Chapter 524: Xu Family Fortress

The yellow cloud came near to Liu Ming and the others for a few breaths.

A tall old man standing above the cloud had a majestic face. He was obviously accustomed to giving orders, glared at the two young men, then saluted Liu Ming, and said apologetically,

“Sir Envoy, these juniors have little knowledge, please forgive us if we have offended you.”

“It’s fine. Ignorance can be forgiven. May I know if you are the Xu Family’s Patriarch Kaiyang?” Liu Ming naturally wouldn’t care about these trivial things. He said with a slight smile.

“Sir Envoy really has a keen eye. I’m the patriarch of the Xu Family.” The tall old man’s face was stiff. He was surprised in his mind. For a while, he didn’t want to understand how the person before him could see through his ident.i.ty.

Liu Ming smiled slightly. Judging from the Condensation State cultivation and the tone of reprimanding the two Xu Family disciples, how could he not guess the other’s ident.i.ty?

As for his ident.i.ty as the Taiqing Sect disciple, most of it was because the other party had received the news in advance that someone had accepted the mission. They might even know his appearance. Otherwise, no one would simply come out to greet immediately.

The two young men on the black eagle hurriedly stepped forward to bow in fear. At the command of the tall old man, they immediately went back to report the news.

Not long after, the enchantment outside on the mountain fluctuated, slowly opening a pa.s.sage.

“Sir Envoy, please go to the castle first.” Xu Kaiyang saw this, and he immediately stopped the chatter and made a polite gesture with one hand.

Liu Ming was not polite. After nodding, he floated into the pa.s.sage.

After flying for a hundred meters more, a yellow brilliance flashed in front of him, revealing a rather magnificent tall castle-like building below.

The highest point of the castle was more than three hundred meters. It was surrounded by layers of shadowy buildings. The outermost part was a tall city wall which enclosed most of the mountain peaks in the middle.

“Our place is very simple. Sir Envoy, please don’t feel weird.” Xu Kaiyang said to Liu Ming while guiding Liu Ming to the door of the inner hall of the ancient castle.

“You are being polite, Master Xu.” Liu Ming responded calmly.

After a while, the two of them landed on the ground. Several old men in yellow clothes had already stood at the gate and greeted them.

“This should be Sir Envoy of the Taiqing Sect. I’m Xu Yunzhen, the great elder of my people. Please forgive me for not being able to welcome you.” The one who spoke was a skinny old man with yellow beard and hair. The people behind him seemed to regard him as the leader.

“You fellow Taoists are polite. I’m here to complete the mission posted by the Xu Family.” Liu Ming glanced around, smiled and cupped his fists. At the same time, he took out the outer disciple ident.i.ty token and threw over.

“So Envoy Liu is the outer disciple of the Taiqing Sect. You must be able to advance to the Crystallization Period very soon. Come in. I’ll introduce the elders of my Xu Family.” The skinny old man took the token and inspected it a little. His yellow eyes flashed before returning the token with laughter.

After then, Xu Kaiyang began to introduce everyone present to him.

The elders of Xu Family were all cultivators of the Condensation Period. The skinny old man had the highest cultivation which was the Condensation Period intermediate stage. Several other people, including Patriarch Xu Kaiyang, were all in the early stage.

Although these people were all in a peaceful state, as Liu Ming scanned with Divine Thought, he discovered that, except for the clan leader Xu Family, all the blood of the people present were surging. There was also a hint of black gas on their faces; they were clearly seriously injured.

After some chatters, Liu Ming walked into the lobby of the castle surrounded by several elders.

After the guests were seated separately, a maidservant served the tea.

“This ‘yellow dew tea’ is a specialty of our Cangman Mountain. Although it was not a top-grade spirit tea, it was still sweet and moist and has a long aftertaste. Sir Envoy, please enjoy the tea.” The patriarch of the Xu Family sat opposite Liu Ming and smiled as he said.

“Tea can be drunk slowly. However, the sect mission said that two powerful ghost creatures appeared nearby. Do you know what the specific situation is?” Liu Ming picked up the tea cup and took a sip, then spoke.

When the Xu Family members heard this question, they couldn’t help but glance at each other with embarra.s.sment.

“I didn’t expect Sir Envoy to be an impatient person too. In fact, even if the sir didn’t ask, I still have to say it.” Seeing this, the skinny old man coughed slightly and answered.

“This is the case. Our Xu Family originally had a vein mine in the east of the Cangman Mountain. For more than a hundred years, we had been mining some ordinary ores, but nothing major had happened. But two months ago, two of our disciples went missing when they were patrolling the mine. We looked for them for a few days, but we found nothing. At first, we just thought they went to other places, so we didn’t put attention on it.

“But a few days later, two more junior disciples disappeared in the mining area. One of them was the Spirit Apostle later stage cultivator, and this incident naturally alarmed us. After some investigation, we found that two powerful ghost creatures of the Condensation Period intermediate stage appeared out of nowhere and sucked the essence of those disciples. Naturally, our Xu Family would not allow this situation to happen, so we gathered a group of people to slaughter the ghost creatures. I was also there. It was unfortunate that these two ghost creatures are too powerful. After a fight, we were severely injured. At a critical moment, I was able to cast a strange treasure of my family and finally escaped.” As the skinny old man said until here, the Xu Family members all showed helpless expressions.

Liu Ming’s expression remained unchanged after hearing the words, and he did not say anything as if to wait for the old man to continue speaking.

“The two ghost creatures are still entrenched in the mining area so far. We had to temporarily seal off the mineral vein. Our strength alone is really helpless against such a serious incident, so we can only ask for Sir Envoy of the Taiqing Sect to help.” The skinny old man smiled self-deprecatingly, then he finally and slowly spoke of the reason for posting the mission.

“In that case, you only saw two ghost creatures. Is it possible that there is a third one?” Liu Ming suddenly asked after hesitating for a while.

“This shouldn’t be the case. When we fought those two ghost creatures that day, we only managed to barely escape. If they had accomplices, we wouldn’t be able to escape so easily.” The skinny old man thought about it for a while, then he replied.

Xu Kaiyang also nodded repeatedly.

Liu Ming also felt that it was reasonable.

As far as he knows, ghost creatures usually like to suck the essence of living people to nurture themselves. One Spirit Apostle was worth dozens of mortals. If the two ghost creatures had other companions, they wouldn’t simply let these Condensation Period cultivator go.

“I don’t know what the appearance of the two ghost creatures are? I have some understanding of ghost creatures. Maybe I can infer the origin of the ghost creatures.” Liu Ming touched his chin and asked thoughtfully.

He really knew a lot about ghost creatures. The previous Savage Ghost Sect was a sect that specialized in studying these ghost creatures.

In the “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons” left by Grandmaster Liuyin in the Savage Ghost Sect cla.s.sics, it recorded all 108 kinds of ghost creatures.

“This… When these two ghost creatures fight, they cast a large amount of ghost mist. They are especially good at hiding their tracks and launching surprise attacks, so we couldn’t see their true looks.” The skinny old man said with a blush.

After hearing this, Liu Ming was speechless for a while.

These Xu Family elders are really useless. It’s fine if they can’t fight, but they couldn’t even see the look of the ghost creatures before escaping. It seems that their actual combat ability is definitely not too high…

“Although the ghost creatures are powerful, if Sir Envoy fights them, together with our help, we can definitely defeat them. Please rest a.s.sured that although our Xu Family can’t rival those big families, our warehouse still have the rare materials that our ancestors left. If you don’t mind, you can pick a few after defeating these ghost creatures.” The patriarch of the Xu Family said quickly after seeing Liu Ming contemplating.

Liu Ming was slightly startled when he heard the words, and he quickly understood it.

These Xu Family elders were afraid that he would back off when he heard that the opponents were too powerful.

Xu Kaiyang was really worried at this time.

Although the Xu Family was also under the Taiqing Sect, the family had long since fallen; their resources were really scarce. After something like this happened, they asked the Taiqing Sect for help, but they had spent the remaining spirit stones to heal the injured people. So, they could only offer 20,000 spirit stones as rewards for the mission which was really shabby.

If Liu Ming really backed off, no other Taiqing Sect disciples would probably come.

At this moment, seeing that Liu Ming seemed to be hesitant, although the Xu Family’s patriarch was still very unwilling to give away the materials, he had no choice but to offer them.

“Don’t worry, since I have accepted the mission, I will naturally complete it. Otherwise, I won’t be able to explain it to the clan after returning.” Liu Ming said with his eyes flas.h.i.+ng a few times, but he said with slight smile.

“That’s great. Sir Envoy must be tired from travelling from afar. Please take a rest today. The mission is not in a hurry; it won’t be too late to do it tomorrow. There will be a banquet in the mansion in the evening, I hope you can join.” Xu Family’s patriarch was relieved and said with a smile on his face.

The other elders, including the skinny old man, also looked relieved.

Liu Ming was really tired all the way, so he did not refuse. After leaving everyone, under the lead of a servant, he came to the guest room prepared by Xu Family. He then sat cross-leg and rested.

As for the banquet, he naturally rejected it indirectly.

Early the next morning, Liu Ming, accompanied by another middle-aged elder with a scholar look, left the Xu Family Fortress and flew to the mineral vein of the Cangman Mountain.

Elder Xu Family originally wanted to gather all people and go together, but Liu Ming politely declined.

The two ghost creatures of the Condensation Period intermediate stage were not his concern at all.