1043 Chapter 1043 Can You Dig It?
Lian rushed to put her new clothes on and was still shivering when she hopped back into Katt’s arms. The delay had already been too much for her taste even if it had taken less than a minute to remove her previously soaked garments and put on something more weather appropriate.
Kat hopped back into the air and took a look around, realising that they were not just on a mountain, but part of an entire mountain range. Probably something she should have expected, given that a single mountain wasn’t all that much territory for a sect to manage, but it hadn’t properly registered. Still, that hadn’t seem too important as she reached for the summit… until Lian spoke up, “Over there!” shouted Lian, pointing at one of the other peaks. It was covered in heavy cloud cover, and only slightly below Kat’s current position, if a bit far away in the horizontal direction. “That’s the peak Bing’s house is, and where her signal is coming from,”
“Understood,” said Kat as she started to alter her trajectory. The peak didn’t look like much at all, because it was covered by clearly unnatural cloud cover. It was a single cloud that seemed to swirl around the peak. It looked remarkably fluffy, and it stayed in constant, rotating motion.
Kat wondered if the point was just to give some privacy, or perhaps there was also a layer of illusions over the structure she simply couldn’t see. The cloud cover was clearly unnatural, but it didn’t give any hints as to what was going on inside, such was the thickness of the clouds surrounding the spot.
Eventually, Kat broke her way through to reveal that it was actually two peaks, one much larger then the other, though the smaller one was still slightly lager then a football field. It had been flattened into a practice range, with targets lined up around the edges of the peak and the ground flat enough to practice martial arts without fear. The other peak, was much larger, and much busier in design.
There was a garden that was likely more a place to grow herbs then relax. All sorts of greenery was packed closely together with only small, overgrown paths to get between the foliage. An open air dojo that had a roof and no walls, perhaps to provide level flooring, or just a place to meditate. There was a frozen pond next to the dojo as well, and it had the Holy Icy Wind Sect’s symbol carved into it, clearly visible from above and under a few layers of ice but very visible. It was likely created with mystical means.
The house itself was a large collection of smaller buildings. One cluster on the edge, likely for servants, consisted of closely packed rooms that didn’t have any space between them. The main compound was a all built off a large rectangular building that had a courtyard in the middle and a tarp for keeping the bulk of the snow off. It must have been heated, because what snow did land on it, quickly turned to water and ran off into a pond that rain the outskirts of the courtyard.
The courtyard itself wasn’t all that large, the rectangular building surrounding it was wider then the courtyard was. There was a few other rooms that branched off the central building, but they looked more like small huts, and it was unclear what exactly they were all for. The central building seemed to have enough space for all of Bing’s family and then some. Kat could see a few servants walking around, but they weren’t paying any attention to their surroundings.
Kat landed at the closest available spot, which happened to be near the gardens, and not the main structure of the house. Much better to remain unhidden as well, no servants roamed the garden right now “Right… so… where is Bing likely to be?” asked Kat.
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Lian winced, “Um… well… now that we’re here I can tell that’s she’s below us…”
“Yes… something I feared…” mumbled Kat, “So we have to get into the vault then? Lead the way!”
“Ah… well… you see… I have no idea where the vault is…” mumbled Lian.
“How can you not know?” asked Kat.
“It’s not like that sort of information is handed out casually Kat! I’m lucky I’ve even been to a vault. I had to be blindfolded, and I think Bing and Feng were as well! Look, it’s not ideal… but I do know there is a transmission array to take us there somewhere in the house. I was blindfolded and carried to make it harder for me to work out, but I know at the very least it wasn’t too far away from the house,” explained Lian.
“Right… but how do we find it?” asked Kat, “In fact… can we even use the array if we find it?”
Lian winced, but didn’t say anything. [Could you just dig straight down to Bing and Bodeir?]
*Possibly… but it would take us quite some time and I’d really want a shovel of some kind. Sure I can just use my hands, as annoying as that would be… but the real problem, other than being annoying, is that I can only move so much dirt that way. Sure I’m fast, and strong, but my hands are only so large. Unless I want to just punch the dirt continually, compressing it as we go… but then I’d need to bust through hardened dirt at some point so it just wouldn’t work.*
[So what… we need to look around for either a teleportation array or a magical shovel that can withstand your strength long enough for us to dig to the vault?]
*It’s really looking that way Lily. Unless Lian has a better idea, I think that’s what we’re going to have to go with.* “Lian, do you think we can activate the array at all?” asked Kat.
“Umm…” Lian frowned, “So… right, arrays are very complex things, and the one for the vault should be extra secure… so secure that there’s no way Fake Meng and possibly Fake Bang could figure out a way to change the permissions while keeping their cover. I suspect they found some workaround, the most likely one, letting the array activate for everyone that stands on it. If it’s a bit more complicated than that, I might be able to curse it and get it working for us…”
“After finding out you might have messed up a curse you put on yourself… I have to ask HOW are you going to get this array to work with a curse?” asked Kat.
“Um… probably stick to keeping it simply… curse it to work once for anyone at all, in the next few seconds, in exchange for it imploding afterwards?” answered Lian.
Kat felt about ready to slam her head into the wall. “Right… Lian can it take all of us at once?” Lian nodded, “Even though Lily has mana instead of qi and I have demonic energy?” Lian nodded… slowly. She looked very unsure about it. “Lian, if this fails, then not only will it, implode apparently, but all the servants will hear that and realise something is wrong. If you fuck this up, we won’t have the chance to dig down, because Fake Meng, and Fake Bang will certainly be alerted. Will it work?”
Lian bit her lip and looked down at the ground. She swallowed heavily and answered with a shaky voice, “I… I don’t know? I mean… look I don’t really have a way to test this. It should work, in theory… but… curses aren’t just ‘in theory’ things. They take into account a wide variety of external factors that you can’t truly account for every time… so… well… it SHOULD work but… no I can’t be certain that it will,”
Kat breathed deeply, restraining the, admittedly small, part of her that wanted to yell at Lian. We were on a time crunch, and wasting time suggesting risky strategies that aren’t likely to work was not what they needed to be doing right now. Even still, Kat had to ask. “In that case, with your professional opinion. Is it worth the risk?”
Lain thought it over again. The various parts of her warring with each other. There was so much that could go wrong… but taking the other option, the slower option, that could just as easily doom their attempts as trying the quick way and failing… but… well… Lian knew what she had to do. “It is,” said Lian with confidence she didn’t quite feel. “I believe it’s worth the risk,” what she didn’t say… was that with curse energy, it was always possible to force some extra effect… by risking yourself instead.
Kat and Lily weren’t totally convinced by Lian’s statement but they had no choice but to trust her expertise. A quick mental communication between them, and the two decided it was best to split up. Lian would go with Kat, as Lily was the stealthiest, and Kat was easily able to float around and make less sound. They just had to hope they found it in time.
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