Chapter 11 - 11.) Traveling

As he walked he sharpened his hearing listening in on a conversation between 2 woman. One was talking about the increase of bandits attacks and the other mentioned the names of other towns with similar situations. Because he was a deciple no matter how much his talent, he had taken different jobs for things outside the sect like finding herbs,weapons, fighting monsters or bandits, so he recognized where he currently was.

He was maybe a day or more outside of a town named Xanadu, a place near his sect.

As long as he was able to get a horse or a ride He'd be able to reach the town soon. The issues were with the fact that he was 1, still healing so he couldn't run/walk 2, he didn't have any money and 3, his sword wasn't with himself so he couldn't fly.

Not that he'd have enough spiritual power to do so. That ment he would have to walk. Or in his case run. The sooner he got back the sect the sooner he could heal himself and the sooner he could seal those deciples mouths.He needed a strong standing, otherwise who knew how bad things would get?

"Sighhhhhhh..."

So with nothing better he began to walk, slowly picking up the pace to a steady trot. He could feel the heat of the sun and while he had his spiritual power he was still exhausted and his power wasn't much.

What power he did have was spent trying to make his back to heal faster, and not to split and begin to bleed. As he ran he sweat began to trickle onto his clumsy but tight bandaged back and he began to feel a stinging.

He ran, and stoped, than ran again.

This was some serious training, while he had spiritual power now most of it was gone and what was left was still trying to prevent bleeding, he had none left to support his body.

'At this pace i'll have plenty of muscle if i continue.'

Today was the 4th day he didn't have food, he now knew he had ben locked up for 3 days and slept outside on the 4th night after he escaped. He was able to drink some water back at the river and he had his spiritual power to suppress his hunger and keep himself moving but that was quickly disappearing.

When dusk began he was forced to stop for some sort of food or drink. At this time he was in a forest, laying a little way off to the side of the road. In his palm he held several different nuts and berries. There was no way to hunt and he didn't even have a weapon to skin the animal.

As he dozed off laying on his stomach he began to think,

'I wonder if i can train my body physically while also training my body spiritually? Instead of simply meditating during closed door cultivation i could also train?...'

The next morning he ran again. Eating whatever berries and nuts he and left over from the previous night for breakfast. He continued to travel, not minding the dirt accumulating on his cloths and his messy hair and sweaty body. He could only hope that his wounds wouldn't get even worse.

By the end of the second day he had reached the town he was looking for, Xanadu.

Entering the town he headed immediately to the forest and looked at the mountains in the distance. His body was protesting a lot but he knew that if trekked through the mountains he would reach the sect entrance.

But obviously he couldn't just walk into the sect looking like a beggar with blood stains all over his body. But this was also because of the fact that probably nobody had noticed that he had been missing for almost 5 days, he was often lazy and soon he was to enter closed door cultivation. If he was missing now, nobody would suspect anything. And he wanted it to stay that way, this meant nobody who was a cultivator could see him otherwise he gossip would be endless. With how long cultivators lived, gossip was natural and it spread very very fast.

He would have to enter he own courtyard by heading through the back forest area. His courtyard was backing the forest and nobody came there unless they had business with the sect master or himself.

Therefore it lowered the chances that someone would realize that he was missing.

His master the sect leader might have come to get him to see the guest but other than that he was safe. As long as he got back there without being seen it shouldn't be an issue. Making it safely through the town hiding from any cultivators he saw he made it to the forests safely.

As he bagan to climb the mountain night fell. He was still a ways away. If he continued to climb than he would reach his courtyard by sunrise the next day. A perfect time to arrive as the deciples would all be in morning training.

'The night is clear again, i wonder how long it's been since i saw stars.. Most of the time i'm asleep by now.'

Maybe it was because of the pain but he was wide awake even thought this was when he usually was asleep. But he soon noticed the longer he climbed the more tired he grew. He took breaks more frequently after all, he had run a lot today and the day before as well as hide from the other cultivators. He was mentally and physically exhausted.

'If i could get some pain relief and maybe a bath with a soft bed i would give my best saber up.' His thoughts were short but it held a lot of exhaustion.

The sky began to lighten, the warm red and pink light spread on his cloths through the many tree leaves. In a odd way it was very beautiful.

'Sigh, if only i was clean and had food...as well as pain relief and that my back wasn't engraved with some weird carving binding me to a contract that i don't know if it will kill me.'

He had arrived at the sect entrance, or at least he had arrived at the walls that lead to the sect entrance.

Skillfully climbing the walls despite the wounds that have become more and more unbearable. He slowly made his way through the sect jumping from tree to tree, trying not to mind the occasional slip of due to exhaustion.

"Urgggk! mmhmph!"

Unable to top some low groans out he bit his lip hard. As a sweet but sharp tang entered his mouth he realized that his lip was bleeding, a lot. But unable to spare any energy and pushing through with the promise of a bath and soft bed he continued on, trying to ignore the pain.

After reaching his court yard he found several notes left in his sitting area near the front of his courtyard. Probably from his master, asking for him to greet the guests.

Trudging and swaying around like a drunk he made his way through the courtyard and into his room. Discarding the dirty robe onto the floor going barefoot immediately he made a bee lined to the bath area.

Using the water that still remained in the bath even though it was old he sat down and gave his legs a through clean. His bandages were still tightly stuck to his back and now they had a equal amount of old blood and new blood mixing together. He had reopened many of the wounds.

Not that he was going to take care of them. After he cleaned his arms and hair as well. Ignoring his back and chest where the bandages were he threw on a random white under robe and collapsed onto the bed.

When he woke it was already late afternoon. His room still held traces of a fight but no signs of clean up. This ment that nobody had come yet, good.

After resting on a bed he felt much better.

Groaning as he stood he peeled off his robe that now had blood stains on it and slowly took off his bandages. His cloths had already been cover with blood when he first ripped them, with all the new blood and old blood mixing it wouldn't be strange if it had an infection. He had delt with wounds in the past 5 years by himself and had gotten pretty used to them. Walking over to the bloody and dirty bath water he dragged it out and dumped it.

Pulling up clean water from a pump that was placed conveniently outside his house he prepared new water to clean himself. This time he used it to wash the blood off his back and to clean his wounds. Needless to say the floor was pretty much ruined. The bloody smell was already making it stuffy inside the room, the room which usually smelled like fresh mountain plants now had a bloody under-sent.

Blood and water dripping drown from reopened cuts, it wasn't a pretty sight. But by now Li Wei had figured out that the marking was, he had looked in the river water and now he had taken his bandages off. It was in fact, the tattoo that the Li Wei in the book had.

'Again, i'm not sure if this is a good sign of a bad one...'

The wounds all stopped bleeding when he had taken a spiritual replenishing pill and used what healing cream he could to cover the wounds he could reach. After rebadging himself he began to pick up his room. Throwing it out the dirty cloths along with the ruined bamboo mats and cloth. Setting them all in the center of his courtyard he lit them on fire.It was safer than burying them.