Author’s note: Sponsored by Jake V and John M!!
Host’s note: I’m not the author; I’m a rehoster. I was sick and moving into college yesterday so I couldn’t keep to the 3 chapters per day I had been doing here.
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As Jin Xia leisurely traveled towards the outskirts of Tian City, he started to contemplate on his next move.
His destination was the Kaitech Mountain.
This was the mountain range that was the closest to Tian City, and was rumored to have one of the largest population of villages within the Great Azure Country, according to the “old Jin Xia’s” memory.
Upon arriving outside the forest, Jin Xia flew into dense thickets without hesitation.
While common people and weak cultivators would be avoid traveling through the forests of the Kaitech Mountain due to various savage beasts and wild animals inhabiting the area, this was not an issue for Jin Xia.
According to Jin Xia’s speculation, based on the previous host’s knowledge, the strongest savage beast within the Kaitech Mountain was only at the Wudan 8th stage. With only this level, the beasts in the mountain range would barely pose as threats for Jin XIa.
Spreading out his soul awareness to the surrounding areas, Jin Xia was able to quickly locate several human presences within the forest. This was much effective than using his mortal senses to search his environment.
Even though upon reaching the Xing Profound Realm, one would start developing an ability known as their 6th sense. The early stages of this skill would allow a Xing Profound expert to be aware of their surrounding at all times, and would let them search for enemies that were hiding nearby. Though, their effective range of detection would be merely 500 feets.
But with Jin Xia’s powerful soul, he was able to utilise it in a much more efficient manner, allowing him to scour everything within 110 miles around him! And this length would only continue to slowly stretch as Jin Xia’s cultivation grows, up until he regains back the strength of his former soul.
After all, his godly soul was damaged during the time when Jin Xia had forcefully escaped from the reincarnation cycle.
If not, with just his soul power alone, completely dominating the continents in WuDang would be, but a simple matter!
Moreover, to search one’s soul ensures that nothing could hide from it, lest the other person possess a much stronger soul. And with Jin Xia’s guess, there should be relatively few individuals in this world whose soul could compare to his, and this is still when Jin Xia’s soul is at its weakest state after forcefully enduring escaping the reincarnation cycle.
Sensing a quite a few number of presences nearby, Jin Xia made a turn and head towards the direction where he felt the energy coming from.
When Jin Xia arrived, he saw a small village where the “walls” were made of long sticks and trimmed tree trunks. He could see people in dirty rags and grim moving around within the village, going about their daily duty. There was no one guarding the village.
“I should be able to find some little mortals here…” Jin Xia murmured as he head towards the village.
*rustle*
When the villagers heard the rustling of leaves, all of them immediately turned towards the source of the noise. They feared that it might be a savage beast.
After all, in the Kaitech Mountain, savage beasts attacking villages are a common occurrence, so everyone was always on guard.
But when they saw a handsome youth in clean, white clothes walk out from the forest towards them, the villagers were struck dumbfounded.
Besides being clad in luxurious clothes, the youth gave off an extraordinary aura that made him seem unreal. He was almost like a painting coming to life, in the eyes of the commoners.
Jin Xia noticed the stares, but he did not bother with them. After entering the village, Jin Xia stopped when he was near the center of the place. Without bothering to wait for the village chief to show up, he directly transmitted a little Qi into his voice, Jin Xia said:
“This young master is from the Jin Clan in Tian City; my name is Jin Xia. Today, I have personally come to receive any child who is 12 years of age or under to be a part of my Jin Clan.” Jin Xia’s voice vibrated throughout the village, such that even those in the tiny, straw huts could clearly hear his voice.
Jin Xia continued: “If you are willing, then everything from foods to medicines to even a proper home would be provided for you. Of course, only as long as you work hard for my Jin Clan. And upon joining the Jin Clan, it does not matter if you are an orphan or a poor commoner, I will personally make sure you receive a new identity as a member of the Jin Clan!
And if you perform well enough, perhaps, someday you would even be able to traverse to the outside world by yourself. My Jin Clan will never force you to stay.”
Jin Xia paused for a moment as he let his words sink in. Then he said:
“Now, the children who are willing to pledge loyalty to my Jin Clan, step forward towards me. I will only wait ten breaths of time.”
Almost at the same time, shuffling of feets could be heard in the village as several children scurried out from huts and other areas they were hiding in. In a moment, nine young children were standing in front of Jin Xia. Three of them were girls, while the rest were all boys.
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Seeing that there no adults who seemed particularly attached to them, Jin Xia confirmed that these nine children must be orphans.
Jin Xia gave a slight nod as he turned around to leave: “Follow me.”
The children all obediently shuffled after Jin Xia in their bare feet, trying to keep up.
The surrounding villagers looked at the departing children with envious gazes. Some even wished they were ten years younger. Perhaps then, they would be able to enjoy the offer that Jin Xia had specifically proposed to the younger ones.
But no one dared complained. After seeing Jin Xia’s expensive, white clothes and his powerful aura, the villagers knew that the youth before them was no ordinary person.
Jin Xia’s introduction had further confirmed for them that the youth must be from a powerful clan. He was absolutely someone the people from this tiny village could not afford to provoke.
From start to finish, no one spoke in the village except for Jin Xia. And that was fine with him. Since, he was an outsider and the villagers were originally vigilant and hesitant to interact with those from the outside. Even their village chief, an old wise man, was unqualified to speak with the youth, and had blended in among the crowd.
The other party had already introduced himself and seemed to be impatient, thus the village chief chose to stay quiet. The youth’s objective was already known, anyways.
Right before Jin Xia left through the village entrance, he paused in his steps. With a flick of his wrist, several large bags flew out and crashed into the ground.
Without turning back, Jin Xia said: “I heard about the poor diet of the surrounding villagers in Kaitech Mountain. So to thank you all for your cooperation, I’ve decided to gift you these aliments as repayment. Now then, farewell.”
This time, the village chief went forward and continually thank Jin Xia, along with the other villagers. “Thank you, great young master! Oh thank you!!”
Even if they were afraid of Jin Xia, they did not forget their manners.
After leaving the small village, Jin Xia moved to a safer area of the forest. When he had settled the children down, Jin Xia began to draw strange symbols on the surrounding trees.
Concentrating his Qi energy to the tip of his index finger, Jin Xia carved various symbols and patterns on the tree trunks as well as the ground around him. Within a few minutes, the surrounding trees and land from, where the children were situated at the center, all had some kind of mark on them.
“I’ve set up a concealment formation around here. With this, as long as the children stay within this area, even if a few savage beasts wander into this area by accident, they would not be able to harm these little mortals.” Jin Xia thought as he looked around at his work.
Although Jin Xia did not specialize in symbols as a Rune Inscriptionist, he had still picked up on it over the course the years. And naturally, the symbols he laid would be several times stronger than those of normal Inscriptionists.
Jin Xia was confident that unless it was a beast or an expert who had a higher cultivation than him, there should be no one who will be able to enter his protective formation.
After warning the children to stay put within the safe area that he designated, JIn Xia once again took off towards another village that he sensed nearby.
Once he arrived at the village, Jin Xia once again repeated his message and went through the same process of receiving the willing children, gifting the villagers several bags of food, and bringing them to the concealment formation.
Moreover, as most of the villages are located closely to one another, it made it easier for Jin Xia to transport the children back to the safer area.
As he repeated this process, Jin Xia gradually began to notice that there would be children waiting in front of villages, as if they were expecting them. There would even be a few adults standing behind some of the kids, with an eager expression on their face.
Apparently, without Jin Xia being aware, some of the villagers had already spread the news to the surrounding villages. They told of how a young master from a large family had decided to adopt and teach the orphans and young children in the villages he visit in exchange for large quantities of food.
When this news spread, several individual children had lined up near their respective village entrance in anticipation for Jin Xia. And naturally, Jin XIa did not mind this. It would save him quite some time explaining and waiting between each village he visit.
Like this, the process of selecting young village children went along smoothly and expediently.
Surveying the large crowd of children in the concealment formation after his tenth trip back, Jin Xia gave a small nod in satisfaction. “This amount of mortals should be enough to be divided into two groups quite nicely..”
There were now over 200 village children, who were 12 years of age or younger, crowding around inside the area that Jin Xia had told them to stay.
It was time for him to set up his Jin Clan’s personal army and assassin guild!