The ancient city probably had not been this lively in a very long time.
Once large numbers of ghosts joined the feast, Ronin's shadow clone became their door-opener.
All he needed to do was open doors. Each door he opened seemed to break some long-established rule, giving the ghosts wandering the streets an outlet for their pent-up desires.
They rushed into the buildings with ferocious expressions. As for what happened inside afterward, even the shadow clone did not know.
By continuing to search this way, the shadow clone truly managed to find two green-faced, fanged giants.
This time, however, he did not even need to lure them back.
The rioting ghosts quickly froze the giants inside their bronze armour while they were still inside the buildings.
All the shadow clone needed to do was break the ice and remove the bronze armour.
The entire process was extremely simple. Although the giants shattered along with the ice, their bronze armour had been created through some unknown craftsmanship and remained completely undamaged. After the shadow clone infused it with Nen, it could even shrink to a size suitable for him to wear.
When the shadow clone returned to Ronin's building shortly before dawn, he had obtained four sets of bronze armour—one more than Ronin had expected.
However, after everything he had done, the shadow clone had very little chakra remaining.
Shortly after bringing the items back, he dispersed, leaving the bronze armour he had been wearing to fall to the ground with a crisp metallic clatter.
The ghosts outside the building tried to follow the shadow clone inside as they had before, but the instant sunlight fell across the city, their movements abruptly froze.
Then the ghosts slowly faded away.
It was as though they had never existed.
"Put on the armour," Ronin said.
He was not surprised by what had happened. Everything had been included in the shadow clone's calculations.
If the clone had not been worried that the ghosts near Ronin's real body might riot just like the ones following him, he probably would have returned with the spoils much earlier.
After all, there were simply too few bronze-armoured, green-faced giants within this enormous city.
The events of the night had also allowed the shadow clone to confirm something.
The area where Ronin's group was currently located was merely the city's outer district. What dangers existed deeper inside remained unknown.
What they could confirm was that many of the troubles they had encountered during their journey could also be found inside the buildings on the outskirts of the ancient city.
They simply did not know whether those creatures had originated from the ancient city and escaped outside, or whether they had later settled inside it.
Once everyone put on bronze armour, the group truly resembled a special operations team investigating an ancient city.
Since they had obtained one extra suit, Ronin used the Shadow Clone Technique to create another shadow clone.
Under the current circumstances, directly creating a clone with ninjutsu was more cost-effective than producing another shadow-clone scroll.
Everyone wearing bronze armour went to the fountain and picked one panacea herb.
At first, the colourful lotus remained hidden, using the eyes on its tiny body to observe them from beneath its lotus leaves.
But when half of the herbs in the fountain had been taken, brilliant streams of light began appearing across the lotus.
The tiny body beneath it revealed itself and assumed a vicious expression.
Before the shadow clone could even approach, erupting rainbow beams intercepted him.
But the clone paused for only an instant. In the next second, he charged toward the fountain at full power.
Lightning Release chakra spread across his entire body. With a single flash, he appeared beside the fountain.
The lotus creature, which had already unleashed rainbow light to stop him, became furious when it saw the shadow clone still daring to approach so boldly.
The enormous colourful lotus above its head suddenly expanded.
In an instant, it grew dozens of times larger, completely covering the entire fountain.
The lotus descended and began closing, seemingly intending to seal the intruder inside its own body and kill him.
But the shadow clone gave it no such opportunity.
While the lotus expanded and its petals descended around him like the bars of a prison, he had already grabbed all five remaining panacea herbs from the fountain.
At that moment, the colourful lotus went completely berserk.
Rainbow light danced across the descending petals, while beams poured toward the shadow clone like a waterfall.
But in the next second, all of it became useless.
After forming a single hand seal in front of his body, the shadow clone vanished directly from within the lotus's enclosure.
It was the Flying Thunder God Technique!
Ronin had never expected to harvest every herb so easily, so he had naturally prepared in advance.
The Flying Thunder God Technique had been the most important part of that preparation.
With this technique, no matter what method the colourful lotus used, as long as the shadow clone had enough time to activate it, he could escape the attack.
Watching from afar, Ronin smiled the moment he saw the shadow clone disappear.
The colourful lotus also realised that the intruder it had been about to trap had vanished into thin air.
An unwilling roar suddenly erupted from the tiny person beneath the lotus. At the same time, violent Nen spread outward from the colourful lotus in every direction.
"It's En," Ronin said with a grave expression.
"But it isn't refined. It feels more like an instinctive reaction," Ging observed.
"The range is enormous. It has already detected the shadow clone." Ronin frowned slightly.
The Flying Thunder God marker had not been placed particularly far away, but it was still more than a kilometre from the fountain.
Yet the creature had located the clone instantly even at that distance.
Judging solely by its aura reserves, Ronin felt that this creature was nearly comparable to a Royal Guard of the Chimera Ants.
But that was precisely why Ronin considered it a useless creature sitting atop a mountain of treasure without knowing how to use it.
No one knew how many years it had remained beside that fountain. Had it trained diligently and properly developed its strength, Ronin estimated that even with the Flying Thunder God Technique, the shadow clone would not have escaped so easily.
As Ronin considered this, the colourful lotus guarding the fountain suddenly began to contract.
Within only a few breaths, it had completely shrunk into a palm-sized sphere.
As its form changed, a small tear suddenly opened in the space above the fountain.
The shrunken lotus then transformed into strands of hair attached to a small humanoid figure less than a metre tall. With a flash, the little figure entered the spatial tear.
It had actually abandoned the entire fountain.
Ronin's eyes lit up.
Ignoring his concern for the shadow clone, he immediately rushed out of the building and ran toward the fountain.
By the time Shizuku and the others arrived, Ronin had already used Earth Release to lift the entire fountain out of the ground.
There was no underground source supplying water to it.
The true reason water had continuously filled the fountain was located where the colourful lotus had previously been.
There floated a droplet-shaped mass of liquid.
It was Trinity Elixir!
Fun Fun Cloth shot out with a whistle and wrapped around the entire fountain Ronin had torn from the ground.
"Retreat!" Ronin suddenly sensed something.
The shadow clone that had escaped earlier had been caught!