Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way 37: The Plan

Senior Brother Mu sat in the middle of the Bagua Mirror and circulated his spiritual energy while casting several spells to force the mirror to quickly disappear out of sight.

As they moved off, Gu Suihan suddenly realized that the tiny bit of Divine Sense he had left on Junior Brother Zhao’s clothing was moving very quickly away from him and the connection was getting weaker and weaker. He cast a True Vision Spell and looked in the direction of Nan Xingyuan and the rest. To his horror, all he could see was a blurry shadow flying off.

His expression grew grim and his lips twitched with some annoyance. That thing in the air had to be a flying magic weapon. Or rather, since it was going so quickly, it was probably a spiritual weapon. The three factions had sent almost every new disciple who had shown improvement on this expedition, so there were nearly 50 of them in total, so there were at least a dozen disciples per faction. There was no way a Foundation Establishment cultivator could drive a magic weapon with a dozen people on it at such high speeds, even if it were a high-grade magic weapon.

“Damn it!” he cursed as he watched all the Way Seeker Alliance disciples disappear into the night sky as he clutched the tiny bit of Divine Sense he had managed to summon back to himself just in time and fell silent again after that.

He hadn’t expected the entire group to flee immediately without hesitation. He was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, so there was no way he could catch up with them, especially since they were using a spiritual weapon to flee.

At the same time, Senior Brother Mu probably never thought that the party who was after them wasn’t Feng Ran and his comrades, but one lonely Gu Suihan.

Both sides were cursing, in fact.

“I don’t think one Foundation Establishment cultivator can carry more than a dozen people and travel for too long without feeling tired,” snorted Gu Suihan. He pasted several Wind Blast Talismans, Heavenly Speed Talismans, and Lightweight Body Talismans to his legs, then executed his Extreme Ra-Asu Breach to allow a surge of spiritual energy to flow through his meridian channels like a river before finally casting a Spiritual Eye Tracking Spell.

Gu Suihan narrowed his eyes as he focused on the shadow in the distance, taking a step forward and moving so quickly, that he became nothing but a blur.

“Covering the World with Few Steps! Stepping on Air!” Gu Suihan’s spiritual energy flowed through his legs’ spiritual meridians as he ran, his inner acupoints echoing loudly like a temple bell. As he continued to move forward at this insane speed, Senior Brother Mu and the other disciples began to appear more and more clearly before him.

“Thunderous Boom of Nine Meridians, Transform into Lightning!” Gu Suihan’s feet continued to move at high speed as he switched the way his spiritual energy moved to an even faster method.

At the same time, Senior Brother Mu’s face was a little pale. Using his own strength to carry more than a dozen people into the air wasn’t something a cultivator at Foundation Establishment like himself was able to do in the first place, but this spiritual weapon had made it possible. But even so, doing this consumed his Qi very rapidly.

When realized that he had used up more than half the Qi inside his dantian, his storage ring gleamed as he retrieved a bottle of pills. He called out hoarsely, “Xingyuan, take out some Qi Recovery Pills for me.”

Nan Xingyuan quickly poured a few out and fed them to him when she saw how pale he was.

She said, “Senior Brother, we’ve already covered more than 100 kilometers so I don’t think they’ll be able to catch up. Why don’t we take a rest?”

Senior Brother Mu did his best to digest the pill by moving his arms in a certain formation to recalibrate his Qi. He answered without hesitation, “Not yet. We’ve got to go a little farther.”

“Okay then.” Nan Xingyuan stopped talking and sat down quietly next to him again.

“I can’t believe you’re still hanging in there,” sniggered Gu Suihan as the flying mirror became more and more apparent. The mirror was obviously moving at a slower speed than before.

But similarly, the Spiritual Meridians in Gu Suihan’s legs were swollen and the effect of the talismans he used was slowly waning, while his own spiritual energy was also decreasing even more rapidly than before.

He was really glad that he had cultivated the Extreme Ra-Asu Breach technique since it was a technique that built up the body. If he had both a weak physical body and was too poor to buy something that could fly, there would be no way he would have caught up with these people at all.

But this stalemate didn’t last much longer than 15 minutes. Senior Brother Mu finally couldn’t hold on anymore and he was turning blue in the face as he had nearly run out of Qi. If he went on like this, he would end up injuring himself, so he decided to stop for the time being and continue on their journey after he had recovered.

Gu Suihan leaned against a tree and panted heavily. His legs were covered with blood as blood spurted from his pores.

“This fucking idiot,” cursed Gu Suihan, even as he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the Bagua Mirror finally land on the open space in front of him. If this had gone on any longer, he would have to give up, or else the spiritual meridians in his legs would literally explode and render him a cripple. He didn’t want that to happen.

He adjusted his breathing, hid among the tree branches, ate several pills, then took out some Spiritual Stones to help his body to recover.

“I don’t think even the Nobles Clan or the Four Directions Court would be able to detect where we are right now, so I highly doubt Feng Ran and the rest will be able to find us,” said Senior Brother Mu as he panted and struggled to even speak. “We’ll rest here tonight, but we must head off very early tomorrow morning. I think we’ve got another 100 or 150 kilometers left to cover. I’ll take time to recuperate over there, make sure all of you stay on high alert.”

He then dashed into the forest, pulled out several formation flags to set up an elaborate formation, then retrieved several Spiritual Stones. He had used up almost all the Qi he had in his dantian, so he had to use this time to recover from that and even improve his body condition if possible. He had no time to waste.

Meanwhile, after Gu Suihan had recovered his energy, he caught hold of a wild boar, petted it, and said, “I’m counting on you.”

The wild boar looked confusedly at the strange human who had caught it but couldn’t say anything even if it wanted to.

“Bewitchment,” whispered Gu Suihan as he sent his Spiritual Sense out to wipe out the wild boar’s weak consciousness before executing this spell on its brain. He then let go of it and allowed it to run towards where Nan Xingyuan and the other disciples were.

“Who’s there?” shouted one of them when he sensed the tall grass moving.

He leaped up from the ground and sprang towards the source of the sound like a hungry wolf. He shot beams of light out from his fingers, his hand whooshing shrilly as he gave his opponent a mighty swipe.

The sound of his nails could be heard and the young man gave a pleased smile as he felt his fingers lodge themselves in his enemy’s skin.

But when he pushed the tall grass aside to inspect the corpse, his gleeful expression turned into embarrassment and he kept away his ferocious stance.

He came walking back to the group with a large and heavy wild boar. “Uh..I guess I got too agitated. It’s actually just a wild boar.”

Everyone rolled their eyes at him, but they were also relieved to know that it was merely an animal.

“Well, we didn’t get to eat much just now, so this would make for a good meal,” said another disciple with a sparkle in his eye. He retrieved a small knife and walked toward the dead pig.

“Be careful, it might be a trap,” said Nan Xingyuan quietly as she frowned. She felt rather uneasy for some reason.

“A trap?” The other disciple used his knife to deftly skin the pig before turning to sneer at Nan Xingyuan. “So, you think you’re an internal disciple just because you hooked up with one? You still have a long to go.”

“Why, you!” Nan Xinyuan glared fiercely at him with a nasty expression on her face, but she didn’t argue with him anymore and walked further away from them instead. She sat down next to a tree and eyed them venomously with hatred in her heart.

“They’re really just a bunch of ignorant youngsters.” Gu Suihan stood on a branch and looked down at what was happening.

He had filled this pig with Qi Dispelling Powder and used a spell to break it down so that it would be easily absorbed into the bloodstream of anybody who ate the flesh of this wild boar.

This plan was only possible because the one and only Foundation Establishment internal disciple leading this group of Way Seekers Alliance disciples had disappeared, which gave Gu Suihan a chance to do something like this. How very lucky, he thought.

If Senior Brother Mu were around, he would probably have noticed something amiss. After all, it made no sense for a wild boar to come running toward humans in the middle of the night.

“What a pity,” murmured Gu Suihan with a sigh as he looked at Nan Xingyuan.

She had improved a little, but she still had a long way to go.

A short while later, Senior Brother Mu had finished his recuperation and emerged from the forest. A disciple ran up to him with a pig leg and offered it to Senior Brother Mu earnestly, “Senior Brother Mu, why don’t you have some? We saved this specially for you.”

“Where did this wild boar come from?” Senior Brother Mu smelled something fishy about this wild boar.

The disciple froze in surprise, then said, “I guess we must have startled a wild boar that was already sleeping in the vicinity when we landed, so we caught it to eat. You might not have noticed it when you left to recuperate.”

Senior Brother Mu thought about it and agreed that he had been in a great hurry to recuperate when he landed the mirror since he had run out of Qi already, so it was very likely that he hadn’t noticed anything like this.

He felt more assured now, so he took the meat from the disciple and smiled. “Thanks for the thought.”

Gu Suihan had retreated far, far away when he saw Senior Brother Mu emerge from the forest. He hid among the branches and watched this scene unfold through the gaps in between the leaves.

He clicked his tongue and muttered, “What a tragedy. What a tragedy.”

Rynoh: Yo, no Clacker delicacies today, fuck this life.