Lying on a bed inside an improvised cabin made of cloth and wood, Tristan looked up thoughtfully. Lan had taken Yue away a few hours ago so that he could rest peacefully. But they would soon return, and Tristan would need to come up with a story expining what a child like him was doing in such a mountainous region, far from human civilization.

  Tristan took a deep breath and tried to move his arms a little.

  "Grasp… haaa," Tristan groaned in pain. His arms were unusable; he could barely move a finger. He was lucky he didn't have to amputate them.

  ‘The Light cultivation must have prevented my arms from necrotizing or from getting infected.’

  Tristan’s stomach made a loud noise.

  ‘So hungry!’

  Tristan clicked his tongue.

  ‘Damn, I was so stupid. I decided to take the shortest path because I wanted to reach the western region as quickly as possible. But now my body is all broken. I should have tried to go around this region.’

  At that moment, the curtain of the cabin folded, and a small child with blue hair and eyes entered, holding a tray with a bowl of soup.

  Tristan's eyes sparkled, and his mouth watered at the sight. The smell of the food made his stomach growl even more.

  "I brought you some food!" Yue said.

  She sat on the left side of Tristan's bed, took a spoon, and dipped it into the bowl, bringing the spoonful of soup up to Tristan's face.

  Tristan was so hungry that he had to fight with himself not to dive headfirst into the entire bowl. But instead, he just kept staring at Yue without making a move.

  She stood still, holding the spoon in front of his face.

  The two stayed like this for a while until she said.

  "Um... you don't like mushroom soup?"

  "What do you think you're doing?" Tristan asked in his usual neutral, emotionless voice.

  "Uh, trying to feed you? I guess?" She looked at him, confused.

  "I can do it myself."

  Yue frowned and looked at Tristan's bandaged arms. "How?" she asked.

  "Just leave it there; I can handle it."

  "You'd rather eat like a dog than let me feed you?" she asked, indignant.

  "Yes!" Tristan replied without any excitement.

  Yue clicked her tongue and pced the bowl beside Tristan.

  He leaned his body, brought his head closer to the bowl, and began to eat. He didn't care about Yue's presence; for him, at that moment, only he and the bowl existed in this world.

  After a while, Tristan finished his meal, adjusted his body again, and closed his eyes.

  Yue continued to look at him, her indignation fading after a while, and curiosity returning to her eyes.

  "How did you recover so quickly?" she asked.

  Tristan opened his eyes, huffed a little, and responded with his expressionless face.

  "Light cultivation."

  "You're a cultivator too? That's so cool! I awakened st year; I'm an Air cultivator. Do you have a master, or are you part of a sect? Or did you manage this on your own?"

  "On my own."

  "That's so cool! You're just like me then. I want to go to the city of Zaguhan to join the Flying Sword Sect. Do you also want to join a sect?" she asked Tristan.

  What she said piqued his interest.

  "Are there sects nearby?"

  "You don't know about Zaguhan?" she asked, surprised.

  "No, I don't." He shook his head.

  "Zaguhan is a big city, which is why this merchant guild caravan is heading there to do business. There are several amazing sects there," she told Tristan with excitement; her desire to get there was evident.

  "You're not part of the merchant guild?" Tristan asked.

  Yue shook her head and said, "No, my family has a big farm in Zindan. My grandfather wanted to take me to Zaguhan so I could join a sect that specializes in the Air element since there wasn't one in Zindan. So he managed to negotiate with the guild leader, and we got to join this caravan to Zaguhan."

  ‘It seems she awakened on her own and developed her own elemental technique. She must have talent.’

  After another two days, Tristan was able to get up. Occasionally, he would receive a visit from Yue. Since there was no one else close to her age, she probably didn't have many people to befriend. Unfortunately for her, Tristan was not an ordinary child.

  ***

  During these days, Tristan had one question in his mind: ‘What happened to the beast core?’ Well, the answer was pretty obvious; the guild members had probably already taken it.

  ‘So technically, my expenses here are already paid,’ although this deal is not fair at all since the core is much more valuable.

  While Tristan was walking around the camp, someone approached him. She was a young girl dressed in elegant clothes.

  "Dusk, right? I'm gd you managed to recover; you've been through so much," Liu Feiyan said in a gentle tone.

  "Well, look who's survived, kid! But haven’t you deyed us long enough? You're lucky old Lan is respected by the guild leader; otherwise, we would have packed up and left a long time ago," said Wang Liao, who was nearby.

  Liu Feiyan shot him an angry look and said.

  "My father is not that petty. Take back what you said!"

  "Sure, sure, the boss would never let a kid who's making him lose money die," Wang Liao said and walked away.

  "Don't listen to him. Yue told me you're also a cultivator; that's cool. I hope you recover soon." Feiyan said goodbye to him and left.

  As she was walking away, her face turned in a certain direction.

  Tristan looked in the direction she was facing.

  He saw a young man about 20 years old practicing martial arts with his sword. Jian pointed his short sword at a tree, then started running towards it.

  He spun his entire body clockwise while sshing the tree with his bde. A diagonal cut appeared on the tree. Immediately after, he adjusted his posture and performed another complete spin counterclockwise, sshing the tree again, forming an X. To slower eyes than Tristan's, it seemed like he had done it in just a few seconds.

  But Tristan could see his movements clearly. His eyes noticed something else. At some point, the middle of the X had been hit with a thrusting attack, hidden somewhere between Jian's two movements.

  Tristan almost immediately thought, ‘A Darkness movement technique!?’