As Ling Xuan was about to part ways with the tavern owner, he suddenly said, "Young boy, there is a caravan heading to the capital that stopped at this village yesterday. They are going to head out today. The leader mentioned they were lacking manpower. Follow them will you. It's not safe for a young one such as yourself to travel alone."
Ling Xuan wanted to decline but he remembered his weakness in front of the Purple Thunder Tiger the other day. He decided to play it safe. He headed towards the north gate where the tavern owner said the caravan was heading towards.
Soon he caught up with the caravan. A grey-haired fully armoured man was riding a horse beside the caravan with an imposing look. The man had a spear in his hands. When the man saw Ling Xuan run towards the caravan, he became alert and sent killing intent towards Ling Xuan.
"Esteemed warrior, I mean no harm!" Ling Xuan showed his hands submissively as he could sense that this man was not ordinary.
"Hmph. Why were you running towards us?" The man didn't completely let down his guard.
"Mu Feng, stop being so hard on the boy. He seems fairly good natured." a voice came from the front of the caravan. Soon a very old man in merchant clothes came to greet Ling Xuan.
"Respected elder, I am Ling Xuan. I would like to follow your caravan to the capital. I can provide you service as a guard. Although I'm not as strong as this esteemed warrior with you, I believe I'll be useful to you."
"Hahaha, well spoken. Young men should be like this. Full of spirit and adventurous. Sure young boy, you can follow us. Walk ahead along with me." the old man laughed as he admitted Ling Xuan to their group.
Ling Xuan walked ahead of the caravan. His job was to look out for troubles coming from the front. The warrior, Mu Feng, protected the caravan by moving around the caravan with his horse.
The old man who accepted Ling Xuan was the leader of the caravan Lao Cao. Lao Cao was the owner of a small business in the capital. This caravan consisted of him and his close friends. They were transporting goods from the Dragon Tail City to the capital.
Ling Xuan and the caravan were now headed towards Giant's Fall City, a major city close to the capital. According to the conversation he had with the tavern owner, that was the city where the Emerald Throne Sect and Divine Sun Sect were located.
Ling Xuan let his thoughts wander. Ever since coming to this world he never actually tried thinking about the world itself and now that his destination was far away and would take a long time to reach, he started thinking it all now.
The world he was in was actually a single Mega Continent as large as two times Eurasia called The Great Dragon Continent. It was said that if one were to look from the highest mountain to the ground they would see an image resembling that of an oriental dragon. The Continent is ruled by the Great Xia Empire whose current head is Xia Fugui, The Celestial Dragon. The Empire has 8 Great Cities in which The 12 Great Sects mainly operate.
Dragon Heart City is located at the centre of the continent and is also the current capital of The Xia Empire, the merchant's guild's Main Branch is located here.
The Emerald Throne and the Divine Sun Sect are located in Giant's Fall City which is the closest city to the Capital. It is called Giant's Fall as there have been signs that once in this region resided Mythical Rank Beasts who had a major conflict which resulted in the mountains of this area looking torn apart and also the famous Gulfio's Remains which are the skeleton of a Mythical Beast.
Purple Soul City is regarded as the most aesthetically beautiful City due to the involvement of the 2 sects that rule this region, White Blade and Regal Peacock Sects.
Grey Whisper City is the complete reverse of Purple Soul City. It is described as the deadliest City in The Empire due to the Joint Rule of The Thousand Masks and Silver Silence Sects.
Green Forest City flourishes as it's ruled by The Hunter's Bow.
The Glorious Flag city where Ling Xuan originated from was once the old capital of The Empire that Xia Kui, Father of the Current Emperor ruled. Currently The City is under the jurisdiction of The Thunder Law Sect.
Dragon Mouth City is located at the Far East of the continent. It's One of the only 2 Port Cities that a Sect has authority over.
Dragon Tail City is another Port City located in the Far South of the continent just above the Nioa Archipelago.
"This world is so big and is ruled by beings who are equivalent to entire armies themselves and here I am a single person whose power is just slightly above average of a normal human" Sighed Ling Xuan inwardly.
"My only shot at becoming a hegemon is through the Disciple Selection where even if I fail to get selected the experience will still be more than enough" Ling Xuan thought as the Caravan suddenly came to a halt.
"Hmm? What happened? Is it an enemy attack" Ling Xuan subconsciously became cautious of his surroundings.
As Ling Xuan turned his head he could see twelve wolves, covered in red fur and had blue coloured eyes. After assessing them for a bit he came to a conclusion that they were apprentice level and Ling Xuan was confident that he could kill at least one of them.
The head guard Mu Feng warned everyone,"These beasts are known as Crimson Teeth Wolves, although the ones in front of us are only Apprentice Levels, do not get careless for their trademark weapon known as the Crimson Teeth is sharp enough to tear apart an adept, their speed and strength and everything else can be easily dealt with.
With that said Mu Feng charged towards the wolves with the others following after him including Ling Xuan.
" I will take eight of them whereas you people can split the rest among yourself, is that understood !" Shouted Mu Feng as he thrust his dagger into one of the wolf's cranium and then took out the dagger and stabbed it in the chest.
"Understood Senior!" Shouted the rest as disobeying an Expert Rank was simply stupid and was their only way they could survive this encounter.
Ling Xuan took out his knife and attacked one of them. He stared at one of the wolves with great bloodlust, as if accepting a worthy opponent. Ling Xuan dashed towards the wolf trying to imitate the movement techniques of the silver silence assassin. He couldn't perfect it but it wasn't nothing either, it helped him to move towards the wolf faster but also silently. As the distance between the wolf and Ling Xuan grew close, Ling Xuan tightened his grip on the knife.
The wolf, after observing Ling Xuan, suddenly jumped towards him and Ling Xuan attacked using The Stranger's Technique's.
Yet he only managed to obtain a Glimpse of the technique and not even a Basic Understanding of it.
He missed with the attack and had swerved in order to dodge the wolf's attack.
"Hah..Hah..It failed" Ling Xuan grimaced inwardly as he understood that he had become too arrogant once again.
The wolf moved two steps back. It looked as if it was stalling time. After observing the surroundings Mu Feng shouted,"There are three more wolves at apprentice level and an adept level wolf approaching us. Don't let your guard down and fight them with all your might"
Ling Xuan was not confident anymore as the wolves had an advantage in numbers. Even then he gathered his courage and went for the wolf he was currently fighting.
Ling Xuan slowly backed away and the wolf started to step towards his direction, then Ling Xuan ran to the right and the wolf once again pounced in that direction brandishing its Crimson Teeth for a kill.
Yet this was Ling Xuan's strategy that the Wolf fell for.
Ling Xuan threw himself back and the wolf fell right in front of him.
Using this opportunity he used his Crimson Barrage Pole on it. While it worked best with a Pole it still did significant damage with a sharp object such as a Dagger.
First was the stomach
Second stab was the neck
Third was head
Fourth and the killing blow was in the chest.
So with that Ling Xuan achieved his first kill.
Mu Feng who was currently fighting the adept level wolf and seven apprentice level wolves at the same time, was quite surprised after seeing Ling Xuan's feat of killing the wolf. After all he was only a mid Apprentice who had no prior combat experience.
"The geniuses of the clans are really peerless prodigies" Mu Feng sighed as he understood the vast difference between the Clans and the Masses.
Meanwhile Liag Xuan who had killed the wolf looked around and saw that the others had slain the rest of the three and Mu Feng was the only one fighting.
Inwardly Ling Xuan was surprised by the power of the crimson barrage pole as he did not expect it to take care of a wolf so easily.
"The Crimson Barrage Pole is the Core Martial Technique of the Ling Clan, I think that it would've been even easier to kill the wolf had I held a staff." Realised Ling Xuan.
Afterall The technique worked by inflicting blunt damage to the opponent thereby slowly weakening them, a sharp object only damaged one part of the body but blunt force could cause an entire area of the body to be weakened. Also a sharp object's attack can be driven into a less important part of the body but The Crimson Barrage Pole was something that even if you hit a less-important part of the body, one can use their proficiency in the art to spread the damage to the entire area.
"Truly worthy of being a Core Martial Art" Exclaimed Ling Xuan, he was only able to achieve an Intermediate Understanding of the art yet it allowed him to be able to kill a wolf with the abilities to kill an Adept, he only wondered how powerful it would've been if he had reached an even greater level.
Ling Xuan and the others rushed towards Mu Feng to aid him.
Now Ling Xuan was pretty confident that he could kill another wolf. With this confidence he rushed toward a bleeding wolf which was injured by Mu Feng earlier.
He held the knife tight and stabbed the injured wolf in its head with all his strength. The wolf fell dead right after it was stabbed.
Now everyone's attention was directed towards Ling Xuan, who had killed 2 wolves without any fear. They were all motivated by this young spirited boy.
A little while later Mu Feng managed to kill the remaining 4 apprentice wolves. The only remaining enemy was the adept level wolf. After losing all its comrades it was sure to die but still wanted to fight with Mu Feng.
Mu Feng, rather satisfied with the boost of courage given by Ling Xuan, was now filled with determination. Mu Feng breathed deeply and entered a trance, seeing that the Adept Wolf was filled with cautiousness with this human's strange behaviour.
Then suddenly Mu Feng dashed forward and gave a roundhouse kick to the shocked wolf.
The wolf fell back with teeth coming out of its mouth.
Mu Feng did not stop, he again ran forward and pulled out his hunting knife which he then jammed into the wolf's mouth.
The wolf's mind was assaulted with pain which caused it to be stunned.
Using this momentum Mu Feng used his entire power and drove the knife through the neck of the wolf killing it in the end.
The whole surroundings fell silent in an instant. It was truly a magnificent sight. Ling Xuan was left in awe after seeing the great fight that took only 5 seconds to occur.
"The power of Mu Feng is truly brilliant! I think that he may be an equal to the Stranger" exclaimed Ling Xuan inwardly.
With the danger taken care of the group decided to return to the caravan to continue their journey.