After a long bout of murmured self-talk, the confusion in Emily Stone's eyes gradually faded. Calming herself, she made her own rational judgment based on the known facts.

She turned to look at Lucas Warren, speaking with full vigilance: “You’re an agent of [Mo Lin]!”

Lucas Warren asked curiously, “What is a Mo Lin agent?”

Emily Stone didn’t answer, continuing her deduction: “Ever since the self-imposed desolation, the Mo Lin people have been obsessed with the legacy of the Old Immortal Calendar, infiltrating other nations for a thousand years and trespassing into forbidden sites. And you are clearly the agent Mo Lin sent to our [Zhu Wang]! You knew long ago that the Ling Mountain’s wards had fallen into disrepair, so you hid nearby, waiting for the wards’ power to weaken, then used secret arts to break through. You just happened to be caught by me, the caretaker, so you pretended to be an ancient person resurrected, trying to mislead me into thinking you’re just a common fraud, hoping to slip by!”

After this long speech, Emily Stone looked at Lucas Warren with ninety percent scrutiny and ten percent expectation, like a detective certain of victory waiting for the criminal to confess.

Lucas Warren, after a moment of silence, nodded and praised, “Not bad, at least your thinking is broad.”

Emily Stone sneered, “Playing dumb won’t help. I’ve already activated the spirit talisman and reported to the nearest Qingping Division. No matter which country’s agent you are, trespassing into the Ling Mountain forbidden zone right in front of me, the mountain guardian, is seriously underestimating me!”

Lucas Warren raised his hand, holding a piece of soft jade shaped like a leaf. The jade seemed alive, like a trapped beast struggling in his hand, but unable to break free.

“This spirit talisman you mentioned—is it this?”

He had caught this spirit talisman just now, after Emily Stone activated the ward. The talisman had shot skyward, nearly crashing into the black clouds to end it all. Lucas Warren, finding the talisman’s design and appearance novel, had decided on a whim to keep it.

But this act of “heroism” looked very different in Emily Stone’s eyes. Her face changed, the blue-purple Evil-Binding Lock in her hand immediately glowed, and the firestone burned even brighter, clearly ready to fight at the slightest provocation.

Lucas Warren smiled, casually tossed the spirit talisman back to Emily Stone, then turned to face the mountain path they’d come from, asking, “As the mountain guardian, do you want to see the true face of Ling Mountain, which you’ve always considered forbidden?”

Emily Stone hastily caught the spirit leaf. The blue jade piece twirled around her fingertips, then shrank away and burrowed into her body, refusing to come out again.

Seeing Lucas Warren’s calm demeanor, seemingly without malice, and glancing at the distant, mist-shrouded mountain path that no one had explored for a thousand years, the girl couldn’t help but ask in a low voice, “You’re not trying to lure me into the forbidden zone and then silence me, are you?”

“Mm, your thinking is indeed broad.”

Lucas Warren didn’t mind at all. No matter what Emily Stone said, the loyalty bar on the Ascension Register had truly risen from 28 to 35.

So he took the lead, and the faint mist covering the mountain path parted like rippling water as he walked, opening a clear path for those who followed.

Emily Stone bit her lip, first looking back. Behind her, the evening glow was as red as blood, gradually sinking into the night, as if the familiar world was leaving her a way back to normal life.

But ahead was a foggy unknown.

She thought of turning back, but her steps moved forward.

——

The road up the mountain was rugged and long.

Just like in the old days.

Lucas Warren still remembered when his master, James Sutton, brought him back to Ling Mountain from a battlefield. They rode the clouds, covering a thousand miles in an instant. But upon reaching Ling Mountain, James Sutton put down Lucas Warren’s hand and made him walk up from the foot of the mountain, step by step.

The long mountain road took Lucas Warren an entire day to climb. As a child with no cultivation, he ate and drank nothing, yet never stopped, relying on his innate Dao body and sheer determination to overcome countless obstacles and reach the Enlightenment Hall. There, before all the cultivators of Ling Mountain, he became the last disciple of the mountain lord, James Sutton.

Unfortunately, aside from the mountain path beneath his feet, everything else had changed beyond recognition.

“Look to the left—behind the clouds you can faintly see the golden roof. That’s the Heavy Gold Hall, where we keep our spirit pets. It was originally a retreat for the elders of the mountain gate. Later, one year, a spirit bird in the mountain suddenly attained enlightenment and actually pecked the elders out of the Heavy Gold Hall, then claimed the hall as its own. After that, the mountain lord not only didn’t turn the spirit bird into roast fowl, but took it as a disciple and even gifted it the Heavy Gold Hall. That was one of the few non-human beings to be recorded in the Ascension Register in Ling Mountain’s history. Sadly, the descendants of that bird king had no fate with the immortal path, and the Heavy Gold Hall gradually became just an exhibition area for spirit pets. It’s not really related to us, so I won’t take you closer.”

Lucas Warren spoke as he walked, while behind him, Emily Stone wore a bewildered expression, gazing at the golden roof that appeared and disappeared in the mist, her mind in turmoil.

As the mountain guardian, she knew a fair bit about Ling Mountain’s history from the Old Immortal Calendar, and vaguely remembered such a story. The ancient records’ images of the Heavy Gold Hall were blurry and hard to make out, but the outline was exactly the same as what she saw now...

She wanted to ask more, but couldn’t open her mouth.

Unknowingly, the two had walked far along the mountain path. Though there were no traps or mechanisms, Ling Mountain’s terrain was treacherous and strange—the path was not just rugged, but downright perilous. Yet with Lucas Warren leading the way, their journey was smooth and safe.

On the road to ascension, Emily Stone’s loyalty seemed to rise with every step.