With great familiarity, Xuan Zi cast a spell that hid his existence from any prying eyes and extraordinary senses. Standing inside the small stretch of woods between two of the uninhabited mountain peaks just at the edge of his sect's area, he carefully observed the disciple handling the issue on his behalf.
Whoever it was that had put a bounty on Fang Xie's head, they either did it out of ignorance or to provoke Xuan Zi himself, neither of the possibilities showing a particularly good outcome. Xuan Zi had to get to the bottom of this incident regardless of the cost.
As soon as the mission had been taken down from the task panel, a letter from unknown sources had somehow found its way to the administrator's desk when they weren't paying attention. The letter was short, asking the administrator to meet with the issuer of the mission here in this place at this exact time.
The sun had just sunk at the western horizon, but the woods were already submerged in a darkness where the faint moonlight coming from above only served to decorate the scene rather than providing one with a better view. Xuan Zi's disciple clearly looked nervous, his cultivation not having reached a point where such natural limitations couldn't impede his vision. Xuan Zi however, was another case. He could see just fine in the dark. And it made him wonder if anonymity was the only reason why the other party had chosen to meet his disciple at this time of the evening. Perhaps the other party too was confident of not being impeded by the dark? Was their cultivation in the soul reformation realm or higher? That would narrow the list of suspects down...
Crunching sounds of footsteps came from afar. The other party was walking to this place. From that far? Couldn't they just fly?
Xuan Zi's brows rose as he strained his senses, keeping his extraphysical form tightly leashed just in case the newcomer realized he was there. Silently, he calculated some details.
The weight of the footsteps was unnaturally light, judging by the sound of the dry leaves. The footsteps were long, mechanically precise, and careful. The newcomer had a tendency to shift weight on their feet every few seconds as if out of nervousness. A faint swishing noise mixed with flapping sounds told him that the newcomer wore a robe made of ordinary, cheap clothing that was a few sizes too large for them. There was also a very faint clicking noise that Xuan Zi couldn't figure out at all. It sounded familiar for some reason. Maybe something in their pockets?
At this time of the evening, the forest was full of nocturnal creatures awakening and diurnal creatures coming home. It was hard to separate the actual noise made by the newcomer from the nature's voice surrounding everybody.
Whoever it was, they must be extremely cunning and experienced in such situations! Xuan Zi couldn't help but raise his guard even more. Initially, he had wanted to cast a spell to ensure that nobody could leave this place without his knowledge. But now, he realized that a spell of that caliber was highly likely to be discovered by this expert. And it was quite plausible that this mysterious person was not here all alone. There could be even more powerful figures waiting for a chance to strike righteously against any signs of unwarranted aggression.
Soon, the newcomer appeared before the two of them, making Xuan Zi use a technique to enhance his eyes better than any nocturnal creature temporarily.
A black, loose robe was covering every inch of their body, just as he had predicted. Not very tall, particularly thin, and nervousness leaking out of their posture pretty prominently. Xuan Zi secretly tried to gauge their cultivation level and wasn't surprised at all.
No cultivation base! Just akin to a mortal! This expert must be well accomplished in the field of dao foundation research and assassination tactics to have created a veil powerful enough to ward off his senses! The experts who could boast of such feats were bound to be key figures in the world of cultivation on this planet!
Feeling excited about his new discovery, Xuan Zi waited for the two visible parties to converse. Perhaps more clues would be revealed soon...
"Good evening. I assume you are the issuer of the mission or his representative?" The disciple said loudly to the other party.
"I'm her, yes," the other party replied in an unmistakable male voice.
"....But you sound like a man," the disciple asked skeptically. Xuan Zi felt a strong urge to facepalm, but he persisted.
"I'm just using a voice-changing gadget. We ladies can't be too careful these days, can we?"
"And you just revealed that information...?" The disciple asked, even more confused.
'Could you fucking get to the point?' Xuan Zi had to restrain himself from yelling that out loud. But thankfully, the disciple decided it was better to not continue with that line of debate.
"Have you brought the rest of the promised reward? I have the information you'd require to meet the wanted man face-to-face. You owe us 2000 spirit stones."
"Sure. Here it is," the other party said as they pointed at a fat pouch slung at their waist. "Where is my information?"
The disciple took out a roll of papers that Xuan Zi had given him earlier.
"Here is everything you need to know about the wanted person. The person who completed the mission says he can even take you to that guy directly if you wish for it."
The cloaked figure paused for a second as if weighing down the possibility.
"It's fine. If I require that service, I'll contact you again. If I may ask, who was the person that completed this mission?"
"They wish to remain anonymous unless you yourself reveal your identity to them," the disciple said.
"That's unnecessary. I'll take the information they have provided. At the count of three, throw the documents toward me and I'll throw the moneybag to you. Then our contract will be fulfilled and we can go our separate ways."
Seeing the disciple nod, the other party started the countdown loudly.
"Three, two, one, throw!"
Two objects flew in opposite directions at the same time. The tied-up documents were caught by the cloaked figure while the disciple caught the bag of spirit stones.
After a second of tense silence where both parties matched their gazes warily, the two of them retreated backwards step by step. The disciple checked the contents of the bag while the cloaked figure gave a quick glance at the papers.
"Farewell."
"It’s been a pleasure," the cloaked figure said, vanishing amidst the woods right after.
And that's when Xuan Zi made his move. It would be detrimental to the sect's reputation if he confronted the mysterious person right off the bat. He had to make it look like a separate incident that had nothing to do with the sect.
The tracking spell he had left on the documents handed to the stranger guided him amidst the woods. He could sense his target gliding away from his position at a...pretty slow speed.
Huh. Are they that confident of their own cultivation level? Did they not consider that those who know Fang Xie might take an interest in tracking them down? His tracking spell told him that the expert carrying the papers hadn't even checked to see if it contained tracking spells.
Or it could be an ambush, trying to get an interested party like Xuan Zi himself to appear. But in that case, they'd have to be pretty confident of being able to defeat or intimidate him.
Deciding that a more careful approach was necessary to handle the situation, Xuan Zi slowed down too, observing the mysterious cloaked person through his tracking spell.
But the situation changed once more before he could figure out any more details. The spell he had cast on the papers was a special one he had developed himself. It not only tracked the object he had cast it on, it also proliferated by itself and could track people who physically touch the object.
Right now, the initial tracking target had split into two different ones, meaning that the cloaked person had stopped carrying the papers. Judging by the speed of the initial target being whisked away, someone slightly faster was now carrying it.
Xuan Zi laughed derisively.
"It might be a good way to shake pursuers off your trail, but unfortunately for you, I'm the one who cast that spell!"
Instantly, his body blurred in the dark as two figures identical to himself appeared around him and sped in two different directions.
One would chase the cloaked person, while the other would chase the newcomer currently in possession of the papers. Xuan Zi himself would follow behind them to handle any other schemes from the other party.
But the situation changed again in the next second.
A loud, piercing sound of a whistle tore through the woods, grating enough to even make Xuan Zi pause with a wince. Instantly following that shrill whistle, the tracker spell on the cloaked figure was disabled. He could no longer sense the slowly trotting target.
Had his spell been discovered? That was unlikely. He had specialized the spell to the point where even a cultivator a major realm above him wouldn't be able to disable it within such a short time. The only other possibility was that his target had somehow teleported away far outside his reach, at least nowhere within a few hundred miles.
"Nice try, very nice."
Without missing a beat, Xuan Zi changed his direction and rushed toward his second target, the papers that had now made the third target, the current carrier of the papers visible to his senses.
Silent as a predator, Xuan Zi closed up on the second person within the blink of an eye, his senses reaching the target faster than his physical body. Strangely enough, his spell confirmed that this person too was pretty slow. Any cultivator in the middle layers of the physique transformation realm could beat the speed they were running at.
Cautiously, Xuan Zi sent a small amount of his qi to gauge this person's cultivation level as well. His eyes got colder as the result presented itself instantly.
"Surely enough, both of these cultivators belong to the same force. Their way of masking their actual cultivation level is so similar! I must see if I can study this technique..."
The only difference the two of his targets had was their method of retreating. The first one had run within the jungle on foot while the second one was flying just above the average height of trees in the woods. Initially, Xuan Zi had a sneaky suspicion that perhaps these targets he was chasing were actually powerless mortal cannon fodders being used by the true mastermind. But not even a cultivator at the peak of the physique transformation realm could fly so smoothly without leaving any obvious trails, let alone mortals. Xuan Zi was forced to accept that the possibility of that happening was unlikely.
Right then, Xuan Zi sensed the clearing outside the woods ahead. They had already reached the end.
"Let's see where you hide now," he muttered, his gaze examining the dark canopy above.
However, right as he came to a stop at the border of the woods following the trail of his target, it divided into two.
The source of his trackers, the tied-up documents fell on the ground a few hundred meters away from where he had hidden himself.
Then the carrier of the papers, who had thrown it in that direction, disappeared from Xuan Zi's senses in a very familiar way.
"They read the contents of the paper while nonchalantly retreating. Just when they were about to exit the territory of the sect, both of them abandoned the paper and teleported away or used some sort of an incredible masking method to hide from any prying eyes, making sure that if anyone from this sect had followed them with less than friendly intentions, they'd never find the opportunity to attack the two of them. How clever..."
Two other identical figures appeared behind Xuan Zi silently as he stood there and tried to connect the dots.
"Is the formation ready?" He asked one of them.
"Yes. I've activated it and left five clones there to control it. Launch the higher-level search function," one of them answered curtly.
Xuan Zi closed his eyes and let his qi pour out of his body like a flood encompassing the sky. Gigantic torrents of qi rose up thousands of feet in the air, forming a whirlpool so large it hid the moon and stars from his eyes. A horizontal silhouette of a snowflake flashed above the roiling qi, spinning madly and contorting the whirlpool around it.
In the dim light of the night, the phenomenon did not raise as much of a ruckus as it would've caused during the day. Accompanied by the sound of a dull storm, Xuan Zi concentrated on finding the formation set up by his clones and directed half of his qi inside it like a tsunami wave crashing on top of a lone island.
Zzzzzzz!
The snowflake in the sky shook violently as a crimson beam of light hit it in the center from below with the formation as its source.
The crimson glow was directed throughout the body of the snowflake-shaped outline, as if breathing life into it as it spun even faster and faster.
Like a fiery slice of sun taken out of the sky, the bright red snowflake almost became a blur of motion in the sky.
BOOOM!
Another explosive sound tore through the mountains as the snowflake burst into countless precisely shaped parts, each arrow-shaped piece hurtling toward the direction they had been facing before the explosion. This was an all-direction rainfall.
Like dwindling fireworks, the crimson light died down as fast as it had appeared, but the uproar it was followed by from all the audience nearby woke up the entire region of the Crimson Snow sect.
The perpetrator of it all, sect master Xuan Zi, stood amidst the trees, his eyes finally losing the serenity he had maintained throughout his pursuit of the mysterious strangers.
"They don't exist in this macrocosm anymore? How is that even possible?" He asked softly, addressing nobody in particular.
With great familiarity, Xuan Zi cast a spell that hid his existence from any prying eyes and extraordinary senses. Standing inside the small stretch of woods between two of the uninhabited mountain peaks just at the edge of his sect's area, he carefully observed the disciple handling the issue on his behalf.
Whoever it was that had put a bounty on Fang Xie's head, they either did it out of ignorance or to provoke Xuan Zi himself, neither of the possibilities showing a particularly good outcome. Xuan Zi had to get to the bottom of this incident regardless of the cost.
As soon as the mission had been taken down from the task panel, a letter from unknown sources had somehow found its way to the administrator's desk when they weren't paying attention. The letter was short, asking the administrator to meet with the issuer of the mission here in this place at this exact time.
The sun had just sunk at the western horizon, but the woods were already submerged in a darkness where the faint moonlight coming from above only served to decorate the scene rather than providing one with a better view. Xuan Zi's disciple clearly looked nervous, his cultivation not having reached a point where such natural limitations couldn't impede his vision. Xuan Zi however, was another case. He could see just fine in the dark. And it made him wonder if anonymity was the only reason why the other party had chosen to meet his disciple at this time of the evening. Perhaps the other party too was confident of not being impeded by the dark? Was their cultivation in the soul reformation realm or higher? That would narrow the list of suspects down...
Crunching sounds of footsteps came from afar. The other party was walking to this place. From that far? Couldn't they just fly?
Xuan Zi's brows rose as he strained his senses, keeping his extraphysical form tightly leashed just in case the newcomer realized he was there. Silently, he calculated some details.
The weight of the footsteps was unnaturally light, judging by the sound of the dry leaves. The footsteps were long, mechanically precise, and careful. The newcomer had a tendency to shift weight on their feet every few seconds as if out of nervousness. A faint swishing noise mixed with flapping sounds told him that the newcomer wore a robe made of ordinary, cheap clothing that was a few sizes too large for them. There was also a very faint clicking noise that Xuan Zi couldn't figure out at all. It sounded familiar for some reason. Maybe something in their pockets?
At this time of the evening, the forest was full of nocturnal creatures awakening and diurnal creatures coming home. It was hard to separate the actual noise made by the newcomer from the nature's voice surrounding everybody.
Whoever it was, they must be extremely cunning and experienced in such situations! Xuan Zi couldn't help but raise his guard even more. Initially, he had wanted to cast a spell to ensure that nobody could leave this place without his knowledge. But now, he realized that a spell of that caliber was highly likely to be discovered by this expert. And it was quite plausible that this mysterious person was not here all alone. There could be even more powerful figures waiting for a chance to strike righteously against any signs of unwarranted aggression.
Soon, the newcomer appeared before the two of them, making Xuan Zi use a technique to enhance his eyes better than any nocturnal creature temporarily.
A black, loose robe was covering every inch of their body, just as he had predicted. Not very tall, particularly thin, and nervousness leaking out of their posture pretty prominently. Xuan Zi secretly tried to gauge their cultivation level and wasn't surprised at all.
No cultivation base! Just akin to a mortal! This expert must be well accomplished in the field of dao foundation research and assassination tactics to have created a veil powerful enough to ward off his senses! The experts who could boast of such feats were bound to be key figures in the world of cultivation on this planet!
Feeling excited about his new discovery, Xuan Zi waited for the two visible parties to converse. Perhaps more clues would be revealed soon...
"Good evening. I assume you are the issuer of the mission or his representative?" The disciple said loudly to the other party.
"I'm her, yes," the other party replied in an unmistakable male voice.
"....But you sound like a man," the disciple asked skeptically. Xuan Zi felt a strong urge to facepalm, but he persisted.
"I'm just using a voice-changing gadget. We ladies can't be too careful these days, can we?"
"And you just revealed that information...?" The disciple asked, even more confused.
'Could you fucking get to the point?' Xuan Zi had to restrain himself from yelling that out loud. But thankfully, the disciple decided it was better to not continue with that line of debate.
"Have you brought the rest of the promised reward? I have the information you'd require to meet the wanted man face-to-face. You owe us 2000 spirit stones."
"Sure. Here it is," the other party said as they pointed at a fat pouch slung at their waist. "Where is my information?"
The disciple took out a roll of papers that Xuan Zi had given him earlier.
"Here is everything you need to know about the wanted person. The person who completed the mission says he can even take you to that guy directly if you wish for it."
The cloaked figure paused for a second as if weighing down the possibility.
"It's fine. If I require that service, I'll contact you again. If I may ask, who was the person that completed this mission?"
"They wish to remain anonymous unless you yourself reveal your identity to them," the disciple said.
"That's unnecessary. I'll take the information they have provided. At the count of three, throw the documents toward me and I'll throw the moneybag to you. Then our contract will be fulfilled and we can go our separate ways."
Seeing the disciple nod, the other party started the countdown loudly.
"Three, two, one, throw!"
Two objects flew in opposite directions at the same time. The tied-up documents were caught by the cloaked figure while the disciple caught the bag of spirit stones.
After a second of tense silence where both parties matched their gazes warily, the two of them retreated backwards step by step. The disciple checked the contents of the bag while the cloaked figure gave a quick glance at the papers.
"Farewell."
"It’s been a pleasure," the cloaked figure said, vanishing amidst the woods right after.
And that's when Xuan Zi made his move. It would be detrimental to the sect's reputation if he confronted the mysterious person right off the bat. He had to make it look like a separate incident that had nothing to do with the sect.
The tracking spell he had left on the documents handed to the stranger guided him amidst the woods. He could sense his target gliding away from his position at a...pretty slow speed.
Huh. Are they that confident of their own cultivation level? Did they not consider that those who know Fang Xie might take an interest in tracking them down? His tracking spell told him that the expert carrying the papers hadn't even checked to see if it contained tracking spells.
Or it could be an ambush, trying to get an interested party like Xuan Zi himself to appear. But in that case, they'd have to be pretty confident of being able to defeat or intimidate him.
Deciding that a more careful approach was necessary to handle the situation, Xuan Zi slowed down too, observing the mysterious cloaked person through his tracking spell.
But the situation changed once more before he could figure out any more details. The spell he had cast on the papers was a special one he had developed himself. It not only tracked the object he had cast it on, it also proliferated by itself and could track people who physically touch the object.
Right now, the initial tracking target had split into two different ones, meaning that the cloaked person had stopped carrying the papers. Judging by the speed of the initial target being whisked away, someone slightly faster was now carrying it.
Xuan Zi laughed derisively.
"It might be a good way to shake pursuers off your trail, but unfortunately for you, I'm the one who cast that spell!"
Instantly, his body blurred in the dark as two figures identical to himself appeared around him and sped in two different directions.
One would chase the cloaked person, while the other would chase the newcomer currently in possession of the papers. Xuan Zi himself would follow behind them to handle any other schemes from the other party.
But the situation changed again in the next second.
A loud, piercing sound of a whistle tore through the woods, grating enough to even make Xuan Zi pause with a wince. Instantly following that shrill whistle, the tracker spell on the cloaked figure was disabled. He could no longer sense the slowly trotting target.
Had his spell been discovered? That was unlikely. He had specialized the spell to the point where even a cultivator a major realm above him wouldn't be able to disable it within such a short time. The only other possibility was that his target had somehow teleported away far outside his reach, at least nowhere within a few hundred miles.
"Nice try, very nice."
Without missing a beat, Xuan Zi changed his direction and rushed toward his second target, the papers that had now made the third target, the current carrier of the papers visible to his senses.
Silent as a predator, Xuan Zi closed up on the second person within the blink of an eye, his senses reaching the target faster than his physical body. Strangely enough, his spell confirmed that this person too was pretty slow. Any cultivator in the middle layers of the physique transformation realm could beat the speed they were running at.
Cautiously, Xuan Zi sent a small amount of his qi to gauge this person's cultivation level as well. His eyes got colder as the result presented itself instantly.
"Surely enough, both of these cultivators belong to the same force. Their way of masking their actual cultivation level is so similar! I must see if I can study this technique..."
The only difference the two of his targets had was their method of retreating. The first one had run within the jungle on foot while the second one was flying just above the average height of trees in the woods. Initially, Xuan Zi had a sneaky suspicion that perhaps these targets he was chasing were actually powerless mortal cannon fodders being used by the true mastermind. But not even a cultivator at the peak of the physique transformation realm could fly so smoothly without leaving any obvious trails, let alone mortals. Xuan Zi was forced to accept that the possibility of that happening was unlikely.
Right then, Xuan Zi sensed the clearing outside the woods ahead. They had already reached the end.
"Let's see where you hide now," he muttered, his gaze examining the dark canopy above.
However, right as he came to a stop at the border of the woods following the trail of his target, it divided into two.
The source of his trackers, the tied-up documents fell on the ground a few hundred meters away from where he had hidden himself.
Then the carrier of the papers, who had thrown it in that direction, disappeared from Xuan Zi's senses in a very familiar way.
"They read the contents of the paper while nonchalantly retreating. Just when they were about to exit the territory of the sect, both of them abandoned the paper and teleported away or used some sort of an incredible masking method to hide from any prying eyes, making sure that if anyone from this sect had followed them with less than friendly intentions, they'd never find the opportunity to attack the two of them. How clever..."
Two other identical figures appeared behind Xuan Zi silently as he stood there and tried to connect the dots.
"Is the formation ready?" He asked one of them.
"Yes. I've activated it and left five clones there to control it. Launch the higher-level search function," one of them answered curtly.
Xuan Zi closed his eyes and let his qi pour out of his body like a flood encompassing the sky. Gigantic torrents of qi rose up thousands of feet in the air, forming a whirlpool so large it hid the moon and stars from his eyes. A horizontal silhouette of a snowflake flashed above the roiling qi, spinning madly and contorting the whirlpool around it.
In the dim light of the night, the phenomenon did not raise as much of a ruckus as it would've caused during the day. Accompanied by the sound of a dull storm, Xuan Zi concentrated on finding the formation set up by his clones and directed half of his qi inside it like a tsunami wave crashing on top of a lone island.
Zzzzzzz!
The snowflake in the sky shook violently as a crimson beam of light hit it in the center from below with the formation as its source.
The crimson glow was directed throughout the body of the snowflake-shaped outline, as if breathing life into it as it spun even faster and faster.
Like a fiery slice of sun taken out of the sky, the bright red snowflake almost became a blur of motion in the sky.
BOOOM!
Another explosive sound tore through the mountains as the snowflake burst into countless precisely shaped parts, each arrow-shaped piece hurtling toward the direction they had been facing before the explosion. This was an all-direction rainfall.
Like dwindling fireworks, the crimson light died down as fast as it had appeared, but the uproar it was followed by from all the audience nearby woke up the entire region of the Crimson Snow sect.
The perpetrator of it all, sect master Xuan Zi, stood amidst the trees, his eyes finally losing the serenity he had maintained throughout his pursuit of the mysterious strangers.
"They don't exist in this macrocosm anymore? How is that even possible?" He asked softly, addressing nobody in particular.
