Chapter 906: The First Night of Cooperation


    Lily dropped down from the sky once a settlement was reached. Ron raised an eyebrow at the sight, but didn’t say anything up the time. The new erged group proceeded to travel silently after that. To prevent either side from thinking the other was trying something underhanded, they stuck to running about ten metres to the side of each other. It was clear that Ron’s group were all faster than Xiang and Yang, but the thieves didn’tin once. Kat was guessing that Ron already knew that bit of information and had allowed for that in the timeline of events.


    Eventually, the sun had set and they started to set up camp. Ron was perhaps a bit surprised they stopped after only one day but once again, Xiang and Yang just weren’t equipped to run full speed all day and then through the night as well. Especially if they were going to keep running as soon as they woke up. That’s when Ron started to take a closer look at Kat. He didn’t know anything about demon summoning, that information was purged from the continent fairly well with only a few random holdouts left behind that very few people knew how to use.


    The fact Kat had a few extra appendages wasn’t even all that strange. Nobody had seen it yet but Ron had two additional eyes, one on the back of each of his hands. They were kept shut most of the time, but they were excellent for looking around corners or keeping a better eye on the battle field. A set of wings and horns, a tail. These seemed like reasonable enough additions. He could tell from the way Kat moved the tail was helping her bnce immensely. The wings were obvious, flight, or depending on her ‘true Rank’ perhaps just better air control. The horns he wasn’t too sure about. If forced, he’d pick either ‘side effect from the other appendages’ or that it was able to help her more finely control qi.


    Adding animal traits onto yourself was a much moremonly seen sight then a demon after all. That’s how Ron got his extra eyes. Though in his case it was experimentation by his ex-master that was attempting to create a child that could see and process everything around them all at once even before they started cultivating. As horrific as that might sound, the man did die protecting Ron, so there were minimal, if any, hard feelings over the human experimentation.


    Still, with Kat’s existence as a demon unclear, he was struggling to figure out why she was helping the other two at all. It just seemed like a problem that should be beneath her. Ron’s best guess was that the two cultivators had pledged themselves to Kat’s service in exchange for help rescuing their friend. Ron could tell that Yang at least had high affinity for the light element. Perhaps a worthy apprentice?


    While Ron was having these thoughts, quite a few others were on edge. Ron’s underlings didn’t really understand why they were taking such a risk, but none had the courage to question their leader. A foolish sentiment, as they were not so much weaker than Ron. It was one of the main reasons he’d selected them all. Sure he had defeat them in every sparing match, but that was just practice really.


    Back at Kat’s camp, things were just as tense. Yang and Xiang couldn’t help but feel that despite epting the deal they were still at risk of betrayal. Though they’d never admit it to anyone, only the fact that Kat had stopped them in time preventing that explosion from taking, if not their lives, at least their legs. The snake was one thing. It was arge animal, a spirit beast they knew not to go near in normal circumstances. They’d been caught unaware just running to their destination. Not by bandits. Cultivators. Cultivators that knew how to take them out.


    .....


    Lily was trying not to worry like Kat, who was able to remain exceptionally calm under the circumstances. The problem for Lily was that, without realising it, she’d gotten used to being able to smell everyone nearby. Kat’s scent was familiar, Yang’s was that of the early morning, with the slightest touch of burnt wood, and Xiang was always sweat and metal. These neers smelt like nothing. Oh, Lily was certain it was just some Qi technique to hide your scent from nearby animals, and she desperately wish that wasn’t all it took to set her on the edge... but she was part feline now. Theck of sent was driving that part of her crazy. She wanted to just run over to them and hiss in their faces or scratch them a bit so the scent of blood would allow her to get SOMETHING from them.


    “Kat will you keep a watch?” asked Xiang quietly.


    “IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU NEED ONE!” shouted Ron back, making it abundantly clear he could hear Xiang even from his camp two hundred metres away.


    Xiang decided to put his newfound patience into practice and just turned to Kat, waiting for an answer. “If you want me to, it’s no problem Xiang,” said Kat. Once again, Ron couldn’t help but feel that interaction was strange. He was missing something here and nobody was going to tell him, certainly not without prompting.


    With that settled Yang pulled out some food for everyone, picking some of the fresh stuff not just to use it while they could but also to abuse the fact they were sort of upwind of the other campsite. Yang also picked up a few extra utensils for cooking over a fire. This meant it only took a few moments for the smell of cooked meat and spices to start wafting down towards the other campsite.


    While Yang was trying to provoke a reaction, Kat was trying to test her meditation now she knew about the group. As she sunk into the waters Kat struggled to spot the ripples they were making even when she KNEW exactly where they were. It took her a painful five minutes to realise how they were doing it. The pond in her mind was a reflection of the real world. It was hard to find a ce where it waspletely still.


    Here, it was very much not like that. The water was always flowing at least somewhat and the thieves made good use of that information. What they did, was instead of trying to obscure themselves and risk leaving arge smooth section of the pond with no ripples, or ripples themselves, Kat managed to see the ripples they did leave, just barely. They synced up with the world around them. Slight addition to waves, ripples flowing along with the current. The sounds of birds, and shifting positions. They even synced their breathing to each other and the rustling of the leaves.


    *Holy heck. The dedication to manage something like this... I mean... I know they have to be Rank 2, maybe Ron Rank 3... but for them to be able to just... blend in like this... it’s exceptional. I don’t want to think about how many hours of training something like this would require.*


    Pushing the details of what she’d uncovered to Lily, Kat prompted a second opinion. [Yes this is... something else. I suspect that it would need YEARS of training. The only other way would be if they had an item enchanted to help smooth things over? I doubt it’d be cheap though. The real question is... how well does it work with Qi tracking? I suspect the answer has to be not all that well otherwise Qi tracking wouldn’t be such a big deal or everyone would learn this. Rendering it useless as someone figures out a work around.]


    *My guess is training. The fact they’re all breathing together? Unless they do have some artifact for it I don’t see how it could be anything but constant practice.*


    [Yup I agree.]


    Kat and Lily were starting to get a sense of just how skilled these thieves were. It was actually a bit of a relief there hadn’t been a fight in the end. Kat was confident she could walk away from it unharmed... but only because she trusted her regeneration to fix all the attacks she took during that very same fight. There was no way Xiang and Yang would’ve been able to get away easily. The only thing that made Kat question how strong they were, was that Lily pointed out if they were assassins orbatants, they wouldn’t have bothered with the ambush.


    Kat sunk back into her meditation. She would get what rest she could right now while everyone else was awake. She didn’t trust herself to keep track of every single thief, and the chance one of them got past her watch when relying on her meditation was a little too high. Something Kat also missed though... was a patch of bubbles in the centre. What it could mean... well. Kat didn’t see it so she had no thoughts of spection.