Xing Yi froze up temporarily, not sure how to respond to their question. Not only did they try to act too close to him, but why exactly did they call him Mortal Xing Yi? Somehow, the guard seemed to catch onto this and smiled in response.

“You must be wondering why I called you Mortal Xing Yi?”

Xing Yi gave a stiff, forced smile as he bowed respectfully, “Please, if senior could enlighten me.”

“A couple of weeks ago, rumours began circulating about how a mortal had secretly entered the sect over a year ago. It became so fiercely discussed that the elders were forced to answer and they revealed that you basically cheated your way into the sect using a Heaven-Chosen Medallion!” The guard revealed with a cheeky smile, almost envying Xing Yi’s fortune.

Dread washed over Xing Yi as heard this.

“Because of this, you earned yourself the title, Mortal Xing Yi!”

Xing Yi almost lost feeling in his legs.

Xing Yi weakly replied, “That is very interesting to hear.”

The guard smiled again, “It is. But again, Mortal Xing Yi must have places to go. Excuse me if I inconvenienced you.”

Xing Yi hastily responded, “There is no need for senior to apologise! This one was merely going about his day. I have plenty of time to spare in the first place!”

The guard nodded in response with that same smile still present on his face.

Xing Yi wanted to get away from this man as quickly as possible.

“If senior doesn’t have anything else to say, I will make my way. I bid you goodbye,” Xing Yi said.

“Naturally,” The guard dropped his smile and continued, “Get inside the circle and I’ll teleport you over.”

Stepping forward, Xing Yi stood inside the geometric teleportation formation. An instance later, a lightless gem in front of the formation suddenly glowed blue. As soon as the light began glowing, he had teleported into another pavilion.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark environment, he briefly saw the guard on duty open their eyes to inspect him. As they looked, their spiritual sense also washed over him.

Xing Yi expected this to happen and immediately circulated his inner qi and held his breath, bracing for impact. It came and made him shiver for a moment before it washed over him and he returned to normal.

Success again!

Successfully defending against a cultivator's spiritual sense had been something that he had been working on as a side project ever since he first experienced it. The solution had in fact been relatively simple and it was to circulate his inner qi while holding his breath. This was a primitive and crude technique to defend against attacks and was talked about briefly in his external cultivation manual.

But the important thing was that it worked. Albeit only against Vessel Cleansing cultivators. Yet again, he was still feeling the effects of their spiritual sense so it couldn’t be considered perfect. But he was only at the first layer and he saw this to be a small achievement.

Speaking of the teleportation pavilion guards, they were in fact failed foundation

establishment cultivators. Any cultivator that performed menial tasks around the sect that weren’t of significance, and were at Vessel Cleansing.

It was a sad fate for those who couldn’t manage to breakthrough to Foundation Establishment.

It was very normal however. In the world of cultivation, only one out of ten cultivators could break through to foundation establishment. For the rest, they would be stuck at Vessel Cleansing for the rest of their lives.

Respectfully bowing to the other guard on duty, Xing Yi walked out of the pavilion, made his way down the dirt path and when there was a fork in the road, he went to the right. Xing Yi walked down the road for the next twenty minutes until he was in front of a ten-metre tall wooden arch that was covered in green vines, and adorned in yellow flowers.

Beyond it laid a mysterious grey fog. It was much like the great illusionary formation of the sect that existed to keep mortals from wandering inside the sect. This too held a similar purpose and was instead to prevent unwanted visitors from wandering inside.

Xing Yi held his breath patiently as he waited outside the fog. Waiting for it to part, a would-be sign that he had been let inside.

Xing Yi waited for a painfully long amount of time for the fog to part. He began questioning if he was in the right place. Maybe he had taken the wrong turn and he was supposed to take the turn on the left. All of these thoughts ended when he saw the grey fog finally parted, forming a path for him to walk through.

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Walking underneath the arch and through the newly forged path, Xing Yi soon exited the tunnel and came out on the other side. In front of him emerged a flourishing green valley. To his right was a waterfall, the far away sound of water smashing against the pond and its surrounding rocks reaching his ears.

In the distance, at the end of the dirt path, was a longhouse built with wooden boards and a porch in front of it. Cradling it on both its left and right were towering mountains, suggesting that this place was in some kind of closed-off valley. Walking forward, trepidations coursed through his body as he slowly drew closer and closer to the house that loomed in front of him.

Reaching the longhouse, he climbed up the steps and onto the porch. He knocked on the door and patiently waited for Martial Uncle Yang to knock on the door.

Just as Xing Yi began waiting for the other person to answer the door, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

Sitting upon a wooden chair while nibbling upon a red pear was a brown-haired monkey. As Xing Yi noticed them, so did they. The animal’s eyes darted up from the red pear and locked onto the small boy with an intense stare.

Xing Yi took a step back, not knowing what this monkey was up to. Would it attack him? Regardless of why it was here, Xing Yi prepared himself for a fight. It wasn’t strange for the perimeter guards to overlook weak spiritual beasts, consequently allowing them to wander into the sect.

But what he couldn’t figure out was how had one made its way into Martial Uncle Yang’s herb garden? It was supposed to be protected by multiple formations and was one of the safest places in the sects.

That was when Xing Yi almost smacked himself in the face. It had to be a pet of Martial Uncle Yang. Why else would such a thing be out and about?

Xing Yi dismissed the monkey’s presence. As he turned away, he half-heartedly muttered underneath his breath in relief, “You almost scared me. Phew.”

Not even a second later, an aged, gruff voice responded, “I did?”

Xing Yi received a sudden adrenaline rush as he jumped back in shock. He then looked over at the monkey. The voice had come from where it was! Xing Yi looked at the monkey again and it had already finished eating the red pear from earlier.

Before Xing Yi could get a hold of the situation, he saw the monkey begin to speak.

“What, you’ve never seen a monkey before?” The monkey said. It seemed as if their brows were furrowed as they said this.

Xing Yi didn’t know how to respond but after a moment he replied, “A talking monkey?”

The monkey blankly replied, “Indeed.”

“Oh,” Xing Yi replied, seemingly understanding, his previous disbelief now gone.

“Who are you?” Xing Yi asked very bluntly.

The monkey chuckled, “I am the man you are currently looking for.”

Xing Yi blinked his eyes a few times, the cogs in his mind silently chugging away. A few seconds passed, when the boy suddenly made a realisation and immediately fell to the ground in a deep kowtow, his head against the wood flooring.

“I thought it would take you a bit to realise,” The other person replied.

“This foolish disciple pays his respects to Martial Uncle Yang,” Xing Yi uttered.

Xing Yi shook in fear beneath this monkey, fearing the absolute worst. He desperately circulated his inner qi in hopes to calm himself.

“It's normal to not recognise me the first time. Many don’t. Only a few have managed to recognise it was me over the many long years I have been the owner of this herb garden. Now, stop kneeling to me like a starving peasant would to his lord and come inside,” The other person explained, whereafter Xing Yi heard the door swing open.

Xing Yi had lived! Being a weak, phoney cultivator in this sect was a dangerous existence. If only he had nascent-soul cultivation! He would no longer have to live in fear of everyone he meets and can walk around with no fears or worries.

He sighed in sadness over this wishful thinking before he made his way inside and found an

old man sitting quietly at a small table. In front of him and on the other side of the table was a steaming cup of green tea.