Under clear and brilliant skies, we flew south the whole night and into the next morning. Until we reached an expanse filled with dark, quickly-shifting clouds. This left us a single safe route; the space between the clouds above and below us. It was like floating through a dark and fluffy tunnel. Then one grey poof rose from its original position to envelope us.

Water moistened our clothes. But, beyond just the clouds being annoying or obfuscating our vision, they were also dangerous. Not in the, ‘Hey, these might be from some asshole’s tribulation,’ as we’d be able to sense that; but in the, ‘Someone could easily be following you,’ way.

Red Three tensed and took out a massive spear from his ring. From the energy around it, I could tell that it was a Sky rank weapon.

Red Seven spread his spiritual pressure around us to prevent anyone from overexerting their influence on our fragile bodies. Then he grabbed a handful of medium-tier spirit stones, shoved them into my arms, and unsheathed his own sky rank sword.

Clearly, he wanted us to drive the boat. Shit was about to go down.

I sighed and handed the spirit stones to Little Spring.

His eyes grew wide.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t used them with a flying spiritual tool. I had taught him how to use the sword... that one time... a couple months ago.

He should be good. Right?

While a large ship like this was different from a small sword it wasn’t all that different. He just wouldn’t be able to control it very well without divine sense. Whatever. He’d make do.

Just after I expanded my hair stick into its full size, a slash of thin Dagger Qi zipped toward my face. I leaned slightly to avoid it the same time as the Reds avoided their own barrage of bad news.

Our boat wobbled. I spread my divine sense out into the distance where a group of three cultivators who, like some kind of sky bandits, rode atop flying swords.

The one in Golden Core used a technique to control the cloud around us, turning it into more than just water vapor. Something inside, confused those with divine senses lower than — and slightly affected those at — Golden Core.

The boat slipped closer to the assassins.

Little Spring’s eyes had grown wide. He looked like a kid who’d stolen a car but didn’t know how to drive it.

I sent him a message using the telepathic technique (a better and higher leveled spell than the ol’ sound transmission everyone preferred), ::Just keep the boat steady! Ignore everything else! Don’t even try to move in a direction.::

He nodded.

A slice of dagger Qi shot toward the kid. I slashed it with sword Qi. The energies canceled out.

Fuck. If I had actually been a mere 10-year-old girl in Qi Condensation, he might have died right there...

Red Three threw out several hand seals. The spiritual pressure around us increased significantly. Fog dissipated from the area surrounding our boat exposing the flying sword trio. For the first time, I was able to see our opponents. Everyone paused.

Of the two cultivators not controlling the cloud, one had a black cloth mask and the other left his face bare but sported a sparse mustache that he needed to shave. Mr. Sparse Mustache glared at Red Seven with seething hatred. He didn’t even look my way.

::Hey, how much do you want to bet that barefaced assassin over there is here to avenge himself against Seven?:: I telepathically threw at Little Spring.

::I think they’re likely after us.::

::Naw, look at that guy. He practically reeks of the phrase, ‘My name is Assassin For Hire. You killed my Clan. Prepare to die!’::

::If you really think so?:: The kid smirked. I guessed he was starting to get used to controlling the boat. ::Then I dare you to call him out on it.::

::Oh? Hehehe.::

I pointed exaggeratingly at the guy. “It’s you! Mr. Sparse Mustache, Assassin For Hire! How dare you take a job to kill me just to hide your real target — poor Red Seven here?!”

Mr. Sparse Mustache appeared startled and downright confused. Everyone looked at him.

“Come, tell us how you swore your vengeance!”

The masked guy next to him had such an intense flabbergasted expression that I could see it even through the mask. He glided over to the guy and gave him a friendly but rough tap on the shoulder. “You too?! Then let’s achieve our vengeance together!”

Barefaced guy opened his mouth to say something but before he could, the masked guy pointed at Red Seven. “That’s right! This job is just an excuse to kill you! You may have sold yourself to the Alchemists’ Guild, but I’ll never forgive you and your clan after they stole my treasure and murdered my family! After decades of planning and killing them off one by one, you’re the last left!”

I rolled my eyes at the monologuing. I mean, it was a trait that people in this universe, who had low intelligence, seemed to have. Probably to make it more realistic that villains and cannon fodder the protagonist faced would also monologue?

I really didn’t understand how the original author got as popular as he had. It was to the point where even though I’d never read the original story, I’d heard enough about it to recognize my predicament just a few years after transmigration.

But, all that aside... Holy fucking shit! I actually got it right! I mean, sort of. Wrong person. But what were the chances?

“So, prepare yourself, ’Red Seven, to meet your family on the way to drink Meng Po’s tea!”

Masked guy started attacking in earnest while continuing to spout nonsense. But at that point, I tuned him out and focused on the techniques. Because, despite saying that he wanted revenge, a lot of his attacks were aimed at me. Same with Mr. Sparse Mustache.

My two guards had to work double-time, not only protecting themselves but my ass as well.

Fortunately, the guild never hired incompetent people. The Reds were stronger than all three of these guys put together.

These idiots had only survived this long due to a life-saving talisman attached to each of their sleeves. Theirs were similar to the one I received from Pill Otaku after winning the tournament, but definitely not from the same source. The inferior products had frayed ends and an erratic spiritual signature that grated on my nerves.

It wouldn’t be long before these assassins either ran or died.

Behind me, an arrow of spiritual energy touched my divine sense. It zoomed toward Little Spring.

Blood drained from my face.

I turned to throw a slash of sword Qi at it, but my cultivation was too low. I fucking missed!

Just then, Little Spring dropped all the spirit stones I’d handed him. The boat plummeted. He bent, picking them up and quickly taking back control.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

But, in that time, the arrow passed the kid by a fucking hair. His protagonist halo was too strong!

Well, at least he was safe.

Turned out that these bandit-like assassins were a distraction all along!

First, I briefly checked to make sure we hadn't startled our guards by our sudden drop. They hadn't moved, having used the Golden Core ability to create a pocket of air under their feet (it was the precursor to the literal flight Nascent Souls learned).

Next, I extended my divine sense out further, almost reaching the peak of what I could safely handle without breaking my seal. A very strong Foundation Establishment archer stood in an immortal boat far above us and even further away. Her attack had come from so far that they’d had to take into account the damn curvature of the ridiculously Xianxia-sized planet we lived on. Which was actually an exaggeration, since even the snipers from my original world never had to do that.

That said, the attack was still really fuckin’ far away.

And it had been aimed at Little Spring.

It also wasn't her only attack. Several dozen arrows of hyper condensed spiritual energy followed after that one, and they were aimed at me.

I had two options. I could waste my energy attacking these arrows, which were at a level much greater than my current cultivation could easily handle, or I could dodge.

Since I’d recently taught Little Spring a really fantastic movement technique with the horrible name, ’Consistent Step, Impossible Leap,’ then I may as well show the kid how useful it was.

This technique had two parts. The first was long-distance speed running — perfect for places with flying sword bans — and the second was for when a cultivator was fighting and needed to be across the room, near immediately.

I grabbed Little Spring (who had finally picked up the last of the spirit stones) and used the second version to move us to the other side of the boat.

Red Three and Seven finished a series of hand seals for a massive co-op attack. An enormous pill cauldron formed of spiritual energy weaved into existence. It opened its lid and gulped down all three of the assassins. It quickly shrunk. The cries and moans from the people being crushed within it echoed through the vast sky.

Well. That was one way to make their poor excuses for protection talismans useless.

Unfortunately, it would still take time for this attack to entirely overcome the protection charm.

“Bow!” I yelled at Red Seven. He used his free hand that wasn’t contributing to the attack to touch his spacial bag and remove a different bow than the one slung over his shoulder. After he tossed it to me, I noticed that this one would actually work for someone between Qi Condensation and Formation Establishment. I assumed it was his old bow.

I grabbed it and pulled the string back.

As a general rule, I hated working with the bow. A lot of cultivation stories I’d read hadn’t included them for a reason. This world happened to not follow that design though, being created by a guy who just threw nearly everything into one big world and shook it up.

But the reason I hated the bow (other than the fact that the dumb author took what should have been a powerful weapon and nerfed it), was because it took too long to form the arrow making it really only good for very long-distance attacks. At least up until Nascent Soul. After that, bows couldn’t do shit. But combat at that level changed significantly anyway.

To pull a bow and use energy as an arrow, one had to pull the string taut, and as they pulled, create an arrow using a pattern that super condensed the spiritual energy. They then had to use the spiritual weapon as an aid to shoot the energy forward swiftly. And, while spiritual energy wasn’t that affected by gravity, it was affected by distance. If one didn’t take the time to super condense the spiritual energy it would dissipate before it reached the target. This made quick shots impossible for cultivator archers. Well, they could be just as fast as a mortal archer but that was still slow as fuck for a sufficiently high enough cultivator.

That said, there was one way to shoot arrows very fast. And that was to create several at the same time. Which was harder than it sounded.

A cultivator needed to be able to split their mind and create each arrow by using each section to concentrate. And, I just so happened to be able to do that. In fact, the last time I had was when I read Little Spring’s two cultivation techniques when we first entered his space.

This time, because my body could handle it, I split my mind into four and super-condensed four arrows at once. I then shot each consecutively while ensuring that they had the right spin to move the way I wanted.

And just as I predicted, the archer dodged the first attack, she even dodged the second, I could see her mocking smile with my divine sense. But I did it this way on purpose. So she’d let her guard down, after all, what Foundation Establishment cultivator would believe a Qi Condensation child could hurt them. And in this case, when they merely dodged my third arrow and thought my fourth would veer left, it veered right, into the eye of the archer. That should have killed her instantly. If only she didn’t also have a protective talisman.

However, seeing that she’d almost lost an eye and had just seen their other compatriots crushed to death, the archer chose wisely, and ran.

And all of this would have happened in the blink of an eye... if it weren’t for all the crosstalk.

***

We spent four more days traveling the south road. Red Three and Seven took turns scouting.

They ended up stopping a few more assassination attempts, but by the third day, those dwindled to nothing.

I continued pretending to be boring... which the two Reds may have seen through during a lecture on the third day where I corrected some of the false concepts written in the books Pill Otaku had given me. And I think that lecture might have also enlightened them since they started treating me exceedingly politely.

Well, whatever. My knowledge could just be blamed on my master anyway. No big deal.

On the fifth and final day of travel, we neared Three Kings Sanctuary. So, I had a little chat with the two.

They knew, that I knew, that they were spies. And we all silently agreed to not talk about it.

However, after that silent conversation, I learned that their priority was my safety and not spying (though they were definitely still spies). So, I made a deal, they would use a small illusion formation I set to fool our assassins into thinking we were still on the immortal ship. Then they would lead our enemies away from us (this would get everyone off our asses for a couple of days) and in exchange, I would meet back up with them and allow them to do their job — protecting us until we actually entered the sect.

Apparently, White Lily wanted to be doubly sure of my safety so she had hired them to take me all the way there. Doing as I had planned to do and leaving them entirely would have caused problems.

So, I figured that I’d do them a favor and allow them to guard us... after I saved the Junior Sect Leader.

***

As we closed in on the small town, I decided that it was time to do some skydiving.

As I instructed, we skimmed through the top of a massive cloud. I placed the last flag of the illusion formation, took out my flying sword tool, and hugged Little Spring. Then I saluted my two guards and forced us to fall backward off the boat.

We plummeted through the cloud.

To his credit, Little Spring did not scream. He did clutch onto my robes like a kitten being saved from a tree.

I allowed us to free-fall until just before it would have been too late to stop us from exiting the cloud. That was when I placed the sword under our feet and brought us to a stop mid-air.

My brother did not stop clinging to me. Ah... I may have scared the shit out of him. He had agreed to this ahead of time though. I even said, “Hey, you want to try something fun?” And he was like, “Sure, Fairy Lin.”

Though, not telling him exactly what we were doing was a bit of harmless revenge from our past life... Okay, so I shouldn’t have taken my revenge out on him but it was too funny to resist.

I yawned as I waited for the cloud to pass by us. This was also to give the assassins enough time to follow after the boat.

Then I slowly took us down to land right at the entrance to Three Kings Sanctuary. It was a small town with a massive defensive wall and an expensive shielding formation that would activate when the beasts from the forest ran rabid and attacked the town.

Beast Tides didn’t happen all that often, though. Just often enough that the town was built to defend against them.

Although it was a town, it was large enough that it had many shops that catered to rich adventuring cultivators. Thus we were easily able to pick out the various inns throughout.

Since there were only four in total, it wasn't that hard.

Considering that the Junior Sect Leader was from one of the biggest sects on the continent, I automatically assumed that the team would go to the largest and most expensive inn.

I tugged Little Spring through the front doors and into the huge tasteful foyer.

He bit his lip. “I don’t like that Red Three and Red Seven left. Are you sure letting them continue ahead was a good idea?”

”Yes.”

”Before we even locate the members from Indomitable Will Sect?”

Calculating the approximate time it would take our sect members to get here, they would arrive at night. Though it was possible (but unlikely) that they arrived earlier. Still, I was pretty positive that we landed our asses here before them.

“We just need to bribe the town’s innkeepers. If they can keep track of cultivators who resemble our sect members, then they can send us a message when they arrive.”

“Should we split up?”

I grinned. “Not a bad idea.”

“Who should I talk to?”

I smoothed his hair. “I want you to stay here and watch out for them. It should be a medium-sized group of five to seven cultivators. And they’ll be wearing white robes with cloud patterns on them.”

He stared at me oddly.

“What?”

“So, like them?” He pointed to a group exactly like I described who had entered just after I started talking.

I felt like coughing up a mouthful of blood from embarrassment.