"Okay, what the hell is happening here?" Mu Ran demanded while the four of them stood at the center of the ruined battlefield, waiting for Shen Mi to perform her part of the deal.
Taking a long breath, Han Xuhan explained the situation to his three martial siblings.
"Wait a minute, you've still kept in touch with those guys? How?"
Mu Ran looked apoplectic for some reason. The fact that he hadn't helped his underling remove the slave seal of the Holy Land from his dao tower seemed to have slipped his mind entirely.
Han Xuhan groaned and explained further, telling them about the exchange deal between their sects and how he had been forced to become the middleman.
"So Feng Jun is still alive! No wonder! You actually thought so far ahead since the beginning?" Mu Ran exclaimed once he was finished. "Here I was thinking you were just messing with those pretty girls..."
His eyes were glued on the two girls who had caught Xuhan alongside Shang Kexi. Both of them were close enough to overhear the conversation, and the look they sent at Mu Ran and Han Xuhan was filled with contempt.
Xuhan couldn't help but complain internally. Why was he receiving the same look as his boss? Then he recalled a certain sentence the head of his orphanage used to say.
When a crow accompanies a dove, the dove gets caught stealing too.
"It wasn't a result of foresight. I just heard one of them lament the absence of a guy surnamed Feng and guessed that it might be our acquaintance Feng Jun. It was worth a shot," he mumbled.
"It's fine. At least we won't leave empty-handed from this invasion attempt. Our plan of action requires some tweaking for the future invasions. This time, we messed up by letting ourselves be discovered due to our carelessness," Xiao Wu said, glaring at Mu Ran the whole time.
Mu Ran wasn't bothered in the slightest. "This plan is fine too, if you ask me. Why bother sneaking around when you can just beat every defense team into submission?"
"Well, I can't, for one thing," Xiao Wu hissed. "And neither can Xuhan, if you haven't realized it yet. With your plan, it is just going to be a series of two versus ten battles. This Stardust sect barely qualifies to stand amidst the top-ranked sects in terms of power and influence. Do you think every fight we have ahead of us is going to be this easy?"
Then he cast a sideways look at Yuen Zhou, who as usual had refrained from adding anything to the argument.
"Sister Zhou, are you willing to continue with the current...well it's not even a plan. We were just winging it the whole time."
Yuen Zhou considered the question for a long time before answering.
"You and Xuhan can take the sneaky route the next time we invade a sect. Mu Ran and I will make a ruckus to attract the attention of the defense team. You can look for the treasure in the meantime. It's not like we need to have a perfect plan from the start. We have the option to experiment with different types of approaches for the next two days. By then, Brother Xuhan will have the tracing technique ready, right?"
She seemed to have given the conundrum a fair amount of thought despite appearing disinterested the whole time. Her approach made sense too.
All three of them stared at Xuhan for confirmation immediately, who shrugged and said, "I'll do what I can. Zhanxian still hasn't fully recovered from the shock of the information injection. Plus, we need to ensure that we produce some results within tomorrow to avoid being penalized by the sect master. With the map of the spatial fissures around the Stardust Sect in our hands, our team doesn't need to worry about deadlines and penalties too much for the time being. I'll not be participating in the next few invasion attempts so that I can focus on refining the technique from Zhanxian's memory. I suppose none of you would have a complaint about that?"
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All three of them shook their heads, Xiao Wu looking the most reluctant. With Xuhan gone, the pressure on him would increase.
Right then, Mu Ran casually asked a question.
"Xuhan, did Qian Yun really tell you that the dra-I mean, that this Jin Tuyi was taken away from the world fragment to somewhere else? Did he say where they might have gone?"
Han Xuhan shook his head.
"No. The prime disciple Jin Tuyi was confined inside the coffin. The old man who visited the world fragment after we escaped took the coffin away after trashing the place. Qian Yun thinks that he might have injured Jin Tuyi's spiritual existence outside the coffin because every disciple who had been puppetized by him fell unconscious during the process. By the time they woke up, both of them were gone, the few parts of the holy land that used to be intact had been damaged, and that included the construct that operated to open the doorway to our macrocosm from that world fragment. Qian Yun and his puppetized friends were trapped. That's it."
"Wait a second, didn't Qian Yun, Feng Jun, and a dozen other puppetized cultivators chase after us while we were escaping?" Yuen Zhou asked.
"Yeah, they returned when they found the intruder attacking the area where Jin Tuyi was imprisoned in," Han Xuhan told her the same answer Qian Yun had given him when he had asked the question.
At this moment, Shen Mi reappeared on the edge of the middle ring, having been inside the white tower of the central ring until then. She was clutching a scroll in each of her hands. Han Xuhan and his three martial siblings, alongside the crowd of curious onlookers, waited with bated breath for her to reach them and strike the official deal.
Shen Mi threw one of the scrolls at Xuhan. He unfurled it quickly and went through the contents of the scroll.
It really was a list of the spatial fissures, or in the terminology used by this sect, the subspace gateways. The list didn't seem to have been compiled in haste. There were classifications based on sizes, shapes, and movement patterns too.
Han Xuhan felt his pulse quicken. This list was absolutely priceless for one who wanted to investigate deeper into the ever-elusive structure of the archipelago!
Right as he was about to pocket the scroll, a thumping sound came from behind them.
The crowd parted to reveal a giant ball of meat tumbling towards them at an impressive speed.
The spirit beast left by the counselor of the Stardust sect had been attracted over by the exchange!
The mass of meat came to a stop right in front of Xuhan and Shen Mi. While they waved off the dust and dirty air that had assaulted them due to its movement, the skin of the beast turned transparent once more.
But this time, the contents inside the belly of the beast weren't the list of rankings of the participant sects in the tournament.
A scowling man in a grey robe stood inside the belly of the beast. For a second, Han Xuhan got the impression that the man had been hiding there all along. But thinking about it rationally, he felt that this should be a virtual image constructed by the spiritual connection between the counselor and his spirit beast.
He looked at Xiao Wu for a clue, who explained it hurriedly.
"The owner of this type of spirit beasts can take over their body and perform the same functions as the beast. And as you've seen before, one of the abilities of this creature is to echo an image from a faraway place as long as it has some connection to it."
"Ahem!"
The man coughed loudly enough to pull their attention back to him. Shen Mi, for some reason, looked guilty.
"Did you just break the most important rule of the tournament?" the counselor shouted using the deep voice of the creature.
"Disciples of different sects are not allowed to help each other. Between two sects, only healthy competition is permitted."
Han Xuhan cast a disapproving look at Shen Mi. This girl really wasn't fit to represent a faction holding substantial power. She had been intimidated too easily.
No matter. Since his personal interest was involved here, he wouldn't let that happen.
"Excuse my ignorance if it exists here, but where and how exactly did we break any rule at all? Were you watching the whole thing? Then you should be aware that we have not transgressed any such rule," he said, unabashed despite holding the result of his rulebreaking right in his grasp.
He didn't really think he was in the wrong there. So the confidence came naturally.
"You have struck a deal with her faction to help them in exchange for something you want. Sounds like a mutually beneficial contract to me, and within the timespan of the current event, that definitely counts as breaking the rule, ignorant brat," the man said in irritation.
"Miss Mi, I expected better from a faction leader of a sect of this caliber." He went back to attacking Shen Mi.
"Just because you're an interim holder of the chair doesn't mean you can act like a tyrant, breaking rules left and right."
Shen Mi's face went from red to purple in humiliation. The snickers arising from the crowd didn't help her recover.
"That is an arbitrary interpretation. If you hadn't slacked off in your job as the observer, you would've known that the list she has handed over to me wasn't exchanged for me helping her sect reconnect with their lost disciples. I agreed to do that for free. What this list actually was exchanged for was the subsequent surrender of my invasion team, which was only possible because I convinced them to. There is no mutual benefit involved in this case, as we could've won the fight anyway. This was the price the Stardust Sect was forced to pay under circumstances that allowed them no other avenue. Or would you contend that they should have continued the battle they would clearly lose and suffer further when a remedy to them was available for cheap? This is basically nothing but an exchange that aims to protect them against physical injuries, spiritual attacks, and loss of valuable combat artifacts. Doesn't the tournament allow every sect to charge payments to liberate the disciples of foreign sects who have been caught and confined during invasion attempts? This is merely its extended, inverted form."
For a long moment, absolute silence reigned after he was done. The man opened his mouth several times, but he seemed lost for words.
"If you still disagree, we can take this to the higher authorities. My sect master would be more than glad to persuade them until an equitable, rational conclusion has been reached," Han Xuhan said with the smile of a man who knew he had backers to rely on.
"...No need. What you said makes sense. Carry on," the image of the man inside the spirit beast disappeared immediately with those departing words of permission.
"That was easier than I thought it would be," Xuhan mumbled under his breath.
"Those who get used to exerting arbitrary power over their inferiors will be cowed easily when facing those superior to them. Not unexpected at all, I would say. This tournament has a very interesting structure. It seems to have been designed for the disciples to learn to not only fight with their fists and brain, but also with their spirits and creativity. It makes sense now why the rules of the tournament are hidden and the counselors have been given the power of judgment over these issues. There are no rules of survival in real life either. You have to ensure you don't cross invisible lines around unfathomable, arbitrary powers. But you cannot give up your dues owing to caution and fear."
Yuen Zhou voiced her thoughts just loudly enough for all four of them to hear. And what she said made all of them fall into layered reflections of their own.