When Nero used the teleportation disc, he traveled for miles before arriving at the entrance of the Black Dragon mountain. The map he had on him had no record of where this mountain was located, so it was difficult to determine his current position. At that time none of this mattered to Nero; the only thing on his mind was to retrieve his flower. Now, reality struck him and struck him where it hurts. After rejecting to help the young lady, it turned out that even he didn't know where to go.
Suddenly Nero's eye lit up. He reached into his robe and brought out a ring. This was the spatial ring that Saburo hid the five petal blazing flower in. In that split second before Nero's attack crashed into the mountain, he had utilized the opportunity to collect the ring and everything in it, including the flower and a great deal of wealth. But none of these were relevant at the moment.
Nero's eye lit up in ecstasy. The spatial ring shone with a mild light and a scroll emerged from it. This scroll looked old and worn out, the edges torn and rough. Nero opened the scroll and the images contained within flashed before his eyes. The boundaries of the Rhedaia forest were contained in this scroll! Everything, living and nonliving, beast territories, and so on were fully displayed in this scroll.
The scroll projected these images like they were life-like, every projected detail was perfectly outlined. This scroll was without a doubt better than the one Nero initially had, and it had a faint ancient Qi emanated from it. If someone like Saburo could have such a map with faint traces of ancient Qi emanating from it, then how long has the Black Dragon squad been around for!?
As Nero pondered on the images reflecting on the scroll, the young lady reached out and asked calmly, "What is it?"
"It's a map, we'll use it to get out of here."
"We!?" the lady asked, a deep feeling of relief swept over her as she gave off a warm smile, her expression a bit tearful.
"Don't get the wrong idea, I just need to work with the map to get my bearings. While I'm busy, you can use these pills to recover faster…." Nero said and tossed over a porcelain bottle containing some white pills.
These pills he got from Saburo's spatial ring.
"We leave when I get back. If you can recover your wounds by that time then you can follow me, or else I'll leave you behind." Nero said indifferently and left.
"This… has he no respect?" The lady pouted and grumbled. But she didn't have the luxury of time to grumble, she had to recover her strength at least to an extent.
The lady sat cross-legged as she swallowed a couple of white pills. She then started to circulate her Qi, dispelling the fatigue while healing her wounds. As this happened, her initially pale white face flushed red and her Qi became more vibrant.
A quarter of an hour later, Nero came back.
"What did you find out?" The young lady who had been immersed in meditation slowly opened her eyes and asked.
"The star constellations here are a bit tricky. But if I'm correct, we should head East."
Heavenly bodies like the sun, moon, and stars can be used to tell time and help one know their bearings. Arriving in an unknown world, Nero also had to get accustomed to the time flow of this world and understand the star constellations to help easily find his location.
"Are you fully recovered yet?" He asked.
"Of course not! You expect me to recover fully with so little time?"
"What I expect doesn't matter any longer. As I said before, I'm leaving when I get back. If you wish to follow me, you can only do so at your own risk. You have to keep up or I leave you behind." Nero said indifferently.
From the beginning of his sentence to the conclusion, he showed no emotion whatsoever. Hearing Nero's words, the young lady frowned; she was being treated as dead weight. How could someone be so mean as to leave her here to fend for herself while being wounded?
Without waiting for a reply, Nero turned to leave. However, the young lady quickly stood up and followed after him.
"You shouldn't move around so much. The medicinal essence is still in your body, and you need a lot of time to completely refine them." Nero pointed out when he saw the lady follow him.
The young lady scoffed, "Since when do you care if I live or die?"
"I truly don't care, I'm just pointing out the obvious. Your foundation is already unstable. Adding the pills you just took without completely refining their essence will cause a backlash. But then again, you shouldn't listen to the words of a stranger."
What Nero said was without a doubt, true. If one took pills continuously without completely refining out the medicinal essence contained within, it could contaminate their Qi, forming dregs and slowing down their Qi flow thereby weakening their combat strength or even their cultivation. The young lady's cultivation was already unstable, taking recovery pills without fully refining their essence wasn't a wise decision.
The young lady only pouted and didn't respond. She couldn't deny what Nero said, but she still wouldn't agree with Nero; according to her, he had been treating her badly. Nero didn't glance at her for a second, rather, he kept walking while releasing his perception to cover a wide range. The young lady pouted more when she saw that Nero wasn't paying any attention to her, nonetheless, she wouldn't dare disturb him. Her survival in this forest solely depended on the arrogant young man in front of her, so she had to endure.
Apart from witnessing him destroy the Black Dragon mountain, she could feel a strange aura from him like something… mysterious. As she thought this, she followed Nero back into the dark, cold, and misty thickets of the forest.