"…" Sitting all by himself while lost in his thoughts, Cheng Hao was rhythmically tapping his fingers atop the bar counter. He was sitting at a dark corner of the tavern, on the leftmost bar stool that there was, his expression hidden below a wide bamboo hat. In front of him was a full glass of beer which he had yet to touch, so worried he was regarding his current situation.
He had been on the verge of leaving the Sect and if everything had gone according to plan he would have departed the morning right after and headed to the secret ruins that held the high-grade External Aura Manipulation manual.
The trip alone would have taken a couple of days, let alone exploring the entirety of the ruin. He had calculated Xiao Wu's advancing speed to coincide perfectly with his estimate of how long he would need to get back: by then she would still be low level Inferior Stage, just on the verge of breaking through. Delaying any further would mean holding back that breakthrough and hampering her talent. On the other hand, breaking through before being initiated to Aura Manipulation would be even more detrimental! Both sides were something he didn't want to see and as such he had carefully calculated everything out to reach the highest efficiency.
This was merely a small part of the finely crafted timetable Cheng Hao had put into place in his mind for his and Xiao Wu's optimal path to the Ageless Stage and beyond.
However, fate had its own way of viewing things and liked to toy around with man's expectations, throwing the curveball named Fuyin his way.
It was not like he did not wish for new allies, on the contrary he was craving for them. However, the Mortal Realm was an incredibly delicate stage of Cheng Hao's rebirth as it could spell make or break for his second attempt at revolution. He had in no way as many resources as he had the first time around, nor as many trump cards as Xu Ling had.
One thousand years ago, his greatest ace had been the Heaven Devouring Beast Blindlight: the one dubbed the Dragon King had been a peak existence aligned to no faction that even Tian would rather not anger, allowing Xu Ling to grow unimpeded to the Ageless Realm and snowball from there. Now, that once mighty peak Primordial Beast had been reduced into a talking foot-long snake in order to escape the wrath of the Heavenly Lord.
However, Cheng Hao hadn't even batted an eye at this, as he could still use Blindlight to leave their current Plane of Existence when the former Dragon King reached the Ageless Realm and the Plane Laws descended: at that time, the golden dragon would be able to choose the Plane of Existence the Laws would be sending them to and Blindlight would become akin to an elevator for anyone close by. After that, it would be mostly smooth sailing thanks to the connections and allies he had made as the Evil Saint, which in a remote plane of existence such as his current one he had no way to take advantage of.
Even the Immortal Ascension Tower's fifteen floors had been meticulously planned out by him to offer the most benefit possible at any stage!
Indeed, fate was petty. And Cheng Hao knew this fact extremely well, therefore his plans hadn't been completely fazed either, merely being shaken a bit at the foundation: although a few levels might have fallen, the basic structure remained intact, allowing him to build everything up again.
One Fuyin wouldn't topple Cheng Hao's plans, but he would still be enough to demand a huge amount of Cheng Hao's time and brainpower to fit into.
Right now, even before knowing about the kid's situation fully, Cheng Hao had already began modeling his routes based on several extremely well detailed simulations he could run in his head thanks to his sturdy soul and experience working together making up something that could only be called exceptional computing power.
Finally, just as the sky was on the verge of turning dark, Cheng Hao's fingers began slowing down their motions, eventually coming to a stop. The child's furrowed brows relaxed and his frown eased as a slight smile found its way onto the child's face: after several hours, he had concluded that he hadn't suffered any significant losses: the ripples from Fuyin's appearance wouldn't affect his future for the worse. In fact, seeing how the kid was almost an Advanced Stage at fifteen, unguided, if guided he might as well become another trump card of his!
His worries dispelled, Cheng Hao's gaze fell onto the glass of beer that had been laying atop the counter for a whole afternoon now. Of course he would not drink that: it was warm and full of dust, it would be akin to drinking dirty warm water. He stealthily rotated his cultivation base, evaporating and dispersing the liquid into the air as he motioned to the waiter, "Senior, a refill please!"
A middle-aged man raised his head from the glass he had been cleaning and only now noticed the child sitting at an inconspicuous corner of the counter. There was no rule against handling alcohol to children, however most bartenders would still find it a bit odd for an unsupervised child to be drinking. Still, this one in particular had his business side hastily take over, "Sure thing Junior brother!" His experience allowed him to immediately make out what the little drops of liquid remaining at the bottom of the glass were and he waved his hand, producing a large goatskin sack from his spatial treasure. "A serving of damasked chrysanthemum beer coming up!" He showed full-teethed grin and quickly refilled the large glass and had it skillfully slide down the counter.
At the same time, Cheng Hao flung a coin over with his thumb, sending it flying in a slight parable: the beer and the coin crossed their path right at the middle of the distance between the two men, both extending their hand towards the corresponding targets, a small palm looking to wrap around the glass and a fist motioning to catch the piece of silver in midair.
At this very moment however, something happened which scared the bartender silly and moved Cheng Hao deeply: a pair of jade-like hands extended seemingly out of the void!
Soundlessly, a slender index and medium finger gently trapped the coin in between the two of them as another set of pale and delicate fingers wrapped around the handle of the tall glass and stopped it dead on its tracks without spilling a single drop liquid!
It was an elegant display of dual tasking and force application that even Cheng Hao had to admit was impeccable.
"Mister Bartender… don't you think this junior brother might be a tad to young to serve such an alcoholic drink to?" An extremely melodic and soothing voice entered Cheng Hao's and the middle-aged man's ears.
Following the pair of hands, a person seemed to walk out of the void. She wore a plain, grey robe and her long, ashen hair fell down her back, her bangs meticulously parted midway, revealing a pair of dull-gray eyes surrounded by long, ash-colored lashes. She was a very beautiful young woman, having a teenager's complexion further exalted by a pair of red dimples and cherry lips. Her expression was mild and her gaze tender, her eyes slightly droopy, almost as if she were on the verge of falling asleep.
As she stepped out of thin air, a slight flickering like that of glass accompanied the edges of her silhouette, a change that the golden-eyed child naturally captured. His eyes narrowed as he realized the girl had been there for a long time, hiding her presence and blocking the sight of others through some sort of mirror work.
She was not wearing any perfume, so not even one's sense of smell would be able to give her away.
Her breathing was drawn out, with each inspiration taking up to several normal breaths and only intaking little oxygen at the time, making each one as silent as it could be.
With the plethora of noises within a tavern, even the faint sound of her heartbeat was overridden.
This kind of peculiar person, unless she approached so that he could feel the differences in airflow, she moved so that he could hear the sound her cloths made, the surroundings were so quiet he would be able to hear her faint breath, or she released her cultivation base for his own to resonate with… Cheng Hao would never be able to realize her presence as long as she remained still! As long as she did not move at all, he would be completely oblivious to her existence!
Still, she surely must have made some noise to get so close. For him not to have noticed, it must have been while he was caught up thinking about Fuyin…
Making me waste my whole afternoon changing my schedule, now even adding what could have very well been a close call… Damn it kid, you are going to be the end of me at this rate!
Cheng Hao's left index finger twitched slightly, ready to deploy the lotus hairpin's golden blade form, a faint sense of uneasiness welling up in his chest: to think there was such a master of the stealth arts here, if she had wished him ill, she could easily have approached enough to threaten him!
Now then, how high is she?
Cheng Hao's gaze focused on the silent girl and stealthily split off a strand of consciousness, making it curve around and inspect her cultivation base from the angle of the tables: it was a basic technique that most Ageless Realm cultivator would be able to pull off and would know about. Usually however, if he were to use it on a normal cultivator of the Mortal Stage, they would be fooled into thinking the owner of the strand was in the direction it had come from. In such a low quality Plane of Existence in particular, where Ageless Realm beings and above were legends even among the most knowledgeable cultivators, how would somebody ever come to know of such a way to manipulate consciousness strands?
To his surprise however, as soon as he made contact and he managed to find her out to be a peak Advanced Stage cultivator… she actually widened her eyes and turned to look at him in shock!
"What!" Cheng Hao, whom had been sitting facing the counter, jumped in his seat as if a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Immediately his pupils shrunk and glanced to his right at the beautiful youth once again.
How could she possibly tell it was me???
"This!" The gray robed woman had also gaped, unable to conceal her disbelief as she looked at the child for the second time, her gaze quite different than it had been before.
How in the world did his consciousness go around like that???
Two distinct cries of shock rang out simultaneously. Their gazes locked, a pair of wide-open golden eyes shadowed by a wide bamboo hat crossed two stunned twin orbs the color of dull steel.
At this time, the gray-robed beauty's mouth went from an "o" to an "u".
"You know what, Mister Bartender? Nevermind!" Any trace of sleepiness disappeared from her eyes, replaced with interest and puzzlement. The droopy-eyed girl walked over, slowly, unwilling to move her shining eyes away.
Below his wide bamboo hat, Cheng Hao was staring uninterruptedly at the approaching figure of the gray robed woman. After she got close enough the bamboo blocked off her upper body and he could only look through the gaps to see her silhouette. He watched on as her silhouette came to a stop before him, slamming the glass of beer in her hands on the counter right in front of the golden-eyed youth. His field of vision, previously made up of what vague shadows he could see through the cracks in the large hat, suddenly cleared up as the girl gently took the bamboo headpiece off and slowly leaned over.
With barely a single palm of distance remaining before their noses touched, the gray robed beauty peered within his pupils with interest: they were a pair of eyes that challenged her very knowledge of the world!
Then, with a captivating smile, she waved her hand and the glass of damasked chrysanthemum flickered with light and flew into the child's hands. The golden eyed youth grabbed it without showing a single expression, his gaze piercing into her dull gray eyes. At this point, the pleasant voice once again rang out, "Nevermind indeed... This little brother and I were about to have a very interesting conversation. Perhaps even share a few very interesting secrets with each other?"
Without even looking away from Cheng Hao's gleaming golden eyes, the girl wearing grey robes threw over two coins at a stunned bartender. "I'll have the same as he did." Once again, she waved a hand and the goatskin still floating in the air flew over together with a large glass while supported by a cloud of flickering light. The sack slowly poured the damasked chrysanthemum beer inside before flowing back to the middle aged cultivator who, albeit still out of it, unconsciously kept it back in the shop's storage treasure.
In the meanwhile, the full glass had already flown into the girl's hands.
Clack, the gray robed girl lightly tapped the child's glass with her own.
"Cheers." She locked the slender arm with which she was holding the drink around the child's neck, gently hugging him as she gulped a mouthful, all the while staring intently into the boy's golden orbs.
And then with a smile and a wave of her free hand locked around the neck of the youth, space warped dangerously, as if it were a huge mouth. In the blink of an eye, both her, Cheng Hao and the two just newly refilled glasses disappeared in midair, only leaving behind a rotating barstool and a wide bamboo hat…