Traveling through the heavens from swallowing

Chapter 467 Wufeng Mountain Underground Palace Archaeological Investigation Team, Pre-Qin Underground Palace, Central Area
Wufeng Mountain in J City is located 20 kilometers southeast of Changqing County. Of course, the Wufeng Mountain here refers to Changqing Wufeng Mountain, one of the Taoist holy places.

This mountain belongs to the Taishan Mountain Range, and is known as the "Three Mountains in Central Shandong" together with Taishan and Lingyan Mountain. It is named after the five beautiful peaks of Huixian, Zhixian, Qunxian, Wangxian and Juxian that are lined up here.

In the dense shade of green trees surrounded by the Five Peaks, palaces, temples, pavilions and terraces shade each other, creating a beautiful scenery.

People in Wufeng Mountain say there are eight scenic spots. The inner eight scenic spots are Qinglong Valley, Baihu Valley, Xianren Terrace, Wuying Temple, Qingling Spring, Yingxian Bridge, Qixing Spring and Gengji Bridge; the outer eight scenic spots are Qingya Jicui, Runyu Seven Peaks, Mingquan Zaozhao, Fengshan Yanyu, Gunsu Chaoxia, Yutai Diaoyue, Xingdi Chunxiao and Xueling Muqiao.

There are rolling mountains, green hills and beautiful waters here. It is a rare Feng Shui treasure land. Taoism was very prosperous in ancient times. The Taoist temples are large in scale and are divided into the south and north temples.

The North Temple is the Dongzhen Temple, which has numerous stone tablets and hundreds of palaces and halls, including the Jade Emperor Hall, Zhenwu Hall, Sanyuan Hall, Qingling Pavilion, and stone archways.

The Southern Temple is called Yuandu Temple, also known as Xuandu Temple. It is the mausoleum of the Dewang Mansion of the Ming Dynasty. There are six tombs of Ming Dezhuangwang, Deyiwang, Dehuaiwang, Degongwang, Dedingwang and Deduanwang in the mausoleum.

These are places that have been excavated long ago. There are no physically hidden underground palaces or tombs. The latest discovered underground palace is naturally not here.

Liu Mang, his tutor, and a group of classmates and professors from the same department drove to the foot of Wufeng Mountain, then put on boots, took tools, put on headlamps, and started walking on another wild road.

Since this was a newly discovered underground palace, there was naturally no ready-made road. The collapse caused by heavy rain allowed the gate of the underground palace to appear. They, the first group of investigators, could only find a place to climb up.

Fortunately, the heavy rain has stopped and the sun is shining. Even though the ground is muddy, it is not particularly uncomfortable.

Liu Mang's group consisted of twelve people, including four archaeology professors, six graduate students, and two policemen leading the way.

As soon as the underground palace was discovered, it was protected by the local police. Without the guidance of the police comrades and permission from their superiors, they could not enter.

Liu Mang's mentor is a middle-aged man in his 50s named Wu De. Although he is an archaeologist, he is still extremely smart. His smooth scalp, which is in harmony with nature, is exposed and sparkles in the sun, which is very dazzling.

He was extremely excited at this time. It was the first time in his middle age that he had the opportunity to lead an investigation of an ancient relic. His excitement can be imagined.

He used his hands and feet together, not caring at all about getting mud on his body. Even if he fell into a mud puddle, he would just get up, wipe his face and continue walking.

However, people's physical constitutions cannot be generalized. If Liu Mang exercised like this, he would be fine even if he continued for three or four hours. But Wu De was not able to do so. After only forty minutes, he was almost out of breath.

"Teacher, can you take a break?"

Liu Mang approached his mentor, who was no longer so "dazzling" due to the mud, and asked.

Wu De struggled to straighten up, breathing heavily, and looked up to find that he had not even reached half of his mother's distance.

He suddenly felt dizzy and wanted to lie down immediately.

But he has the responsibility of leadership and must lead by example. How can he rest?

Now that the underground palace has been unearthed, any delay may result in the loss of the chance to save the precious cultural relics inside, especially this kind of closed underground palace. Once it is opened, no one knows how long the things inside can be preserved. If he doesn't hurry up, not only will he not be able to get any credit, he will also have to bear the responsibility.

"Stop talking. Go ahead!"

Wu De was indeed struggling. After walking for less than ten minutes, he fell to the ground and couldn't move his legs.

"Teacher, what kind of treatment is it that makes you risk your life? If you really die halfway, it will all be for nothing."

Liu Mang helped Wu De find a stone to sit down and said speechlessly.

Liu Mang earns around 100,000 yuan a month and has no intention of risking his life for it. Wu De only earns a little over 10,000 yuan a month, so he wants to risk his life for it. It's not worth it.

Wu De's lips trembled and he couldn't speak, but Liu Mang understood what he meant:
He has to work hard because his salary is average. Only by working hard can he improve his salary. He has been waiting for such an opportunity for a long time.

Liu Mang held his forehead and said, "Teacher, fighting also requires methods and strategies. It's useless to use your strength blindly. Good steel should be used on the blade. Why do you use it halfway? Start researching when you get to the underground palace, and then fight. Even if you have to study 24 hours a day, it won't be a waste of effort. You are doing this now."

Wu De was speechless and foaming at the mouth, ready to die on the spot in front of Liu Mang.

"Okay, okay, okay, I'll stop talking. Take a breath."

Liu Mang gave up preaching and began to use his own unique first aid method.

Except for the two police officers, everyone else was equally exhausted. Even though they knew that the leader of the investigation had fallen, they did not have the energy to come over to watch the fun.

".Wu De is crazy today. It took him 7 minutes to run a thousand meters before. Why is he so ruthless today?" said a professor from the same college, breathing heavily.

Another professor answered haltingly: "Maybe you think you can get in?"

The last professor was in much better shape, at least he could still speak fluently: "Relying on this? He might as well rely on his student Li Hong. This guy doesn't understand why he can lead this investigation. Damn jealousy!"

The three professors looked at each other and smiled bitterly.

Everyone knows how awesome Li Hong is. Who wouldn’t be excited when all the tutors at Donglu University found out that Li Hong was going to stay on to pursue his postgraduate studies?
After knowing that Li Hong was going to study for a master's degree in archaeology, which professor in the Archaeology Department of the School of History and Culture would not be excited?
If the dean was not from the archaeology department, he would have wanted to personally take Li Hong away!
Unfortunately, after choosing and selecting, the youngest one was chosen, Wu De, which made all the professors jealous.

With such a graduate student, they can at least produce an awesome paper. As mentors of great people, they can gain some fame even if they do nothing.

The five students who were traveling with him only had admiration for Liu Mang and no jealousy at all. They were so proud that this nationally famous top guy turned out to be their classmate!
More than ten minutes later, before Wu De could recover from the shock, teachers and classmates had already come up to Liu Mang to ask about his well-being.

"Come on, Li Hong, you must be thirsty, drink some water." A professor handed over a kettle with a smile, and then found that two other kettles were squeezed over.

He looked around and saw two colleagues.

Their eyes met, and it was as if fire and lightning were clashing in the air.

Sure enough, Wu De was the only one who failed to recognize that Liu Mang was a powerful figure, while everyone else wanted to snatch Liu Mang to work for them.

Ignoring the professors' confrontation, Liu Mang sat on a rock and closed his eyes to rest, but he was actually sensing the difference in the air around him.

An ancient, simple, yet noble and vast aura continued to drift down from the mountain. Although it was not strong, it was enough for Liu Mang to sense.

"It seems that the underground palace above is quite old and the materials are seriously decayed, otherwise we wouldn't be able to sense the aura from such a distance." Liu Mang judged in his heart.

The so-called breath was not energy breath, but free molecules that diffused into the air after the decay of matter. As the underground palace opened, it floated down with the wind and was captured by the keen-sensing Liu Mang.

Based on these "auras", he judged that the underground palace above was at least from the pre-Qin period.

"That's great. In the pre-Qin era, there were still many Qigong practitioners. There might be some records of Qigong practices in this underground palace."

The Qi training method is actually also a way of practicing the secret realm method, not the Qi training for cultivating immortals. As long as there are some related records, Liu Mang can extract them for research, and thus understand what that damn sea of ​​suffering is, and embark on the road of cultivation from then on.

Liu Mang had tried to open up the Sea of ​​Bitterness for cultivation, but although the Sea of ​​Bitterness existed in the lower dantian, it was not the dantian in the martial arts sense, nor was it a certain acupuncture point, nor was it a sea of ​​qi or a cyclone.

According to Shi Hao's experience in creating the law in the Perfect World, the Sea of ​​Bitterness is actually a cave heaven that is integrated with the human body. The cave heaven is a small world that gradually moves from illusion to reality.

From this perspective, the Sea of ​​Bitterness is actually a small world in the human body, or it can be said to be a semi-virtual organ that corresponds to the physical body.

From this perspective, the starting point of the cultivation method in the world of Shrouding Heaven is very high. The first step is to open up your own small world. Even though Liu Mang has already opened up the world inside his body in the Devouring Star Universe, he still cannot open up a sea of ​​suffering that conforms to the rules of the world under the worldview of Shrouding Heaven.

Every world is different from every other world, and many things cannot correspond one to one, just like in the world of Devouring the Star, a star-level being can live for 10,000 years, but in Shrouding the Sky, even the emperor only lives for this long.

There are also things like the density of life planets, the strength of life planets, the stability of space, the suppression force of laws, etc. which are completely different.

Even the laws themselves are completely different. For example, the same law of fire is completely different in the world of Zhantian and the world of Devouring. The same goes for other laws. The ten laws that Liu Mang basically understood in Devouring the Star are of only a little reference value when it comes to Zhantian.

If you want to use the sword that devours the world to kill the officials of the world that covers the sky, I'm afraid you haven't woken up yet.

The world of Devouring the Stars and the world of Covering the Sky basically belong to the same level. The difference lies entirely in the expression. In essence, the ends of the two worlds are the same. In terms of the way of sacrifice, one should be equal to Lord Hunyuan.

However, these are all Liu Mang's personal opinions. Whether it is true or not, only he can know it when he becomes the Lord of Jidao or Hunyuan. Otherwise, any speculation and comparison will be meaningless.

He felt that his strength as the cosmic overlord who Devoured the Stars should be equivalent to that of a quasi-emperor in Shrouding the Sky, but that was just a feeling after all, and he couldn't even verify it, because the two systems were different and there was no way to match them one to one.

There is no basic foothold at all, so naturally there is no way to compare the two sides through the foothold.

Some say it is a comparison of strength, some say it is a comparison of time and space performance, and some say it is a comparison of destructive power, but in fact, none of them can be compared, because the worlds are different. No one has set a set of universal basic data for the two worlds. The same 100kg of force will basically mean different things in different worlds.

How do you know that the 100kg in the Devouring World and the 100kg in the Shrouding Heaven World are the same mass?
So, Liu Mang was very confused and couldn't figure out his position in the world of Zhutian.

But one thing is certain, that is, he is definitely not as good as ordinary people. Even if he came to the world of Shrouding the Sky, he is still quite powerful and does not have to start from scratch.

Wu De finally woke up, his strength still not recovered, but with the help of Liu Mang, he still reached the entrance of the underground palace two hours later.

Fortunately, the place where the underground palace collapsed happened to be the entrance. This place was artificially built and its strength was not as good as other places. Under long-term erosion and scouring, the originally closed entrance collapsed, which allowed the underground palace to come into being.

Because it was originally the entrance, there used to be a platform here. Now, thousands of years have passed, and although the platform is covered with soil and vegetation, and has also collapsed in part, it is still much more open than below, and it does not seem crowded even with more than a dozen policemen guarding here. After stating their identities, verifying documents, and contacting their superiors for confirmation, Liu Mang and his party were put into the underground palace.

The police here have already conducted careful initial investigations and confirmed that there are only two entrances and exits to the underground palace. One is the one Liu Mang and his team are entering now, and the other is the cliff leading up to the other side of the mountain.

There is nothing on one side of the cliff, and there is a bottomless abyss when you look down. There is no foothold at all, and even professional climbers find it difficult to climb up and down here without professional tools.

This means that this entrance is the only one. As long as we guard it, we can restrict the entry and exit of people and ensure the safety of cultural relics.

The entrance to the underground palace has been open for almost three days and was not discovered until the heavy rain stopped. Now the air in the underground palace has been circulated countless times and there is no risk of suffocation.

But Wu De felt sad. How could the air be allowed to circulate? How many cultural relics would be corroded?

He would rather go in and explore with an oxygen tank on his back than go in for sightseeing!

After all, the police are not professional archaeologists, so how could they understand these protective measures? It is already good enough that they thought of notifying the college in time to come and investigate. We cannot ask for more. After all, they are just police officers, and their responsibility is not in this area.

The underground palace had just been unearthed, so naturally there was no lighting equipment inside.

In fact, it's not that there aren't any, but the oil lamps and other things inside are also cultural relics. You can't light them up for lighting, so you can only use a flashlight or a headlamp to explore the underground palace first.

At this stage, they had to first find out what was valuable, then draw a map and mark it. After eliminating dangers and places that might cause losses, they installed lighting facilities in the underground palace, and then began a more detailed exploration and investigation until the underground palace was almost completely explored.

As for uncovering cultural relics from the underground palace, that will be a matter for the future. If it is decided to carry out excavation, the marked map of the investigation team will be the basis for organizing the construction. In short, the preliminary tasks of the investigation team are very important.

There were ten people in Liu Mang's group, and not everyone was qualified to go in in the dark at this stage. In addition to three of the four professors, only four of the six graduate students could go in. The remaining two accompanied the professors who stayed behind and the police to set up relevant facilities outside, and acted as liaisons to prepare for follow-up work.

The people who went in were divided into two groups, one group consisted of one professor and two graduate students, and the other group consisted of two professors and two graduate students.

The one leading two was naturally the leader of the investigation team, Instructor Wu De, who took Liu Mang and another senior brother to conduct the first wave of exploration.

Wu De is not only the team leader, but also the youngest of the four professors. The probability of encountering danger during the first exploration is relatively high. Young people react quickly and dodge quickly, so they naturally go first.

Liu Mang actually disagrees with this. Although Wu De is young, his reaction is really slow and his mobility is not good. He is not as good as another 59-year-old professor.

However, Liu Mang did not say anything. If Wu De did not go in first, then he, as Wu De's student, would not be able to go in first either, so he accepted this distribution.

The underground palace is not big. As he explored, Liu Mang outlined a corner of the underground palace in his mind. He calculated based on his experience and it was about 12000 square meters.

At the same time, with the discovery of some precious cultural relics, Wu De also speculated that it was probably an underground palace from the pre-Qin period, which coincided with Liu Mang's feeling.

In the pre-Qin era, such a large underground palace was opened up by relying on the mountain, and the facilities inside were extremely complete, with no traces of knife cutting and axe chiseling. Liu Mang didn't believe that this could be done without some spiritual cultivation.

Liu Mang had also seen it. This was not the kind of underground palace built based on an existing cave, but one that was forcibly carved out of a complete mountain. It even pierced through the entire mountain and connected the passage to the cliff on the other side.

The excavated rock wall is extremely flat and smooth, as if it was cut by wire cutting. It was definitely built by monks!
"This is normal. After all, Wufeng Mountain can become one of the holy places of Taoism, so it must have a legacy. It's just that the world has changed drastically, the monks have left, and it has gradually lost its mysterious power."

"This underground palace doesn't look like it has high specifications. Maybe its owner didn't take everything with him when he left. This is my chance."

"Fortunately, the length of time has made the underground palace's defensive formations ineffective. Otherwise, if we had come in like this, we would have all died."

Liu Mang sighed. If the collapse of the underground palace had not proven that the defensive formation was ineffective, he would not have dared to come in like this.

But on the other hand, even the defensive formation has failed, so it’s hard to say how much can be left inside.

Without the protection of mysterious power, even ancient treasures would be reduced to dust under the ravages of time.

It took Liu Mang and his two companions six full hours to conduct a preliminary exploration of the underground palace, eliminate some dangers, and draw the first rough map.

Wu De was stunned holding the map and looked at Liu Mang: "Is this a rough map? The construction drawings are just like this!"

Liu Mang smiled without saying anything, saying that even the number of cultural relics in each place, what they are, and the inspiration for protection methods are not clearly marked. Isn't this rough?
Wu De was shocked. You want to finish half a month's work for everyone in the investigation team in just one day?

The underground palace is divided into two floors, with eight staircases connecting the upper and lower levels. The entire underground palace is roughly circular, and the eight staircases are arranged in the eight directions of the Eight Trigrams, connecting 16 areas above and below.

Liu Mang and his companions have already traveled through all the sixteen areas and drawn a map.

But based on the structure of the map, there should be a central area in the middle of the sixteen areas, but they did not find the portal to the central area after a round.

Wu De said firmly: "There must be a mechanism. Only by opening the mechanism can we open the door to the central area. Let's look around!"

Although Wu De is young, he is also an expert in the field of archaeology. He gestured with the map and used his knowledge of Feng Shui to guess where the mechanism was.

In ancient times, there was a set of standards for building these underground palaces, which is the current Feng Shui theory. Everyone built them according to this set of standards, so naturally they can be found according to this set of standards.

"For this kind of building in the form of a simple Bagua, the functions of each place are likely to correspond to the meaning of the Bagua."

"Qian represents heaven, the highest realm of the universe, and implies strength, creativity, and enterprising spirit. It is usually regarded as a positive and favorable symbol. If the central area is the most important area, it is not bad to be connected to heaven."

"Xun represents wind, gentleness, freedom and invisible power. It implies gentleness, lightness and agility, and indicates harmony, flexibility and smoothness. Since the central area is hidden, it makes sense that its passage is hidden here."

"Kan represents water, depth, flow and change. It implies calmness, depth and sinisterness. It is regarded as a symbol of calmness, depth and change. If there is a central area hidden in the deepest part and connected by a passage, it is not incomprehensible to put it here."

Liu Mang was speechless. How could it be interpreted this way? Are you sure you are not guessing?

Wu De: "Let's go, let's go to Tianwei first. If we can't find it, we'll go to Xunwei and Kanwei. We'll look for these three with high probabilities first. If we can't find them, we'll look for other ones with low probabilities."

The senior brother beside him smiled bitterly: "Teacher, what if the underground palace only has these 16 areas and there is no central area?"

Wu De waved his hand indifferently: "If there is nothing, then there is nothing. It just takes a little more time. If there is, it must be something very important."

That makes sense. Anyway, according to the map, there should be a central area. Liu Mang has looked at these 16 districts and found that there is nothing he needs in them, so he can only rely on the central area.

Since it is hidden, there must be a reason for hiding it. There must be something important in it, right?

After another round of searching for several hours, the three found nothing.

Looking at the time, it was time to change shifts. Wu De didn't hesitate and took Liu Mang and the other man out to change shifts.

Anyway, he is the leader of the investigation team. No matter who finds it in the central area, he will have a share of the credit. Let another group look for it.

The other group that was handing over the class also received the rough drawing drawn by Liu Mang. When the two professors saw it, they immediately exclaimed:

"It's all so detailed, why are we going in there?"

Compared to the version shown to Wu De before, after several hours of careful searching for the mechanism, Liu Mang has already filled in the missing information, such as how many cultural relics are there, what they are, how to protect and unearth them, and even where there are pits where people are likely to sprain their ankles, all of which are clearly marked.

The two looked at each other and were both impressed by Liu Mang's efficiency.

Liu Mang smiled and said, "After all, this map was drawn by our group. If there are any omissions or errors, we need your group to investigate and correct them. In addition, the teacher speculated that there should be a central area hidden in addition to these 16 major areas. However, we have not found the location of the mechanism portal, so we also need the two professors and the two brothers to work hard."

The two professors nodded: "Indeed, according to the map, there should be a central area. Otherwise, why would such a large space be left? Don't worry, we will definitely check carefully and try to find this central area!"

The second group walked into the underground palace with excited steps, while the first group started to eat.

It had been nearly 11 hours and they had nothing to eat except a little water. They were already starving and immediately started to eat with big mouthfuls.

After the meal, Wu De immediately applied to his superiors for supplies and equipment based on the findings of the initial investigation, and requested reinforcements.

It was previously uncertain what level of ruins this underground palace was, so the higher-ups only sent a dozen local police officers to guard it.

But after Wu De's investigation, it has been confirmed that this is a relic from the pre-Qin period, and it is relatively well preserved. It contains more than a thousand cultural relics and has great research value. Its level has been raised all of a sudden.

Ruins of this level could not be guarded by a dozen police officers, so a helicopter from the provincial department came over that day, and a group of local troops also arrived.

The entire Wufeng Mountain was quickly blocked off. Any birds passing by were stopped and questioned, and the rats were scared away and fled in all directions.

As their level is raised, their treatment will get better. Compared to the first day when they had to travel through mountains and rivers and eat cold bread, now they can even eat hot meals in the mountains.

When he woke up, Wu Dezheng was holding a meeting with Liu Mang, two of his students, the professors and students who stayed behind, as well as the newly added security chief and commander.

However, before they could even get comfortable on the bench, good news came from Group 2.

A graduate student said excitedly on the intercom: "Professor Wu, we found the entrance to the central area!"

Here comes the update
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(End of this chapter)