26 - Yin Moon Sect

He instantly became on guard and looked around his entire area, but no matter how much he scanned the area around him, there was nobody there. It was just this girl no older than him, all alone.

He relaxed a little when he saw this because this girl was so young. He could not sense her aura yet but he knew that there was almost no way she was in the silver rank yet since she would have to be on the level of the city master's daughter to have such talent, but he still kept his guard up regardless.

It wasn't that he was afraid of a silver rank, but he'd rather not fight one here where there were unpredictable wild beasts that could complicate the fight. It was also possible that there were other people nearby that he just couldn't see, but that was unlikely.

But no matter what, he would prefer to avoid a fight if he could.

Since there was no one else, Su Tao just moved away to other trees since this girl was walking directly towards him. After all, she was uncomfortably close to him, and he did not want to be found. But weirdly enough, the girl seemed to somehow notice that he had moved about a minute after he actually did, and she suddenly got scared and turned around and ran the other way.

It was at this moment that Su Tao knew that she somehow knew that he was there, but he was concerned as to how she found him, so without hesitation, he chased after her. He found something odd though. She was actually not any slower than him, and she might even be a little bit faster.

He found this odd since the strength of his body, his speed, and his agility were the things that he found to be his strongest traits, yet this random girl was the same speed as him? It was at this moment that he realized this was no normal girl, and he took back his underestimation.

But he was still confident that he could catch up due to his eyes which could quickly see a good route to go through the forest, whereas the girl had to spend a lot of effort to find a good path through. This meant that Su Tao could slowly catch up to her using the environment as an advantage. And the black blood and the power of his eyes gave him the confidence to fight if need be.

He also figured that this was a good chance to find if there were other ways to use the black blood and the power of his right eye to increase his speed or something similar.

He first started to try to send the black blood to his legs and increase their strength, and it worked a little bit, but not enough to make much of a difference. As such, he gave up on the black blood and tried it with the power of his right eye. Lightning's advantages were that it was fast and powerful.

He was not only able to use the power of his eyes in his tattoos. It was just that they were stronger there. But that was only on the outside of his body. He could also use the power on the same level within his body at any point to increase his physical strength, speed, resistance, or some other factor in the same way that people could with inner energy.

He still didn't have a shirt due to it being lost in the fight with the black robed people, and he sure as hell wasn't going to go back into the city to get another one.

He found that he could put the power of his right eye into his legs and increase their power a bit while not using much of the energy of his right eye in the process. This allowed him to increase his speed by about a quarter, which might not sound like a lot, but it allowed him to catch up to the girl within only about five minutes of running.

He also had better endurance than the girl, which did not help her at all. This was due to the black blood which had changed his muscles, bones, skin, and organs. He was not only stronger, but he was faster, more agile, and had better endurance than those that had the same cultivation as him.

At this point, Su Tao was only about a hundred feet behind the girl, so he loudly yelled out.

"Who are you and how did you find me?" His voice was dominating and resounded clearly in the girl's ears, making her instantly stop running. But weirdly enough, instead of panicking, the girl actually let out a breath of relief. But she didn't respond.

Su Tao then caught up to her in only seconds, and he stood in front of her with barely any signs of exhaustion whereas the girl was lightly panting and sweating already from sprinting for so long without rest.

His eyes had locked onto her, but the weird thing was that his gaze seemed to be empty, as if it did not exist. She could only tell that she was looking at him because she was looking into his eyes and could see where he was looking. It was impossible to describe the feeling she felt right now. She looked at his eyes, which had locked onto hers, and she was stunned by what she saw.

But one thing was for sure: she felt that this boy could see every move she made and no secrets could be hidden from him. This was her instinct, and she listened to it.

One eye was purple, deep like an ocean, holy and healing. But the other eye was wicked green, and lightning seemed to boom from within it like a god of destruction had descended. One was like the hug of a loving mother, while the other was like a knife to your throat; they were exact opposites.

But the weirdness of this youth did not end here. He also had pure white hair, so white that it looked like freshly fallen snow, and his handsome face seemed to be warm and kind yet extremely cruel and cold at the same time. His appearance was enough to sway some younger girls.

Most people's first impressions of him were based on which eye they looked into first, but this girl had looked into both of his eyes, meaning that she had an objective view and impression of him as being perfectly balanced. It was not a good impression, but it was not particularly bad either.

On top of that, she found something extremely weird; she could not sense his aura at all. He did not have a shirt on, so she could not see his rank based on the stars, but she did not believe he was at the silver rank since he wasn't much faster than her. But she couldn't confirm it based on just that, which made her wary of him.

As for Su Tao's impression of this girl, it was actually quite good. He saw no sign of recognition in her eyes or on her face as she looked at him, meaning that she was not sent out by the Su family or the city to find him.

He was impressed with her speed earlier, which already gave him a positive opinion of her, but he was even more shocked when he sensed her aura.

'Limit of the bronze rank!' He thought to himself in shock. This girl was far past the peak of the third bronze star and was almost broken through to the silver rank. At this point, she had probably broken through about 99% or more of the bottleneck to the silver rank.

This showed that she was extremely talented, even more talented than the top super geniuses of even the two big families in the city of silver sparrow. Her talent was only below that of the city master's daughter.

But as shocked as he was, it did not show on his face in the slightest, which made the girl nervous. In her mind, if he was not shocked by her talent, then did he know who she was? But the more she thought about this, the more she thought it couldn't be true since she wasn't from anywhere near here, and she had not seen him among the people chasing her previously. On top of that, this boy was just too weird to be on the side of those chasing her.

She had been chased from her home, and the people chasing her were chasing her for two main reasons. The first was that she was just too talented, and the people couldn't stand to have such a genius on the side of their enemy. If she grew up, she would be a major threat to them.

The second was that they wanted to force her to carry children for them that they could raise in their sect as geniuses. The people chasing after her were wicked cultivators, so this was not outside of expectations for them.

This world was an extremely cruel one, and things like this were unfortunately very common, and barely anyone did anything to stop it since it was just so common and hard to stop anyways. Even non-wicked sects and families would sometimes force talented enemies to make children for them to increase their strength. It was a horrible method, but it was effective, and the children would never know the difference.

This was similar to the young master of the City of Silver Sparrow, who would rape the women of the city because they were not strong enough to fight back, yet no one dared to stop him. It was cruel and without morals, but no one could stop it.

The girl was not just talented though. She was extremely pretty, comparable to the top beauties in the City of Silver Sparrow. She was actually comparable to the city master's daughter in terms of looks and almost in terms of talent as well. She had beautiful green eyes and long green dyed hair that matched her eyes.

This was without a doubt a top genius, but Su Tao had no clue who she was or where she came from, and he did not recognize her from the top geniuses of the City of Silver Sparrow, which meant that she did not come from here.

On top of that, the robes she was wearing were green, and they did not have the symbol of the sparrow silhouette on the chest of it either, meaning that she was almost definitely not from around here.

There weren't even the three bronze stars, but that was likely just her trying to hide her rank, which was quite common. After all, the stars were not necessary to wear across the world since it was just a thing of convenience to avoid problems and could even be completely ignored if one chose to.

"I'll ask you one more time, who are you and how did you find me?" Su Tao broke her line of thoughts as he once again spoke. But this time it was a kinder and calmer tone, as if his entire personality had changed in a moment.

In reality, this was because he figured that she was not a threat to him and wasn't sent by the City of Silver Sparrow to find him, which allowed him to relax a bit. But his character, actions, and demeanor were still extremely cold and emotionless.

The girl, on the other hand, thought that he had been slightly affected by her beauty, which she had seen many times and was used to it, so she ignored it. She was more concerned with how weird this boy in front of her was. Especially since she had no clue how strong he was.

"I can't tell you either of those things. But please let me go, and I won't trouble you any more. Being around me will only bring you more trouble." She spoke hastily and nervously. It was obvious what she meant by these words. She was being chased, and being around her would drag him into the pursuit.

"There's no one within ten miles of here, and it's not that easy to get away without answering me anyway." While chasing her, he had gotten up high in a tree and scanned the area around them for ten miles, and he did not see anyone a few moments ago.

There were a few spots he couldn't see, but he had seen most of those areas already when he was cultivating since they had now moved so far away and the blind spots had changed.

The girl knew clearly what he meant. He had somehow seen that there was nobody within ten miles of here, either to protect her or to pursue her. This meant that it was just the two of them, and it was already clear to her that he was faster than her and that she could not simply escape. This meant that if she wanted to get away, there were only two choices.

The first choice was to fight with him and escape injured or possibly even die. After all, she may have been at the limit of the third bronze star, but that did not mean that she was much stronger than any other peak third bronze star, let alone this boy who she knew nothing about.

And she also had the feeling that this youth in front of her was more skilled and more powerful than herself anyway. His eyes seemed to see every beat of her heart, every drop of sweat on her body, as if everything she did wouldn't escape his eyes.

The second option was to just tell him what he wanted to know, and when she thought about it a bit more, it really didn't matter much if she told him who she was since he would likely not know her anyway. But the main reason she did not want to tell him was in case he came upon her pursuers and told them where she was.

As she weighed the pros and cons in her head, she eventually decided to just tell him what he wanted to know.

After all, she was being chased, and she couldn't afford to be injured by this youth who she didn't know anything about and who didn't want anyone to know about him. Besides, she could see that he was clearly talented and odd, and he might possibly actually somehow help her. She didn't even know how strong he was after all.

"My name is Li Lan, and I'm being pursued by a demonic sect called the Yin Moon Sect. As for how I found you, I have a high sensitivity to Qi which helps me to find cultivation resources based on the aura of Qi that they give off within a certain radius.

I simply was following the aura of Qi that your treasures gave off, and I thought that it was a trap set by the Yin Moon sect when I sensed that the aura moved, hence why I ran away right away."

She felt that there was no way to hide anything from this boy in front of her, and he gave her a dangerous feeling. She figured that it would be better to just not lie since that was what her instincts told her to do.

She didn't know that following her instincts might have just changed her destiny.

The fact that she did not lie or follow the logic that he shouldn't be at the level that required her honesty showed that she trusted her instinct, and this raised Su Tao's opinion of her in his mind. There were too many people in this world that didn't follow their instinct, and they quite often ended up regretting it later.

He could also see that this wasn't just her being naïve as well since he could clearly see her thinking it through and there were multiple signs of hesitation that she showed.

He paused for a moment when he heard that she could sense auras from so far away, but when he thought about it, it was not that weird compared to his eyes and the black heart. After all, it was simply not possible for his eyes to be the only strange thing to happen in this world. It was just the method of getting them was extremely weird.

Some people had unique attributes to their bodies; unique constitutions. But these people were extremely rare, so they were generally ignored unless they ended up being talented like this girl in front of him. There was no pattern to these constitutions, and they could very rarely be passed on to descendants, so they were just completely random.

Anyone could sense the aura of a cultivation resource from a certain distance away, it was just that this girl's senses towards it was many times as strong and therefore many times as far by translation. This also meant that there was a possibility of her being able to sense the aura of someone stronger than her, just like how Su Tao now could with the help of the black heart.

"What is the strength of those from the Yin Moon Sect that are chasing you?"

Su Tao did not want to let this girl go lest she ask questions in the city that would lead to him being found. As such, if he could get rid of those chasing her, then he did not have to let her leave and let there be a risk of her exposing him.

After all, even if she was just curious as to who he was, if she asked just a couple people in the City of Silver Sparrow, she would be able to find out who he was and she would be able to expose him for a reward from the Su family elders or some others. There were not many people in the City of Silver Sparrow who did not know who he was.

After all, it wasn't hard to find out that there were some people that wanted to kill him just by prying past the surface of who he was, and they would find Su Long and his family wanted to kill Su Tao as well as the black robed people, a few others, and maybe even Su Xue's family, who he had no idea what they thought of him now.

She would definitely be able to get a reward for exposing him and leading them to where he was. And because of her ability to sense the aura of resources, she would be able to track him based on those auras even if he left a ten mile radius of her since he couldn't get rid of the aura that would stay on him. And those at the silver rank could sense Qi anyway, so tracking him would not be super hard to do.

After ten miles, he could not see anymore due to too many trees, hills, and even just mist in the air blocking his vision. He could technically see up to a thousand miles away or even theoretically up to two thousand, but he could not see through stuff, which set his limit at ten miles.

The reason that no one tracked him in the first place was because no one had any clue where he had gone or where he was before he vanished, so they didn't have an aura or a scent to lock onto for beasts to follow, and the resource Qi would not apply as soon as he left the city since he didn't even have those resources at that point.

And based on the fact that Li Lan's talent was extreme, she would easily be able to contact those at the higher status in the Su family just by showing her talent.

Of course, this was just a possibility that Su Tao thought might happen, as unlikely as it was. She most likely wouldn't do this because it would likely expose her in the process to the Yin Moon Sect and allow them to find her. But he knew that there were many ways that it could play out if she went into the city and found out about him, and several of them were bad.

"There are five one-star silver ranks chasing after me. One of them is at the peak tier, two are high tier, and the rest are middle tier. All of them are experienced in fighting, and they have a middle tier one star silver rank trained beast for tracking me." Li Lan spoke with a little bit of fear in her voice and anxiety as well.