Jiahao stumbled out of the city, there had been explosions as he had fled the city. The explosions, however, weren't the cause of his stumbling. The full force of his master's killing intent enough to make him flee down the main path for hours, let alone make him stumble a bit. Once the effects had worn off, Jiahao was feeling a little down, he had seen the 'house' they were staying in exploded, and he felt the energy fluctuations as he fled the city. He didn't even entertain the idea of helping out in the fight.

*But I could have helped in one way or another, he didn't need to send me back all the way to my farm.*

Jiahao knew it would be bad if his master's enemies found out about his existence, and knew his master was planning for the worst, but wasn't he being overprotective at least a little? Jiahao hoped his master started depending on him more. The old man had long ago accepted Fang Hu as his master in his heart of hearts. As far as masters went, he was almost as kind as one can get. The only way Jiahao had heard stories about kinder masters is when your master is your parent, or a servant of your parent, even then it takes a twist of fate to make sure you get a good master. While all of that was good and all, what Jiahao valued most was the young scholar's strength, and that may make Jiahao sound uncaring or materialistic, but the world makes it so it's more of a necessity than a choice.

Jiahao wouldn't be nearly as strong as he was now without his master's strengths, or alive, come to think of it. Jiahao loved the fact that Fang Hu could take his kind ideas and make them reality, and do it even if his only reason is that he likes it when people feel better. The old man hadn't had many chances to see Fang Hu's kindness in action, but, by the heavenly dao, it was enough to save his life three times now. Jiahao wanted enough strength to make his master's ideas reality.

As Jiahao shook himself out of his ruminations, he realized that he had strayed off the path by quite a bit. Before he could even find his way back he found himself walking straight into a bandit camp. He knew it was a bandit camp because of the lack of trading goods, rough clothing, no permanent buildings, and several guards currently trying to run him trough with their weapons. Luckily for the elder that the guards had gotten the jump on, they were just mortals. The elder man was at the peak of the 3rd step in qi foundation, while he wasn't quite at the level people would consider superhuman, the fight that followed still resembled that of a martial arts master facing down 5 farmhands armed with spears. None of them had died, mostly because his master detested needless death, and if they weren't a threat then Jiahao wasn't going to bother going at them with killing intent. It would please his master if he knew he spared them, and that was worth more than their lives.

This bandit clan, however, was much larger than the one they had run into during the trip here. When the bandits had seen what happened to their compatriots, seven people gathered, with the rest of the several hundred strong bandit clan grouped up behind them. Even with how numbers didn't usually matter in this world, Jiahao wouldn't have been able to take hundreds of combatants at once. It was a good thing for him then, that these people barely qualified as combatants. They were almost no pieces of armor among them, only clothing and the odd metal weapon, the rest having clubs or stones. Most of the people here didn't even look like they had eaten in over a day. While Jiahao was disregarding the bandit's back up, the lead bandit spoke up.

"I don't know who you are, but you made a mistake coming here. I hope your ancestors are ready to meet you, old one."

"Hmm... I don't suppose you would just let me go? It was a mistake for me to come here, and I'll be more than willing to remedy it by taking my leave."

"Hahaha, your funny old man, you can leave if you give us all your treasures right here and now, we might let you live. If you try to tell us you don't have any spiritual treasures, then I guess we'll just have to check your body, won't we?"

Jiahao was at an impasse, he didn't have anything to give them, and if he doesn't give them anything, they'll attack him. The impasse turned out to be a rather short one, as Jiahao choose to take the obvious way out of killing them all. None of these cultivators seemed to be at peak third stage qi gathering, the closest one to it being the leader at early third stage qi gathering. The difference was palpable. Jiahao took one last shot at preventing what was about to come.

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"Just a warning, if you all come after me, then I won't be able to hold off on killing any of you."

"Hah, I just threaten you and you threaten my back, what makes us any different? I don't get what the difference is between us 'rogue' cultivators and you 'proper' cultivators."

"I'll bury you properly after I've killed you?"

That apparently, wasn't the right answer.

"... Kill Him!"

Two of the weaker cultivators shot forward, bloodlust in their eyes. They were beyond saving now, and Jiahao took no mercy. These enemy cultivators may have the number advantage and the weapon advantage, but Jiahao knew there was one thing he had on them. Even if his martial art's technique is nothing compared to master's, it's still a martial art made by Fang Hu and crafted from two martial arts he had with him. No, their techniques have nothing on his.

He took his stance, pushed a small amount of qi into his feet and bounded forward in a matter that only the leader could easily follow. The reach provided by the spear that the first comer had did nothing as he snapped his neck, and in a similar matter, the second comer didn't get to use his saber. After he was done, his hand shot out to prevent an arrow from hitting him. With a steady movement he swatted the arrow out of the air. Before the shooter could react, a rock shot out from Jiahao's hands and killed his enemy in one hit.

With three of their cultivators out in the same amount of seconds, two of the bandit cultivators became very nervous. When their leader started laughing manically, they decided to flee the scene. Jiahao allowed them to run away, killing the enemy was never the goal after all. With that, the leader brought out a war hammer that had been on his back. It was a solid thing, with a wolf motif on it's head and made out of solid wood. It was pointed on one side as it's head was shaped like a fang.

"HAHAHAHAHAH... Blood Sacrilege!"

Life essence began flowing from all the bandits around the area. The demonic technique, for that is what this was, it's stench gave it off, drew by far, most of its essence from the three dead bodies, and began nourishing the cultivator. It would have continued to give the man much more power, if Jiahao had allowed it. His attack, while blocked, was more than enough to halt the ritual in its tracks.

"You... You will regret that, how can you have the gall?"

"My master told me to never allow an opponent to power up."

With a roar, the demonic cultivator gave a powerful swing of his war hammer. It didn't hit Jiahao, but he had to give it a wide berth. This trend continued, until Jiahao scored an opportunistic strike against the bandit leader. They had both be running low on qi, but as the attacker, the unnamed cultivator tired out much more quickly, even with his demonic artifact in possession. With a sigh, the now qi depleted Jiahao realized the long list of things he now had to do. He had to drag this cultivator's body towards the now, most likely abandoned bandit camp and bury it with the rest of the bodies. He had to find the camp, then the road, then make his way towards town, all without any spare qi. This would take a long time.

///

Almost two weeks later - Jiahao's Farm

Dai Yi was busy practicing the cultivation method Fang Hu had made for her, after she had started cultivating, she started feeling better immediately. Better being the operative word here, our hero would still find her crying when she thought she was alone, and he would still try to comfort her anyway he could think of, but it had improved the situation by miles, cultivation was always an introspective matter anyways. She was finally starting to eat and sleep at normal levels.

It was then that the front door slammed open, and he saw Jiahao come in. Fang Hu had sensed him before, but hadn't expected the state he was in. The old man wasn't injured, per se. But if he wasn't a cultivator, then the level of dehydration would have been serious. As it was now, the problem was solved by Fang Hu offering up some water.

After Fang Hu checked Jiahao thoroughly, some crude jokes told, and a few explanations happened. Jiahao was raring to go try to comfort Dai Yi, he had apparently known her, and Fang Hu was starting to reconsider the quality of cultivation methods he was teaching to his students. If he wanted them to stay safe, he would obviously need to get much stronger methods to teach!