The Lord of Void and Real

Chapter 57: Chapter 56: Mysterious Stone Box

The light at the bottom of the river was dim, and the water surged so fast that Shen Luo could hardly make out the object in his hand. He could only barely determine that it was an elongated thing.

He was so focused on the object in his hand that he lost his footing. A strong tide swept towards him, causing him to stumble and nearly get washed away.

“I got it!”

As he muttered with relief, he quickly tucked the object into his embrace and swam vigorously towards the surface.

However, Shen Luo had not swum upward for long before a dark shadow appeared in front of him – a large stone at the bottom of the river.

With a “bang”, he couldn’t avoid it in time and was swept up by the current, crashing heavily into the stone.

Shen Luo grunted, half of his body in severe pain. To make matters worse, he had banged his head on the stone, causing his vision to go dark, and temporarily losing his thinking capacity.

He spat out a long trail of air bubbles as he was completely carried away by the river.

At that moment, the rope tied around Shen Luo’s waist suddenly tightened. The length of it had reached its limit and had fortunately halted his drifting body just in time.

However, the current was too strong, and a tremendous force gripped his waist, causing a severe pain in his ribs. His scattered consciousness also snapped back into reality due to this, and he hurriedly began to swim to the surface of the river using his hands and feet.

Shen Luo swallowed a few big mouthfuls of river water, but finally managed to surface before he was utterly exhausted. He gasped heavily, his heart still filled with lingering fear.

If he had regained consciousness a moment later, he would’ve been drowned in the river by now.

Shen Luo took a few deep breaths to gather his strength, grabbed the rope around his waist, and made his way back to the side of the boat with great effort.

He climbed onto the small boat using his hands and feet, with the last bit of his strength finally sucked dry. He lay flat on his back under the canopy, panting heavily.

It took quite a while before some strength returned to Shen Luo’s body. He sat right up and reached into his bosom. His taut face immediately relaxed.

The object was still there, it hadn’t been lost.

Shen Luo took it out, it was a white stone box about three feet long and the width of a palm. There was still a lot of dirt on it.

The stone box seemed large but felt incredibly light to the touch.

He held it in his hand, weighed it, and then shook it next to his ear. He could faintly hear something moving inside.

By this time, the rain was coming down harder, and the swelling river still rocked the small boat. Fortunately, Yu Dadan’s boat was quite sturdy, and he had reinforced the ropes beforehand, so it hadn’t been washed away.

He couldn’t return for the moment though.

Shen Luo wiped the water off his face, cleaned the dirt off the stone box and placed it on a low square table in front of him for a close look.

The color and texture of the stone box were akin to jade, but the pattern on it was unlike any types of jade Shen Luo had seen before. Moreover, there were no locks or any obvious engraved patterns on the box. It looked just like a piece – only where the box lid met the body of the box, one could faintly see a thin line.

Shen Luo hesitated for a moment and used his nail to hook onto that thin line, and then tried to pry it open with some force.

A light “crack” sounded as his finger slid across the lid of the box. The sharp pain made him inhale deeply.

He shook his hand to alleviate the pain while turning the box over, trying to open it from the other side. However, the result was the same, he couldn’t open it at all.

That line on the box seemed to be just a line, not the seam of the box lid.

So, Shen Luo flipped it over and examined the sides of the box closely, running his finger over each edge of the box, looking for any hidden mechanisms.

But no matter how he searched, he could not find any abnormalities.

“This is going to be difficult…” Shen Luo stared at the box, feeling at a loss.

He hesitated for a moment, then his eyes hardened as though he’d made a resolution.

He rummaged around in the cabin and sharply pulled out a short-handled iron axe from a pile of fishing nets and held it in his hand.

The short axe was what Yu Da used to chop wood; due to the moisture in the cabin, there was some rust on the axe head. However, it was just a thin layer, and all of it was wiped off by Shen Luo with a cloth.

Holding the handle in one hand, he brought the blade close to the indentation on the stone box. He didn’t dare use too much force at first, just gently chopping a few times, seeing that the box showed no signs of opening or getting damaged, he gradually increased the force.

“Clang…”

With Shen Luo’s ‘s heavy chop, the sound of metal striking stone resounded from the stone box.

The small table in the cabin shook violently, as the stone box rebounded and jumped, almost flying out. Shen Luo quickly dropped the axe and grabbed the box, examining it carefully.

As it turned out, there wasn’t a single mark left on the stone box. Instead, it was the small table in the middle that now had an indentation from the forceful chop.

“It really is a treasure, matching up to that jade pillow.” Shen Luo wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t open the stone box. Instead, he felt this was to be expected.

He gently stroked the stone box for a while, a notion flashed through his mind. Since this immortal artifact could not be opened using mundane methods, why not give a talisman a try? A “small thunder talisman” might just crack it open.

However, as soon as the idea surfaced, he became somewhat hesitant.

The power of the small thunder talisman was significant. What if it accidentally destroyed the object inside? Wouldn’t that be a case of the cure being worse than the disease?

But he had no other methods at the moment, and considering the sturdiness of the stone box, it was highly likely it would withstand the blast.

Thinking as such, Shen Luo took out the last small thunder talisman from his bosom and placed it on the stone box, setting the Yuan Stone on top of the small thunder talisman, preparing to draw a little lightning power from the talisman to give it a cautious try.

But before he could even channel his Yang Gang Qi to ignite it, the small cluster of white gas inside the Yuan Stone began to churn violently on its own, releasing a bright white light.

Shen Luo’s eyes widened in surprise as he watched the smooth surface of the stone box, under the illumination of the white light, suddenly develop thin light marks that intertwined and crisscrossed, like a vine mat.

Only at the center of that “vine mat” was there a depression about the size of a fingertip, where the light was dimmer than the surroundings.