"Clump...Clump..."
A person looking black and blue and covered in a mass of bruises showed up staggering into a narrow
battle room. It was none other than Austin.
After struggling for a while to gain his bearing and stand still, Austin finally felt nothing but a concurrent
rush of blood and energy in all his internal organs, he felt disoriented, as if his organs were about to
shift from their usual positions, which made him choke in discomfort.
Suddenly, He felt a chill on his back as if he was naked. It took him a while to realize that the cloth on
his back was torn apart from the attack he had encountered. The only remaining cloth on his body was
the piece of slip covering his chest.
The cultivators of the Sky Realm were way powerful than the cultivators of the Mysterious Realm. A
powerful cultivator like Austin who was already invincible among his peers still could not withstand a
single blow from the cultivators of the Sky Realm.
Austin was in great pain, he spit a mouthful of blood in an attempt to clear his airway.
However, since he had already mastered the fifth level of the Overlord Body-refining Formula and
washed his body with three drops of the Ancient Magic Liquid, Austin now possessed a stronger
physical quality than most of the ordinary cultivators. After a short while, he felt better since his blood
and energy were now circulating smoothly while the operation of his vital energy went back to normal.
It looked like having a strong body was extremely beneficial. The powerful impact resistant capability
that Austin possessed highly increased his possibility for survival.
Any other cultivator of the Mysterious Realm would have suffered a body explosion and died right away
under the attack of five cultivators of the Sky Realm. Austin was lucky to only have some minor injuries.
'So...this is the third floor of the Emperor Library?' Austin thought.
After doing a full body scan and realizing that there were no fatal injuries on his body, Austin focused
his attention to the third floor of this space where he had just broken into.
The narrow space only covered an area of a dozen square meters. It was surprisingly empty!
Austin had thought that there would definitely be books illustrating the seventh grade or even the eighth
grade martial arts. However, after searching every corner of the place carefully, he still got nothing. It
was just an empty space.
The only thing in Austin's sight was a painting which looked old and had become yellow with the
passage of time on the wall.
There was a middle-aged man with a graceful and elegant appearance on the painting. The man had
his hands crossed behind his back with a thoughtful look in his eyes, giving Austin the feeling that the
man could see into his soul.
'So, that painting was the only thing on the third floor?' He wondered.
Austin finally accepted that fact, although he was still puzzled. According to what Angus had told him
that the third floor was where the most precious treasure of the Emperor Library was stored!
'So, could the painting right in front of me be the treasure that Angus was referring to?' Austin
wondered.
Although Austin had only spent a short time with Angus, he was good at reading people and he felt that
Angus was a sane and credible person and would not joke about such matters.
Since Angus had said that the most precious thing was in the third floor, then there should be a puzzle,
riddle or mystery hidden in this painting, maybe a secret passage. And the key to solving the mystery
or finding secret passage must be the painting in front of him.
Therefore, Austin decided to walk patiently towards the painting and study it in detail.
This painting was pretty but simple in style and it had only a few ink marks indicating that the painter
was very economical with the ink. However, the painter had still depicted a vivid figure of the middle-
aged man making him seem almost real, especially his eyes which had a special charm.
After a thorough inspection, Austin still failed to find anything significant from the painting.
He started getting anxious about the situation when suddenly a thought popped up in his mind. 'Maybe
this painting is like a Space Ring which contains room to hide precious things. The precious treasure
may be hidden inside.'
Then, Austin infiltrated the painting with his spiritual sense power. But after exploring it for a while, he
still found no secret space inside.
However, in the process of exploring the painting, Austin detected a peculiar fluctuation from the
painting from time to time.
After further exploration of the fluctuation with a more focus of his spiritual sense power, Austin found
that the peculiar fluctuation was transmitted from the eyes of the man in the painting.
Austin was overjoyed with the new discovery. He focused his spiritual sense to specifically search the
two points that were the man's eyes.
"Buzz..."
A few moments after Austin had transmitted a steady flow of spiritual sense to the eyes of the man, the
whole room began to shake slightly, rippling with optical waves. The light waves spread quickly from
the points of the man's eyes. Then Austin's body was shrouded by the light.
"There really is a secret passage!"
Excitement flashing in Austin's eyes, he realized that he must have triggered some key component of
the painting. Although he didn't know what the transformation meant, he still had a feeling that it must
have something to do with the precious treasure that Angus had told him about, which was stored on
the third floor.
The optical waves became more and more intense. At last, they formed a black vortex in the space in
front of Austin, with a faint suction force coming from the vortex.
Austin's spiritual sense reached into the black vortex the moment it was formed. After searching for a
moment, he found that the black vortex seemed to have a teleporting power and might be a
teleportation array.
After pondering for a short while, Austin gritted his teeth in determination then stepped into the black
vortex directly.
There were still five enemies who possessed the cultivation base chasing after him. So he had nothing
to lose, there was no turning back.
Austin felt his world spinning around in darkness, after he went into the black vortex. He then realized
that he had made the right assumption. This black vortex had teleportation properties.
The darkness in his eyes only lasted for a short while. After that, a beam of light dazzled Austin's
eyes and he had a feeling that he could finally stand steadily.
When he looked closely inspecting the place around him and found himself standing on a plush and
luxurious carpet of grass. The lush and vibrant grass grew above his waist.
In front of the grassland was a dense forest filled with a hazelnut bush, the dark shadows of the
voluminous trees and the surrounding bushes had become the backbone of the forest. The pathways
were twisted and snaking around the ancient trees that looked centuries old evidenced by twisted and
crisscrossing roots and gnarled branches.
There was a ray of light flowing between the trees. That endless light added a sacred flavor to the
forest.
"That's..."
Austin walked around curiously, trying to familiarize himself with his surroundings, when at the junction
of the grassland and the dense forest he suddenly found a huge red stone pillar. There seemed to be a
shadow of a person sitting cross-legged right on the top of the pillar.
"What the hell is this place? Why would there be someone staying here?" Mumbled Austin.
He was aware that he had already left the third floor of the Emperor Library and had been teleported to
another place.
However, there was no way he could figure out where he had been teleported
to.
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda