Chapter Ninety-Eight: The Dark Art of Prolonging Life

A large contingent of soldiers surged in from outside, hauled everything out, and then searched every corner with painstaking care.

In the end, the cellar was left empty. Their initial sweep uncovered no hidden compartments. It was now all but certain that no physical secret chamber existed.

“Report, sir. We have inspected every area, and no abnormalities have been found.” The soldier saluted.

“No abnormalities? Then I was wrong?” Qin Le stroked his chin, then turned to glance at Amoia.

Her exquisite features did not change in the slightest; she looked as though the matter had nothing to do with her.

Could he really have been overthinking it?

Qin Le asked, “Amoia, is there any hidden compartment or concealed room here?”

“No. How could there be some so-called hidden room? It’s just an ordinary cellar.” Amoia answered firmly. “I told you ages ago, there was nothing worth seeing.”

Her resolute attitude only deepened Qin Le’s suspicion. From what he knew of this elf, she was not the sort to do anything without profit. How could she possibly have come merely to tour this shabby little castle?

Suddenly, an idea struck him. He took a gold coin from his pocket and said, “Miss Amoia, I need a favor.”

“What is it?” Amoia looked at him warily, her whole being on guard.

From experience, she knew that whenever Qin Le smiled, nothing good came of it. Especially when he used such polite terms with her; he must be plotting something again.

No matter what he said, she must not agree.

The elf repeated that resolve to herself several times, certain that her will was iron.

“Help me inspect this place. Spend ten seconds on every spot.” Qin Le smiled, the gleaming coin rolling between his fingers.

Amoia’s emerald eyes could not help following the motion of the coin. She resisted the temptation and shook her head.

“Don’t rush to refuse. Think about it: this room isn’t that big. If you stay ten seconds at each place, you’ll finish in about ten minutes. Ten minutes for one gold coin is practically the same as picking money off the ground.”

Qin Le’s voice was like the devil’s whisper, and it succeeded in breaking through the elf’s supposedly unshakable resolve.

That did make sense. Ten minutes for one gold coin? Wasn’t that just picking up money?

One time only...

“This is what you said.” Amoia began pacing through the cellar.

Ten minutes later, Amoia finished her inspection and received her gold coin as promised.

Holding the coin, Amoia looked momentarily dazed, then fixed Qin Le with the gaze one reserved for a fool with more money than sense.

This guy’s money was really easy to earn.

The thought had only just formed when she saw the fool’s unkind smile, and a sense of foreboding rose in her heart.

Qin Le followed the path Amoia had just taken and walked it again.

“Here, here, and here—pay special attention to these three places.”

Those were the spots where Amoia had lingered the longest, the shortest, and exactly ten seconds to the very moment.

“Yes, sir.”

Seeing that Qin Le had pointed out three places, Amoia realized she had been tricked. This bastard really did have a black heart; not a single word out of him could be trusted.

The soldiers carefully inspected the three locations, but still found nothing unusual. After a brief discussion, two of them left the cellar.

Amoia let out a sincere breath of relief.

“Miss Amoia, it seems I wronged you.” Qin Le said quietly.

“Of course. How could I, Amoia, possibly lie?” Amoia had only just spoken when her expression froze.

The two soldiers who had just gone out returned to the cellar, now carrying a hammer drill, an electric cutter, and an iron mallet.

Amoia could not help blurting out, “What are you doing?”

“We’re removing the stone slabs to see whether there’s a hidden compartment or something like it.” The soldier answered.

The castle’s framework was built from massive stone blocks, each about twelve inches square. The structure of these stones was extraordinarily hard and stable, with strength meeting the anti-bombing standards for surface buildings. If a hidden compartment really existed, the most direct and brutal method would be to tear the thing open.

Amoia took half a step back, suddenly feeling that the skill she had once been so proud of was already obsolete.

The soldiers acted at once, hauling in a diesel generator. As its roar filled the room, the entire cellar became a construction site.

At that moment, a burly man nearly two meters tall, covered in muscle and dressed in tactical gear with a fierce look on his face, walked in and came straight to Qin Le’s side, snapping to attention with a crisp salute.

“Sir, Commander Fishhead would like to invite you over.”

Qin Le asked, “What’s the matter?”

He was here in name to inspect the front lines, but in truth he had come to open the gate for a resupply run and accelerate construction. Command authority still rested with the staff council, so most matters would not be reported to him unless they were truly important.

The scout replied, “While examining the bodies, the viscount of this town showed signs of mutation. The corpse began decaying at an extremely rapid rate.”

Qin Le’s expression turned grave at once. “Take me to see it now.”

With that, Qin Le grabbed Amoia by the hood and dragged the elf toward the cellar entrance.

“Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing? Don’t pull, you’re hitting my ears!” Amoia looked utterly confused and began struggling.

But her strength was nowhere near Qin Le’s. A mighty expert of the upper third tier was somehow no match for an entry-level transcendent in brute force. She was, to put it bluntly, a disgrace to the transcendent world.

“Working hours.” Qin Le gave a brief explanation, then asked, “What do you think this is?”

Amoia’s form flickered and vanished from where she stood. A moment later she stepped back out of the air, adjusting her hood as she said, “I’m not a god. I’ll only know once I see it on site. But from what you described, a corpse decaying that quickly is obviously nothing good.”

“A cultist?” Qin Le guessed.

Amoia rolled her eyes and said with some exasperation, “There aren’t that many cultists. In my opinion, these human nobles are the ones constantly messing around. On the surface they claim to be noble and elegant, but in secret they’re dirtier than anyone else. It’s perfectly normal for them to dabble in all kinds of crooked tricks.”

“Especially in borderlands like this, near the Death Marsh and beyond the Church’s supervision, eight out of ten nobles are playing with dark arts. Otherwise they wouldn’t come to such a godforsaken place. Of course, some of them do dirty work for greater nobles. If they need human lives to make something, they certainly can’t do it in a prosperous city; the Church and the Hunter Guild would notice.”

For nobles to dabble in forbidden arts was nothing new. Everyone more or less turned a blind eye. For the nobility, such things might be useful to them someday, and cracking down too hard would only harm their own interests.

With the Sword of Dawn in the Dawn Kingdom, conditions were already far better than elsewhere; at least no one dared act openly.

They left the castle and, led by the scout, made their way to where the bodies were being handled. Before they had even entered, a nauseating stench had already reached them.

Inside the largest tent in the center, a temporary sterile chamber had been assembled using a special transparent adhesive film.

A number of people in protective suits stood within it, gathered around a mass of rotten flesh on the operating table. Two of them held cameras and kept taking pictures without pause.

By now, the corpse was rotting at a rate visible to the naked eye. Its skin had completely broken down, exposing muscle fibers beneath. One eye socket was hollow, and part of the internal organs had already melted into bloody sludge.

Qin Le’s brows furrowed deeply. This corpse was indeed highly abnormal, not only because of its astonishing rate of decay, but also because of that strange stench.

How could such a smell emerge from a fully sealed space?

Fishhead emerged from the sterile chamber with a camera in hand and saluted sharply. “Sir.”

“How is it? Have you found anything?” Qin Le asked.

Fishhead removed his mask, turned slightly, and pointed at the pile of rotten flesh inside. “As you said, the corpse is decaying at a rate visible to the naked eye. We can’t study it fast enough; all we can do is keep recording the changes. Also, the corpse gives off a bizarre stench, and it does not seem to spread through the air.”

Qin Le habitually shifted his gaze to Amoia. At that moment, she had already extended a pale hand toward him.

He took out a gold coin and placed it in her palm.

After all, the money came from the state. A few gold coins were nothing more than a drop in the ocean for Xuanlu.

Having been paid, the elf dutifully began to explain. “I’ve seen this in a book in the elves’ library before. It’s a kind of sorcery that prolongs life. It has many names: the Art of Longevity, Holy Spirit Baptism... These names sound very pleasant, but in truth it’s just a crooked path—using human lives to prolong one’s own...”

Before Amoia could finish, Qin Le covered her mouth.

His gaze swept through the tent. Because of that inexplicable stench, only he, Fishhead, Amoia, and Orina were present. The others were inside the sterile chamber, and with the space sealed off, the sound should not have been able to travel in.

Extending one’s lifespan was a Pandora’s box, filled with deadly temptation.

Most important of all, even a mere border noble could make use of it. That meant the method was not difficult; in fact, it might be even simpler than he had imagined.

The allure of a longer life was terrible enough, but the truly lethal thing was its low cost. Xuanlu, after all, was a nation made up of people.

It seemed necessary to bring this up to the teacher without delay.

Qin Le glanced at Fishhead, and Fishhead immediately understood. He turned and stepped out of the tent.

Ten seconds later, he returned, followed by two tall and powerfully built scouts.

“Sir.” The two scouts saluted.

Qin Le asked, “You’re the only ones guarding this place?”

The scouts answered in the affirmative. Yes, only the two of them were on gate duty.

Qin Le let out a breath of relief. Fortunately, it was scouts guarding the place. “You should have heard what was said just now. Without my orders, do not speak of this to anyone.”

“Yes!”

“Return to your post, and without my permission, do not allow anyone else to enter.”

“Yes!” The scouts saluted again and left the tent.

“What are you doing? Why are you being so secretive?” Amoia asked in confusion.

Wasn’t it just a sorcery that could extend life a little? Did it really call for this much tension? It was not even rare; one could buy such things at any black market.

And at best it only extended life by ten years. In the blink of an eye, that would be gone anyway. It was hardly worth mentioning compared with becoming a third-tier transcendent.