With a quick peck on my wife's forehead I headed out to the little hamlet-like space I gave to my disciples. Arriving at the central stone platform the four of them awaited me. They each had a different expression, but the atmosphere around them had a slightly serious tone.
"Master!" They all spoke at once.
"Lead the way Xuefei."
"Yes Master!"
He took off into the sky followed closely by myself and the other three. For a moment I thought about using my flying sword, but I didn't want to fly past them, overtaking the lead. Flying weapons were difficult to acquire since there were a number of extremely difficult to find materials required to add the attribute onto the weapon. My own weapon had the capabilities of flying, but I searched around the whole world and even parts of others to find the required materials. My disciples on the other hand won't all be as lucky as me.
Before most of my disciples parted from me I remember my second disciple had managed to procure a flying weapon of his own. He took after me and used a sword and luckily for him his flying weapon was also a sword. I remember a moment in which Xuefei was so jealous of his weapon that he decided to go out and try to get one of his own. I wonder if he was successful? Perhaps he only flew without it because he didn't want to just leave his juniors in the dust.
Flying weapons were almost always faster than the cultivator flying on their own, after all channeling all of your Qi into a single object you were standing on would be much easier then channeling it throughout your entire body. You just had to make sure you kept a stable posture and connected both your feet to the weapon with Qi so you wouldn't fall off.
There were other things that could help one fly though. There existed many artifacts and treasures which allowed one to fly, but they were mostly consumables or had limits to them. The only people who used them would be those below the fourth realm. Once they reach the fourth realm they could fly on their own and wouldn't need to rely on exterior devices.
A flying weapon wasn't the best way to travel though, especially in groups. Usually that was reserved for flying chariots and ships, but they had to be at least around the middle class variants and driven by good drivers. If I were to be matched against those flying vessels with my own flying sword then I would probably be comparable to only the highest class models.
I've met others who possessed flying weapons and they probably numbered in the thousands, but thousands, tens of thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands in comparison to the hundreds of billions who live in this lower realm is such a miniscule number. In contrast it makes it feel like those gacha games with only 0.0625% or 0.077% of getting certain characters feel like the most generous odds in the entire world.
The hundreds of billion people is seemingly impossible, but so is this world in the first place. Earth was 510 million square kilometers and that place was extremely crowded in popular livable places even though it had only around 8 billion people when I last checked, who knows how big this world is in comparison. Not everybody lived in the same world luckily though, the one I was currently in contained perhaps the most people within though. The land although had terrifying creatures weren't in as great quantities nor were as dangerous as the others.
Soon Xuefei began to slow down. Up ahead of us was just a small mound without anything mildly out of the usual.
"Master! This is where I saw Fourth Junior Brother last. We exchanged our moves right above that dirt mound which happened to be where he stood originally. He fled in that direction too!"
"... Fan out and search the area for any arrays or array flags!"
"Yes, Master!" The four cupped their fist before fanning out as I asked of them.
Approaching the dirt mound I tried to see if I could perceive anything that could be different about it. There were a set of foot impressions at the peak of the mound which indicated the fact that someone was in fact here. The lack of any other signifiers around was a bit of a dead end though. These footprints, although lacking definitive evidence that it was in fact my fourth disciple, did belong to someone who had been around recently.
Since it was the testimony of my first disciple then I don't have much doubt that it could be anyone else since he insisted upon it. After a bit more time of searching still I found nothing substantial. Nothing that would help track him in any way nor anything to help discern his purpose for being here.
Soon one of my disciples returned to me.
"Master! I've concluded my search. I found nothing so I'll wait for my Brothers and Sister to return by this nice tree here." With my confirmative nod he scurried over to a nearby tree he took a single large leap and reached the branch above. Laying down he used his hands to rest his head upon.
I gazed at Jiahao for a few extra moments before I stood atop the dirt mound with my hands on my back and there I waited for the others to return to me. Perhaps they could bring back some good information for me.
There was nothing else I could do after all. I wasn't some omnipotent character who knew everything and every way to solve it nor was I some genius who could deduce a matter with almost nothing to work with.
After some time another returned and following them the other two returned shortly after.
"Master! We failed to find anything." The three stood in front of me with their hands cupped and heads slightly bowed. They searched the area 1 kilometer out in all directions for hours and still there was nothing to be found.
"Xuefei, how long were you planning to stay with us?"
"Actually, I was planning to leave in the morning even before I even met Ming. I was hoping that since I saw him here I could do a little more than usual before I left. Since our search is over, even though it was unfruitful, I'll have to take my leave. Farewell Master!" He flew up into the sky giving us a final little goodby gesture before flying away into the distance.
After watching his departing figure for a moment I spoke, "Alright wake up your third brother over there and let's go back."
I looked over to where he lied. From his steady and slow breathing to his closed eyes, people would clearly think he was sleeping. I could practically see the Zzz coming out of his slightly gaping mouth.
Gang, my eighth, walked right below him and poked him with the tip of his spear.
"Ahh!" After being stabbed he fell off from the other side of the tree.
*Thud!*
The sound of him crashing onto the ground below into a minor pile of leaves was heard and even partially echoed around. Pushing himself up leaves occasionally fell off his body as he looked at the perpetrator.
"Oww! J-junior Brother Gang! W-what was that for?"
"Someone had to wake you up."
***
(Jing Xiuying POV)
When I woke up I was a little disappointed at the missing warmth that slept next to me, instead I even had to spend the day with someone I don't really care for. For a good part of the day I won't see my darling. Of course I'll see him at night, but it's not the same! It's so much different seeing him in the morning compared to night. I feel like just seeing him fills me up with energy to finish the day.
I understand where he went though, to deal with his fourth disciple. The traitorous action of that disciple occurred long before I met my hubby though.
Thinking about what I might possibly be doing for the rest of the day I felt a little dispirited. To be around a woman I've already made clear to that I kinda hate and even help her shop for clothes isn't a great feeling. At least the clothes I'll be helping her pick out is something to reduce her sex appeal.
'I'll make sure to pick out the least attractive and most binding one out there! Hehe.'
Getting out of bed I picked out a nice and conservative dress to wear in public and I quickly headed over to that brat's house to pick her up.
*Knock!* *Knock!*
"Miss Xue! I'm here to pick you up!" I stood outside the front door waiting.
Once she opened it she took a quick look at me and immediately started scanning around me to look for things, even poking her head out of the door frame to get a better look. Of course that something was almost definitely my husband.
"He's not here. He has some important work involving his disciples."
"Huh? T-then it'll just be you and me?!" She had a slightly shocked face as she directly looked at me.
"That's right, you'll be coming along with me alone. Don't worry I'll make sure you get those bindings of yours." Seeing her expression, although possibly fake, made the corner of my lips move ever so slightly into a smirk.
I took a few steps back and a sword appeared from my ring. It was my own flying sword and once it began to hover above the ground I stepped onto it.
"Come on, we need to get you those clothes don't we?" As I stood on the sword I gave her a light beckoning motion and held out my hand.
She stood still at the doorway, clearly a little hesitant about my intentions. After a few moments she finally moved, taking a few steps forward. Not long after she took my hand which was still outstretched and climbed onto my flying sword.
*Fffish*
Controlling the sword we quickly flew away off of the mountain. We would go to the closest city once again, but this time since we weren't just teleported right into the center we would have to go through a checkpoint and pay a fee. The fees weren't much, but were annoying to deal with. I couldn't simply let her know where our portal to the middle layer is though.
I landed the weapon outside the city since most if not all cities, who were powerful enough, would limit aerial movement above. If not then anybody could just easily enter the centermost government building and slaughter all the officials without encountering the multitude of guards on the layered on the outside.
Moving quickly I dragged the girl through the checkpoints which blocked us, one at the city entrance and another at the middle layer entrance. Once we entered the middle layer I started immediately dragging her to a destination, that being one of the many clothing stores we passed when heading through the shopping district.
Entering the store I wanted we looked at the many binders together. Well it was more like I was since she looked so dizzy from being dragged around. As she tried to recover I continued to look at all the styles and colors, trying to pick out the worst looking one for her.
'Hmm… this sucks! All of them look acceptable if not better! I guess I'll just have to go with the most average looking one then.'
Grabbing an entirely beige colored one I pulled the girl, who seemed to be seeing stars, into a changing room and handed her the clothing I picked.
"H-huh? What's this?"
"It's the clothing I tried for you, now quickly put it on to see if it fits you!"
"O-ok."