A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The moment the bronze key countdown jumped to 23:59:59, the black slime on the ground suddenly boiled.

Jiang Ye's shoes were stuck with a sticky substance. He stumbled a couple of steps and bumped into the stone wall: "This stuff is even more difficult to deal with than super glue!"

Ye Shuli's palm burst forth with azure-gold light, and the lingering double helix of light shredded the oncoming clump of slime.

She stared at the latitude and longitude coordinates flashing on the key's surface, then suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's wrist: "Step on the Three Palaces and Nine Stars!" Modern surveying knowledge and the sacred site's array diagram overlapped in her mind, creating a clear escape route.

Twelve members of the psionic organization leaped out from the shadows. The scarred leader grinned and swung his poisoned chain blade: "Hand over the key!" The grudge of losing an arm during the raid three months ago made the mechanical prosthetic on his right shoulder screech.

"Take three steps back!" Ye Shuli shouted sharply, and Jiang Ye reflexively snapped off the abacus beads hanging around his neck.

The 108 spirit jade beads exploded into a barrier, precisely blocking the seven ice spikes that came from different angles.

His back bumped into Ye Shuli's shoulder, and he felt the surging pressure of a half-step Spirit Venerable within her.

"There is an undercurrent three zhang below the Kun position." Ye Shuli spoke quickly, and three sword energies shot out from her fingertips, piercing through the stone pillar on the left.

The collapsed boulder cut off the enemy's offensive, revealing a tributary of the spiritual vein below, glowing with a ghostly blue light.

Jiang Ye immediately understood, and swung out the chain to wrap around Ye Shuli's waist, using the wind pressure she created to swing her towards the designated location.

Scarface roared and swung his chain blade, sending six explosive tags flying from his mechanical prosthetic arm.

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye and plummeted downwards, the two sliding into an underground cavern along the dark current of the spiritual vein.

The explosive talisman struck the cave ceiling, blasting out a shower of ice crystals that ironically froze the pursuers' path.

"How do they know the direction of the spiritual veins?" The gray-haired sorceress stopped in her tracks, filled with surprise and doubt.

Jiang Ye's shout echoed from deep within the cave: "I suggest you switch to food delivery—" A string of abacus beads hurtling through the air shattered the ice beneath her feet. "This delivery route is terrible!"

Ye Shuli sped through the winding cave, her modern geographical knowledge allowing her to instantly determine the growth patterns of the stalactites.

As the sixth pursuer was forced back by the suddenly broken stalagmite, she suddenly turned around and leaped up: "Zen position reversal!"

Jiang Ye tacitly swung out the chain to entangle the dome, and the two of them swung around the ninety-degree bend using the inertia.

The three chasing in front didn't have time to turn around and crashed straight into the sword energy net that Ye Shuli had set out in advance.

The pressure of a half-step Spirit Venerable, combined with calculations from modern fluid dynamics, pinned the enemy firmly in a swirling vortex of undercurrents.

“Five left.” Ye Shuli leaned against the rock wall, adjusting her breathing. The red light of the key countdown reflected on her profile.

Jiang Ye wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and suddenly laughed: "Have you noticed? Their attack rhythm follows the Fibonacci sequence."

The pursuers' screams suddenly stopped.

Scarface ripped open his blood-stained shirt, revealing an amethyst array plate embedded in his chest: "Activate Plan B!" The remaining members simultaneously slashed their palms, and the teleportation array activated by their blood instantly enveloped the entire cavern.

Ye Shuli's pupils contracted sharply; her modern mathematical knowledge allowed her to instantly calculate the coordinates of the array's core.

In the instant the white light engulfed everyone, she grabbed Jiang Ye and lunged towards the stalactite three meters to the northeast.

Amidst the distorted and tearing sensation of space, the bronze key suddenly burst forth with a bronze-colored light.

As everyone crashed heavily onto the ruins of the temple, Ye Shuli's key was inserted into the core of the array.

Twelve bronze pillars rose up in response, trapping the members of the psionic organization in the center.

Jiang Ye squatted at the edge of the formation and poked the light wall: "Didn't your boss teach you topology? This kind of nested formation within a formation only needs to..."

"Shut up!" Scarface slashed wildly at the light barrier, his mechanical prosthetic limbs emitting plumes of black smoke.

Ye Shuli brushed the ice shards off her shoulder; the key countdown had reached 18:07:32. "It's time to go and meet the real 'Global Positioning System'."

As the two turned and walked deeper into the temple, neither of them noticed the communication jade talisman that Scarface had secretly crushed.

Blood-red moonlight pierced through the gaps in the bronze pillar, casting eerie spots of light on his twisted smile.

Three major stars suddenly disappeared from the star map on the temple dome, and Scarface, who was charging his mechanical prosthetic limb, suddenly froze.

The amethyst array disc on his chest automatically rose up, projecting a blurry human silhouette in mid-air—clearly the unique spiritual energy fluctuations of their leader.

The humming of the bronze pillar suddenly stopped.

Ye Shuli's right hand, which was holding the key, suddenly became hot, and a blinding blood-red light burst out from the missing star map position on the temple dome.

Jiang Ye tore off the remaining half of the abacus bead chain from his neck, and pieced together the fragments of jade into a broken Luoshu pattern in his palm: "There's something I need in the northeast Gen position—"

The sound of something tearing through the air ripped apart the unfinished words.

Spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the twelve bronze pillars simultaneously, and the amethyst array discs on the chests of the psionic organization members were all blasted into dust.

Amidst the billowing blood mist, Scarface was dragged into the air by his mechanical prosthetic arm, the gears of his right arm emitting a shrill scream as if on the verge of collapse.

"waste."

The deep male voice shook the stalactites, causing them to fall in a rustling sound.

Ye Shuli took a half step back and bumped into Jiang Ye's chest. The overlapping hems of their clothes were torn into seventeen rips by the spiritual pressure that appeared out of nowhere.

Blood-red moonlight swirled in the center of the ruins, and black and gold python-patterned boots shattered the last intact floor tile.

The leader of the psionic organization raised his hand to catch the falling Scarface, his five fingers gripping the energy core of the mechanical prosthetic.

Arcs of blue-purple electricity danced between his fingers, highlighting the sharply defined lines of his jaw: "A puppet created with thirty percent of my spiritual power couldn't even stop two brats?"

Jiang Ye suddenly swung out a chain that wrapped around Ye Shuli's waist, pulling her back rapidly.

The spot where they had stood was blasted into a crater two meters in diameter, with residual shockwaves of both ice and fire elemental energy remaining among the rubble.

"Half-step Spirit Venerable?" The leader turned his neck, and the black iron mask reflected a cold light.

He flicked his fingers, and the three missing main stars on the temple dome suddenly glowed with an eerie red light: "Let me see just how valuable the wisdom of modern people is."

The rapidly magnifying starlight was reflected in Ye Shuli's pupils.

Modern astronomical knowledge automatically analyzed the trajectory of the three-body motion, but his legs felt as heavy as lead.

The key countdown suddenly accelerated, and bronze light exploded into a hexagonal matrix in her palm.

The moment the starlight struck the protective shield, Ye Shuli's right sleeve turned to ashes.

The same bronze patterns as the key appeared on the skin's surface, and a dense stream of data cascaded down onto the retina like a waterfall.

She suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye and rolled him sideways. The second starlight grazed his ear and disappeared into the rock wall, precisely piercing through the three parallel spiritual vein nodes.

"The Fibonacci spiral!" Jiang Ye flicked out the last seven abacus beads, and the jade shavings spelled out the golden ratio sequence in the air.

The third starlight twisted strangely three inches from Ye Shuli's brow, blasting the bronze pillar behind her into a rain of bronze.

The leader clapped his hands and chuckled, and the black iron mask cracked open with fine lines.

He walked towards the two amidst the copper rain, the hem of his black and gold python robe sweeping across the ground, automatically paving a psionic path with trigonometric function ripples: "To be able to withstand the alignment of three stars, that's more interesting than those old fogies."

Ye Shuli wiped the bloodstains from her lips, and the red light of the key countdown shone brightly against the bronze patterns.

She suddenly placed her palm on Jiang Ye's back, the pressure of a half-step Spirit Venerable mixed with modern physics formulas pouring into his body: "Do you still remember Maxwell's equations?"

Jiang Ye's eyes suddenly lit up, and the blood-stained remnants of the abacus chain suddenly floated into a three-dimensional coordinate system.

The ice and fire dragons unleashed by the leader twisted and deformed in the electromagnetic field, and the psionic leap triggered by the quantum tunneling effect caused the two elemental dragons to tear each other apart.

"A mere trifle." The leader pointed his fingers like a sword, slicing through the void, and a Cartesian coordinate system appeared on the temple dome.

Ye Shuli dragged Jiang Ye and made seven consecutive right-angle changes of direction. Modern kinematic algorithms allowed them to break through before the psionic grid closed each time.

As the key countdown reached 00:15:00, the bronze patterns had spread to Ye Shuli's collarbone.

She suddenly stopped and sprinted forward, using the chain Jiang Ye threw to accelerate in a parabolic trajectory.

On the hexagonal barrier constructed by the leader's raised hand, the Poisson equation, written in psychic energy, was clearly visible.

"break!"

The moment the key tip pierced the solution to the equation, a deafening roar of gears turning echoed from the depths of the temple.

The twelve bronze pillars rose again, trapping the leader in a psionic cage constructed of Klein bottles.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ye threw out chains to entangle the star map on the dome, and swung Ye Shuli towards the northwest Qian position.

"A topological trap?" The leader laughed in fury, and his black iron mask finally shattered completely.

The amethyst array on his chest disintegrated automatically, reconstructing a Möbius strip within the cage.

But Ye Shuli had already led Jiang Ye into the suddenly appearing secret door, and the buzzing sound of the key countdown reaching zero swallowed up the pursuing psionic beams.

Just before the hidden door closed, the leader's blood-stained fingertips suddenly pierced through the spatial barrier.

Ye Shuli instinctively parried with her sword, the blood from her split tiger's mouth drawing strange runes on the surface of the key.

The moment the bronze light surged, everyone heard the clanging sound of gears coming from deep within the sacred ground.

"You have no idea what you've activated..." The leader's cold laugh abruptly ended as the secret door closed.

Ye Shuli staggered and knelt on the damp stone steps, the bronze patterns on the key slowly seeping into her veins.

Jiang Ye pulled open his shirt and pressed down on her bleeding shoulder, suddenly noticing a silvery-blue liquid seeping from the cracks in the temple floor tiles—it clearly had the texture of modern petroleum.

In the distance, the sound of stalactites breaking one after another could be heard, like a sign that some kind of giant machine was being awakened.

The residual temperature of the key suddenly became scorching, and the compass on Ye Shuli's watch began to spin wildly counterclockwise, the dial reflecting her pupils, which were gradually turning bronze.