Chapter 66

The next morning Qian Yu woke up with a silver haired girl still peacefully asleep by his side.

‘Seems like yesterday was too much… Ahh finally I’m actually at the 6th stage of qi gathering!’ Qian Yu chuckled. During the time between Sun Hong’s departure and meeting Zhen Yue, he had gotten very close to the 5th stage, and after the last two sessions he had managed to break into the 6th stage.

‘I should probably go get that spear now,’ Qian Yu thought to himself. It had already been 2 weeks since he gave Master Xia the beast cores for the spear and now was a great time to get it. With that, Qian Yu left the inn as he went to meet Elder Zhang.

An hour later, Qian Yu was once again in front of Elder Zhang’s workshop.

*Knock knock* Qian Yu knocked on the door.

“Come in” the aged voice resounded out

“Hello, I came to get my spear. Is it ready yet?” Qian Yu asked as he looked over to Master Xia who was surprisingly not busy like the last few times he came here.

“Yeah, let me get it,” Master Xia stood up as he went to the back of the office. A minute later, he came out with a long gray spear. Compared to his current one, it was only a little bit longer.

‘Hmm, it’s a lot heavier than my old one though. It looks a lot sharper at least,’ QIan Yu thought as he took it out of Master Xia’s hand.

“Whoosh… whoosh…” Qian Yu did a couple swings and attacks with it to see how it went. As he did, he noticed that it indeed felt a little harder to use and he was even a little uncomfortable with it.

Seeing Qian Yu’s face and action, Master Xia laughed, “Hahaha, don’t worry kiddo. You’ll get used to it and as you grow stronger, your body will too so it’ll just take some time.”

‘Seems like he’s in a pretty good mood right now,’ Qian Yu realized that he wasn’t an old grumpy grandpa today.

“Thank you, elder,” Qian Yu said as he paid him. “Looks like you don’t have much work today?” Qian Yu laughed as he felt Master Xia was a lot more approachable today.

“Hahaha, it’s not like I care that much. Apparently there’s been a lot of chaos in a few territories of the spiritual beasts so the beast core supply is pretty low right now,” Master Xia laughed.

‘Hmm that’s interesting. Previously, there was the thing with Tian Xinyi and now there’s this. Are they related or different?’ Qian Yu thought as he said goodbye and left Master Xia’s office and returned to the inn.

“Welcome back master,” Zhen Yue said as she heard Qian Yu open the door and enter the room.

“Thanks, let’s go on a trip in a couple of days. We’ll go visit some villages, check out some sects and just go sightseeing. It’ll be like a vacation haha,” Qian Yu said as he sat down at the table since Zhen Yue was cooking.

“A vacation huh? Is there any other reason?” Zhen Yue asked for curiosity’s sake.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t told you this yet but I’m here as a mission to become an inner disciple for my sect back home. I’m kind of like a reporting scout or something and I just need to send reports of what I’ve been doing and any abnormalities I see. As such, I should go out and do something every now and then,” Qian Yu explained.

“Ahh, we can leave whenever master wants then,” Zhen Yue nodded as she heard Qian Yu explain.

A few days later, Qian Yu and Zhen Yue were following down a trail that led further east of the Soba Capital. Qian Yu had previously reached the city from the west and as such, decided to go further east.

Yet Qian Yu didn’t really plan on what to do but he just wanted to go out since it had been a while since he went out and really stretched his bones. While it was nice to comfortably just cultivate with Zhen Yue every day and enjoy the city atmosphere, he also wanted to test out the spear and Zhen Yue’s capabilities.

So far, they managed to find a bounty for a wanted rogue cultivator at the 5th stage of qi gathering, who was easily dispatched by Zhen Yue.

As they entered a small town, Qian Yu started getting to work.

“Hello, do you guys have any bounties or any abnormal information?” Qian Yu asked a stranger.

“Hmm, nothing about bounties or anything. Abnormal stuff though. I’m a trader and one of the traders in our town was going to rest at a village about a day’s travel away but she wasn’t allowed into the village for some reason. She was originally from that village and moved here with her husband so she’s on good terms with them, but that’s about all,” the man said as he scratched his head as he thought of the reason why.

“Alright, thanks,” Qian Yu thanked the man as he gave him a few coins before walking away.

“Let’s check that out,” Qian Yu said to Zhen Yue.

The next day, Qian Yu arrived at the village the man was talking about.

“Hmm, nobody has entered or left the village so far,” Zhen Yue whispered after two hours of observation had passed.

“Yeah, that’s pretty abnormal. Especially in the morning, people should always be entering and leaving the village for stuff like gathering and hunting. Additionally, there aren’t many people outside. Let’s check it out,” Qian Yu said as he got up and approached the village.

“Hello, we’re rogue cultivators, can we stay here for tonight?” Qian Yu said as he walked up to the village guard.

“No, get outta here, we aren’t letting anyone in,” the guard said with a frustrated yet scared look.

“What’s the problem, we are willing to pay a lot,” Qian Yu probed as he took out a couple of gold coins and showed it to the guard.

Gritting his teeth, the guard shouted, “I already said no! W-”

As he was shouting, the door of a house a couple dozen meters away opened and a man walked out of it. He was wearing simple black rogue cultivator clothes with a mask covering most of his face. Looking at him, Qian Yu felt that he was oddly familiar but he wasn’t very sure with just seeing half the guy’s face.

“Hello Boss!” the guard gulped before he yelled out upon seeing the guy walk out.

At the same time, however, Tian Xinyi shouted into Qian Yu’s consciousness, ‘LEAVE!’

Qian Yu’s heart jumped for a slight second as he didn’t expect Tian Xinyi’s warning yet the next second he already grabbed Zhen Yue’s hand, pulling her away from the village entrance and leaving their sights.

A dozen or so seconds later, the man had arrived to where the guard was standing.

The guard was clearly scared of the man as he said, “T-they already left.”

The man didn’t say anything as he looked towards the direction where Qian Yu had left as he said, “Hmph, just a bunch of qi gathering cultivators,”

Then turning his head, he looked at the guard, “As for you, I already said you can just bring in all the visitors now and I can just kill them.”

“I-I” the guard was about to say something but before he could say anything more, he saw the cloaked man’s hand move across his vision.

“First there was that woman yesterday, and now this. I won’t say it twice…” the man said as he licked the blood on his hands with a crazed look.

Meanwhile, a couple hundred feet away, Qian Yu and Zhen Yue finally stopped running.

‘Xinyi, what was that?’ Qian Yu finally asked.

‘Master, that was a Martial Fighter cultivator. But my instinct just had a very bad feeling about him,’ Tian Xinyi said.

‘Normally, Xinyi is pretty playful. Yet this is her first time being so anxious,’ Qian Yu thought to himself before he started explaining to Zhen Yue.

Hearing the explanation, Zhen Yue asked, “What’s our plan then?”

Contemplating for a few seconds, Qian Yu realized there weren’t many options as he said, “We’ll probably just head back to the capital. It is pretty suspicious but it’s not really our job to investigate it.”

“I agree, it’ll be a week or so when we get back anyways,” Zhen Yue nodded.

Like that another few days passed and before long, the two stood in front of the Soba Capital entrance.