Chapter 2276 - Fingerprint
Even with the increasing difficulty, Tianming could break the locks in about the same time. There was no difference, whether the characters had one or three thousand strokes. "If I can sustainably do two thousand layers in a day, then I should only require around fifty days to fully break this." Before his recent discovery, he probably wouldn't have been able to finish it in a hundred years.
As Tianming unlocked more and more layers, Lin Hongchen noticed the change. More and more of the green text on the tomb flowed toward Tianming and gathered near his body, bringing the illumination on him to new heights. Huh?
Three days later, Lin Hongchen's brows furrowed even more. Why does it look like he's actually unlocking them? Was randomly messing around with the tomb really the solution? He stretched a finger out to pierce the sphere like Tianming, only to almost break it. He bit his teeth to resist the pain.
Lin Feng... Lin Hongchen had no choice but to reevaluate the son of Lin Mu. He never had a swordheart nor any swordbeasts and was deemed to be trash to begin with, yet he can display such a truly unique and never-before-seen method. If he really manages to open the tomb, should I keep my word to split its contents with him? He wasn’t wrong when he said I’d never have any chance of opening this up for the rest of my life if he didn’t help me. But then again, I still have his life in the palm of my hands!
Lin Hongchen was growing rather confused. In his mind, he could hear his father and grandfather's voices, and the two were giving completely opposing advice. Forget it. Let's wait until the day really comes. He released his grip on his sword and put it away, then sat down and watched Tianming without moving in the slightest, eventually forgetting the passing of time.
Twenty days passed. Initially, he had asked Tianming impatiently about his progress, but Tianming simply told him to shut up. While he was quite unhappy to be told that, he eventually began feeling like the spherical tomb was growing larger and larger. His heart beat faster in tandem as well. Since then, he no longer disturbed Tianming.
What a truly odd person! He was completely fascinated by what he saw. It's a shame that he only has one path to take because of his father's sins. The sins of the father shall be atoned for by the son. That isn't something he can avoid. Different thoughts floated through his mind. Eventually, he didn't even notice that an entire sixty days had passed since Tianming started prodding the formation—two whole months!
There was no rest for Tianming at all, and he never slowed down, either. Near the end, he was dealing with characters that had eighty or ninety thousand strokes. They could no longer be considered text, but were instead piece after piece of magnificent artwork! All of them seemed to depict rather abstract images. Tianming didn't have any time to study them closely, so he simply bashed each image with his middle finger no matter what manifested, crushing them in a single go. More and more green light gathered around him, seemingly forming a star.
It's the final layer! It had taken sixty days, and he was getting sick of screwing the text, as simple as that action was. Break! His boredom and frustration were unleashed in the final execution of the Skypierce Finger, shattering the final character. He mentally prepared himself for whatever could happen once the lock was fully undone.
All the green text on the tomb vanished all of a sudden. The formation had completely disappeared, turning into light that flowed deep into the ground, leaving nothing but the spherical tomb behind! The walls of the tomb seemed to be made of normal material that could easily be crushed after the protection was gone. Then a brick wall appeared, as he had expected. It turned into dust before his very eyes, leaving a round hole around a meter in diameter. The tomb had finally opened, revealing pitch darkness within. The stale stench of countless years of rotting wafted out from within, almost making him puke. The odor felt like a toxin that ravaged his bones and organs; it was such a disgusting feeling that it took him out of it for a few moments.
"Move aside!" Lin Hongchen's expression shook. He cut in front of Tianming and entered the tomb.
"Hey, we said we'd split it. Don't mess around or I'll expose you!" Tianming followed him into the darkness.
"Don't move!" Lin Hongchen glared at him and drew his sword. The white-jade-like blade faintly glowed, illuminating the entire tomb.
"Huh?" Both of them seemed a little dumbfounded. Within the sphere of around twenty meters wide were seven gigantic skeletons. They were in a messy state, with some upside down, others prone, and some were even kneeling. There seemed to be nothing else inside. The precious coffin that Tianming had envisioned being kept within the tomb like the Flameyellow Imperial Coffin was nowhere to be seen.
"Is this all?" He touched the head of one of the skeletons and wiped away some of the dust, revealing the green color underneath. "Fucking hell!"
Weren't those just more giant green skeletons? Tianming already had three sets! What would he do with seven more? It wasn't that he didn't think they were precious. But relative to how difficult they were to obtain, it seemed worthless! Seven skeletons were far less beneficial to him than a single gigantic finger would be, yet it had taken him two whole months of finger poking while being kept under duress by Lin Hongchen!
"Who in the world made this tomb? They're just stupid corpses! Why would anyone protect them with a hundred-thousandfold formation lock?!" Any self-respecting thief would break out in tears if they discovered a pair of stinky sandals after unlocking so many doors to get to it. Tianming wasn't glad about this at all. His morale was crumbling.
"Don't move!" Lin Hongchen didn't seem to know what they were for. After a detailed look, he said, "There isn't anything but these seven sets of skeletons. Since there's no way to neatly split them, I'll take four while you take three."
Tianming haplessly looked at him.
"What? You want four? Consider yourself lucky that I'm not going to kill you," Lin Hongchen said. He believed there must be something to these skeletons. Not to mention, he didn't feel like Tianming had spent much effort to unlock the tomb, so he didn't think it was a big deal.
"Fine, fine. I'll take three piles of shit, while you can take four," Tianming said.
"These skeletons must have some significance or secret. Do you know about them?" Lin Hongchen asked.
"Hehe, you're right." Tianming rolled his eyes. Curses! He was still internally bemoaning the owner of the tomb.
"Did you think there’d be the corpse of a beauty waiting to bear your babies inside?" someone inside his lifebound space said, followed by sounds of cackling laughter.
"Stop messing around!" Tianming took a deep breath and looked around without aim. Suddenly, he spotted something that looked like a fingerprint near his foot.
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