Thus, the plan to sneak into Kunlun that night was settled.
Arthur left the Zen Garden and went to borrow Harry's Invisibility Cloak.
Huoxuan and Hermione decided to rest and recover first.
Huoxuan had taken Hermione's head-on barrage earlier in the day, then nearly got focused down by Kunlun right after. Those two waves had left her mentally drained.
As for Hermione, it went without saying.
Even with the Fairy Aura restoring her magic, the hollow, emptied-out feeling of running her reserves dry was unpleasant. Her spirit was tired as well.
Ranni, with nothing else urgent to handle, chose to continue studying the runic robot blueprints.
…
Night fell.
Arthur and Huoxuan, hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, stepped into Kunlun's pocket realm.
Unlike Shu Mountain's endless ranges of overlapping peaks, Kunlun's pocket realm held only a single towering snow mountain.
At the summit stood a cluster of grand, imposing buildings—roofs laid with gilded tiles, walls stacked from iron-colored bricks, and every surface adorned with dazzling gold-and-jade ornamentation.
The entire complex looked solemn and majestic, steeped in an austere dignity.
It was spectacular…
But Arthur didn't like the style.
It felt cold. Inhuman. As if the place had no warmth at all—just like Kunlun's doctrine of "Supreme Forgetting of Emotion."
Except Kunlun seemed to have cultivated the wrong path.
Supreme Forgetting of Emotion wasn't meant to be heartless. It was meant to be unmoved by emotion—to place feelings at a level so high it was as if they were forgotten.
To have feelings, yet not be bound by them, not trapped by them—free and open, unshackled.
Kunlun, on the other hand…
They were thin-blooded, desireless, severing human ties, isolating themselves from the world, pursuing ascension with single-minded obsession.
Even if they succeeded, they'd merely go from rough stone to polished jade—still stone at the core. Still inhuman.
Of course, none of that mattered to the two intruders.
Huoxuan stared at the Kunlun complex and sighed. "I didn't expect Kunlun's pocket realm to be this beautiful."
Arthur replied, "They're one of the faces of the eastern cultivation world. Of course they wouldn't be worse than Shu Mountain."
Huoxuan clicked her tongue. "I think it's far worse. This place doesn't feel human at all."
Arthur smiled but didn't respond.
For Huoxuan, Shu Mountain was home—where she'd grown up. Nothing could compare.
Since Arthur didn't bite, Huoxuan changed topics. "So… how do we find the Recording Stones?"
"Relax," Arthur said. "My spiritual sense has a very wide coverage. Once I locate them, we move."
Huoxuan frowned. "This realm is huge. You're sure we can find them all before dawn?"
Then she added sharply, "And what if they've hidden Recording Stones in storage rings or spatial artifacts? How will you find those?"
She'd assumed Arthur had some special method.
She didn't expect him to rely on sweeping spiritual sense.
Huoxuan simply didn't understand how terrifying Arthur's spiritual power actually was.
Arthur didn't argue.
He leaned closer and said, "Relax your mind. I'll let you feel it."
Then he pressed his forehead to hers.
Huoxuan froze.
She was still a girl, after all. Having a man suddenly press in—an impossibly handsome man at that—made her cheeks heat up despite herself.
Her heart thumped harder, spiraling out of control.
And because of that sudden fluster, shean made no resistance at all when Arthur's power slipped into her spiritual sense.
Arthur linked his mind to hers—and then expanded his spiritual perception to its maximum.
Before Huoxuan could recover from that fluttering, breath-catching sensation…
She was slammed by pure shock.
Through Arthur's shared perception, she saw Kunlun's entire pocket realm from a godlike, overhead perspective—as if she were looking down upon the world itself.
Not only that…
Arthur guided her sense straight into what appeared to be an elder's storage ring.
Huoxuan saw, clearly, the elder's entire hoard.
When Arthur saw her standing there, eyes wide and dazed, he asked softly, "Any more doubts?"
Huoxuan shook her head blankly.
Arthur continued, "Then we start?"
Huoxuan snapped back and grabbed Arthur's sleeve. "Wait—let me play a bit more!"
She wanted to stay in that feeling a little longer—that sensation of holding the entire realm in the palm of her hand.
Arthur was speechless.
They were here to do something shady, not sightsee.
Still, he indulged her—guiding her sense in a full sweep of Kunlun.
Partly to map the terrain for their movement.
Partly to locate every last Recording Stone.
Not long after, Arthur led Huoxuan into motion.
The two of them moved through Kunlun's buildings, carefully avoiding patrolling disciples and the defensive restrictions they'd sensed.
Two hours later, they had swept Kunlun clean.
With the cloak's terrifying concealment, they didn't even spare Kunlun's sect master's storage artifact.
In an empty, open area with no one around, Arthur and Huoxuan piled every Recording Stone together.
Arthur stared at the heap—taller than a person—and felt a strange sense of disbelief.
Did Kunlun lack that much security?
Shu Mountain had, at most, a few dozen.
This pile had at least seven or eight hundred.
He glanced aside and saw Huoxuan forming hand seals, about to cast a technique.
Arthur immediately stopped her. "What are you doing?"
Huoxuan blinked, confused. "Destroying them. Isn't it obvious?"
Arthur sighed. "Sister. We already have them. Why destroy them? Wouldn't it be better to use them?"
And more importantly, they were still inside Kunlun's pocket realm—Huoxuan hadn't even considered that casting here could trigger detection.
Huoxuan thought about it and realized he was right.
"Fine," she said. "Then store them in the Zen Garden."
Arthur nodded and swept his hand—putting all the Recording Stones away.
"Wait!" Huoxuan suddenly said. "Did we forget something?"
Arthur raised a brow. "Like what?"
"Like the thing you promised Hermione and Ranni," Huoxuan said. "Once it was safe, you'd let them out of the Zen Garden."
Only because she'd mentioned the Zen Garden did she remember.
Arthur smacked his forehead.
He really had forgotten.
Between keeping hidden and searching every corner for Recording Stones, he'd gotten too focused.
After thinking for a moment, he said, "It's fine. This spot will do. I'll call them out here."
Huoxuan hesitated. "But we're already done. Are you sure bringing them out now is fine?"
Arthur waved his hand. "Worst case, we add another operation. Besides, the venom-laced rain hasn't even fallen yet. We can't call it finished."
Huoxuan frowned. "Another operation? Doing what?"
Arthur's grin turned sly. "After the scare you got today, are you really not going to demand some 'emotional damages' from Kunlun?"
He nodded toward the direction of Kunlun's treasure stores. "Their refining materials and medicinal herbs look pretty good."
Those were exactly the things Huoxuan cared about.
As for Arthur…
He cared most about Kunlun's books.
During that earlier sweep, he'd already imprinted all of Kunlun's library into his mind.
Once he returned, he could transfer it into his "Spellbook."
Arthur's words made Huoxuan remember what she'd glimpsed—Kunlun's treasure vaults, brimming with riches.
Her heart instantly started to itch.
If Kunlun's earlier focused barrage had truly landed on her, she'd have been severely injured at minimum.
Kunlun attacked her for no reason.
Taking a little compensation… wasn't that fair?
She hadn't been hurt, sure—so she'd just take a bit less.
But seeds—medicinal seeds and spirit-fruit seeds—
She wasn't leaving a single one behind.
If Kunlun had the environment to plant them, they'd have done it long ago. Leaving them stored away was just waste.
Better she took them and planted them in Arthur's Zen Garden.
Huoxuan's eyes gleamed. "Then what are we waiting for? Treasure Vault, let's go!"
The two of them pulled the Invisibility Cloak over themselves again and headed toward Kunlun's treasure vault.
At the vault entrance, Arthur first summoned Ranni out from the Zen Garden.
The cloak—which had felt roomy before—instantly became cramped.
Ranni, pressed between Arthur and Huoxuan, shifted uncomfortably, her brow furrowing.
She looked at Arthur. "King… this is the 'safe, hidden place' you chose?"
Ranni swept a glance around.
This didn't look safe at all.
Not far away, Kunlun disciples were on duty.
Arthur pointed at the treasure vault door and whispered, "To be precise, it's inside. But we need to bypass the restrictions on the door—so I'll have to trouble you to open a spatial gate."
Arthur could open a spatial gate into the vault as well.
But he couldn't guarantee his method wouldn't trigger the vault's restrictions.
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