After finishing the business with those idiots, Feng Luotian and Sun Wuji proceeded toward Peacock Pavilion, where the city lord was administering the city's matters.
Mei Clan was not only running Peacock School, but they were also managing the entire Divine Bird City. Thus, not only was Mei Yue'er's father a headmaster of Peacock School, but he was also a city lord of Divine Bird City.
Peacock Pavilion was a five-stories pagoda built from the most refined jade and stone. Even seeing from the outside, one would have a feeling of a mountain filling with treasures. However, inside the pavilion, there was more management than treasure.
Each floor was designated to take care of matters in the city, depending on the importance and urgency of the issues.
The first floor would be in charge of the most insignificant affair like a lost cat, while the fifth floor, where the city lord was, would be supporting the most important business.
Today, Feng Luotian and Sun Wuji came to have an audience with the city lord, so they went straight to the fifth floor.
Upon entering the hall on the fifth floor, both youths saw two men, one sitting and one standing, at the end of the hall.
The one sitting behind a table full of scrolls and documents in front of him was in his middle age, while the one standing on the side waiting to give a consultation if needed was quite old.
The one sitting was Mei Yue'er's father and Mei Clan's current clan chief, as well as Divine Bird City's city lord and Peacock School's headmaster, Mei Xuankong.
Mei Xuankong was known as the strongest cultivator in Divine Bird City with the cultivation of Five Wings. With his status and strength, together with his clan's bloodline—Thousand Illusion Aurora Peacock, he was titled [Peacock Lord].
The one standing was Mei Clan's First Elder, Mei Changkong. He was also one of Divine Bird City's top dogs as he was a Four Wings Master.
"Greetings, Uncle Mei and First Elder." Feng Luotian approached and respectfully saluted.
"Greetings, Peacock Lord and Lord Changkong." Sun Wuji followed suit.
The ways Feng Luotian and Sun Wuji addressed their seniors were different because of their distinctive circumstances.
Feng Luotian was brought here by his father and raised together with Mei Yue'er since he was young.
With the great contribution Feng Luotian's father had done for the city, ever since God left this planet, Peacock Lord had been trying to protect and dedicatedly raise the boy, keeping him by his side.
Thus, Feng Luotian had been going in and out of Mei Clan for as long as he could remember. He could very well be considered a member of the clan. That was why it was not strange for him to call Peacock Lord "uncle," or rather, it was Peacock Lord himself who requested Feng Luotian to call him as such.
Nevertheless, even though Peacock Lord doted on Feng Luotian like a son, he could not go out of his way to protect the boy, because before God left, God made him promise not to interfere with any fight occurring around Feng Luotian, even if the boy was about to die.
And afterward Feng Luotian himself grew his own principle, that he would never use Peacock Lord's authority to fight his way out of trouble. He would rather be beaten to the ground or fight the hell out of troubles with bruises and injuries along with his brothers.
While everyone in the city knew that God's Son and Peacock Lord were close, never once did the city lord lend his hand to protect the boy, even when Feng Luotian almost got stabbed to death. Hence, there were some people who disregarded their relationship and bullied the boy from time to time.
Even so, Feng Luotian did not mind Peacock Lord's negligence in the slightest. On the contrary, he felt grateful that this Uncle Mei respect his own principle.
With such a treatment, Feng Luotian had all love and admiration for Peacock Lord and considered him to be his family as well.
As for Sun Wuji, although he became Feng Luotian and Mei Yue'er's brother for a very long time, his status remained as an outsider in Mei Clan's perspective.
That was why Sun Wuji needed to be more respectful toward these seniors and regarded them properly.
After Peacock Lord was greeted by the two youths, he put away the documents in his hands and shifted his focus to both of them: "Tian'er, what happened?"
As it happened, Peacock Lord had already sensed them ever since they stepped into Peacock School's territory. His sense could peer through the entire school, occasionally monitoring the area and looking out for any abnormality.
A Fang Realm Fighter could sense their surrounding for several hundred meters, but as a Wing Master, Peacock Lord could sense much further. He could detect things from several miles away if he wanted to.
Feng Luotian firmly reported as it was: "A One Talon Monster—Wight Wolf attacked us in the green zone of Warland Thicket."
Peacock Lord and First Elder immediately frowned and looked at each other.
"Are you sure you all did not venture too deep into Warland Thicket and approach indefinitely close to the yellow zone?" Peacock Lord probed.
"Yes, Uncle Mei. We went at most ten miles into the thicket." Feng Luotian confirmed.
Warland Thicket was exceedingly vast.
As it stayed right next to Divine Bird City's border, there were always cultivators from the city who wished to sharpen their skills or hunt for monster cores. For their safety, the city's administrators, Mei Clan, had divided Warland Thicket into color zones depending on its danger.
The deeper one ventured into the thicket, the stronger the monsters they would face, hence the greater danger.
The area right next to the city wall was the green zone, indicating the minimum level of the danger.
Extending far back into Warland Thicket was respectively labelled the yellow, orange, red, and black zone.
To enter the yellow zone, one had to travel at least a hundred miles before reaching it.
On the side of Peacock Lord, First Elder closed his eyes, deducing the situation for a little before he opened them and gave his opinion: "That is improbable, but not impossible. What makes it possible is not the monster. It should be humans."
Peacock Lord nodded in agreement.
"Yes, First Elder. With the strange behaviors of the wolf, that would be the only explanation for this circumstance." Feng Luotian confidently agreed.
"…" Although Sun Wuji was quite confused right now, he chose to stay quiet and listened to their conversations.
"What makes you so sure that it was human's work, Tian'er? What are those strange behaviors you are talking about?" Peacock Lord asked in a curious manner.
Feng Luotian started explaining:
"As we already know, Wight Wolves have a bloodline ability with a stealth feature called Ghost Walk, granting them a boost to their hunting capability. There are two types of ranges to consider for this Ghost Walk ability: Activation Range and Effective Range."
"Activation Range indicates the distance at which Wight Wolves can activate Ghost Walk to hide their aura without leaving a trace. This depends on their cultivation level multiplied by a hundred meters. The stronger their cultivation is, the further Activation Range becomes."
"Effective Range, on the other hand, indicates the distance at which Wight Wolves would not be noticed by their target. This range is determined by the suppressive principle or how cultivation difference between the beast and the prey. The bigger gap in strength, the closer Wight Wolves could approach unnoticed. Effective Range could be calculated in the rational function of Activation Range correlated to the strength gap plus one in cultivation ranks."
"For example, if a Wight Wolf is stronger than its target by one rank, then Effective Range will be its Activation Range divided by two. Stronger by two ranks, then divided by three."
"For our case, the Wight Wolf was a One Talon Monster. It has Activation Range of eleven hundred meters. And the strongest among us three, Yue'er, was a Six Fangs Fighter at the time. That was five ranks of cultivation gap, which leads to a conclusion of Effective Range equal to its Activation Range divided by six, which is about 180 meters."
"That should be the range where Wight Wolf should reveal itself and charge at us with full might. If that was the case, then I am afraid we would not have survived its surprise attack, and it would have been a genocide much sooner."
"Strangely enough, it revealed itself at about 350 meters away and used the suppressive force to scare us instead."
"Excluding the monsters above the Wing Realm which have developed intelligence, a Talon Monster is normally mindless and only thinks of how to hunt its prey with minimal effort. That was why I said it had strange behaviors."
When Feng Luotian finished his explanation, silence filled the entire hall before everyone gasped for breath.