Chapter 6: Compromises
"Huh?" The two Cultivators onboard the Profound Ark was completely startled by Lin Tao's sudden appearance. He had landed on top of the Profound Beast chasing them down and asked such a strange question. Still, Lin Tao just stood there at them waiting for an answer ignoring the Profound Beast's scratches of protest.
One of them hesitated, glancing at their injured and unconscious Senior Brother. They could sense no Cultivation Foundation or Profound Energy from Lin Tao. Yet he was there only hope at a time like.
"Anything! Well, do anything please help us!" Falling to his knees the man begged. Hearing that Lin Tao grinned slightly.
"Alrighty then!" Raising Ruyi Bang above his head Lin Tao began swinging it in a circular motion. The flying Profound Beast he was on top of let out an even louder screech trying to shake him off.
Not losing his balance, Lin Tao stopped Ruyi Bang's spin, holding it tight. And then with one quick burst swung it down onto the beast's neck. A loud crack-like sound rang from its body as its entire being shook.
Immediately the Profound Beast let out a blood-curdling noise that would twist one's ears. It began to plummet out of the sky. The two people onboard the Profound Ark looked on in shock. It took them a moment to wake to their senses of what had just happened.
"We need to hurry and land! If we keep flying, the Profound Ark will break down, and then we'll be stuck here." The friend to the one who had begged Lin Tao spoke to him. He quickly nodded and stood up as the two of them began maneuvering the Profound Ark to land.
At the same time the Profound Beast that had begun to approach the ground crashed. Jumping Lin Tao leaped off its back as it impacted. Bashing into a multitude of tree's its body skated across the ground leaving a trail in the earth.
Landing on the ground Lin Tao stared at the grounded Profound Beast. Despite the initial hit and all of the damage it took from its own momentum, it began to strugglingly get up. Its neck hanged low as it used its legs and wings to prop itself up.
"Regh!" Letting out a screech its eye's glared at Lin Tao, its anger clearly showing.
"Heh, sorry about this. No hard feelings." As if it reacted to Lin Tao's words the Profound Beast used its remaining energy to turn and lunge towards Lin Tao mouth agape.
"Ruyi Bang!" Jumping high into the air, clearing even the tree's Ruyi Bang followed Lin Tao's orders extending itself to the length of the Profound Beast. Lin Tao's entire body tensed as he swung down.
On impact the Profound Beast's body was pressed into the earth crashing the very ground it was on. After one last sound escaped its mouth, it went quiet as it was embedded into the dirt. Landing back on the ground, Ruyi Bang retracted itself automatically.
"Well, you're definitely special. Even if it's a pain to use." Holding it out in front of him Lin Tao couldn't help but admire it as it lightly shook in his hands reacting to his comment. With that Lin Tao held it over his shoulders looking north.
"Looks like they landed over there. Guess it's time to collect my reward." They had not ended too far away. Taking a short walk through the forest Lin Tao eventually found them. The injured one was leaning up against a rock on the ground unconscious. His stomach area was covered in blood, clearly from some type of injury.
Normally something like that would be fatal. However, Cultivators aren't like normal people. An injury like this was rather dangerous but given time and rest they could heal from it. Off to the side, the two men who were controlling the Profound Ark spotted Lin Tao.
The two of them looked clearly nervous. However, that didn't stop the one who had begged for help from greeting him.
"Benefactor I thank you for your help. I am Lai Mai, this is my friend and fellow disciple Feng Mu." Cupping his hands together he bowed in thanks. His friend looked more cautious than he was but also did the same.
"Well, It wasn't out of the kindness of my heart." Lai Mai looked up hearing Lin Tao's words. This Lin Tao was strange to them.
'He had no Profound Energy, yet he was strong enough to defeat such a large Profound Beast so quickly…' There was only one explanation that made sense. The man before them was a Cultivator so powerful he could completely suppress his own strength. His friend Feng Mu had a similar thought process.
"Of course. What is it you want from us?" Lai Mai saw Lin Tao glance toward's their landed Profound Ark. Immediately his eyes widened as he seemed to be at a loss for words. Did he want their Profound Ark? After realizing that their faces looked grim as Feng Mu spoke up.
"I'm afraid we can not give you our Profound Ark despite you saving our lives. It belongs to our Sect." Feng Mu put up a firm stance in denying Lin Tao who in turn narrowed his eyes.
"I remember your friend here said anything. Are you going back on your word?" His voice was slightly dark as he spoke. Feng Mu gulped as Lai Mai quickly intervened and spoke.
"Benefactor of course we have no intention of doing so! It's just that the Profound Ark is currently damaged. It will take us a few days to repair it. Along with that, it only has enough power to make the journey to the Capital City of Grand Asura Nation where our Sect is located." He was basically saying a longer journey than that would be impossible.
Without power, the Profound Ark would be as useless as any boat on land. Understanding that Lin Tao thought to himself. He wanted to use this to get to the Blue Wind Empire, but it seemed that would be impossible. Still, the Capital City was near the center of the Grand Asura Nation which was still quite a distance to travel.
"Hmm… Alright, then I'll compromise. Take me to the Capital City instead and we'll call it even." Once he arrived in a city like the Capital he would have a lot more options when it came to traveling. It wasn't ideal but it was better than walking across an entire nation
Seeing Lin Tao was no longer mad Lai Mai sighed in relief. And so for the next two days during the Profound Ark's repair's they camped out in this spot. During that time Lin Tao learned some interesting things.
"So all three of you are a part of The Purple Raven Sect?" Lin Tao actually was a bit surprised. There were countless sects within the Grand Asura Nation. If it came down to it, The Purple Raven Sect wasn't even in the top ten when it came to strength.
However, they were one of the most popular and largest sects all the same. That was due to the nature of the sect itself. Unlike most others, they were rather generous with resources and the bar for entry was quite low. They were the goto sect for those who were poor or weren't very gifted in Cultivation.
As such The Purple Raven Sect wasn't very popular however it was extremely large which made up for it. Not only that, but the sect itself used its massive number of disciples to generate wealth. Taking up tasks they used their number's to do things all across the Nation. Profound Beast hunting, to investigations.
They were like a sect for hire if you thought about it. Their Outer Disciple's had a positive reputation to almost everyone. Of course, that only applies to the Outer Sect. No matter how good things are on the surface, there is always going to be some form of injustice.
Disciple's of the Outer Sect are known for being close like brothers and rather humble. However, the Inner Disciples are the opposite. He didn't know too much on the matter but he heard they were real scum. It was so bad that people had entirely different thoughts on the two groups despite being in the same sect.
Anyway, he didn't really care but he did end up listening to their story. Basically, they had been hired to take care of some Profound Beast Nest nearby which could potentially threaten a village. They had expected it to be easy and had gone with their Senior Brother so they had lowered their guard.
However, the eggs in the nest had hatched and they were quickly overpowered by sheer numbers. And when Moma got home it was obvious that she wasn't very happy some humans were killing her children.
Normally their Senior Brother would have handled it, but he had gotten injured by a lapse in judgment and couldn't fight. So they were forced to high tail it out of there and run for their dear lives. The rest was fairly easy to figure out.
"Still Benefactor it's amazing you managed to defeat a Profound Beast at the 7th Level of the True Profound Realm so easily. You must be really strong." Lin Tao touched his chin hearing that.
"So it was at the 7th Level? No wonder it went down so easily." He was speaking to himself but Lai Mai couldn't help but nervously chuckle. Not many Disciples in the Outer Sect would say those words. Profound Beasts were immensely stronger than humans at the same Cultivation Level.
Hell, they could even fight Cultivator's a Realm or two above their own. The only real advantages humans had were their size and techniques. But even that could be negated in the Profound Beast is smart. And so an entire day passed until night began to fall.
Feng Mu, who had been repairing the Profound Ark, plopped down on the ground in front of the fire.
"I should be able to fix it by the evening tomorrow still… Elder Cao is going to kick our ass when he finds out what happened. So much for our reward." Sighing he obviously looked pretty depressed about the prospect.
"Well, I guess we should count ourselves lucky with all of the craziness happening on the Profound Continent these days." Lin Tao's ears perked when he heard that.
"What do you mean?" Inquiring more from Feng Mu and Lai Mai glanced at one another.
"You don't know? Apparently, that guy Yun Che had died. He got trapped within the Primordial Ark which puts the Blue Wind Empire in dire straights. I even heard that The Divine Phoenix made an appearance and attacked the Young Master of the Sun Moon Divine Hall. A friend of mine said it was chaotic when he was there."
Lin Tao had no clue about any of this of course. As much as he loved to stay informed, taking care of Sun Wukong took up a lot of his time. And well he wasn't going to be learning anything while trekking through a forest.
"I don't know if it's true or not… But I heard that the Divine Phoenix Empire has been preparing to go to war. But no one knows what for. If this keeps up it looks like things are only going to get crazier over time."
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