Family Cultivation: My Ancestral Home Gets Infinite Upgrades

In the corner behind the skeleton stood a wooden frame about the height of an adult.

The shelves were divided into several layers, with books scattered on them.

Jiang Fu'an took a closer look, and his heart sank.

The covers of those books were covered with mold and gave off a musty smell.

He stretched out two fingers and carefully pinched the corner of one of the covers, wanting to open it and take a look.

But the moment my fingertip touched the inner page, the paper crumbled into powder like bubbles, and I didn't even have time to see the words on it.

He paused, a wave of regret washing over him.

"This is something a Foundation Establishment cultivator would collect..."

He shook his head, flicked the moldy powder off his fingertips, and, not giving up easily, carefully looked through each book on the bookshelf.

As it turned out, a new discovery was made in the moldy pile of books.

Those were several rolls made of animal hide.

The leather has hardened and the color has darkened, but it still feels quite sturdy to the touch; it's neither broken nor rotten.

He pulled out one of the scrolls and carefully unfolded it slowly.

The first thing that catches the eye is three ink characters written in Song script: Lingyunbu.

What followed were a series of illustrations of human body movements, accompanied by dense text explanations.

Jiang Fu'an quickly glanced at it, his brows gradually furrowing:

"This is a worldly form of martial arts!"

He was somewhat disappointed.

They had originally hoped to find a cultivation technique like the "Eternal Spring Skill".

But upon further reflection, it seems reasonable:

Truly precious cultivation manuals wouldn't just be casually placed on a bookshelf.

It must be stored in a safe place like a storage ring.

Thinking about it this way, he felt a little calmer and stopped looking at it. He casually stuffed the animal skin roll into the basket on his back and continued to search the shelves.

Then they found several more animal hides, all of which, without exception, recorded secular martial arts techniques such as fist fighting, foot fighting, and sword fighting.

The rest of the paper books were so decayed that they couldn't be touched.

It seems that this is all the harvest on the shelf.

Just as he was about to turn and leave, he caught a glimpse of a round shape in the innermost corner of the bottom shelf of the bookshelf, half-buried in the dust.

He bent down, brushed away the dust, and discovered that it was actually an egg.

The egg was as big as his palm, with a grayish-white shell and a rough surface, several times larger than the eggs laid by the large white geese he raised at home.

"The eggs hidden in the cultivator's cave... they can't be ordinary bird eggs, can they?"

Although he couldn't recognize what it was, he was certain in his heart that it was no ordinary thing.

He planned to put the eggs in the basket as well.

But as soon as the egg was picked up, a hole appeared where it had been pressing down.

It was about as thick as a thigh, pitch black, and you couldn't see the bottom of it at a glance.

Jiang Fu'an was afraid that some ferocious beast was hiding inside, so he dared not look any longer and silently took two steps back.

He took out the cloak from his basket, carefully wrapped the egg in several layers, and then gently placed it at the bottom of the basket.

On the other side of the bookshelf, against the wall, stands a wooden desk.

A pen holder, an inkstone, and a stack of paper were neatly arranged on the table.

Over time, the inkstone has cracked and the paper has turned yellow and moldy, but a single brush resting askew on the brush holder still faintly glows.

Jiang Fu'an's eyes were drawn to it, and he reached out and took it.

As soon as he picked up the pen, he immediately sensed something was wrong.

This brush is much heavier than an ordinary calligraphy brush.

The pen barrel is cool and hard to the touch, with the unique texture of metal, and its surface is engraved with extremely fine lines.

He had never seen a pen like this before.

"Another good thing..."

He muttered to himself, and without hesitation, tucked the pen into his pocket and carefully hid it close to his body.

As for the other ordinary calligraphy brushes on the brush holder, along with the cracked inkstone, he didn't mind and put them all into his basket.

Then, his attention fell on the stack of moldy blank papers.

The paper was severely damp, stuck together, and the edges were rotten and crumbly.

But he was not giving up and carefully peeled them off layer by layer with his fingers.

When he flipped to the middle, his fingertips suddenly touched a completely different texture.

He perked up and gently pulled out the stack of things.

There were more than ten palm-sized sheets of paper, light yellow in color, with a uniform and crisp texture, as if they were newly made.

He suddenly remembered the metal calligraphy brush in his pocket, and a thought struck him:

"Could this be talisman paper? And is that a talisman brush?"

Unfortunately, he knew nothing about talismans and could not confirm it.

So he carefully folded the stack of papers and put them in his pocket along with the pen, intending to think about them again when he got back.

We've searched every possible spot in the cave.

Jiang Fu'an hoisted the much heavier basket onto his back and prepared to leave.

When he reached the vicinity of the cave entrance, he suddenly stopped and looked back into the cave.

If that transparent wall that blocked him out before was really an array, then could the magic artifacts used to set it up still be hidden somewhere in the cave?

Once the thought arose, he could no longer suppress it.

He put down his basket, squatted down, and began to feel his way along the cave wall inch by inch.

Sure enough, near the right corner of the wall close to the entrance of the hole, his fingertips touched a hard object.

Brushing aside the loose soil, a short metal rod, about the thickness of a finger, was revealed, only its tip sticking out.

Jiang Fu'an quickly pulled out a small shovel from the side bag of his basket and carefully dug around the stick.

The soil was loose, and he dug the whole thing out without much effort.

It turned out to be a metal rod about half a meter long, dark and dull all over, and cold to the touch.

He didn't examine it closely, set it aside, and then repeated the search in the other corners of the cave.

It took him about fifteen minutes to find a total of six similar metal rods and a round compass about the size of a washbasin.

The compass is made of a material that resembles copper but is not copper, and five gray stones the size of quail eggs are inlaid on its surface.

He reached out to pick one off to examine it, but the moment his fingertips touched the surface of the stone, it silently turned into a pinch of powder that scattered in a flurry.

The other four beads also shattered at the slightest touch, and in the blink of an eye, only five small dents remained on the compass.

Jiang Fu'an was taken aback for a moment, then realized what was going on:

These stones are probably the spirit stones that maintain the formation, but their spiritual power has long since dissipated over the long years.

He stuffed the compass and six metal rods into his basket, looked around the cave again to make sure nothing was left behind, and then finally got up and left.

Outside the cave, the wind and snow had not yet stopped, but the sky was already tinged with a hazy gray-white.

Jiang Fu'an estimated that there were less than two hours left before the rooster crowed.

He had to hurry back, otherwise Su Wanqing would be worried if she woke up and couldn't see him.

On the way back, he remained vigilant, keeping a close eye on his surroundings, but his mind kept drifting back to the ring on the skull's finger.

If it really is a storage ring, he can't open it at all in his current state.

Forcing it wouldn't work either. What if the ring has a self-destruct restriction? Wouldn't that be a complete waste of effort?

As for asking someone for help...

He did indeed know a monk—Ma Ping, whom he had met at the Wang family's residence last time.

Like him, he possessed all five spiritual roots, but his luck was far better. He received a predestined connection to the immortals early in his life and embarked on the path of cultivation.

Although he wasn't chosen by any major sect, he was selected by the Wang family of Qinglu Mountain and married the eldest daughter of the Wang family, who was said to be extremely beautiful, becoming a live-in son-in-law.

The chances of offspring possessing spiritual roots are greater when cultivators unite.

They did indeed have a daughter with three spiritual roots, who is now the female cultivator who has successfully established her foundation in the Miaoyin Sect.

The last time we drank together, Ma Ping was a straightforward and unpretentious man, which left a good impression on him.

But you need to ask him to help you open the storage ring...

Jiang Fu'an shook his head.

You can't see into someone's heart; that's too risky.

As for other methods to open the storage ring, either wait until He Miao achieves success in his cultivation in the future, or embark on the path of cultivation himself.

Neither of these options is something we can rely on right now.

Thinking about it this way, the cloak, the suspected talisman pen and paper, the giant egg, and the array artifact that were just dug up this time will probably not be of any use for a while.

What we need right now are those martial arts manuals copied from animal hides.

While he was in the cave, he didn't take worldly martial arts too seriously.

But now that I think about it carefully, how could it be an ordinary, common item that a Foundation Establishment cultivator would specially collect and copy with durable animal hide?

He made up his mind to study it carefully when he got back.

Just then, a chill ran down his spine, as if he were being stared at by something.

He snapped back to his senses and turned around abruptly—

On the snow slope dozens of meters away, three pairs of faint green lights were shining, staring motionlessly in his direction.