handful of cultivators beyond the fourth stage and every one of them are old men or women…Even my father, the number one expert in the northern human province is only at the sixth stage. He’s even been stuck there for centuries..”

Upon reaching the sixth stage of spiritual pressure ones body would stop aging, allowing them to virtually live forever as long as they aren’t killed by someone.

Although there are some special methods to duplicate this effect, they are exceedingly rare and usually require the help of a spiritual beast.

Kiso chuckled and helped Julian to his feet, “Although our spiritual pressure is decent, we’re lacking in several important areas. Even facing someone with less spiritual pressure, as long as their techniques are just a bit more powerful we would surely loose.”

Julian calmed down and agreed, “That’s true, spiritual pressure stages are just a general gauge of ones strength. Techniques can easily make up for a gap in even several stages of spiritual pressure during battle.”

Yuni frowned and nodded as well. Their recent battle against Danstun was still very fresh on their minds.

Taking a deep breath, Kiso announced, “Anyway, since we know what we lack and have limited rations, let’s not waste any time.”

Kiso and Yuni both immediately lowered their bodies into the meditative position, not bothering to change locations.

Julian was startled, he still had a few things he wanted to ask these two, yet Kiso’s words were ones he could not refute.

Sighing inwardly, Julian helplessly lowered his own body, joining them in cultivation.

To Be Continued!

Feeling merciful this time, so no cliffhanger! No promises for next chapter though..