Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Start of the Hunt

CHAPTER

20

Start of the Hunt

I

“Well, he’s pleasant enough,” Hao Zhen said, breaking the silence.

That got Tian Jin and Duo Lan to finally take their attention away from Du Qing. They gave Hao Zhen strange looks.

“We already knew he’d be trying something during the hunt,” Hao Zhen said, holding up his hands. “His not-so-subtle threat just now wasn’t much of a surprise.”

If anything, Hao Zhen was actually feeling rather pleased, because the way Du Qing had behaved just now pretty much confirmed that he, like most villains in cultivation novels, wasn’t particularly bright, not to mention impulsive. Otherwise, Du Qing wouldn’t have dropped almost all pretense when there were other people around. In other words, Du Qing had just behaved like an arrogant young master—the most basic type of cultivation novel antagonists. That didn’t mean Du Qing wasn’t dangerous. Still, a stupid enemy was much less threatening than an intelligent one.

And, more importantly, predictable.

Most likely, whatever Du Qing had in store for them, was something that Tian Jin would be able to handle on his own. That was the usual modus operandi of arrogant young masters: never throw something at the protagonist they wouldn’t be able to handle.  Arrogant young masters didn’t do so intentionally, of course. They just had a tendency to grossly underestimate the protagonist over and over again. Because of that, the knowledge that Du Qing behaved like one gave Hao Zhen a certain measure of comfort.

That didn’t mean Hao Zhen wasn’t anxious anymore, however. After all, there was no guarantee that events would keep following the plot of cultivation novels. Moreover, even if cultivation novel protagonists usually came out unscathed—if not stronger—when arrogant young masters made a move against them, side characters very often lost their lives in such situations, and as far as Hao Zhen could tell, a side character was precisely what he was.

“Right,” Tian Jin said, nodding his head. He still appeared rather tense, but he was no longer as cold as before. “Nothing’s changed.”

Duo Lan, on the other hand, remained silent, a tight-lipped smile on her face, murder in her eyes.

Seeing her state, Hao Zhen couldn’t help but shrink a little away from her. For the time being, he reckoned that it’d be better to leave her alone—at least until she had cooled down a little.

A few minutes later, after a couple more disciples had arrived, most of them coming from the direction of the Outer Court, the female prime elder who had spoken before clapped her hands, getting everyone’s attention. “We shall be departing now,” she announced as she stood up, the elders behind her following suit. Then, looking down from above at the disciples in the square, she commanded, “Sit.”

Hao Zhen blinked, taken aback by the sudden command, before he noticed that the disciples around him—Tian Jin and Duo Lan included—were lowering themselves to the ground, sitting down on the stone tiles of the square. Although Hao Zhen still didn’t know what was happening, he hastily followed suit, unceremoniously plumping down.

Once there wasn’t a single disciple left standing, the elders atop the magical cloud raised their arms, and from their sleeves, red mist started pouring out. It rolled down into the square, gathering above the stone floor. Moments later, Hao Zhen felt himself being pushed up, something comfortable replacing the hard, solid feeling of the stone under him.

Looking down, he realized that red mist had gathered underneath him, forming a thin layer that spanned the entire square. This layer was quickly expanding upwards, gaining volume, and in the span of a few seconds, everyone in the square was now sitting on top of a gigantic red magical cloud.

Half of the inner elders jumped down from their magical cloud, landing on the one the disciples were on before sitting down, the nearby disciples quickly edging away to give them space.

The two magical clouds then started rising into the air. The ascent wasn’t nearly as fast as the last two times Hao Zhen had ridden a magical cloud, but still fast enough for him to feel the temperature quickly dropping, the two mountains beside him almost a blur as they rose higher and higher.

Once they were above the peaks of the mountains, the two magical clouds started delving deeper into the mountain range, leaving the Blazing Light Sect behind. Flying just beneath the clouds, Hao Zhen gazed down at the mountain range lying underneath. It was already his third time seeing it from above, but it was still an impressive sight: multiple cloud-wreathed peaks all around them, stretching in all directions for miles and miles.

There were no other organizations in the Blazing Light Mountains. It belonged solely to the Blazing Light Sect. Hao Zhen couldn’t help but wonder just how massive the world was, considering an organization of the lowest tier had this much territory. Tian Jin had mentioned that they were currently on an island, and as far as Hao Zhen could tell, the map in his spatial ring with the area around the sect only corresponded to a small fraction of the island, as there were only a handful or so of organizations listed on it, whereas according to Tian Jin, there were over a hundred of red-grade organizations in the island, not to mention organizations of higher grades.

If an island was already this massive, just how big would a continent be? In fact, were there even such a thing as continents here, or was this world entirely comprised of islands? At this moment, Hao Zhen realized how little he knew of the geography of this world. Considering how big the setting of cultivation novels tended to be, Hao Zhen wouldn’t be surprised at all if this world was thousands, if not millions of times bigger than Earth, all gravity and laws of physics be damned.

He didn’t even know if this world was a planet. Maybe it was some kind of disk or plane floating around in space. The possibilities weren’t endless—there were only so many types of cultivation novel settings—but there were certainly plenty of them.

A while later, the magical clouds started slowing down, before coming to a stop. Hao Zhen peered down the edge of the cloud and saw that they were hovering directly above a valley nestled between two massive walls of mountains. Given their destination, he reckoned this was the Glistening Stone Valley. It was much bigger than Hao Zhen had originally assumed from the maps Duo Lan had given them, and covering it was a dense forest: a long, narrow expanse of green.

Beyond the Glistening Stone Valley’s size, there didn’t seem to be anything special about it, however. They had overflown other valleys on their way here, and the other valleys in the mountain range hadn’t looked much different. Most likely it was the forest that made it special. It was by far the biggest forest Hao Zhen had seen so far on the Blazing Light Mountains, much bigger than the one on the Gentle Green Valley.

The magical cloud Hao Zhen and the other disciples were on then started splitting into two clouds, one much bigger than the other. The bigger cloud was the one Hao Zhen was sitting on, with most of the disciples and half of the inner elders that had joined them on it. The smaller cloud had a much smaller number than disciples—the inner and prime disciples, Hao Zhen reckoned—as well as the other five elders.

The male prime elder then jumped down onto the outer disciple’s cloud. At the same time, the cloud carrying the inner and prime disciples started rising, attaching itself to the elder’s cloud above.

The magical cloud Hao Zhen was on then started descending, whereas the other cloud, which held exclusively members of the Inner Court, flew off, delving deeper into the valley, quickly becoming a red dot in the distance.

Duo Lan hadn’t been exaggerating about inner and prime disciples being much more closely supervised than outer disciples. Outer disciples outnumbered inner and prime disciples more than ten to one, yet from the looks of it, only a third of the elders were in charge of overseeing them. Hao Zhen had a feeling that five inner elders and a single prime elder were nowhere near enough to watch over more than a thousand outer disciples.

The descent was just as fast as the ascent, and soon the cloud landed on the ground, right at the entrance of the valley, some distance away from the forest.

“Stand up,” the male prime elder, who had been silent this entire time, said. He was a thin, middle-aged man, and much like with the female prime elder, although he didn’t shout, Hao Zhen could clearly hear him.

This time, instead of standing around dumbly in a daze, Hao Zhen readily followed the command.

Once all the disciples were standing, the magical cloud under their feet started thinning, until it was completely gone and they were standing on the ground—the reverse of what had happened back in the Central Light Square. The elders, on the hand, remained sitting, each one now in their own separate magical cloud, the excess magical cloud matter disappearing back into their sleeves.

“This is the Glistening Stone Valley,” the male prime elder said. Like all the other elders, he was sitting on his own magical cloud, his back straight like a rod. “All of you shall spend a month inside the forest in front of you. You are to gather as many magical plants and kill as many magical beasts as you can. At the end of the hunt, you’ll be granted contribution points according to your results, and the five disciples with the best results will be given Shimmering Light Pills.”

With that, he waved his arm in a sweeping motion. Hao Zhen caught a small flash of red, and hundreds of jade slips appeared in front of the man, before flying toward all the outer disciples, one for each. Hao Zhen grabbed the jade slip intended for him out of the air as it was about to reach him, Duo Lan and Tian Jin doing the same.

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“These jade slips contain a map of the area of the forest you’re allowed to explore. They also contain a list of the monsters you can find, and what body parts you must take to confirm you’ve killed them.”

Hao Zhen channeled some spiritual power into the jade slip and skimmed its contents.  He found that the map and list inside it were completely different from the one Duo Lan had given them. For starters, there weren’t any special locations marked on the map—no indication of where magical beasts or magical plants could be found in. On top of that, the list only had the body parts they needed to harvest from magical beasts of each set. There wasn’t anything about how many contribution points they were worth, nor anything about magical herbs.

Hao Zhen wasn’t particularly surprised by this. When he turned to look at Tian Jin, he saw him giving Duo Lan a glance, which she didn’t appear to notice. Tian Jin then shifted his gaze to Hao Zhen, and Hao Zhen subtly shook his head before giving a small, almost imperceptible shrug.

The prime elder waved his arm again, and this time, a small red pellet flew toward each of the disciples.

“These are spiritual beacons,” the man explained. “To activate one, simply channel some spiritual power into it and throw it into the air. We elders will be flying above the valley, and if you find yourself in a dangerous situation, set off the spiritual beacon, and we shall come to your aid.”

Hao Zhen placed the jade slip back on his spatial ring. The red pellet went into his pocket—joining the five other spiritual beacons there—so that he could use it at a moment’s notice. He doubted he’d be using all of them, but he firmly believed that it was better to be safe than sorry.

In fact, he wasn’t even certain whether it was a good idea to use even a single one of them, as he didn’t know what Du Qing was planning. Maybe Du Qing’s idea was to get rid of them before they could alert an elder, but there was also the possibility Du Qing had recruited some of the elders overseeing the outer disciples in the Glistening Stone Hunt. Duo Lan believed that such a thing wasn’t possible—that Du Qing didn’t have that much influence—and Hao Zhen was inclined to believe her given his suspicions about her identity. He didn’t want to take any risks, however, so he was still undecided on this matter.

The prime elder then stood up, his extravagant white and gold robes swaying lightly in the breeze. “May Heaven watch over you!” he declared, his voice suddenly much stronger, almost ardent.

With that, the elders took to the skies in their magical clouds, rising so fast they were gone in the blink of an eye.

The next moment, there was a flurry of movement around Hao Zhen as the disciples started calling out to each other, whereas others ran straight into the forest.

Beside Hao Zhen, Tian Jin looked over. “Shall we get going?”

Hao Zhen nodded his head even as he scanned the crowds. Where was—

There!

Standing a good distance away from them, surrounded by a small crowd, was Du Jian. Hao Zhen recognized some of the disciples near him. They were the lackeys that had been following him the last time they encountered each other.

The moment Hao Zhen caught sight of Du Jian, the other outer disciple turned in his direction, as if noticing his gaze. Du Jian didn’t look at Hao Zhen, however, but at Tian Jin. Tian Jin, noticing what was happening, stared back.

Du Jian smiled. It wasn’t a condescending smirk like his cousin had given them not too long ago, but a dark, sinister thing. Du Jian then turned away and said something to his group, and they started walking toward the forest together.

“Well,” Hao Zhen said, “I guess we can also assume that whatever Du Qing’s planning, Du Jian’s involved.”

Again, no surprise there.

“I hope he is,” Duo Lan, who had been quiet ever since their encounter with Du Qing, suddenly said. Hao Zhen glanced at her, surprised, and saw that she was wearing a smile just as sinister as Du Jian’s—if not more. “I wonder how Du Qing would react if we handed him his cousin’s head.”

Hao Zhen stilled, blinking at her. What the…

By his side, Tian Jin similarly gave Duo Lan an odd look.

Maybe Duo Lan’s role wasn’t that of a love interest, after all, Hao Zhen decided. Her being a rival now seemed more likely. Love interests in cultivation novels weren’t usually so… passionately vindictive.

“Well,” Duo Lan said, clapping her hands, “let’s get going.” She was suddenly back to acting like her usual self, her vindictive smile gone. Without waiting for them, she started marching toward the forest.

Hao Zhen and Tian Jin glanced at each other, and again Hao Zhen simply shrugged. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. Tian Jin seemed to accept that, and they followed Duo Lan into the forest.

Now that he was actually paying attention to the forest, Hao Zhen froze for a moment. From above, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual, but the trees were massive—several hundred feet tall, at the very last. They looked like pine trees, but he wasn’t sure if pine could grow that tall. The forest itself looked like a tropical rainforest, with dense vegetation. Of course, Hao Zhen doubted that the term was used in this world. He didn’t even know if this world had tropics or something equivalent to them, to begin with.

Breaking out of his daze, Hao Zhen resumed walking. However, once he reached the edge of the forest, he once again came to a stop. He stared at the massive, ancient trees in front of him—at their deep brown bark and bright green leaves—and it dawned upon him that this was his first real adventure since regaining his memories.

Hao Zhen felt his heart beating in his chest. The world never seemed so sharp, so painfully clear. He could very well be walking toward his death. In fact, he knew Du Qing would try something, so he was knowingly heading into a trap.

There was a chance that once he stepped inside the forest, he’d never leave it. That he’d find his grave among these tall, proud trees.

“Hao Zhen?” Tian Jin, who was a few steps ahead of him, past the tree line, looked back, giving him an inquiring look.

A little further behind Tian Jin, Duo Lan was also looking in his direction, head cocked to the side.

Hao Zhen took in a deep breath, the green, earthy scent of the forest—the crisp smell of life and nature—filling his lungs.

And with that, he stepped into the forest, the glare of the sun replaced by the cool shade of the canopy of trees above.

Live or die, this was the path he had chosen.

There was no turning back now.

The Glistening Stone Hunt had begun, and with it, the beginning of the rest of his life.