Chapter 111: The Family’s Secret Vault

A large bronze door, about three meters tall and just two meters wide, stood illuminated by the bright light radiating from the embedded pearls in the corridor. The bronze door emitted a cold and desolate glow—heavy, icy, and merciless. This was the entire impression the door gave.

Carved upon the door was the image of a fierce tiger roaring skyward. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Black Tiger clan would recognize this as their totem emblem. Clearly, behind this door lay one of the true inner sanctums of the Black Tiger family. Lin Qi held his breath, staring blankly at the door, his heart filled with unease.

Black Beard looked at the door with a triumphant smile. “What do you think? This door is incredibly sturdy—crafted from a metal that can no longer be forged today. Hmm, its history is ancient, at least spanning the entire Revival Era and the Dark Era. It’s said to have been passed down from the Era of Destruction.”

Lin Qi was momentarily speechless. The Revival Era lasted just over a thousand years, but how long did the Dark Era last? No one truly knew, as constant wars and terrible natural disasters caused the records of the Dark Era to break multiple times. What was certain, however, was that the documented final period of the Dark Era lasted for five hundred years.

As for the Era of Destruction, that was merely legend. Everything before and during that era was shrouded in myth. The ancient times—who could say what transpired then? A metal door passed down from the Era of Destruction? Lin Qi harbored some doubts about this claim.

Still, these were the words left by the family ancestors, so Lin Qi withheld judgment.

Black Beard cleared his throat awkwardly, rubbing his nose and muttering softly, “I think those old-timers might just be flattering the ancestors. Although the material is strange, the door’s surface is so polished that there isn’t a trace of rust. I believe its history is no more than five hundred years.”

Clearing his throat again, Black Beard stepped to the door and pressed lightly on the jaws of the roaring tiger carved there. Lin Qi saw him press down on several tiger teeth embedded in the mouth. Yet the door remained motionless. Black Beard stepped back a few paces, pulling Lin Qi with him.

Then, he pressed a hidden button on a small, inconspicuous runic formation on the wall, infusing it with a surge of mysterious Tiger Spirit energy.

Thirteen tiny gems on the formation lit up. Black Beard bit his index finger, smearing a drop of blood onto the core of the formation. A strange light blossomed within, and the blood evaporated instantly, releasing a faint crimson mist that enveloped the entire formation. Silently, the bronze door slid upward.

Black Beard hurriedly pulled Lin Qi inside.

“Remember the steps I just took to open the door,” Black Beard said solemnly once they were inside. “If you make a single mistake, this corridor, or even the entire Black Mountain and Maoju Mountain, will explode with a bang! Beneath this door lies a massive self-destruct formation—powerful enough to wipe out half of Dunelke. You absolutely cannot get it wrong.”

Cold sweat beaded on Lin Qi’s brow. A formation capable of destroying half of Dunelke? The ancestral home of the Black Tiger clan was built atop such a terrifying device? If the formation were to malfunction, wouldn’t everyone in Dunelke perish alongside the Black Tiger family?

Grimacing, Lin Qi exhaled heavily. “I won’t forget.”

Black Beard fixed him with a serious gaze. “Remember the clan’s first ancestral decree: Black Tiger men may only marry women of pure Eastern bloodline. Never forget, if you father a child with a woman from the Western Continent, that child must never enter this corridor.”

Lin Qi stared in shock. The clan’s foremost law was that all male members must marry women of pure Eastern lineage—a tradition upheld for countless generations. But now it seemed this rule existed precisely because of this corridor?

“Why?” Lin Qi asked, curious.

Black Beard frowned, clearly as puzzled as Lin Qi. After a moment’s silence, he shook his head. “I don’t fully understand the logic either. But if our clan mixes blood with the Western Continent, the hybrid’s blood cannot activate this formation. That means the door won’t open. Not only this door—every one of the clan’s eighteen secret corridors uses blood verification formations.”

“Mixed blood means losing the right to inherit the clan’s core secrets,” Black Beard said gravely. “Fooling around for fun is one thing, but never father children with women from the Western Continent. Only children born of pure Eastern blood have the right to inherit the Black Tiger clan. Mixed-blood children only bring chaos—there’s a painful lesson in our history. You must remember this!”

Lin Qi recalled the two terrible internal upheavals in clan history that Black Beard had once told him about in his youth. The once-thriving Black Tiger family had been gravely weakened by those conflicts. Now, after centuries of island wars, only two direct male heirs remained.

Black Beard had never explained the cause of those upheavals, but now it seemed they were conflicts between pureblood descendants and mixed-blood offspring.

Lin Qi nodded solemnly. “I understand. But finding a pure Eastern woman in the Western Continent…”

Suddenly, he was filled with great anxiety over his future marriage.

Black Beard thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “If you’re lucky, like me, you can snatch one at sea. If not, like your uncles who died in battle… well, you can pay a high price to buy a few from the East.”

He chuckled dryly. “Of course, bought women rarely have good looks, temperament, upbringing, or education. After all, who in a great Eastern family would marry their daughters off to the Western Continent, tens of thousands of miles away? Kid, your luck will decide that. Hey, haven’t you made friends in Dragon City?”

Lin Qi’s eyes lit up. “Yes, that guy seems to be a great noble in the East!”

Rubbing the official decree medallion from Dragon City on his wrist, Lin Qi suddenly felt hopeful. He was never much interested in women—he preferred glittering gold—but for the sake of his family’s bloodline, he would have to find a way to bring dozens of beauties back from the East.

Black Beard slapped Lin Qi’s shoulder firmly, speaking earnestly. “The future growth and prosperity of the clan rests on your shoulders. Your father can’t do it—he promised your mother that after she passed, he wouldn’t make you suffer under a stepmother. So, no help there.”

Lin Qi’s heart stirred slightly, and Black Beard burst out laughing.

“Look here, this is the clan’s most important secret treasury. Choose carefully—pick anything that might help you. Take as much as you need.”