Seph and Sun found themselves in a graveyard after going through the portal.
Tombstones were in front of them in two lines, with a pathway in the middle; each side had six tombstones, and each row had two tombstones next to each other.
On the far side was a much bigger tombstone that looked ominous, surrounded by a halo of black light.
The entire place was lit by the moon in the sky. This was one of the rare times the trial seemed to teleport them to a place that looked so much like the outside world.
In the middle of the tombstone columns on each side, there was some kind of herb. There were three of them on each side.
In the far corners of the graveyard, there were four trees.
Sun gulped his saliva, looking around wide-eyed. This must be one of the scariest places the little monkey had ever been to.
Regardless, Seph was confident in his power at this stage, and he wasn’t worried at all, so he checked his Eye of the Appraiser quest, like he intended, before coming in here.
Quest
Eye of the Appraise Level 3
*Sell Items worth 10000 spirit stones.
*Find 10 secret places.
Progress: 0/10,000
Progress: 2/10
And as he expected back at the workshop, the graveyard counted towards his secret places.
He questioned what else could have counted as the first secret place?
Was it the puzzle room in the trials?
Was it the shortcut in the chase trial track?
Well, it didn’t matter. What matters is that they counted towards his quest. And he also recognized that Sun was the one who found two of the last three possibilities he could think of.
Which makes Sun the one with a good eye for secrets right now.
But this was bound to change, though. Once he finished this quest and got the reward, the reward must be something to do with finding secret places or stashes.
A substantial reward to look forward to.
The young cultivator looked back on what’s in front of him, the graveyard.
This place looked really ominous, one of his favorite horror tales, which he and the other kids in the village used to tell, was horror tales, and they usually included the village’s graveyard, which was on the far west side of the village.
Like the setting sun, our lives will one day set as well.
Seph steeled his resolve for what’s coming. He was about to live, probably a more horrifying version of all the horror tales they've ever told about the village’s graveyard.
The young cultivator walked towards the herbs, and once he was close enough, he used the eye of the appraiser on one of them.
Appraising…
Name: Death Eater Grass.
Type: Ingredients.
Quality: Uncommon.
A unique herb that is rich in Yin energy, used to replenish the Yin energy of a Yin cultivator. A better use for cultivators would be to always make pills instead, for much stronger effects.
Location: Grows in graveyards next to tombstones, where Yin energy is at its highest concentration.
“Looks like we've found our ingredient Sun, this herb might help me replenish my energy, to break into the fourth level of body dismantling, but still let’s be careful. I doubt this will be a walk in the park.”
True to his words, bony hands started coming out of the ground in front of each tombstone. Speak of ill tides and they will always find you.
Seph jumped backwards to make a space between himself and the skeleton warriors coming from underground.
And used the eye of the veteran on the closest skeleton warrior.
Name: Skeleton Warrior.
Class: Skeletal Monster.
Level: 4
There were six warriors, four archers, and two magicians, or so it seemed, since they carried staves.
Was this the burial place for a small army?
Seph took his fighting stance, ready to either rush into this army or get rushed by them.
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He began the battle with his usual move, when he took out a lump of pestilence and hurled it at the far archer.
The lump hit the archer on the chest, but it didn't do anything.
The archer cackled at his opponent, and took the lump, and hurled it at the monkey instead.
Seph had to intervene quickly and jumped to receive the lump on his own body instead, since Sun was still up on his shoulder.
Seph had figured out that the lumps have no effect on him, since he is the one who throws them.
Seeing that his decomposing weapon would not help him in this fight, Seph ran towards the first warrior skeleton, while Sun jumped onto the skeleton’s head and continued jumping from one head to another until he reached the archer who hurled the lump of pestilence at him.
The monkey attacked him with his staff, jamming it inside his eye socket, and then extended the staff, an attack he thought to use while his master was deep in meditation.
True enough, the attack had the desired outcome. When it broke the head away from the rest of the body until it reached the ground, it even broke through the back of its skull.
Sun made happy screeches in celebration, but once he saw the other archers pulling back the strings of their bows, he knew it wasn’t the time for celebration.
With the staff extended to 6 feet tall, he attacked with it in an arc to hit the three final archers with it.
But while his attack was successful in taking out the rest of the archers, he didn’t think of them releasing the arrows after their skeletons went limp. The entire fighting sequence took a few seconds.
To avoid the arrows, the monkey jammed his staff into the ground and extended it to its maximum 10 feet tall, which shot him backwards in between a warrior's skeleton legs, thus avoiding the arrows.
Meanwhile, Seph was busy fighting the warriors in the forefront. He attacked the first warrior with a palm strike to the head, while controlling his floating gourd to hit another warrior in the head.
Both attacks were successful, and the warriors fell limp on the ground.
Seph noticed, though, that his palm strike didn’t stop where it usually stopped, but it went further, and it also appeared to be stronger.
Since the skull flew backwards and hit another warrior, smashing both their skulls together, and finishing this warrior off as well.
The young cultivator scanned the graveyard to determine the next course of action. He found out that Sun took out all the archers single-handedly.
Which left three warriors and two magicians. Seph was confident they would have won this fight now.
Ready to finish the fight, Seph ran towards the next warrior, but one magician was reciting a curse all this time, and he finally finished it.
Seph found himself unable to move or speak. All he could move were his eyes, and he looked around in panic, wanting to warn his monkey companion, but he couldn’t.
Sun looked back at his master, and found him frozen in place, with his eyes moving around frantically, as if he were in distress.
The monkey scanned the battlefield and found the one magician still chanting his curse to keep Seph in place.
Sun added two and two together and ran towards the magician.
Luckily for him, the other magician was busy reciting another spell.
With the way clear, Sun jammed the magician skeleton in the vertebrae of his neck, and, extending the staff to make his attack more powerful, the head got separated from the rest of the body, thus ending the curse he had placed on Seph.
Seph, now free from the hold, attacked the closest warrior, which was about to hit him, with a palm strike to the neck, which broke it and made the skeleton warrior go limp.
At that moment, though, the other magician finished his spell, and the main graveyard split open, and from inside rose a human female corpse, with flesh covering her bones unlike all those skeletons.
The corpse wore a tattered magician’s black robe on its slim body and had white shaggy hair. She was 6 feet 8 inches tall, her skin was a pale grey color, her eyes were rotten with worms coming out of them.
Seph used the eye of the veteran on her.
Name: Atelia Meji.
Class: Necromancer.
Cultivation stage: Body Dismantling (IV)
Once she rose to a full standing position from inside the grave, she chanted a spell quickly, and the four archers that had been destroyed by Sun earlier fused back together, and they were “alive” again.
Seph screamed inside his mind, "A necromancer! Shit, shit, shit, This is so bad - we could lose everything at this pace."
Seph remembered the tales they'd told as children of necromancers, all folk tales, fictional tales; he never dreamed of meeting one in real life!
He snapped himself out of his reverie and rushed to finish the last two skeletons, and made quick work of them.
Meanwhile, Sun was mad that the archers he had destroyed came back to life. He went in again for the attack on one of them, but it looked like the skeleton had learned new tricks!
The skeleton dropped its bow and caught the staff with both of its hands.
Sun freaked out when his staff got caught like that. He extended it, but the skeleton wasn’t holding its end side and wasn’t standing in front of it either, so the staff extended into the nothingness behind the skeleton.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the skeleton started pulling the staff and Sun with it, towards itself, while its archer brethren in arms were pulling the strings of their arrows backward, while aiming at the monkey.
Sun was fearful, and didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to let go of his precious staff, either.
The archers let go of their arrows, and before they hit Sun, his master’s gourd was right in front of his body, protecting him.
Seph was running towards the archers without his gourd, giving Sun a respite, while he took care of the archers this time.
Palm strikes continued one after another. He killed all four archers, and the last magician as well.
He looked over at Sun. What had happened shook him, and he was incapable of fighting now.
He let the monkey have his well-deserved rest for now. He had done so much in this fight than any other fight they were in before.
Seph squared off against the necromancer, with her worm-infested eyes and her yellowed teeth. She gave him a creepy smile before she raised her arms, and the bones of most of the dead skeletons made a whirlwind headed for Seph.
The whirlwind was heading for her as well. It almost looked like a suicidal attack.
Seph ran towards her and once he was close enough, he attacked with a palm strike, but she blocked it with a shield that formed in front of her at an alarming speed.
The attack smashed the shield, and she cackled at Seph.
“You fucking horrifying abomination. This fight ends now.”
Seph screamed at her as he was still running towards her.
Once he was within arm’s reach of her, he jumped towards her and caught her skull, snapping it to the side, with his newfound strength.
Her face was facing the back now, where Seph had ended. She gave him a creepy yellowed-toothed smile again.
Seph screamed inside his brain, Fuck!
He jerked her head to the left, reaching her front side again.
She cackled at him again. Her bones were very weak now, so Seph did the last thing he could do and snapped her head upwards, which removed her skull from the rest of her body.
Her entire body went limp, and the bone whirlwind that was about to hit them lost its momentum too, and bones rained down on the graveyard.
Seph sat on the ground, catching his breath, and Sun came over and sat next to him. This fight was horrifying for both of them.
But they did well, and came out on top as usual, even though they had a few close calls this time.