Hui paused for a moment, then shrugged. Lifting the curtain, he reentered the streets. I’ll go figure out the celestial beasts, and figure out Ying Lin along the way. And… and, I don’t know, ponder the power of time as I go.
Ugh. I wish I had any hints. The Immortal Realm is too tough. Can I go back to the tutorial, please? I think I missed a few essential commands.
He wandered to the edge of the city, then flew away. The celestial beasts won’t be in the city. Ying Lin’s cure probably isn’t in the city. And Master… wherever he is… probably not the city.
Master, at least, I have a bit of a hint. Since he’s opposing the Golden Immortal, he should be in hiding. Ah—and that’s another reason not to go hunt for Master. Not only is Master a ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ kind of guy, but also, since we’re both being hunted by the Golden Immortal, it’s better if we run in opposite directions than if we group up together. Distract his attention.
Unless Master is statue-itized like Ying Lin is, and he’s frozen somewhere in the enormous Immortal Realm…
Hui licked his lips.
…Nah, not Master. The only one who’s better at cultivation than Ying Lin is Master! He’s definitely still safe. Definitely! And he ascended earlier, and I know he spent a lot of that time un-statuized, since he came and saved me a couple times!
But when I ascended, he didn’t step in to help…
No, no, that was because I could handle it myself! Master was always all about letting me handle it myself as soon as I was able to… and even sometimes when I wasn’t able to. That doesn’t mean he’s a statue somewhere, it just means he… he believes in me…
Hard to believe Master believes in me.
In midair, Hui paused. He looked at the blade on his belt. I… I have a sword. I could fly on it…
But that would mean stepping on Li Xiang. I don’t like to be stepped on. There’s no way someone as prideful as Li Xiang wants to be stepped on.
Yeah… guess I’ll just fly on my own.
He flew. As he left the city behind, he extended his divine sense, scanning the world around him. Anything to figure out how to release Ying Lin, or any hint of the divine beasts…
Flying around scanning the world randomly… I feel like I’m playing a shitty space game. Scanning for resources, captain! But I really don’t have a better idea right now.
Oh well. It can’t be a bad idea to get to know the Immortal Realm, if nothing else.
Beneath him, a few of the ‘mortal’ villages cropped up. From above, Hui scanned them lightly, but nothing stood out to him. Aside from the power of time at the villages’ edges where the barrier closed them in, nothing strange appeared before him.
Hovering over one, he crossed his arms, looking down at it. I still don’t understand why the Golden Immortal is doing this mortal villages thing. Is it really just a punishment? But why go out of your way to punish them in this bizarre way? Some cultivators have strange hobbies and exert them on those they perceive as beneath them, but is that really all this is?
Time… looping, eternally. Forced mortality, doubly enforced by the slowed turn of time. What is the purpose of this? To force Immortals to live as mortals, but to what end? Some kind of karmic cleansing? Though… from what I know of the Golden Immortal, it doesn’t care much about karmic cleanliness.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He flew on, putting the villages behind him. Something to ponder.
Further from Heart Lotus City, the terrain became mountainous and steep, and the ground heavily forested. No more villages appeared. Hui alighted upon a tree at the top of the tallest mountain he could find and looked around.
In the distance, the ruins of a grand sect stretched for thousands of li, sprawled across an opposing ridge of mountains. Groups of cultivators wandered around the ruins, picking at the bones of the long-extinct sect. Hui tucked his sleeves behind him.
Hmm. What kind of fly-like existence would pick at a sect dead for so long? Surely all the good loot has already been taken. Though, on the other hand, in my novels, sects sometimes had so many treasures that, no matter how many thousands of years passed, there were always more treasures to be found in the depths of their corpses.
Yes, yes, that’s correct. I shouldn’t turn my nose up at this chance! This is opportunity! Besides, as Master taught me, I should loot everything. If it’s nailed down, rip the nails out and take them too!
Although it isn’t exactly one of my tasks, I do need to get independently stronger, too. If I can’t easily figure out the power of time by observation, then I might as well go search a ruin for relics and old techniques! Not only might these ruins hold clues to the power of time, but more importantly, they’ll also hold other techniques, too. Even basic-level Immortal techniques are still valuable to a tiny Immortal like myself, who knows not a single Immortal-level technique.
The only problem is those other Immortals, who are almost certainly much stronger than me.
Hopping down a few branches, Hui dropped into a squat and put a hand to his mouth, thinking. Let’s observe for a while. Rather than charging right in, I’ll copy the face of one of the more lonesome ones and drop in to take a few items, then quickly make my escape. That way, the other looters will already know my face, and know to not bother me… or, to be more specific, know not to bother the man whose face I’m borrowing. I’ll have to make sure he’s not usually at the looting site during the time I visit, and take care to move quietly, under the cover of dark… but as long as I clear all those conditions, I should be fine!
Reigning in his divine sense and presence, eliminating any signs of life down to near nothing, Hui crouched completely still on the branch and watched. Day and night chased one another, and in no time, a week passed. In that time, only Hui’s eyes moved, his whole body moving only to sway with the tree.
Three primary squads wandered the ruins. One in gold robes, who moved with official bearing, and patrolled during the daytime. While the gold-robed Immortals wandered, neither of the other two squads appeared amidst the ruins. At night, though, the gold-robed Immortals vanished, and in their absence, two groups of Immortals thrived. One of the groups wore simple, near-mortal clothing, ragged and patched, their mien all but mortal. The other wore black, covering all of their face and body save the eyes and the hands. The two groups worked on two distinct parts of the ruins, ignoring one another and the rest of the ruins. The ruins were so large that Hui couldn’t be sure the two groups knew of one another’s existence.
The mortal group focused on a central building, slipping in and out from under a collapsed but still standing dome roof, the dome now bulging from the ground itself. On the far side from them, the black-dressed cultivators picked over the wild remains of the sect’s pill gardens.
Hui watched the black-dressed cultivators for a moment, as the team of five spread out yet again to search yet another farm in a grid formation. Although the black-dressed cultivators seem easier to replace, I bet they have a high sense of discipline, and constantly report to one another. They move with the oiled familiarity of a well-practiced team, and their identical uniform means that they all have at least some training and cooperation. On the other hand, the ones who dress as mortals…
He glanced across the ruins. One of the mortal-like cultivators squeezed her way out from under the dome. Looking left and right, she darted off toward the forest, only for a larger male cultivator to stand up from behind one of the destroyed houses and meet her eyes. Under his gaze, she froze, then hurried over to present him her findings, bowing and scraping the whole way. It’s true that they have watchmen, and they search the cultivators who come in and out, but they’re less of a cohesive whole. If I replace one of them, I’m willing to bet they won’t notice at all… at least for as long as it takes for me to slink away with some treasure from the ruins.
Luckily for me, most of the mortal-like cultivators are lone wolves. I can steal anyone’s face and blend in, so long as I don’t move at the same time as the person whose face I steal.
His mind made up, Hui dropped out of the tree. It’s been long enough, and we have time until dawn. It’s time to make my move!