"Oi, Xie Ra, are you ready to go?"
Xiao Lan screamed right into his ear, making poor Xie temporarily deaf. Her squeaky voice probably damaged his eardrums. Xie Ra wanted to squeeze her neck at that moment.
What was wrong with this woman?
"You could've just said like a normal person. Why are you like this?"
Xie Ra mumbled while following her to the pavilion entrance, where the other three were waiting.
Four people were standing at the entrance, including Shi Wang and Weiming Zhao. However, apart from his shizun and Dage Zhao, Xie Ra couldn't identify the other two. He tried to search his memory for a moment.
All four who were standing at the entrance looked at them as soon as they entered there. Shi Wang, their shizun, smiled kindly at them. Then he proceeded to talk before his disciples' go.
"So, the circle is complete. I hope all of you will gain a new experience from this. Murder cases like this are common complaints. Usually, resentful souls cause this kind of trouble.
So, the Junior duo, please don't worry. These senior brothers have many experiences related to cases like this. Now, all of you can set off for your journey. Do your best, and don't let your sect down." Shizun gave them a blessing before setting them off.
Then he turned to Dage Zhao," Zhao, it's your responsibility now. Don't hesitate to summon us if there is an emergency."
"Yes, shizun. Then we'll bid our farewell to shizun." All four of them bowed to their shizun before their departure.
Weiming Zhao proceeded to walk. That was when their shizun stopped them.
"Why don't you fly? It will take forever to walk there."
The team leader seemed to be confused. "Shizun, what about our junior brother and sister?"
"Oh, they know the technique. I taught them that ages ago."
Weiming Zhao wanted to hit his head on a nearby wall and die. If he knew it before, they could've just escape by flying last night. At least they earned a late-nascent monster core. He sighed before jumping into his sword to fly.
The others followed his lead by jumping into their spiritual swords and flying. Weiming Zhao led the way. They couldn't talk with each other until they landed due to the noise made by the wind.
Therefore, Xie Ra continued to search his memories to find a clue about who the other two were. He slightly remembered the face of the taller one with a mustache. Yet, the other short-haired guy was a total stranger to him.
After a long flying session, they landed after Dage. They felt so tired. They flew for more than three hours. If these two juniors didn't surpass the peak qi-condensation realm, they might've died from exhaustion two hours ago. He grabbed Xiao Lan's water jar and started to gulp down.
Smack.
Xie Ra nearly choked himself to death. He knew who was ruthless enough to do something like this.
"I swear this woman is going to kill me one day." Xie Ra started to yell.
Xiao Lan didn't hear anything as she was already busy laughing her ass off. The other three watched them with great amusement.
"It was good we let these two come with us." Weiming Zhao said. A faint laugh seemed to ghost on his lips.
"Dage Zhao, are you enjoying my misery too? What a miserable life I have."
This bickering continued until they finished their brief rest.
**************
"Dage Zhao, don't you introduce us to these senior brothers?"
Xiao Lan asked curiously.
Until then, Xie Ra was busy complaining about how far was this Phoenix city. He quickly went quiet to know their senior brother's answer.
"Oh, pardon for my short memory, junior. This is senior Wei Ming. And, this is senior Da Jian. Both are early nascent souls." Weiming Zhao pointed his hand towards the short-haired youth and tall youth, respectively.
"And this is junior Xie Ra, Perfect qi-condensation and junior Lan Jiayi, Peak qi-condensation. So, we should guide them." Zhao said kindly. Two other seniors nodded in response.
"Greetings, seniors." Both juniors bowed. Then Xiao Lan added, "Seniors can call this junior as Xiao Lan." She gave them a sheepish smile.
"We will, junior. It's nice to see that our juniors are full of energy. Is this your first mission?" Wei Ming asked cheerfully.
"Yes, senior brother. Have you gone on many missions before?"
"Um, Not a lot. But, yeah. We went on a couple of them before. Those weren't very hard."
"But, seniors, I bet you never went on a mission with a short teammate like Xie Ra."
Poor Xie Ra was the shortest among the five. Even shorter than Xiao Lan by an inch. And She never missed a chance to tease him about it.
"Oh, shut up. Let me live in peace. Leave me some face, won't you?" He glared at Xiao Lan.
"Heh, Why should I? I was just stating the facts."
Xie Ra sighed. It wasn't easy to argue with women.
So, He changed his attention to the surroundings instead. They were amidst a huge deserted grassland. The ground looked like it was covered by the hey not by the grass. He wondered why this grass was dead like this? Maybe the excess heat in this area?
He looked further away with observing eyes. Was it a flag he saw? He asked Zhao.
"Dage Zhao, is that a flag?" others followed his gesture.
In distance, there was something that looked like a flag danced in the wind on top of something tall. They couldn't see what it was clearly because a line of withering trees blocked their vision.
However, the mid-nascents eyes were sharp enough to detect not only the flag but also the Phoenix in it.
Weiming Zhao smiled widely.
"Yes, Xie Ra. It is a flag. not just a flag but, the flag of Phoenix city."
The group seemed to re-energize as soon as they heard what their leader said. They started to run.
As expected, Weiming Zhao reached the city gates first. Then two nascents, Xie Ra and Xiao Lan reached him.
Their leader turned around to face his group and said,
"Welcome to Phoenix city."