- Northern Plains: Within Ye Lui Tribe Territory -
Floating high above the clouds, two Gu Immortals proudly stood, their faces shining from the sunlight as little pockets opened up in the clouds, granting them a clear view of the ground below.
"So that person sitting in a hammock while sipping on a glass of wine is a hidden Gu Immortal?" Ye Lui Qun Xing, the eldest of the two, questioned the person next to him as he looked down at the mortals below with clear skepticism in his voice.
Ye Lui Qun Xing is tall and thin, like a bamboo pole. He has three strands of hair as a beard and has a yellowish-white complexion. He is an expert among rank-7 Gu Immortals.
Looking to his left, on the same cloud, he saw two Hollow Wind Hawk chicks, one the size of a fist and the other the size of a thumb. Both of them were fighting each other to reduce the competition for future food. The larger one was clearly winning. That was until the larger one made a mistake and went too far by pushing the smaller Hallow Wind chick off the cloud. It was a foolish yet understandable decision; if it were a normal hawk, this would have been a smart move; however, Hallow Wind Hawks have a very unique specialty: growth through tribulation. As the Hallow Wind Hawk rapidly descended to the ground, it's body entered a growth spurt. Upon reaching less than an inch of space between it and the ground, it spread its wings to propel itself back up into the sky, now a fully grown Hollow Wind Hawk.
Down below their feet were five Gu Masters; three of them were practicing incredibly strange killer moves that Ye Lui Qun Xing would have normally described as rudimentary, something only a rank-2 Gu Master would perform; however, there was something strange about the killer moves, as they each displayed power roughly five times stronger than what was expected of their rank.
"That is indeed him, and not only that, I suspect him to be of rank-8 caliber. With a simple wave of his hand, my heart ruptured and broke like an egg! I can't see any other possible explanation other than him being a hidden rank-8 Gu Immortal." The younger of the two, Ye Lui Xiao Jin, said as he raised his hand over his chest to feel his beating heart.
"Yes, that does seem quite likely... However, I find it difficult to believe his attack conveniently left behind no dao marks." Qun Xing had been sent here by the clan leader to confirm Xiao Jin's ridiculous story. And, more importantly, if what Xiao Jin said was true, then his job was to find out why a Gu Immortal, not of the Ye Lui tribe, was in their territory.
~"There's no way a rank-8 Gu Immortal would be training mortals out in the middle of nowhere; he has to be here searching for something valuable, like an inheritance site or an Immortal Gu." Qun Xing was sure of this. No, rather, he refused to believe it could be anything else.
Hearing Qun Xing's words, Xiao Jin smiled; he fully knew his story made little to no sense, especially the part about the attack on his heart leaving zero Dao Marks. Even he himself, if told such a story, would immediately have spat in the other's face for treating him like a fool. If it weren't for him providing some form of evidence in the form of captured recordings of the scene, along with his Life Tablet Gu becoming pale in the clan treasury, no one would have believed him. In the end, despite all the evidence he provided, the clan only sent Qun Xing with him for further inspection on the situation.
Qun Xing began using hundreds of Information Path Gu, however, the moment any of them looked at Zi Ran, they received a fast and swift end. This kept happening at a faster and faster pace, leaving him little choice but to accept it as futile.
"Xiao Jin!"
"Yes?!"
"We're leaving!"
While Qun Xing's second job was to find out why a rank-8 Gu Immortal was inside their territory, the fact that the Gu Immortal kept blatantly killing his Scouting Type Gu worms showed that any communication was likely to be met with the same answer. As such, he opted to go back to the clan and get reinforcements.
Likewise, Xiao Jin thought the same thing and nodded his head. Just being within ten thousand kilometers of the mysterious man made him feel uneasy.
As they began to fly away, Qun Xing took special note of the strange clothing and nature of every mortal on the ground: "Cloud Path and Poison Path, Fire Path and Metal Path, and lastly Strength Path and Blade Path. Those three are clearly future seeds raised by that hidden Gu Immortal, as nearly no one at rank-5 would cultivate two paths unless they had a very rich backer... However, that fourth one is strange; I've seen him use Sand Path, Cloud Path, Star Path, and Illusion Path, but the power from each of them barely passes that of a rank-2 Gu Master. If he were my son, I would have disowned him."
Most people would call that cruel or ruthless; however, in the Northern Plains, the only people who lived were exactly those types of people. In this land, from birth until death, the uncaring elements of the Northern Plains ingrained in all of its inhabitants one phrase: Survival of the Fittest.
At that moment, Xiao Jin felt a slight tug on his heart, like the string lightly being pulled from a bow. His heart smoothly went from a healthy average of sixty beats per minute to forty, then to twenty, before completely stopping. His body went limp before plummeting at a rapid speed to the ground.
Qun Xing opened his eyes wide in fear as he saw Xiao Jin suddenly go into a free fall. His death wasn't grand or expected; he simply shut his eyes and went into an eternal slumber. It actually looked rather peaceful, as if he never put up a fight. Qun Xing waited for the slim hope of Xiao Jin's last report to play out, where his heart healed, allowing him to regain consciousness. But that moment never came as Xiao Jin's body hit the ground with a thud, sending sand flying like a small cloud of smoke. The entire event, from beginning to end, was just as lackluster as it was sudden.
But just because it was lackluster didn't mean it wasn't terrifying.
During his awakening ceremony, Qun Xing felt nervous, just like most kids going through what they were told would decide whether they were men or slaves.
At rank-5, after weeks of hyping himself up, he fought and killed his first Beast Emperor.
When he first saw Dong Fang Chang Fan's Falling Star Lightning killer move, his hair stood on end. He may have peed a little; of course, he never told anyone. After all, Dong Fang Chang Fan was and still is known as the best Wisdom Path Gu Immortal in the Northern Plains.
People called him fearless for challenging Dong Fang Chang Fan multiple times, but he knew better; he simply loved the feeling of improving himself. But in front of what he was seeing right now, that feeling was gone; only fear was in his heart.
But just as suddenly as fear filled his heart, a sudden yet peaceful and comforting feeling started to fill his chest. And just like how Xiao Jin died swiftly and peacefully, Qun Xing too felt his mind begin to fade like a peaceful dream. Hundreds of Gu worms in his body automatically activated and began work on healing him; however, just as soon as they released their aura, they too fell into an eternal slumber.
Back on the ground, sipping on ice-cooled wine, Zi Ran commented. "Finding the locations of every single Gu worm inside those small worlds is quite an annoyance. Thankfully, most healing Gu worms produce a strong aura of life, making it much easier to discern between a Gu used for something like an attack and one used for healing; otherwise, it's like looking at the stars in the sky, 'easy to see but difficult to differentiate.'"
His attention then switched to Hit Man swinging a polearm made of rank-5 materials. "Just as a killer move is way more powerful than simply the sum of all its Gu worms, so is a Gu worm much more powerful than the sum of all its resources. Although rare, I've seen a few Gu worms designed with tough bodies. I wonder if a weapon can become a Gu."
Zi Ran was referring to how this was Hit Man's twenty-third polearm this week. The polearm was made up of three different weapons: a hammer, an axe, and a spear.
Rising from his comfortable chair, Zi Ran shouted, "Who wants a polearm made of rank-6 materials!?"