V3C87: Familiar Acquaintances
There was a lot of the desert to explore, and as such, a lot of time was needed in order to go through all of it and learn everything that there was to learn about it. Since Wei Yi limited her ventured out of the district, mostly due to the sand being far too irritating to handle day after day, the explorers had to look around carefully, not being able to rely purely on their spiritual perception to learn about everything that existed within two hundred metres of them.
Even if she had followed them wherever they went, there would still be far too much of the sands to explore within a day or two, so it instead four more days until they were able to locate something within the desert.
The news came on a day when Shun Liu Min was continuing to practise with the three abilities of the spear, getting used to the differences between it and her previous weapon, as well as learning how to better handle it under the watchful eye of Wei Yi, who had decided to make a few more inscription plates as well as some low-grade artefacts for her own entertainment.
Despite that, she was able to maintain an eye not just on the maid, who would always be warned just before she committed to a mistake in her training, but also on everything around them, including the occasional attempts by Xin Fu to ‘accidentally’ walk in at a wrong time to catch something interesting.
To her credit, she seemed to have learned that she would probably be beaten up if she tried to repeat her attempts to spy on them for a third time, but the voyeuristic nature of the woman appeared to prevent her from giving up right away. Wei Yi was almost tempted to similarly ‘accidentally’ uncover a spot somewhere in the nearby baths from which it would be easy to spy on all of the bathing women on the other side of a wall, then guide her to finding it without directly explaining her involvement or knowledge, so that she would leave them alone and happen upon passionate kisses and relations elsewhere.
It was this vigilance that allowed her to notice right away when one of the survey teams returned with a large map scroll in their hands, finding that the door was opened for them before they could even knock.
“What have you found?” Wei Yi asked right away.
“Your hair… it’s on fire-“
“Don’t care. Also, it isn’t on fire, there’s a burning ember inside of it that doesn’t want to go out. That’s an entirely different matter. Tell me what you have found, or else we shall see whether you can burn.”
“Yes, got it!” the man instantly said, noticing not just the flame hovering above one of her hands, but also the killing will hammer held in her other hand being raised, “We have discovered one of the landmarks you were searching for. It is those four rocks arranged in a strange shape, with one of them lying above the others. I don’t know what it is, but it looks just like the picture.”
“Give the map to me, then,” Wei Yi said again, dispelling the flame above her hand and lowering the hammer so that she could accept, unfurl, and then examine the map, “The red mark on the map is it, right? Good. Go get Chen Xiu to pay you, then continue exploring.”
“Do you need the other landmarks as well?”
“For safety purposes. One might be wrong, but all of them won’t be,” she said, rolling up the map scroll and then flicking the air in front of her in a casual manner.
This simple gesture exerted a vast amount of force on the explorer, who could barely understand what happened before he was suddenly pushed out of the doorway and into the wall of the corridor behind him.
Closing the door so that there wouldn’t be another supposedly opportunistic voyeur in the area, Wei Yi turned around and dispelled the hammer, deciding to abandon her current project for now as it was of little interest to her to begin with. She stood there, waiting for Shun Liu Min to complete her current activity, then stopped her as well, waving her over to show the map that the exploration teams had ended up creating.
“It seems that one of the landmarks is still relatively close to where it had been before. That means that the other points would be here, here and there,” the Ascendant pointed to several points on the map that had not yet been explored, “This means that our destination on this journey will be right there, give or take depending on the accuracy of their map. Get prepared to leave.”
“You’re not going to wait for the other points to be confirmed?”
“It isn’t like going out will hurt anyone. If my guesses are incorrect, they will continue to explore and find the rest of the points of interest, and if not, they will still be paid by the merchant, who we may continue to have friendly relations with in the future, so long as he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Shun Liu Min nodded, “Okay. The place we’re going to – is it very dangerous? Should I have my spear prepared?”
“You should always have it prepared, but there shouldn’t be anything there that you will have a chance to fight with. Either the occupants will be far more dangerous, or there will be none at all, and given the nature of the place we are searching for, the latter option is far more likely. Don’t let me discourage healthy caution, of course, but you will either survive or be killed instantly,” Wei Yi said.
“That’s hardly reassuring, but I trust you,” the maid repeated, taking her spear and placing it on her back, “I know even less about that part of the desert, but I suspect that we will need quite a bit of water. Should I go and get it?”
“I don’t know why you’re so keen to run off on your own. We are going together, although I don’t think that taking water or some kind of juice will be most practical. The stall that was selling those Moisture Recovery pills may be the right thing for us, depending on how effective those pills actually are… We shall purchase a few for our consumption, some for experimentation, and then we shall proceed out into the world, seeking the fortress. Any more questions or requests before that?”
“No. I shall follow your lead.”
Since they had decided to go, they prepared quickly. The half-finished low-grade artefact she had been attempting to create was discarded, transformed via Antithesis energy back into the unrefined material it had been, a notice was provided to Chen Xiu that if she didn’t return for a long time, someone would either find him to report how he could obtain more of her creations to sell, or she would have to be dead, and some minor matters in the district were settled. Out of all of the stays in one of the Yi City’s districts, Wei Yi’s stay in this one was perhaps the calmest and most peaceful, which was good since she didn’t need to damage or tear down yet another modern power, nor did she speak to many people.
As such, other than her potential business relationship with Chen Xiu, there was little more to do before they were able to set out, hoping that they wouldn’t need to return again and then run into some threat or danger that they hadn’t encountered the first time they had remained in the district.
In other to be able to proceed confidently, Wei Yi decided to bring along a barrel of water alongside the pouch of the Moisture Recovery pills, which supposedly contained a vast quantity of water compressed into a small and ordinary-looking pill. If one proved to be lacking, then they could use the other to supplement their resources.
The journey itself would take around a day of consistent walking through the desert, mostly due to the map in their possession allowing them to navigate the sands efficiently.
Had Wei Yi gone on her own, she might have been able to clear the distance in less than an hour, running and leaping at her fastest speed with the aid of some movement techniques to ignore the dunes and get right to where she wanted to be in a single go, but she did not think that it was necessary to hasten to such an extent and leave Shun Liu Min behind. Defeating the Greats was naturally an important thing to accomplish at some point, but a day wouldn’t be what allows them to win or lose, but what she does after settling in the fortress, so long as it still stands.
In theory, so long as she was able to get the patriarchs of most districts on her side, she would be able to have them defeat the third and second generations of the Greats while she, the moment that she reached the seventh realm, would be able to compete with the first generation on equal footing.
However, she was under no illusion that it wouldn’t be an incredibly difficult task to get even one of them to side with her, even with a lot of actions in their favour. Most of them were old, and were sparing their energy for other things, and had most likely chosen to conceal or ignore the Greats while they were in their territory. Some would almost certainly be interested in fighting them, but they would need assurance that their participation couldn’t lead to the fall of their district.
In other words, if she wanted any district to be on her side, she would need to get the majority of them on her side. The only exception would be when a patriarch had been significantly affected by some actions of the Greats that would convince them that it would be worth going against them even with risks, at which point they would instead be seeking strength and wisdom that would be sufficient to topple that ancient group without suffering a quick and unfortunate defeat. Obviously, Wei Yi aimed to match that requirement and exceed it, both on her own and as the entire faction she had founded, hence the teaching of techniques and various methods to enhance the strength and spiritual will of all under her leadership, but it would take some time until the third realm was exceeded by her forces.
It would take even longer to reach the fifth or sixth, at which point they would be genuinely able to compete with any of the Greats due to their superior strength and energy in comparison to most.
Another danger was that the increases in planar energy density and quantity around the world would also benefit the Great Families, since they were also cultivators and would naturally be able to make use of the increases to cultivate more quickly and reach greater heights at a speed that other cultivators may be unable to match.
If they were able to raise their cultivation realms to the eighth, sixth and fourth realms respective to the first, second and third generations, then they would no longer be a reasonable foe for any of the forces in the Planar Continents, not on the Western Continent at the very least. At that point, it may be necessary to head over to the Eastern Continent and investigate the abilities of the cultivators there to hopefully acquire some capable allies, but that kind of growth would only mean that they would have more control in the time that there was no resistance against them. With enough time, they could do some terrible things, and she was naturally not very keen to allow any of them.
Then, there was also the matter of the Primordial Deities and the seeds of their influence in the likes of Zhu Qiu Ya or the Corruptor’s Enclave, which would be a great threat to everyone if they did rise. Neither she nor Yi Shi Ming knew of the exact approach that they would take if they were to rise once more, so while it was a rather safe bet that they wouldn’t appreciate another force having control over much of the continent alongside them, it wasn’t guaranteed that they would resolve the matter in any manner that even slightly resembled sensibility. Perhaps they would reshape the very continent in its entirety, shredding and tearing terrain until the sands were in the south and the snows were in the north, and any trace of regular human life would only be found deep, deep underground.
It was obviously not ideal, and not something that Wei Yi ever wanted to risk, although choosing between that and victory for the Great Families would certainly be a tough choice, and one that she wouldn’t make.
Fortunately, both of these possibilities, as well as many others, relied not on them reaching a safe place to link with the Kong Prison Realm, but rather on the enormous pool of anchor points within her Truth of the Universe, which would begin to fill the world with planar energy the moment that she used them all for whatever goal she would find. As such, it did not matter as much as it could have whether she reached the fortress now or in a decade, although she certainly knew which option she preferred.
She intended to store up quite a few anchor points at first, prepare the environment of her faction to be able to handle it, then raise the level of energy in one go, hopefully overwhelming most experts in any enemy factions and giving her the chance to make her mark upon the world. To be able to make an impact, she would need to lead a recognised power, and it would be easiest to gain that recognition by a grand feat of some kind, and exceptional circumstances tended to be very suitable for all kinds of grand feats and achievements.
Perhaps they could root out the Great Families from one of the many districts, at least for a while, then reveal their existence to the world so that even if the Greats were able to return, their name would be said constantly and everywhere, preventing their methods for detecting individuals from being anything other than a map of the whole world and its population.
It would depend on exactly what she was able to achieve and what strength she had by the time she felt the need to expend those anchor points for the development of a Dao, or a technique, or something else entirely.
Quite a few hours into their journey, and sand still surrounded them, much to Wei Yi’s growing discomfort. While she had been fine on the way to the Chao District, now that she was heading even further to the north, it was rapidly becoming less and less endurable. The heat, the typical enemy of those who venture out that far, was not the main problem for her, but it was instead the way in which the seemingly perpetual sands managed to look more alike with every breath that she took.
It was generating quite a lot of frustration for her, and so she quickly spotted that something wasn’t quite right with her state of mind, and then proceeded to seek the reason behind it.
‘A mental technique shouldn’t be able to affect me directly, and the Third Eye can see through illusions, so… perhaps it isn’t that I am being fooled, but instead that the sands and heat are being manipulated in a precise and slight fashion to promote uniformity and dullness, causing explorers to feel tired and bored?’
She glanced at the maid behind her, and quickly figured out that she would be of no use to her at this time as she was currently struggling to simply traverse the sands, not to mention becoming bored of them. If anything, Shun Liu Min would be tired to taking step after step towards some unknown and unseen goal, and wouldn’t be able to comment a single thing about the shape of the desert dunes, their pattern, or anything else of the sort. For it to affect her, she would first require the ability to focus on the sands.
However, after a short length of time, that was finally something that she could accomplish, for ahead of them they saw a set of three standing rocks, with one lying sideways above them.
“Eh… Ah! The landmark! Is this the one that we were looking for?”
“Exactly the same. It seems that it hasn’t been touched all this time later, despite the proximity to both Yi City and the outside powers. That is interesting, to say the least, but also something that needs to be explored at some other time. For now, the… Hm.”
“What did you find?” the maid asked, tiredly looking around but being unable to find anything with the sun shining right down upon them, making the desert sand bright and lacking in detail.
“Footprints over there. They seemed to come here from a different direction, then must have seen these stones and turned north. Judging by the number of prints, and their arrangement, there must be no fewer than ten, no more than thirty – yes, a wide range, but some of them seem to either be drunk, or moving weirdly, or higher in number than I presume. Sometimes, sets pf prints appear and disappear without obvious landing points, so it doesn’t seem like anyone is randomly jumping, either…” Wei Yi listed her findings, frowning as she looked into the distance and found nothing, “I’m not entirely sure who these could be, but nothing about this says ‘Them’ to me.”
“Them?”
“Did I not explain that to you yet? The ones that I and my faction oppose. A group of families that reside within the background, occasionally stepping in to forcefully change the course of events to their whims. As far as I can tell, most of them are terrible people, and those that aren’t can’t do much to change the rest.”
“Oh, I see… Well, I don’t see anything around here, but I understand… Should we be following them, or are they likely to be going somewhere else?”
“As I said, their direction of travel changed the moment that they were within sight of these stones, so they must have some clue about something relevant to them, so far as I am aware, the fortress is the only thing that can be identified by the location of the stones, and unless the information about it had been shared with someone that shouldn’t have heard it, only those who would have some vaguely similar intentions to me would know about it…” Wei Yi answered, “As such, we should follow, for now.”
Whoever was within that group of travellers, and whatever their purpose, she couldn’t learn much from her spiritual perception other than finding all of the odd and unusual tracks all over the place. It told her little, and she did not know enough to make any judgements right away.
If she had any clue regarding the factions other than the Remnants of Yin that had been attempting to deal with the Greats, or even knew about any of the major factions to the north, she might have been able to estimate who the people they were not following were, but aside from the fact that they likely came from the Ju District before turning to the direction of the fortress, she knew little else.
These people could be potential allies, foes, a neutral party, some merchants, perhaps some strange bandits that use these stones as a landmark for whatever reason, or even some force from outside of Yi City that is patrolling the area. It could be anything from that list and more, and even as they followed the prints, they didn’t get much of an idea about them. Judging by the prints, they were wearing some form of footwear, and they weren’t too heavy, but that hardly narrowed things down to any significant extent.
Anyone could be wearing any kind of clothing for any reason, to the point that even the standard assassin outfits of the Endless Dark and so on weren’t necessarily a giveaway, so knowing that little did not help whatsoever, leaving them in the dark for now.
Furthermore, the further they went, the more they realised was that the people they were following were moving rather quickly, far more quickly than any ordinary human would be able to move. While this did confirm that they were cultivators, at least at the second realm of above, this did rather little for them as anyone that ventured out this far would need to be a cultivator or a regular human with an immense quantity of resources to protect themselves from the heat, or some unique physique.
With a little more travel, they also figured out that the realm the group before them was adhering to was the third realm, meaning that this was a group with a minimal strength of the third realm and an uncertain maximum strength, with those stronger cultivators slowing themselves down for the sake of the rest of the group. That much also didn’t tell them much, save for the minimal strength of the group, but it did show that this was likely an organised, united team that wasn’t just formed from casual travellers in the same direction. They were likely working together, although it was difficult to tell whether all of them knew where they were going.
For this reason, Wei Yi instructed the maid to draw her spear, since she might be required to protect herself against a number of organised forces with them being capable of tactical thinking, and even if they were simply scattered and wild in combat, that did not make them any less deadly – potentially.
After all, it might not even be that her earlier presumptions had any accuracy at all. There were plenty of reasons for certain groups and certain types of people to act in certain ways and guessing at it without any evidence at all was rather difficult if one sought to get actual results. Instead of attempting to continue guessing baselessly, they decided that it would be best to catch up until they were either in sight or in the range of the Ascendant’s spiritual perception, and work from there, using any physical clothing or characteristics to determine their approach.
There was a chance that the group would have at least someone to watch over them and make sure that no threats came from the sides or from behind, so such a move could potentially expose them, but it seemed necessary. If they did know about the fortress, and knew of a way to use it, letting them claim it would be a very risky thing.
So, with Shun Liu Min climbing onto Wei Yi’s back in order to not slow them down, they hastened alongside the footprints in the sand, doing so as silently as was possible.
Minutes passed, and while the footprints were becoming somewhat fresher, it still seemed like whoever they were pursuing were incredibly far off, as if their travelling speed was somehow increasing, or the sand that they were affecting moved slower than all of the sand around it.
In fact, that was indeed occurring due to a powerful presence of yin that Wei Yi was able to sense more now that she was locating fresher prints. Two set of feet left behind a cold aura that partially froze the sand and prevented it from moving as much as it would otherwise do due to the cold sticking the individual grains together. This did help to establish that they were nearing whoever was leaving these prints behind, but it did not illuminate their identity as much as she would have hoped.
While a cold-type cultivator in the north might seem like an oddity on first glance, one only needed to consider the fact that it was horrendously hot in the north and that most would prefer to have some method to mitigate it in order to realise that this was not the case. Fire-type cultivators were prevalent as well, dealing with the heat by attuning to it, in a way, but some instead handled it by keeping a cold barrier around themselves, or intentionally cultivating a particular physique, or otherwise maximising the cold within their energy to negate the outside heat.
Really, the only thing it was able to confirm for her was that these individuals had a very powerful yin presence, as it was both pure and dense, unlike what a normal cultivator focused on cold might attain.
Had this been planar energy, she might have been able to figure out what realm the cultivators were in, or whether there were in fact two of them, but all that remained was the yin aura and any energy that might have been expended during the journey had already been unbound and scattered long ago, meaning that it would be of no use to her without some miracle to permit her to travel back in time.
Since that was and will remain an impossibility so long as the very laws of the Planar Continents remained, she didn’t put much hope into it and carried on, deciding to run even quicker as to catch up with them before the sun moved far from the top of the sky.
Perhaps they had been accelerating, or perhaps she had majorly misjudged the duration for which the yin aura of those two cultivators was able to remain in place, but it took her not a few minutes, but almost two hours, and that was with her rushing far more quickly than someone in the third realm would ever be able to without an absolutely unique movement technique or an immensely powerful body.
Nevertheless, after all of that effort, as the sun was slowly descending, she finally caught sight of those people, and slowed down immediately as to observe and not catch their attention too quickly.
She did so just in time, as well, for the moment that she stopped and hid behind a dune’s peak in order to observe them from afar with spiritual perception, the two figured covered in cloaks, one of which was black while the other was white, that had been leaving the yin aura behind turned around at the same time, looking in her vague direction for a brief moment before looking back.
As she was able to feel their spiritual perception, she was able to confirm that they couldn’t reach her, but she also noticed that they had to be in the sixth realm at the very least in order to reach out as far as they did. Fortunately, her own spiritual perception was hidden even from their attention, or so it seemed, as she was able to calmly observe the entire group of seventeen people travelling towards the north, doing so intently and with a clear idea, even if it was only a minimal one, of where they needed to be going.
“These people… Shun Liu Min, they’re moving slow enough for us to catch up on our own – as in, without me carrying you,” the Ascendant said, letting the maid down and giving her a little bit to drink, “I don’t believe they will be immediately hostile, no matter what.”
“They’re not with ‘Them’, then, right?”
“Shouldn’t be. You can’t really rule out anything until you have some method to confirm it with absolute certainty, but for now, I do believe that they are not going to be hostile, as I said. We shall walk up to them, have a chat, see where that leads us, and if we are successful in either getting along or just not killing one another, we can proceed, with or without them.”
“Would it be safe to take them with you if they aren’t guaranteed to be one hundred percent safe, and if we’ve just met them?”
“Well… Let me just show you instead. Seems easier that way.”
She rose quickly, and forced the maid to follow as they climbed over the peak of the slowly shifting dune and strode calmly towards the group, doing so with Wei Yi’s mask on as to continue what was likely a rather unnecessary obstruction of her identity at this particular point.
They had been able to notice them the previous time, when they had charged up the dune, and now that they approached a little more slowly, it only took the two a little longer to turn around again.
When they saw the two of them approaching, clearly walking in their direction without any ambiguity to it, with Wei Yi looking straight towards the pair in black and white while Shun Liu Min was more focused on the group as a whole, they raised their hands in unison to prompt the group to stop, then turned their whole bodies to face them, waiting with brows furrowed beneath black and white hoods but making no other immediate move.
Once Wei Yi got close enough to for her voice to reach them smoothly, but not too closely as to appear unnecessarily dangerous and imposing, she paused and met the gaze of the pair for a little while, confirming something,
In the end, the man in black spoke first, asking, “Did you want something from us?”
“Actually, yes, I did. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the two of you, so I figured we could have a nice chat.”
That sentence alone was enough for the whole group to draw their weapons, the two hidden by black and white formed weapons from their planar energy, which was as cold as ice and as dense as the stone deep beneath the earth, compressed over decades. A set of forty-six channels spread out across their two weapons, but not from them individually, but instead from a point between them.
“Who are you?” the man in black asked once more, the man in white glancing at him once but saying nothing afterwards.
“I know who you are, twins of Great Earth. I didn’t expect to be able to put that knowledge to good use only a short time after obtaining it – short being relative in this case. You two don’t like to give people the most pleasant reception, do you?”
Their eyes narrowed, and they threw back their hoods to reveal androgynous faces with flowing locks of black and white hair respectively pouring from their heads.
Great Light had wanted to speak this time, but his brother was faster and repeated, “Who are you?”
“I guess I am that unrecognisable, or perhaps you two simply forgot. Let me briefly remind you,” Wei Yi said, glancing to her maid for a moment before removing the mask from her face, putting it into Shun Liu Min’s hands.
Then, she reached out grandiosely with the other hand, in the other direction, opening it as she condensed a shape between her fingers, grasping it the moment that the killing will creating it began to stabilise and solidify. At the same time, she dispelled the planar energy within her hair and clothing, causing the brown atop her head to rapidly gain a crimson tone that mixed with the silver of her eyes to provide a distinctive look. Her clothing regained a similar shade, although this was hardly beneficial to the look that she was attempting to present.
With that object in her hand, she brought it to her face and placed it on, simply holding it in place as she slightly changed the pitch of her voice through a basic voice-altering technique.
“I had called myself Da Gang,” the Ascendant said in that voice, keeping the mask just until she saw the glimpse of recognition with their eyes, at which point she dispelled it and fixed her voice to continue, “However, my name is Wei Yi, and I believe we might be seeking the same thing.”
“Wait, Da Gang-” Great Light barely held himself back from cursing as he turned to his brother, “I thought we were both certain that was a man with a pure yang physique or something?”
“So, we believed… but the deceased Chu Ling had noticed something about him… Our initial suspicions were also along these lines, and if not for our desire not to violate his or her privacy… We would have known some time ago,” Great Dark answered, frowning, “Your name, Wei Yi… It is what I think it is, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps, but it is not going away. Ever. Even if the entirety of the Yi District begs for her return, they will not see her again,” she answered, “I am rather interested in your own state, having learnt some rather interesting things about you, but before that, I think that we would all benefit from a few quick confirmations, said explicitly and clearly so that there can be no ambiguity or uncertainty. It would be terrible if we got all close and then discovered we were no longer on the same side as one another.”
Great Dark and Great Light offered their silent agreement, so she continued.
“First of all, are you still loyal to the cause of the War of Yin?”
“We were the ones to begin it, kid! Do you think that we would just stray from it because of a few of Them?”
“The Remnants of Yin had been forcefully subjugated, so I don’t see why it would be impossible for you to be under the grip of Their first generation. Also, your training set ended up being burnt up. Sorry about that.”
“What are-”
“We have answered that, and the set was old and unnecessary… Anything else?”
“Are you seeking the fortress in the sand?”
“I would ask how you know of it… but you seem intent to control the conversation, so I shall not do so yet… That is our destination, and it seems to be yours as well. We seek to activate it… if we can.”
“How nice of you, Great Dark. Although you are clearly very capable of doing whatever you like for the moment, I would like to point out that you seem to have made a single stage of progress in the time since we last saw one another, while that is hardly the case for me. Your Paradigm of Yin appears to be struggling now that it has expended the other forbidden skill you had used alongside it,” Wei Yi noted, “Also, this current tone is hardly necessary. I am here as the new leader of the Remnants, killer of two of the third generation, and as the only one to escape from Their prison. You should know of it, seeing as you lost Meng Qi to it.”
“Prison… You? How did you…” Great Dark restrained himself, having expressed far more emotion than it had seemed plausible for him to in the past, “You began this, not I. I have no objections to speaking more amicably… First, though – who is that woman?”
“Temporary maid and disciple. We escaped from one Ping Gangze together.”
“I think that he was trying to ask whether you believe this woman to be trustworthy, or if she already knows some of the things that we seem to understand.”
“She will not harm us by listening. Will you, Shun Liu Min?” she asked the maid, who promptly shook her head despite barely having a clue about what was happening. Right before her eyes, her master apparently revealed one or two other identities to these strange people, then showed a different colour of hair and robes, although she had no clue whether this was their true colour or not, and was now talking in vague terms about vague things. Even if she wanted to spy on them, she would understand nothing.
That much must have gotten across, as Great Light sighed while Great Dark nodded to the others accompanying them and turned back north, readying all of their items and equipment to resume their travels into the desert.
“As you appear to match certain descriptions that have made their way over here… We shall walk together. We can also work on the fortress together.”
“No need for that. I can handle it on my own, so long as there is nobody else around to interfere,” Wei Yi replied, “Besides, now that former master and student, employer and employee reunite, I am certain that there is plenty for us to discuss other than the fortress, so why don’t we catch up a little. If things go well, we might have plenty of time for all kinds of important discussions later.”
Great Dark did not voice an immediate objection, so they set out.
V3C87: Familiar Acquaintances
There was a lot of the desert to explore, and as such, a lot of time was needed in order to go through all of it and learn everything that there was to learn about it. Since Wei Yi limited her ventured out of the district, mostly due to the sand being far too irritating to handle day after day, the explorers had to look around carefully, not being able to rely purely on their spiritual perception to learn about everything that existed within two hundred metres of them.
Even if she had followed them wherever they went, there would still be far too much of the sands to explore within a day or two, so it instead four more days until they were able to locate something within the desert.
The news came on a day when Shun Liu Min was continuing to practise with the three abilities of the spear, getting used to the differences between it and her previous weapon, as well as learning how to better handle it under the watchful eye of Wei Yi, who had decided to make a few more inscription plates as well as some low-grade artefacts for her own entertainment.
Despite that, she was able to maintain an eye not just on the maid, who would always be warned just before she committed to a mistake in her training, but also on everything around them, including the occasional attempts by Xin Fu to ‘accidentally’ walk in at a wrong time to catch something interesting.
To her credit, she seemed to have learned that she would probably be beaten up if she tried to repeat her attempts to spy on them for a third time, but the voyeuristic nature of the woman appeared to prevent her from giving up right away. Wei Yi was almost tempted to similarly ‘accidentally’ uncover a spot somewhere in the nearby baths from which it would be easy to spy on all of the bathing women on the other side of a wall, then guide her to finding it without directly explaining her involvement or knowledge, so that she would leave them alone and happen upon passionate kisses and relations elsewhere.
It was this vigilance that allowed her to notice right away when one of the survey teams returned with a large map scroll in their hands, finding that the door was opened for them before they could even knock.
“What have you found?” Wei Yi asked right away.
“Your hair… it’s on fire-“
“Don’t care. Also, it isn’t on fire, there’s a burning ember inside of it that doesn’t want to go out. That’s an entirely different matter. Tell me what you have found, or else we shall see whether you can burn.”
“Yes, got it!” the man instantly said, noticing not just the flame hovering above one of her hands, but also the killing will hammer held in her other hand being raised, “We have discovered one of the landmarks you were searching for. It is those four rocks arranged in a strange shape, with one of them lying above the others. I don’t know what it is, but it looks just like the picture.”
“Give the map to me, then,” Wei Yi said again, dispelling the flame above her hand and lowering the hammer so that she could accept, unfurl, and then examine the map, “The red mark on the map is it, right? Good. Go get Chen Xiu to pay you, then continue exploring.”
“Do you need the other landmarks as well?”
“For safety purposes. One might be wrong, but all of them won’t be,” she said, rolling up the map scroll and then flicking the air in front of her in a casual manner.
This simple gesture exerted a vast amount of force on the explorer, who could barely understand what happened before he was suddenly pushed out of the doorway and into the wall of the corridor behind him.
Closing the door so that there wouldn’t be another supposedly opportunistic voyeur in the area, Wei Yi turned around and dispelled the hammer, deciding to abandon her current project for now as it was of little interest to her to begin with. She stood there, waiting for Shun Liu Min to complete her current activity, then stopped her as well, waving her over to show the map that the exploration teams had ended up creating.
“It seems that one of the landmarks is still relatively close to where it had been before. That means that the other points would be here, here and there,” the Ascendant pointed to several points on the map that had not yet been explored, “This means that our destination on this journey will be right there, give or take depending on the accuracy of their map. Get prepared to leave.”
“You’re not going to wait for the other points to be confirmed?”
“It isn’t like going out will hurt anyone. If my guesses are incorrect, they will continue to explore and find the rest of the points of interest, and if not, they will still be paid by the merchant, who we may continue to have friendly relations with in the future, so long as he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Shun Liu Min nodded, “Okay. The place we’re going to – is it very dangerous? Should I have my spear prepared?”
“You should always have it prepared, but there shouldn’t be anything there that you will have a chance to fight with. Either the occupants will be far more dangerous, or there will be none at all, and given the nature of the place we are searching for, the latter option is far more likely. Don’t let me discourage healthy caution, of course, but you will either survive or be killed instantly,” Wei Yi said.
“That’s hardly reassuring, but I trust you,” the maid repeated, taking her spear and placing it on her back, “I know even less about that part of the desert, but I suspect that we will need quite a bit of water. Should I go and get it?”
“I don’t know why you’re so keen to run off on your own. We are going together, although I don’t think that taking water or some kind of juice will be most practical. The stall that was selling those Moisture Recovery pills may be the right thing for us, depending on how effective those pills actually are… We shall purchase a few for our consumption, some for experimentation, and then we shall proceed out into the world, seeking the fortress. Any more questions or requests before that?”
“No. I shall follow your lead.”
Since they had decided to go, they prepared quickly. The half-finished low-grade artefact she had been attempting to create was discarded, transformed via Antithesis energy back into the unrefined material it had been, a notice was provided to Chen Xiu that if she didn’t return for a long time, someone would either find him to report how he could obtain more of her creations to sell, or she would have to be dead, and some minor matters in the district were settled. Out of all of the stays in one of the Yi City’s districts, Wei Yi’s stay in this one was perhaps the calmest and most peaceful, which was good since she didn’t need to damage or tear down yet another modern power, nor did she speak to many people.
As such, other than her potential business relationship with Chen Xiu, there was little more to do before they were able to set out, hoping that they wouldn’t need to return again and then run into some threat or danger that they hadn’t encountered the first time they had remained in the district.
In other to be able to proceed confidently, Wei Yi decided to bring along a barrel of water alongside the pouch of the Moisture Recovery pills, which supposedly contained a vast quantity of water compressed into a small and ordinary-looking pill. If one proved to be lacking, then they could use the other to supplement their resources.
The journey itself would take around a day of consistent walking through the desert, mostly due to the map in their possession allowing them to navigate the sands efficiently.
Had Wei Yi gone on her own, she might have been able to clear the distance in less than an hour, running and leaping at her fastest speed with the aid of some movement techniques to ignore the dunes and get right to where she wanted to be in a single go, but she did not think that it was necessary to hasten to such an extent and leave Shun Liu Min behind. Defeating the Greats was naturally an important thing to accomplish at some point, but a day wouldn’t be what allows them to win or lose, but what she does after settling in the fortress, so long as it still stands.
In theory, so long as she was able to get the patriarchs of most districts on her side, she would be able to have them defeat the third and second generations of the Greats while she, the moment that she reached the seventh realm, would be able to compete with the first generation on equal footing.
However, she was under no illusion that it wouldn’t be an incredibly difficult task to get even one of them to side with her, even with a lot of actions in their favour. Most of them were old, and were sparing their energy for other things, and had most likely chosen to conceal or ignore the Greats while they were in their territory. Some would almost certainly be interested in fighting them, but they would need assurance that their participation couldn’t lead to the fall of their district.
In other words, if she wanted any district to be on her side, she would need to get the majority of them on her side. The only exception would be when a patriarch had been significantly affected by some actions of the Greats that would convince them that it would be worth going against them even with risks, at which point they would instead be seeking strength and wisdom that would be sufficient to topple that ancient group without suffering a quick and unfortunate defeat. Obviously, Wei Yi aimed to match that requirement and exceed it, both on her own and as the entire faction she had founded, hence the teaching of techniques and various methods to enhance the strength and spiritual will of all under her leadership, but it would take some time until the third realm was exceeded by her forces.
It would take even longer to reach the fifth or sixth, at which point they would be genuinely able to compete with any of the Greats due to their superior strength and energy in comparison to most.
Another danger was that the increases in planar energy density and quantity around the world would also benefit the Great Families, since they were also cultivators and would naturally be able to make use of the increases to cultivate more quickly and reach greater heights at a speed that other cultivators may be unable to match.
If they were able to raise their cultivation realms to the eighth, sixth and fourth realms respective to the first, second and third generations, then they would no longer be a reasonable foe for any of the forces in the Planar Continents, not on the Western Continent at the very least. At that point, it may be necessary to head over to the Eastern Continent and investigate the abilities of the cultivators there to hopefully acquire some capable allies, but that kind of growth would only mean that they would have more control in the time that there was no resistance against them. With enough time, they could do some terrible things, and she was naturally not very keen to allow any of them.
Then, there was also the matter of the Primordial Deities and the seeds of their influence in the likes of Zhu Qiu Ya or the Corruptor’s Enclave, which would be a great threat to everyone if they did rise. Neither she nor Yi Shi Ming knew of the exact approach that they would take if they were to rise once more, so while it was a rather safe bet that they wouldn’t appreciate another force having control over much of the continent alongside them, it wasn’t guaranteed that they would resolve the matter in any manner that even slightly resembled sensibility. Perhaps they would reshape the very continent in its entirety, shredding and tearing terrain until the sands were in the south and the snows were in the north, and any trace of regular human life would only be found deep, deep underground.
It was obviously not ideal, and not something that Wei Yi ever wanted to risk, although choosing between that and victory for the Great Families would certainly be a tough choice, and one that she wouldn’t make.
Fortunately, both of these possibilities, as well as many others, relied not on them reaching a safe place to link with the Kong Prison Realm, but rather on the enormous pool of anchor points within her Truth of the Universe, which would begin to fill the world with planar energy the moment that she used them all for whatever goal she would find. As such, it did not matter as much as it could have whether she reached the fortress now or in a decade, although she certainly knew which option she preferred.
She intended to store up quite a few anchor points at first, prepare the environment of her faction to be able to handle it, then raise the level of energy in one go, hopefully overwhelming most experts in any enemy factions and giving her the chance to make her mark upon the world. To be able to make an impact, she would need to lead a recognised power, and it would be easiest to gain that recognition by a grand feat of some kind, and exceptional circumstances tended to be very suitable for all kinds of grand feats and achievements.
Perhaps they could root out the Great Families from one of the many districts, at least for a while, then reveal their existence to the world so that even if the Greats were able to return, their name would be said constantly and everywhere, preventing their methods for detecting individuals from being anything other than a map of the whole world and its population.
It would depend on exactly what she was able to achieve and what strength she had by the time she felt the need to expend those anchor points for the development of a Dao, or a technique, or something else entirely.
Quite a few hours into their journey, and sand still surrounded them, much to Wei Yi’s growing discomfort. While she had been fine on the way to the Chao District, now that she was heading even further to the north, it was rapidly becoming less and less endurable. The heat, the typical enemy of those who venture out that far, was not the main problem for her, but it was instead the way in which the seemingly perpetual sands managed to look more alike with every breath that she took.
It was generating quite a lot of frustration for her, and so she quickly spotted that something wasn’t quite right with her state of mind, and then proceeded to seek the reason behind it.
‘A mental technique shouldn’t be able to affect me directly, and the Third Eye can see through illusions, so… perhaps it isn’t that I am being fooled, but instead that the sands and heat are being manipulated in a precise and slight fashion to promote uniformity and dullness, causing explorers to feel tired and bored?’
She glanced at the maid behind her, and quickly figured out that she would be of no use to her at this time as she was currently struggling to simply traverse the sands, not to mention becoming bored of them. If anything, Shun Liu Min would be tired to taking step after step towards some unknown and unseen goal, and wouldn’t be able to comment a single thing about the shape of the desert dunes, their pattern, or anything else of the sort. For it to affect her, she would first require the ability to focus on the sands.
However, after a short length of time, that was finally something that she could accomplish, for ahead of them they saw a set of three standing rocks, with one lying sideways above them.
“Eh… Ah! The landmark! Is this the one that we were looking for?”
“Exactly the same. It seems that it hasn’t been touched all this time later, despite the proximity to both Yi City and the outside powers. That is interesting, to say the least, but also something that needs to be explored at some other time. For now, the… Hm.”
“What did you find?” the maid asked, tiredly looking around but being unable to find anything with the sun shining right down upon them, making the desert sand bright and lacking in detail.
“Footprints over there. They seemed to come here from a different direction, then must have seen these stones and turned north. Judging by the number of prints, and their arrangement, there must be no fewer than ten, no more than thirty – yes, a wide range, but some of them seem to either be drunk, or moving weirdly, or higher in number than I presume. Sometimes, sets pf prints appear and disappear without obvious landing points, so it doesn’t seem like anyone is randomly jumping, either…” Wei Yi listed her findings, frowning as she looked into the distance and found nothing, “I’m not entirely sure who these could be, but nothing about this says ‘Them’ to me.”
“Them?”
“Did I not explain that to you yet? The ones that I and my faction oppose. A group of families that reside within the background, occasionally stepping in to forcefully change the course of events to their whims. As far as I can tell, most of them are terrible people, and those that aren’t can’t do much to change the rest.”
“Oh, I see… Well, I don’t see anything around here, but I understand… Should we be following them, or are they likely to be going somewhere else?”
“As I said, their direction of travel changed the moment that they were within sight of these stones, so they must have some clue about something relevant to them, so far as I am aware, the fortress is the only thing that can be identified by the location of the stones, and unless the information about it had been shared with someone that shouldn’t have heard it, only those who would have some vaguely similar intentions to me would know about it…” Wei Yi answered, “As such, we should follow, for now.”
Whoever was within that group of travellers, and whatever their purpose, she couldn’t learn much from her spiritual perception other than finding all of the odd and unusual tracks all over the place. It told her little, and she did not know enough to make any judgements right away.
If she had any clue regarding the factions other than the Remnants of Yin that had been attempting to deal with the Greats, or even knew about any of the major factions to the north, she might have been able to estimate who the people they were not following were, but aside from the fact that they likely came from the Ju District before turning to the direction of the fortress, she knew little else.
These people could be potential allies, foes, a neutral party, some merchants, perhaps some strange bandits that use these stones as a landmark for whatever reason, or even some force from outside of Yi City that is patrolling the area. It could be anything from that list and more, and even as they followed the prints, they didn’t get much of an idea about them. Judging by the prints, they were wearing some form of footwear, and they weren’t too heavy, but that hardly narrowed things down to any significant extent.
Anyone could be wearing any kind of clothing for any reason, to the point that even the standard assassin outfits of the Endless Dark and so on weren’t necessarily a giveaway, so knowing that little did not help whatsoever, leaving them in the dark for now.
Furthermore, the further they went, the more they realised was that the people they were following were moving rather quickly, far more quickly than any ordinary human would be able to move. While this did confirm that they were cultivators, at least at the second realm of above, this did rather little for them as anyone that ventured out this far would need to be a cultivator or a regular human with an immense quantity of resources to protect themselves from the heat, or some unique physique.
With a little more travel, they also figured out that the realm the group before them was adhering to was the third realm, meaning that this was a group with a minimal strength of the third realm and an uncertain maximum strength, with those stronger cultivators slowing themselves down for the sake of the rest of the group. That much also didn’t tell them much, save for the minimal strength of the group, but it did show that this was likely an organised, united team that wasn’t just formed from casual travellers in the same direction. They were likely working together, although it was difficult to tell whether all of them knew where they were going.
For this reason, Wei Yi instructed the maid to draw her spear, since she might be required to protect herself against a number of organised forces with them being capable of tactical thinking, and even if they were simply scattered and wild in combat, that did not make them any less deadly – potentially.
After all, it might not even be that her earlier presumptions had any accuracy at all. There were plenty of reasons for certain groups and certain types of people to act in certain ways and guessing at it without any evidence at all was rather difficult if one sought to get actual results. Instead of attempting to continue guessing baselessly, they decided that it would be best to catch up until they were either in sight or in the range of the Ascendant’s spiritual perception, and work from there, using any physical clothing or characteristics to determine their approach.
There was a chance that the group would have at least someone to watch over them and make sure that no threats came from the sides or from behind, so such a move could potentially expose them, but it seemed necessary. If they did know about the fortress, and knew of a way to use it, letting them claim it would be a very risky thing.
So, with Shun Liu Min climbing onto Wei Yi’s back in order to not slow them down, they hastened alongside the footprints in the sand, doing so as silently as was possible.
Minutes passed, and while the footprints were becoming somewhat fresher, it still seemed like whoever they were pursuing were incredibly far off, as if their travelling speed was somehow increasing, or the sand that they were affecting moved slower than all of the sand around it.
In fact, that was indeed occurring due to a powerful presence of yin that Wei Yi was able to sense more now that she was locating fresher prints. Two set of feet left behind a cold aura that partially froze the sand and prevented it from moving as much as it would otherwise do due to the cold sticking the individual grains together. This did help to establish that they were nearing whoever was leaving these prints behind, but it did not illuminate their identity as much as she would have hoped.
While a cold-type cultivator in the north might seem like an oddity on first glance, one only needed to consider the fact that it was horrendously hot in the north and that most would prefer to have some method to mitigate it in order to realise that this was not the case. Fire-type cultivators were prevalent as well, dealing with the heat by attuning to it, in a way, but some instead handled it by keeping a cold barrier around themselves, or intentionally cultivating a particular physique, or otherwise maximising the cold within their energy to negate the outside heat.
Really, the only thing it was able to confirm for her was that these individuals had a very powerful yin presence, as it was both pure and dense, unlike what a normal cultivator focused on cold might attain.
Had this been planar energy, she might have been able to figure out what realm the cultivators were in, or whether there were in fact two of them, but all that remained was the yin aura and any energy that might have been expended during the journey had already been unbound and scattered long ago, meaning that it would be of no use to her without some miracle to permit her to travel back in time.
Since that was and will remain an impossibility so long as the very laws of the Planar Continents remained, she didn’t put much hope into it and carried on, deciding to run even quicker as to catch up with them before the sun moved far from the top of the sky.
Perhaps they had been accelerating, or perhaps she had majorly misjudged the duration for which the yin aura of those two cultivators was able to remain in place, but it took her not a few minutes, but almost two hours, and that was with her rushing far more quickly than someone in the third realm would ever be able to without an absolutely unique movement technique or an immensely powerful body.
Nevertheless, after all of that effort, as the sun was slowly descending, she finally caught sight of those people, and slowed down immediately as to observe and not catch their attention too quickly.
She did so just in time, as well, for the moment that she stopped and hid behind a dune’s peak in order to observe them from afar with spiritual perception, the two figured covered in cloaks, one of which was black while the other was white, that had been leaving the yin aura behind turned around at the same time, looking in her vague direction for a brief moment before looking back.
As she was able to feel their spiritual perception, she was able to confirm that they couldn’t reach her, but she also noticed that they had to be in the sixth realm at the very least in order to reach out as far as they did. Fortunately, her own spiritual perception was hidden even from their attention, or so it seemed, as she was able to calmly observe the entire group of seventeen people travelling towards the north, doing so intently and with a clear idea, even if it was only a minimal one, of where they needed to be going.
“These people… Shun Liu Min, they’re moving slow enough for us to catch up on our own – as in, without me carrying you,” the Ascendant said, letting the maid down and giving her a little bit to drink, “I don’t believe they will be immediately hostile, no matter what.”
“They’re not with ‘Them’, then, right?”
“Shouldn’t be. You can’t really rule out anything until you have some method to confirm it with absolute certainty, but for now, I do believe that they are not going to be hostile, as I said. We shall walk up to them, have a chat, see where that leads us, and if we are successful in either getting along or just not killing one another, we can proceed, with or without them.”
“Would it be safe to take them with you if they aren’t guaranteed to be one hundred percent safe, and if we’ve just met them?”
“Well… Let me just show you instead. Seems easier that way.”
She rose quickly, and forced the maid to follow as they climbed over the peak of the slowly shifting dune and strode calmly towards the group, doing so with Wei Yi’s mask on as to continue what was likely a rather unnecessary obstruction of her identity at this particular point.
They had been able to notice them the previous time, when they had charged up the dune, and now that they approached a little more slowly, it only took the two a little longer to turn around again.
When they saw the two of them approaching, clearly walking in their direction without any ambiguity to it, with Wei Yi looking straight towards the pair in black and white while Shun Liu Min was more focused on the group as a whole, they raised their hands in unison to prompt the group to stop, then turned their whole bodies to face them, waiting with brows furrowed beneath black and white hoods but making no other immediate move.
Once Wei Yi got close enough to for her voice to reach them smoothly, but not too closely as to appear unnecessarily dangerous and imposing, she paused and met the gaze of the pair for a little while, confirming something,
In the end, the man in black spoke first, asking, “Did you want something from us?”
“Actually, yes, I did. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the two of you, so I figured we could have a nice chat.”
That sentence alone was enough for the whole group to draw their weapons, the two hidden by black and white formed weapons from their planar energy, which was as cold as ice and as dense as the stone deep beneath the earth, compressed over decades. A set of forty-six channels spread out across their two weapons, but not from them individually, but instead from a point between them.
“Who are you?” the man in black asked once more, the man in white glancing at him once but saying nothing afterwards.
“I know who you are, twins of Great Earth. I didn’t expect to be able to put that knowledge to good use only a short time after obtaining it – short being relative in this case. You two don’t like to give people the most pleasant reception, do you?”
Their eyes narrowed, and they threw back their hoods to reveal androgynous faces with flowing locks of black and white hair respectively pouring from their heads.
Great Light had wanted to speak this time, but his brother was faster and repeated, “Who are you?”
“I guess I am that unrecognisable, or perhaps you two simply forgot. Let me briefly remind you,” Wei Yi said, glancing to her maid for a moment before removing the mask from her face, putting it into Shun Liu Min’s hands.
Then, she reached out grandiosely with the other hand, in the other direction, opening it as she condensed a shape between her fingers, grasping it the moment that the killing will creating it began to stabilise and solidify. At the same time, she dispelled the planar energy within her hair and clothing, causing the brown atop her head to rapidly gain a crimson tone that mixed with the silver of her eyes to provide a distinctive look. Her clothing regained a similar shade, although this was hardly beneficial to the look that she was attempting to present.
With that object in her hand, she brought it to her face and placed it on, simply holding it in place as she slightly changed the pitch of her voice through a basic voice-altering technique.
“I had called myself Da Gang,” the Ascendant said in that voice, keeping the mask just until she saw the glimpse of recognition with their eyes, at which point she dispelled it and fixed her voice to continue, “However, my name is Wei Yi, and I believe we might be seeking the same thing.”
“Wait, Da Gang-” Great Light barely held himself back from cursing as he turned to his brother, “I thought we were both certain that was a man with a pure yang physique or something?”
“So, we believed… but the deceased Chu Ling had noticed something about him… Our initial suspicions were also along these lines, and if not for our desire not to violate his or her privacy… We would have known some time ago,” Great Dark answered, frowning, “Your name, Wei Yi… It is what I think it is, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps, but it is not going away. Ever. Even if the entirety of the Yi District begs for her return, they will not see her again,” she answered, “I am rather interested in your own state, having learnt some rather interesting things about you, but before that, I think that we would all benefit from a few quick confirmations, said explicitly and clearly so that there can be no ambiguity or uncertainty. It would be terrible if we got all close and then discovered we were no longer on the same side as one another.”
Great Dark and Great Light offered their silent agreement, so she continued.
“First of all, are you still loyal to the cause of the War of Yin?”
“We were the ones to begin it, kid! Do you think that we would just stray from it because of a few of Them?”
“The Remnants of Yin had been forcefully subjugated, so I don’t see why it would be impossible for you to be under the grip of Their first generation. Also, your training set ended up being burnt up. Sorry about that.”
“What are-”
“We have answered that, and the set was old and unnecessary… Anything else?”
“Are you seeking the fortress in the sand?”
“I would ask how you know of it… but you seem intent to control the conversation, so I shall not do so yet… That is our destination, and it seems to be yours as well. We seek to activate it… if we can.”
“How nice of you, Great Dark. Although you are clearly very capable of doing whatever you like for the moment, I would like to point out that you seem to have made a single stage of progress in the time since we last saw one another, while that is hardly the case for me. Your Paradigm of Yin appears to be struggling now that it has expended the other forbidden skill you had used alongside it,” Wei Yi noted, “Also, this current tone is hardly necessary. I am here as the new leader of the Remnants, killer of two of the third generation, and as the only one to escape from Their prison. You should know of it, seeing as you lost Meng Qi to it.”
“Prison… You? How did you…” Great Dark restrained himself, having expressed far more emotion than it had seemed plausible for him to in the past, “You began this, not I. I have no objections to speaking more amicably… First, though – who is that woman?”
“Temporary maid and disciple. We escaped from one Ping Gangze together.”
“I think that he was trying to ask whether you believe this woman to be trustworthy, or if she already knows some of the things that we seem to understand.”
“She will not harm us by listening. Will you, Shun Liu Min?” she asked the maid, who promptly shook her head despite barely having a clue about what was happening. Right before her eyes, her master apparently revealed one or two other identities to these strange people, then showed a different colour of hair and robes, although she had no clue whether this was their true colour or not, and was now talking in vague terms about vague things. Even if she wanted to spy on them, she would understand nothing.
That much must have gotten across, as Great Light sighed while Great Dark nodded to the others accompanying them and turned back north, readying all of their items and equipment to resume their travels into the desert.
“As you appear to match certain descriptions that have made their way over here… We shall walk together. We can also work on the fortress together.”
“No need for that. I can handle it on my own, so long as there is nobody else around to interfere,” Wei Yi replied, “Besides, now that former master and student, employer and employee reunite, I am certain that there is plenty for us to discuss other than the fortress, so why don’t we catch up a little. If things go well, we might have plenty of time for all kinds of important discussions later.”
Great Dark did not voice an immediate objection, so they set out.
