Yang and his Senior Brothers maintained a tight formation as they moved into the ruins of the city.
The arid desert climate had preserved the ruins remarkably well, in a way that wouldn’t have been possible in damper climates, but there was something unsettling about moving through the half-standing structures regardless.
Senior Brothers Zhen Hao and Yuan Shen took the lead, their eyes scanning every alleyway and shadowed alcove while keeping Yang securely between them.
They peered through the hollow doorways and window frames of the buildings they passed. Most had once been modest dwellings or small shops lining a busy street but now all that remained of the life once before was disintegrated metal, shattered pottery, and the occasional fragment of bone half-buried in the drifting sand.
Senior Brother Yuan Shen crouched beside a sun-bleached bone fragment, pressing a finger against its surface. "Mortal. None of the remains we’ve come across so far belonged to cultivators."
Yang looked at the fragments with curiosity. "How do you actually tell the difference?"
"It is quite simple." Senior Brother Yuan Shen picked up a few pieces and held them out to Yang. "Touch them."
Yang cupped his right hand and let the fragments rest on his palm. He tried to sense anything at all, then extended his spiritual sense toward them.
Nothing.
"Do you feel anything?" Senior Brother Yuan Shen asked.
"No. Not even with my spiritual sense."
"Good. That confirms that these are mortal remains." Senior Brother Yuan Shen stood and dusted the grit from his hands. "If it had been bones of a cultivator or really anyone or anything with some kind of energy you would have felt it on touching it. Death, especially after so long renders most protections null but there is always at least a hint left."
"Unless you stumble upon the remains of a high-level cultivator," Zhen Hao called out from across the room, looking out of what had once been a window. "Then you can feel the energy from a mile away."
“That is an exaggeration,” Senior Brother Yuan Shen said with a roll of his eyes. “Even the bones of an Immortal Ascension cultivator wouldn’t be able to be felt from that far away.” He paused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "At least... I don't think so."
"What makes the bones retain that energy?" Yang asked, bringing them back to the point.
"The bones would still be saturated with energy," Senior Brother Yuan Shen answered as he concentrated back on him. "You understand that a cultivator's qi changes over time, that it begins to carry traces of their techniques and their elemental affinities?"
Yang nodded.
"The stronger the cultivator, the deeper that qi sinks into their skeletal frame. Even if the lingering energy isn't aligned with your own qi, you could still refine a significant portion of it. The yield simply depends on their realm and how long ago they perished."
Yang thought over it. "Is that considered an acceptable practice among orthodox cultivators?"
"Junior Brother," Yuan Shen said in a gently scolding tone, "do not get overly rigid about the line between orthodox and unorthodox. So long as your conscience remains clear and you do not harm the innocent, most things that advance your cultivation are acceptable. Discretion is the true requirement, not abstinence."
"In other words," Zhen Hao added with a helpful grin from the window, "if you happen to put down an evil cultivator, utilizing what they leave behind shouldn’t keep you up at night."
"Zhen Hao is right," Senior Brother Yuan Shen said, adopting a righteous expression, “I would go so far as to say it's practically charity. It will give the evil cultivators good karma, using the power you get from them to do good.”
Yang had a feeling the evil cultivators would not appreciate the spirit of generosity that his Senior Brothers wished to bestow upon them.
Senior Brother Yuan Shen then turned back to look at Senior Brother Zhen Hao, who had still not moved from the window. "Have you found something? You have been at that window for a long time and no matter how much I try I cannot sense any lady cultivators outside."
Senior Brother Zhen Hao shot back a deadpan look before answering the first question "Not exactly. But have you noticed that every place we have entered so far has its largest window facing the temple?"
Senior Brother Yuan Shen came to stand beside him and looked. "I had not paid attention to it. But you are right. Every window and doorway we have passed that could be oriented seems to face that direction." He studied the line of sight. "It must have been a very significant structure to the people who lived here."
"That much was obvious from how it compared to the rest of the city," Senior Brother Zhen Hao said. "But having every residence oriented toward it suggests something beyond simple importance. This was devotion and worship."
They left the room and continued through the city, moving further from the altar. The pattern Senior Brother Zhen Hao had identified held as they went. Every building they entered, whatever its original purpose, had its largest window facing the direction of the temple.
The notable find came from Senior Brother Yuan Shen, who found a clay tablet in relatively good condition in one of the larger rooms. He examined it carefully before touching it, then held it up. Yang moved closer and looked over his shoulder at the writing.
"Can you read any of it?" Yang asked, looking over Senior Brother Yuan Shen's shoulder.
The writing on the tablet was different from the primordial script on the temple.
"No," Senior Brother Yuan Shen said. "But that is what storage rings are for." He placed the tablet in his ring.
"Keeping junk?" Senior Brother Zhen Hao teased.
"Chen Yang," Senior Brother Yuan Shen said, ignoring his brother completely, "do not listen to him. You can never predict when an oddity will prove useful. We are pursuing immortality. A century or even a millennium from now, something picked up today might answer a question you haven't even thought to ask yet. If it piques your interest and you have the space, take it. Storage rings exist so space is never an issue. If one fills up, simply buy another.”
Yang already shared that philosophy, so he offered a quick nod.
They spent hours moving through the ruins. The buildings grew larger and more substantial as they moved toward what appeared to have been the more prosperous section of the city. The walls here were better preserved, the rooms larger, the remaining details suggesting a different quality of life from the outer sections.
Senior Brother Zhen Hao's voice echoed from another room. "Come and look at this."
Yang and Senior Brother Yuan Shen walked over to the room where Senior Brother Zhen Hao was standing. Before him was a set of sandstone stairs leading downward into darkness.
"Perhaps we should inform Senior Brother Fan Xiao and the others before we enter." Yang asked.
"We might as well look since we are here," Senior Brother Zhen Hao said, dismissing the idea. "We will call the others if we find something important."
Senior Brother Yuan Shen looked uncertain and shook his head slightly.
"Live a little," Senior Brother Zhen Hao urged. "Senior Brother Fan Xiao already cleared the area."
"Zhen Hao," Senior Brother Yuan Shen said flatly, "you know very well that what he performed was just a general sweep. Hidden spaces, sealed chambers, anything behind strong shielding would not necessarily have registered."
Senior Brother Zhen Hao had already reached the middle of the stairs and didn’t seem interested in stopping, merely shouting "We are both Golden Core cultivators.” over his shoulder as he continued climbing down.
Senior Brother Yuan Shen sighed, turning to Yang. "Stay right in front of me. I want you safely in the middle."
Yang followed Senior Brother Zhen Hao down, with Senior Brother Yuan Shen behind him.
The staircase plunged far deeper than it appeared from above. Senior Brother Zhen Hao summoned floating spheres of soft light that drifted alongside them, pushing back the darkness. The walls flanking the stairs were carved with primordial script. It was actually the first time Yang had seen the ancient text outside the temple.
The underground hall they entered was vast, far larger than the compound above ground. The ceilings reached high overhead, and as they pressed further into the darkness, the chambers grew increasingly grand. Whatever purpose this underground complex had served, it was clearly of far greater importance than the structure built above this chamber.
"This was no ordinary residence." Senior Brother Zhen Hao observed, his voice echoing lightly off the sandstone.
Yang trailed along a wall, following the line of carved text. As he turned a sharp corner into a smaller side chamber, the text engravings abruptly ended, giving way to something entirely different.
A mural.
It covered the entire span of the far wall from floor to ceiling, rendered in brilliant colours rather than carved stone. Though it was faded and chipped in many places, most of it remained understandable.
Yang recognized the temple instantly. Painted at the topmost section of the artwork was the unmistakable temple they had landed on. Below it, vast crowds of painted figures were depicted kneeling with their faces upturned in worship towards it.
He moved along the wall, following the sequence of the mural. The next panel depicted a woman being prepared by attendants, washed, dressed in rich garments, and adorned with precious jewels. In the subsequent scene, the same woman was carried up the temple steps on an elaborate palanquin by slaves wearing thick collars. At the peak of the altar, a ritual seemed underway; though the finer details had faded with time, the solemn nature of the ceremony was clear.
Yang studied each panel carefully, committing every visual detail to memory until he reached the final section of the mural.
He stared at the final image for a long, silent moment.
"I really think we need to call Senior Brother Fan Xiao and the others," Yang said quietly, his eyes fixed on the wall.