The first floor wasn't very large, and it didn't take long for everyone to turn it upside down.
Judging by their expressions, they hadn't found what they were looking for.
"Let's check the second floor," Chen Feng led the way upstairs.
The second floor appeared to be a library.
Rows of shelves were filled with various books.
There was nothing else besides that.
Not even a table, chair, or stool was visible.
"Strange, why isn't it here..." Chen Feng frowned immediately.
"Brother Chen, what are you looking for?" Ye Fan asked casually.
"You don't know?" Chen Feng was clearly surprised.
His first thought was that Ye Fan was pretending.
But now that they were here, there seemed to be no need for that.
In that case, it seemed Ye Fan really didn't know...
"It's a key," Chen Feng explained.
"A key?" Ye Fan scanned the surroundings curiously. "How big is it? What shape?"
"I don't know..." Chen Feng shook his head. "The ancient text only mentioned that the key was here, with no further information."
Ye Fan rubbed his chin and pondered.
Having come this far, Chen Feng's information should be somewhat reliable.
But the key mentioned in the ancient text had not appeared, which was worth considering.
Was it hidden too well to be found?
Or...
Was it related to the entity that caused the mutation of this dead town?
"Brother Chen, don't you think something is amiss?" Ye Fan asked abruptly.
"Amiss?" Chen Feng paused visibly. "Brother Ye, you mean...?"
"Don't you find the cultivation techniques and pills on the first floor problematic?" Ye Fan reminded him.
Although Ye Fan couldn't sense the faint fluctuations of true qi, it didn't prevent him from seeing the problem.
Take those pills for example.
They were dim and lusterless, which was one thing, but they had no medicinal fragrance at all.
Even though pills would gradually lose their potency when stored in specially made porcelain bottles, it would take an extremely long time for them to completely lose their efficacy!
There was once an alchemist who was bored out of his mind and conducted an experiment.
He took a bottle of the lowest-grade pills to see how long it would take for their medicinal effects to completely dissipate.
It took five generations and a total of over ten thousand years before that bottle of pills was completely rendered useless...
Although after seven thousand years, the effect of those pills on people had already become negligible.
But the herbal components within them still existed.
With Ye Fan's top-tier alchemist skills, even if the pills' medicinal effects were reduced to almost nothing, he could still smell their fragrance.
But those pills on the first floor truly had no medicinal scent left!
If all of this could be explained by the passage of time, then those weapons were completely inexplicable.
Take the sword forged from dark star iron for example.
Although dark star iron itself was not of high grade, its stability was second to none among all materials.
Even if exposed to the air for a hundred thousand years, the dark star iron itself would remain undamaged!
This was something that many high-level and even top-tier materials couldn't match!
Unfortunately, apart from its stability, dark star iron had no other advantages to speak of, which meant it could only be a material disdained even by Nascent Soul stage cultivators.
However, the long sword made of dark star iron just now felt completely 'dead' to Ye Fan!
Either this dead town truly existed for over a hundred thousand years.
Or, there was something wrong with the dark star iron itself!
For example...
A man-made illusion!
Ye Fan felt that the possibility of this place being over a hundred thousand years old was unlikely, and he leaned more towards the latter.
If that was the case, then the situation was dire...
After listening to Ye Fan, Chen Feng's expression also changed!
Although he didn't understand as clearly as Ye Fan, he knew that pills and weapons could be stored for a very long time.
The reason he had overlooked this point earlier was mainly because he was too focused on finding the key.
"It is indeed very strange," Chen Feng nodded as if he had suddenly realized something. "Then, what do you think, Brother Ye...?"
As Chen Feng was speaking, a disciple of Qingfeng Sect picked up a book from the shelf.
This was because, just now, he saw that the book seemed to be emitting light!
As soon as the book was pulled out, the surroundings changed!
The book and the bookshelf disappeared!
Even the roof and walls around them were gone!
The original library had transformed into a space that stretched as far as the eye could see.
At some point, a light gray mist began to swirl around them.
And not far in front of everyone, a stone table about a meter high had appeared.
Floating quietly above the table was a white ball of light, about the size of a fist.
Due to the brightness, it was impossible to discern what was inside the ball.
Chen Feng's mind immediately flashed with a word—key!
Chen Feng suppressed his excitement and prepared to go and retrieve the key.
Suddenly!
A ripple of energy appeared around them!
Chen Feng and the others' hearts skipped a beat, and they quickly checked their surroundings.
But after a long time, they found nothing unusual.
If they dismissed it as an illusion, could everyone be mistaken?
Moreover, that energy fluctuation earlier was very bizarre; it definitely did not belong to the category of true qi!
Just then, an elder suddenly felt a slight itch on his neck and instinctively reached out to scratch it.
His fingertips felt nothing unusual.
"This is strange, truly strange..."
The elder muttered.
Then he noticed that his vision had shifted slightly...
His perspective was getting lower and lower.
From the back of someone's head, it moved down to their lower back, and then to their heels...
"Pfft—!"
The sound of gushing blood drew everyone's attention!
The elder's head had fallen off, and his neck had become a fountain!
Some disciples standing close were instantly splashed!
"Thud!"
"Gurgle..."
The head landed on the ground.
It rolled a few times before stopping.
There was no fear in its eyes, only confusion.
It seemed that even until the end, it didn't understand what had happened...
Unfortunately, he would never have the chance to understand...
"Whoosh—!"
Everyone immediately took defensive positions, searching their surroundings for the enemy.
Cold sweat broke out on their foreheads instantly!
An elder in the third layer of Soul Departure realm had died just like that!
During the entire process, even the sect leader, who was the most powerful, hadn't noticed anything!
The enemy hadn't even shown their face!!!
Chen Feng and the elders spread their divine sense, trying to locate the hidden enemy.
A few seconds passed.
No matter how hard they tried, they still found nothing.
The information from their divine sense indicated that there was nothing around.
But this was clearly impossible!
What made them even more uneasy was the bizarre energy fluctuation from before!
It was neither true qi nor demonic energy, so it wasn't a cultivator or a monstrous beast they were familiar with.
But these were the only two things they had ever encountered in their lives.
The existence of this thing clearly exceeded their scope of knowledge.
People are always instinctively afraid of the unknown...
"No matter what," Chen Feng ordered, "let's probe."
Then, everyone attacked, launching a carpet-bombing of the surroundings!
"Rumble—!"
The sound of spell explosions followed one after another, quickly covering an area of several miles!
After the first round of attacks, Chen Feng and the others used gusts of wind to blow away the smoke and dust.
The surroundings were still empty.
The previous attacks had not registered any presence of objects.
It was as if what had just happened was all an illusion...
Soon, Chen Feng discovered something even more horrifying.
The corpse of the elder who had just died had disappeared!