206: Chapter 205 Treasure

Lin Feng slowly traced his finger along the patterns of the rune array.

Extremely faint energy pathways still remained within the patterns; they weren't broken, the power supply had simply been cut off.

If he poured mana into the array, it could theoretically be reactivated—but whether it would unlock or trigger an anti-theft System after activation, he couldn't say for sure.

He took a step back and drew the dragon slaying sword. The golden patterns on the blade lit up in the darkness, but after a moment's thought, he sheathed it again.

This kind of Six-Point Positioning Space Lock couldn't be split open with brute force—the hexagram array framed the entire door at an independent spatial coordinate. Physical attacks couldn't pierce through the spatial folds, and brute-force hacking would only trigger a countermeasure.

"Xiao Guang."

He looked down at the little golden figure standing on his shoulder.

"Have you seen this kind of Formation before?"

Xiao Guang jumped down from his shoulder and landed in front of the iron door.

Only a palm high, it looked up at the metal door panel that was several times taller than itself. With its hands behind its back, its golden brow furrowed slightly, like an old professor examining a problem never seen before.

It reached out a small hand and pressed it against the rune array on the left side of the door frame, closing its eyes to sense it for a while.

The long-dimmed energy pathways inside the rune array glowed faintly like blood vessels after it injected a trace of weak golden mana, then quickly darkened again.

Six engraving points were evenly distributed in a hexagram array on the inside of the alloy plate. Each etched point corresponded to a spatial coordinate, and the lines connecting the six points framed a completely independent area.

But the arrangement of these coordinates had a subtle difference from the Taixu Sealing Formation it was familiar with—the energy trajectory of the Taixu Sealing Formation radiated outward from the center, while the energy trajectory of this space lock folded inward simultaneously with each coordinate point as the core.

"Six-Point Positioning Space Lock."

Xiao Guang withdrew its hand, its golden eyebrows furrowing even tighter.

"The outer layer uses the sealing structure of an ancient Formation, but the inner layer is stacked with an encryption circuit similar to spatial folds—it's not a Formation from our world; it should be something modern people improved based on the principles of ancient Formations. Each of the six engraving points corresponds to a spatial coordinate, and the coordinates are nested within each other. Move one engraving, and the other five will simultaneously trigger a countermeasure. If broken by force, the space within the entire door frame will collapse into a void singularity within a few breaths, swallowing everything inside and outside the door. I've never seen this kind of double encryption—ancient Formations only have one type of self-destruction mechanism, but this lock has two layers stacked."

As it spoke, it suddenly fell silent. Its golden eyes stared straight at the rune array, the whole person seemingly captivated by something.

After a moment, it tilted its head and scraped its fingertip a few times along the almost imperceptible light silver wire between the third and fifth engraving points. Its voice suddenly brightened.

"This engraving's layout is completely opposite to the energy trajectory of the Taixu Sealing Formation—it doesn't radiate outward from the center, but folds inward simultaneously with each coordinate point as the core. This isn't a replica; it's been recompiled after reverse deconstruction, with several middle segments deliberately taken apart and recombined."

Xiao Guang's tone shifted from confusion to excitement, and then from excitement to a curiosity that was almost Greed.

It had guarded the Taigu Dojo for tens of thousands of years, and its obsession with Formations and Restrictions had long been etched into its instincts.

Looking at this completely unfamiliar door, its small golden face held only pure thirst for knowledge, more like a scholar who had stumbled upon a once-in-a-lifetime research topic.

"Give me some time."

Without looking back, Xiao Guang pulled a tablet out of its Storage Ring and opened the scanned data of those Taixu ancient book Incomplete Manuals, talking to itself while cross-referencing.

"The coordinate deviation of the third engraving is one and a half degrees smaller than a standard pentagram array—it's not an error, it was carved that way on purpose to bypass the boundary line of the inner spatial folds. Interesting, this person used a pentagram as the basic framework but added a coordinate themselves at a key node, forcefully turning the five-pointed star into a hexagon."

It suddenly let out a chuckle as it spoke, muttering to itself while swiping through the Incomplete Manuals on the screen.

"They're truly bold, but also a true Genius."

Lin Feng leaned against the wall opposite the door, arms crossed, watching Xiao Guang cling to the iron door and study those runes up and down.

He didn't rush it.

Having been with Xiao Guang for so long, he had long since understood—this little fellow was usually lazy, eating chips and watching videos like a retired official, but once it encountered something related to Formations, it would automatically enter a state of academic frenzy, getting angry at anyone who disturbed it.

Xiao Jin crawled down from Lin Feng's shoulder and curiously made its way to the bottom of the iron door, using its antennae to touch the residual energy layer of the protective shield around the edge of the door frame.

The shield was already very faint, but when touched by its antennae, a weak silver light still flashed, shocking it and making it retreat several steps. It shook its antennae and squeaked twice at Xiao Guang.

The meaning was—be careful, this thing still has electricity.

"It's not electricity."

Xiao Guang corrected it without looking back.

"It's residual spatial energy. This protective shield is powered by void energy; after the power was cut, only the lowest layer of spatial folds is still functioning. This kind of spatial fold isn't made of energy; it's a physical shielding layer—using space itself folded up as a shield. Folded space isn't aggressive, but creatures that touch the edge of the folds will feel like they've been shocked—that's just your own neural signals becoming misaligned as they cross two layers of space. Don't touch it; wait until I reconnect the energy pathways first."

Lin Feng took a mana recovery potion from his void mithril ring and took a sip, then sat cross-legged on the ground. He called Xiao Jin back and placed it on his lap, spreading his perception to monitor the movement outside while he waited.

The corridor was very quiet, with only the occasional low roar from a distance—the giant Fusion monster outside the office building was still wandering through the ruins.

The Breath-Hiding Array was still in effect. As long as he and the two little ones didn't emit too much energy fluctuation, those Void Creatures outside wouldn't be able to find their specific location for the time being.

Time passed minute by minute.

Xiao Guang clung to the iron door, crawling from left to right and top to bottom, constantly consulting data on the tablet, marking the rune array, and trying to inject mana at different frequencies to test the reaction of the energy pathways.

Its first attempt to directly pour in mana to activate the rune array failed. The six engraving points lit up with red light simultaneously, and the entire door shook violently; Lin Feng almost thought it was going to collapse.

On the second try, it adjusted the input frequency of the mana, bypassing the self-destruction trigger of the outer ancient Formation, and successfully activated the first three engravings—but when the fourth was activated, the inner spatial fold circuit suddenly counterattacked, bouncing all the energy from the first three engravings back, nearly sending Xiao Guang flying.

It tumbled on the ground, got up while spitting out dust, and continued to stare at the rune array, its eyes full of defiance.

Third time, fourth time, fifth time—it constantly adjusted the energy injection sequence, mana frequency, and activation intervals, recording data on the tablet after each failure.

Leaning against the wall, Lin Feng watched this palm-high golden figure clinging to the door and trying repeatedly as if possessed, unable to help but recall when he first met it in the Secret Realm.

Back then, it was just a mass of dark, tattered robes, speaking in a high-pitched voice and constantly droning on about the rules of the Taixu Dojo.

Now it was wearing a mini combat suit specifically bought for it—a style Xiao Guang chose itself, saying it looked more professional—holding a tablet and muttering about "energy pathways," "spatial folds," and "self-destruction countermeasure mechanisms," looking just like an engineering student who had transmigrated from the Taigu Dojo to take a graduate entrance exam.

The void energy fluctuations outside hadn't changed at all; those Void Creatures were still wandering deep within the ruins.

After a long time, Xiao Guang suddenly let out an excited scream.

The scream startled Xiao Jin, who was napping, making it spring up from his lap with its antennae standing straight up.

"Success! That last trial wasn't my original plan; I changed the activation sequence on the fly the moment the energy was poured in—I bypassed the self-destruction limit of the outer ancient Formation using the pulse frequency of the spatial folds. After penetrating the inner spatial folds, all six engravings were activated without triggering a countermeasure, opening all energy pathways simultaneously in that middle instant—it's smarter than any Formation! It wasn't just sealing the door; it was forcing people to understand it!"

Xiao Guang turned to look at him, its golden face still stained with dust from the previous recoil, but its entire body radiated a triumphant glow.

Lin Feng stood up, drew the taixu sword, and squeezed through the crack in the door.

The room behind the door wasn't large, at most a dozen square meters, and was completely different from the laboratories outside filled with surgical beds and glass containers—it was empty, with only a waist-high metal test bench standing in the center of the room.

A meteorite lay on the test bench.

The meteorite was the size of a washbasin, irregular in shape, with a pitted surface that looked as if it had been burned by high temperatures.

It was pitch black all over, but wisps of dark red mist seeped from the cracks—the mist didn't dissipate upward like ordinary smoke, but flowed down the surface of the meteorite like a liquid, slowly rising again upon reaching the test bench to form a slow-cycling vortex of red mist.

Even more bizarrely, this meteorite was repelling void energy—with it at the center, within a radius of about one meter, void energy was completely expelled, and even the smell of disinfectant and the fishy-sweet scent in the air faded.

"Gold quality. Void Meteor Crystal, from the depths of a void rift. It hasn't been eroded by void energy; it's an energy crystal naturally condensed over a long period in a void environment. This kind of material simply can't be found outside because it only forms in the Void Interlayer and requires the simultaneous action of extremely high void energy concentration and extremely low temperatures to crystallize. What's even rarer is that after being soaked in the void environment for all these years, it hasn't been permeated by void energy; instead, an energy neutralization layer has formed on its surface—it's currently converting void energy into spiritual power of the outside world on its own."

Xiao Guang stood at the door, looking up at the meteorite, its voice carrying a rare hint of awe.

Lin Feng walked to the test bench and reached out, hovering his hand over the surface of the meteorite to probe it.

The air above his palm was slightly cool and not corrosive; instead, it felt like placing his hand on a block of ice, and the flow of the light element in his body slowed down slightly.

He circled the room again, gathering all the purple Materials scattered in the corners—several fist-sized void crystals of extremely high purity, varieties he had never seen outside; a small bag of dark purple powder sealed in a miniature airtight jar, with the void energy attenuation index on the outside of the jar showing zero; and a broken section of an Iron Bone Clan warrior's arm blade, the runes remaining on the blade surface being identical to those on the Iron Bone Clan warrior weapons he had seen at the Yanjiao Arena Tournament.

He put all the Materials, along with the meteorite emitting red mist, into his void mithril ring.

Then he retreated to the doorway, sat down cross-legged, and took out the Materials one by one, laying them out in front of him.

When he performed Fusion on the Taotie remains before, his mana wasn't enough. Now, this meteorite and these void Materials were of extremely high quality, so the risk of Fusion wouldn't be small, but his intuition told him—there was some kind of mutually activating connection between these Materials.

He didn't think any further, activating his Talent toward the pile of Materials. A pale golden light surged from his palms, enveloping the meteorite, void crystals, Iron Bone Clan arm blade fragments, and the dark purple powder.

All the Materials floated into the air and began to rotate, colliding with each other. Each collision produced a tiny energy fluctuation, as if some extremely slow connection between them was being reawakened.