"Yuan...?" The azure-eyed beauty raised her eyebrows, and she asked, "I don’t recognize you. What are you doing here at my Lord’s stone tablet?"
"Your lord...? I’ll apologize in advance if I am not supposed to be here, but I was called here by a voice." Yuan said to her.
"A voice? What did the voice tell you?" The azure-eyed beauty asked him, seemingly intrigued by his situation.
"It only told me to come here," Yuan shrugged.
"Is that so..." The azure-eyed beauty mumbled before she started moving again, approaching his direction— or more specifically, the stone tablet behind Yuan.
"I’ll assume that you’re not from around here since I don’t recognize your aura," she said to him.
"Yes... I came here with my fellow disciples, but we somehow got separated." Yuan explained his situation briefly.
"I see..."
The azure-eyed lady stopped moving once she stood directly in front of the stone tablet.
She then placed the bamboo basket in her arms down before kneeling on the floor and kowtowing to the stone tablet.
After a moment of stillness, the young lady lifted her head and retrieved a towel from the basket, and she began wiping the stone tablet as though it was a fragile treasure.
"Umm... What is this place?" Yuan decided to ask her.
"This place doesn’t have a name, nor does it have any other purpose besides housing my Lord’s stone tablet," she responded in a calm voice.
"Your Lord?" Yuan raised his eyebrows.
"Yes, my family served him for countless generations, and it’s my job to clean his stone tablet once a month. However, I come here at least once a week since I have nothing else to do."
After spending a few minutes cleaning the stone tablet, she turned to look at Yuan in the eyes and spoke, "You mentioned a voice calling you to this place, right?"
Yuan nodded his head.
"Well... There’s actually a barrier made of Sword Aura protecting this temple if you didn’t know, and unless you’re protected by my family’s blessing, it’s impossible to get near this place, much less enter the temple..." The azure-eyed lady revealed to him.
"Sword Aura?" Yuan mumbled in a low voice, finding this word very familiar.
After pondering for a moment, he recalled Xiao Hua briefly explaining Sword Aura to him before.
"I don’t know how you bypassed the barrier, nor anything about this voice you heard, but you’re here for a reason."
"I see... thank you... uhh... Can I get your name?" Yuan asked her upon realizing that she hasn’t introduced herself yet.
The young lady then spoke, "My name is Lan Yingying, and I’m the guardian of this unnamed temple."
"Ummm, Miss Lan, if you don’t mind me asking, do you know what’s written on this stone tablet? Maybe it’ll give me a hint or something." Yuan suddenly asked her.
Lan Yingying turned to look at the stone tablet and said, "The words written on my Lord’s stone tablet don’t mean anything— if you can even call it that."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"These symbols are sword marks created by my Lord when he was still alive and practicing his Sword Aura. At least that’s what the legend says." Lan Yingying said.
"Legend? How long has it been since he passed away?"
Lan Yingying shook her head and said, "We don’t know for sure when he disappeared, but it was definitely a few hundred thousand years ago."
"A-A few hundred thousand years ago?!?!" Yuan exclaimed, as he truly didn’t expect that this person had been dead for such a long time.
"And you’re still cleaning his stone tablet despite such a long time? What’s the purpose?" Yuan couldn’t help but ask.
"When my Lord was still alive, he accepted my family’s ancestors as his servants, and our family has been serving him since then— even if he’s no longer in this world. Cleaning his stone tablet has become a tradition in my family since his disappearance." Lan Yingying said.
"Anyways, I will be leaving now. I don’t mind if you stay here, but don’t make a mess, or I’ll get angry." Lan Yingying said to him before leaving the temple.
"..."
Yuan decided to remain in this place since he wanted to be sure that there’s really nothing here for him.
After Lan Yingying left the place, Yuan took a seat in front of the stone tablet again. Although he wasn’t sure what was so special about the stone tablet, he had a feeling that it was related to why he was called here.
Thus, he began cultivating again.
About an hour and a half later, he entered second-level Spirit Warrior.
Another hour later, he breakthroughs to third level Spirit Warrior.
Yuan took a deep breath and opened his eyes, stopping his cultivation to look at the stone tablet in front of him.
"Sword marks..." Yuan’s gaze focused on the incredibly clean and sharp marks on the tablet.
After spending two hours looking at the sword marks, Yuan returned to cultivating for another two hours, reaching the fourth level Spirit Warrior realm.
Yuan repeated this process until the sky began turning dark.
At the end of the day, he’d managed to reach the fifth level Spirit Warrior realm.
After logging off the game, Yuan could already smell Meixiu cooking dinner.
"What happened to you, Yuan? You weren’t with the other two disciples." Meixiu asked him during dinner.
"I don’t know, either. I was separated from them before I was aware of it."
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I found this pretty safe area and managed to increase my cultivation base to the fifth level Spirit Warrior realm."
"Xiao Hua... she was really worried about you. She even..." Meixiu said, and she explained the situation that had occurred after his disappearance.
"What? Xiao Hua did that? Can you tell her not to worry and that I am okay after dinner?" Yuan quickly said.
"I will." Meixiu nodded.
"Thank you."
After dinner, Yuan returned to Cultivation Online to cultivate some more whilst Meixiu went to deliver the news of Yuan’s situation to Xiao Hua and the others.