Liu Feiyan watched the mystical scene with her eyes filled with emotion. Cultivators were very rare, so anything reted to them seemed impressive in the eyes of someone as ordinary as her.

  Noticing her eyes fixed on him, Jian felt embarrassed in front of such a dazzling beauty. He had noticed that she liked to go for walks at this time, so he decided to start practicing his best techniques.

  Jian clenched his fists tightly. He was merely a Martial Artist from a small sect that had to offer guard services to pay for his expenses.

  Several irritating thoughts were always on his mind.

  'How could someone like me dare to covet the young daughter of such a wealthy guild leader?'

  'Face reality! I've been stuck in the Mist Red core after all these years as a cultivator. I don't have what it takes to have someone like her by my side.'

  Jian shook his head, cast one st embarrassed gnce at Liu Feiyan, and left.

  ***

  "My name is Dusk, I’m 9 years old. My parents are adventurers; they wanted to go east, but we were attacked by a pack of wolves." Tristan pretended to sniffle a bit and wiped his eye as if drying invisible tears.

  Tristan was sitting around a campfire, telling his story to the people at the camp.

  "The wolves hurt me, and I was badly injured, but my parents managed to keep them occupied so I could escape. I hid somewhere in the forest and stayed there alone for three weeks, but I couldn’t find much food. Then, one day, I was so hungry that I passed out, and after that, I only remember waking up here at the camp."

  Tristan finished telling his fabricated story, doing his best to change his normally expressionless face into a sad frown.

  He tried to justify some of his old scars from the wolf attack and the weeks he spent alone without food to expin his current physical condition.

  Inventing a good expnation for being here was very complicated; saying that he was a young cultivator who suddenly decided to go east was out of the question. They would think he was either too strong or too crazy.

  So he simply decided to invent a story where he was just a poor child with reckless and irresponsible parents.

  Of course, his story was terrible and full of holes.

  But Tristan was a child; no one could bme him for not being clear in his expnations, in fact, that was consistent with his age.

  "Why did your parents want to go east?" Liu Feiyan asked.

  Tristan shrugged and said, "I don't know."

  Liu Feiyan nodded, thinking it was normal for a child not to know the pns of adults.

  "You didn’t see when the magical beast found you?" Lan asked.

  "No."

  "So you also don’t know how the magical beast lost its head?" Jian asked.

  "No idea."

  This was the advantage of being a child.

  Before the people could start asking more annoying questions, Tristan prepared his final move.

  "Thank you for everything you’ve done for me so far, but I think it's time for me to go find my parents," Tristan said, trying to put on an innocent face, albeit not very successfully.

  But it seemed his pitiful appearance made up for it, as the sad and uncomfortable faces of the people in front of him suggested they had believed his act.

  Zhou Lan said, "You're pnning to leave? But your arms are still broken!"

  Tristan said shyly while looking at his feet, "But I'm a cultivator; I can manage."

  Zhou Lan shook his head and said, "Hmm... You should come with us until you recover; it’s not safe for you to leave like this!"

  "Your parents should be able to find us ter, um... it’ll be fine if you stay here."

  Zhou Lan turned to the guild leader Liu Junhan and respectfully said, "Liu Junhan, would you allow Dusk to accompany us on our journey? I am willing to take full responsibility for him!"

  Liu Junhan nodded and said, "No problem." He was still happy with the red crystal he had received.

  ***

  Moving in the darkness of the night, Tristan was in one of the st carts. He preferred staying at the back so he could see the movement of everyone else. Even after spending the st three weeks with the people of the caravan, he still wasn’t comfortable around them.

  But he didn’t have much choice in the matter. Although Tristan didn’t like it, he knew it would be difficult to survive alone with both arms incapacitated; in his current state, it would take him many months to heal.

  His progress eastward was also much slower since the guild members had to find routes with the fewest hills to cross with all the carts being pulled by horses. Because of this, they could never move in just one direction; sometimes they had to detour several miles to find a lower road to the east.

  Of course, this was much safer, but anxiety sometimes gripped his heart, especially in his current situation.

  'Maybe I should use this time to try to turn Fallen Grace into a real healing ability.'

  While thinking about this, Tristan looked around, examining his surroundings. They were currently traveling along a narrow path in a mountain ravine.

  Suddenly, Tristan saw a girl jumping across the moving carts, her movements light, smooth, and silent, like the walk of a fairy. Yue had approached him.

  "Hello, Dusk!" she said.

  "Hi," he replied.

  Tristan no longer felt as uncomfortable around her as he did with the others; perhaps it was because of her easygoing personality or because she was just an innocent child to him.

  "Can I ask why you always stay away from us and alone? Don’t you like being here?" she asked him.

  Tristan looked at her thoughtfully.

  "I'm just not good at interacting with other people, so it’s easier to stay alone," he replied, shrugging.

  She looked at him while her long blue hair swayed in the wind.

  "I guess... I understand," she said, looking down sadly.

  Tristan sighed, feeling as if he had a backpack full of bricks on his shoulder.

  He hesitated a bit and asked her, "Do you know of any sects specializing in Light and Darkness in Zaguhan?"

  Surprised by this, she answered excitedly, "Of course there are! Although sects specializing in Light and Darkness are very rare, Zaguhan is a big city. Have you heard of the Southern Carp Body and Spirit Sect?"

  Tristan shook his head.

  Yue continued, "That sect is quite famous there; it's even more powerful than the Flying Sword Sect. I’ve heard that they have several Martial Specialists."

  "They say their style is fluid and versatile, focusing on the bance of body and soul. But I’ve also heard that these elements are very difficult to master and require an extreme understanding of the world and oneself. Although, I don’t quite understand what that means."

  Tristan listened attentively to what Yue was saying.

  'Southern Carp Body and Spirit Sect? Tristan thought to himself, I’d better stay in Zaguhan for a while and try to join that sect. I urgently need to expand my abilities set; my intuition tells me that I won’t be able to reach the east if I continue like this.'

  Suddenly, Yue abruptly turned her face toward somewhere ahead of the caravan with curiosity in her eyes.

  Tristan turned his face in the direction she was looking, up a small hill on the right side of the path they were about to pass.

  "What?" he asked her.

  "Ah, I heard something in that direction; I was trying to see what it was, but it was too dark," she replied.

  Tristan frowned. He tried to concentrate, but he could only hear the wind blowing, the sound of the cartwheels, and the horses' hooves hitting the ground.

  Then he looked in that direction and stared for a while. His vision had been greatly enhanced by his Darkness Cultivation and was even better in the dark. His modified eyes were able to detect small movements.

  Tristan focused on what he was seeing, noticing a figure taking shape.

  "Is that... a person?"

  Tristan saw someone ahead of the caravan, but he saw something else.

  That person was holding a crossbow!

  'Damn it! What to do?'

  "Ambush! Turn back!" he shouted.

  Of course, no one paid much attention to what he was saying.

  That was the downside of being a child.

  "What is that brat talking about?" Wang Liao said with a scowl on his face.

  "Uh... what? Ambush?" Jian said, confused.

  'Amateurs,' Tristan thought angrily.

  Suddenly, one of the front horses jumped, making sounds of pain. It began to move erratically, causing the first cart to sway.

  Soon, Tristan saw more arrows being shot at the caravan!

  The group of men who had been hiding advanced toward Tristan’s group, holding melee weapons like dao, jian, clubs, and spears. They were wearing dirty animal leather clothing. These people looked wild and a bit crazy.

  They were mountain bandits!