Since they didn't know how to rank the cultivation methods, Salem had them pick a method they liked.
He had ideas on how to rank them, but since in his old world fantasy novels had never had anything in common for their power rankings, he selected the ice element cultivation method they had taken from the Frost family.
Ruby took the shadow element they had recieved from the night family, making them all capable of using the shadows.
Alina elected to take the Naturae family's cultivation method.
They were going to start practicing their respective cultivation methods to at least get to entry level before they moved on when Ruby picked up someone nearby.
Ruby had set up sparse bugs in a large area while Salem had a more densely packed and smaller area that was constrained to their general area.
Ruby notified them of the person and created a screen to show them.
The people that triggered Ruby's bug was a short and petite woman who was being dragged along by an absolute unit of a man.
The man dwarfed the woman, standing almost three meters tall. Her puny height of one meter made her seem even smaller.
The man's frame was shaped like Salem thought Masterchief would look like beneath his armour.
He looked like a skeleton that had muscle poured onto it and then was only fed protein shakes and steroids for a year.
The woman looked deathly pale and painfully thin. Her small frame looked like it was covered only by skin.
As he dragged her along, she kept muttering inarticulately while waving her frail-looking hands in repeating patterns.
"They are directly west of us." The lady being dragged shouted at the muscle man. "Can't miss them.''
"So they were able to track us." Salem wondered at her ability. "Fascinating. Simply fascinating. How does it work, I wonder?"
"Rather than wonder about that, how about we figure what we should be doing." Alina rolled her eyes. "There's a time for your insatiable curiosity to be let out, but not right now."
Salem nodded and coalesced shadows into a large dome around them. "This will serve as a distraction. We can hover above or next to the dome."
Neither of the two elves said anything, looking at him to make the decision.
"I wonder if her ability can determine altitude." Salem said creating a platform that was attached to the canopies of seven trees that allowed them to observe through Salem's bugs. "Let's find out, shall we?"
Salem then created several quadcopters that he placed around the dome so he could throw off their perception of his location.
And then they waited.
It didn't take long for them to spot the massive dome of shadow that had coalesced, even at a long distance in a thick woods.
"You don't need to keep tracking." The muscle man said. "I've spotted their home."
The lady had him stop and jogged next to him to keep pace with his walking speed.
"Are you sure it's their home?" The lady asked. "You realize that this could just be a remnant of their power, right?"
"I do, but this is our best bet to bring them in to the city." The muscle man said. "We can't let these masters slip through our fingers."
"I know, I know." The lady poked him in the arm. "But how do you plan to convince them? With force?"
"That's asking for death." The muscle man shrugged but didn't answer the woman's question.
They arrived at the edge of the dome that Salem had created.
"Hellooo~" The woman called liltingly. "Anybody home?''
"What do you want?" Salem spoke through one of his drones.
"Oh~, you are here!" The woman bounced up and down. "Let's go inside! I wonder if they have a home here?"
The muscle man sighed and followed her closely as she trotted into the dome.
"My tracking showed you were here last, but why can't I see you?" The lady asked. "Where would you have gone?"
"It doesn't matter." Salem said from a different drone than the last. "What do you want?"
"Oh~, you're over there?" She playfully smiled and gestured to the inky shadows roiling around her. "Why don't you drop the shadows so you can speak face-to-face?"
"What. Do. You. Want." Salem demanded through a different drone once more.
"Wow you're no fun." The woman pouted. "And you r-"
The muscle man interrupted her abruptly with a hand over her mouth and spoke. "We're here to formally invite you to join a tournament of masters. You can also watch the apprentice tournament as you wait for the master tournament to start."
"What do you think?" Salem asked Alina and Ruby. "Sound like fun?"
"It sounds like it'll be boring, but it'd be interesting to watch." Alina said.
"Boring and interesting." Salem said. "A paradox."
"I don't think we should go." Ruby said. "We should just move on and see if we can explore the dimension like you suggested a while ago."
"We're not going to see the tournament." Salem said through his last unused drone.
"I was instructed to bring you by force if necessary." The lady said chanting an incantation.
"All that to see a tournament?" Salem said from above her. "Seems odd."
Salem waved his hand and summoned an ice spike beneath the lady, forcing her to dodge or be impaled.
She kept chanting as space around her began cracking.
"Oh so you have a cultivation method that involves space?" Salem inferred. "Fascinating. Is that how you tracked us?"
"You're the first to draw that conclusion." The lady completed her chant and said. "And you probably will be the last."
She thrust her hands forward and space began splitting in a line towards Salem.
The crack got almost halfway before it exploded into a dome and surrounded the entire shadow dome.
"When you're trapped in space, you might die." The lady giggled. "But that's a risk I am willing to take."