Long Chen stood in front of the treasury, which was being protected by a formation.
The formation had been running for thousands of years, never running out of energy. But it wasn't impossible to pass through this either. The Saint King had already managed to pass through in the past.
This formation was also the reason Fu Qua approached Long Chen to help her team. Without him, she had no choice but to send another Formation Expert with her team.
"This is a High Grade Formation. And it's an assault formation especially. One mistake, and it'll attack you. Stay alert," Xun reminded Long Chen as she saw him step closer.
In the silent room, her voice reached Long Chen easily even though she hadn't spoken loudly.
"I know what I'm doing. I have a way to get to the other side," Long Chen answered. "I am just recreating the steps of someone else," Long Chen responded as he reached out his hand to touch the formation.
He made sure to first a specific part of the formation after making a proper calculation. Any small mistake would have activated the formation, but it didn't happen.
The place he touched started shining.
Long Chen took a deep breath as he prepared to move his finger.
"What are you doing?" Snake Monarch asked just as Long Chen was about to move his finger. Fortunately, Long Chen stopped in time and didn't let any mistake happen.
"Stay silent for ten minutes! A single mistake and this whole room will fill with poison. Don't disturb me," Long Chen reminded the Snake Monarch.
He once again calmed his mind as he took another deep breath.
He started moving his finger. As his finger slid through the formation, a new line was created. His fingers worked like a pen which was creating a pattern as he moved his finger.
Snake Monarch was amused at what was happening, but he didn't say anything. He simply waited for Long Chen to finish what he was doing.
Time kept trickling away as seconds turned to minutes. Soon, twenty minutes had passed. The entire formation looked completely different as Long Chen had made so many strange lines on top of it. None of the lines intersected the original formation lines though.
"Done!" Long Chen ultimately said as he finished.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he sat back.
"That really drained me despite the fact that my cultivation is so high. I wonder how Saint King did it. His cultivation should've been weaker when he came here," he said, shaking his head.
"I think it's because his knowledge of formation should be high. He made this himself with all the knowledge he had. On the other hand, you were trying to copy what he did without knowing the basics. That's why more of your energy was drained," Xun theorized.
"You're lucky that your cultivation was so high. Otherwise, it would have been really bad," she further added.
"I don't understand a single thing you're saying. What exactly did you do? All I saw was that you made a few doodles on the formation," Snake Monarch let out. He couldn't understand anything about the formation.
"These aren't doodles. I created an obstruction in the flow of this formation without setting it off. What I did was create a flaw and attached it to the formation," Long Chen explained.
"Since it's a self healing formation, this is the best option we had. Trying to break it would have activated it. And trying to influence or modify it would also do the same. That's why this trick is the best. The formation will start healing itself. But until then, it won't work. So we're free," Long Chen said, laughing.
He stood up and opened the treasury. The heavy metallic door of the treasury opened with a screeching sound.
He entered the treasure and saw around ten items inside the treasury. One of them seemed to be a brush as well.
"Only this? What kind of robber was this guy? He could only steal ten things? I thought it'd be filled with the treasures?" Snake Monarch asked, disappointed.
"This is not the only treasury. There are more spread throughout the town. This is just the one which holds the most precious treasures," Long Chen explained. "This might seem like nothing to you, but these are the best of the best features he had managed to collect."
"That also sucks. The curse... We can't take them all. Even Saint King wasn't able to take them all. So it wouldn't have mattered even if we had more treasures," Snake Monarch said.
"How about you take some and I take some? We should be able to escort double the limit. Unless this curse isn't on an individual basis but total?" Snake Monarch asked.
"Don't worry. We won't need to do it. All we need is to give the redemption to the Spirits that are in the town. The curse will be over. And we'll get to take all of these," Long Chen responded as he walked towards one of the ten items.
"This... Redemption? Ah! I understand now! It's not because you feel bad for the spirits that you want to free them! But it's because you want to remove the curse with that! Ah, clever! As expected of my right hand man!" Snake Monarch said, realizing Long Chen's plan. He even burst into laughter, pleased with the plan.
"That's right. Just watch how I do it," Long Chen said, laughing.
He waved his hand to bring out the diary of Saint King. It contained the important things that he had recorded.
Long Chen turned a few pages to open a certain page which seemed to have a formation pattern drawn on it.
He placed the book in the ground, keeping that page open before he walked to the formation brush. He picked the formation brush and walked back to the diary.
He again picked up the diary in his left hand while holding the brush in his right hand.
Using the brush, he started drawing something on the floor with the brush. The brush seemed to work miracles as a thick formation line was made wherever the brush passed through.
As for what Long Chen was drawing, it seemed to be the exact replica of the formation in the diary. It's just that he was drawing it on a larger scale and with a formation brush to boost the formation even further.
After a long time, Long Chen finished carving the formation. He walked back to the center of the room.
"Snakey, come. Let me show you something special. It's time for fireworks," Long Chen excitedly called the Snake Monarch.