The rest of their trip through the skies passed considerably faster now that the bored passengers had something to keep them entertained.

Of course, this sense of levity was not shared by the ever dour Su Rong, whose time was thoroughly disturbed by Yu Xiang, who once he had gotten him around a metaphorical noose was unwilling to let go no matter what.

Fortunately for the apprentice weapon master in the end the young reincarnator took pity on him and left him alone for the last hour of their journey.

Now the flying barge had begun its descent, towards what the young passengers could see was little more than a small valley between a pair of mountains mostly filled with trees and the occasional sharp boulder jutting from the green terrain.

Three people, dressed in the blues and violets of their sect’s inner disciple’s robes waited beneath them as they steadily inched down to the ground.

The flying barge sat down softly upon the grassy valley, barely kicking up a small cloud of loose dust, grass, and dirt, and as the low hum of spiritual energy that signaled its arrays working as intended quieted down the three waiting golden peak disciples, who Yu Xiang could now see were all men, finally walked towards their group.

the three disciples stood in a triangle, with two of them standing behind what Yu assumed was the leader of their unit.

The man had long brownish hair, held behind him in a low ponytail with a simple green tie, that reminded the young reincarnator of freshly tilled soil, and a pair of green eyes that were a few shades darker than his own, looking more like circular clumps of dark moss than Yu’s orbs of shining emerald.

“Greetings fellow disciples, I am Mu Ning.” The unit’s leader was the first to speak, bowing down slightly with his hands held together in a cultivator’s salute. “I assume you are the ones sent by the sect to investigate our lucky find.”

Before he had even deployed his aura to check out the man, Yu Xiang was already certain that he wasn’t at the constitutional realm like the rest of the disciples here, apart from the sole core disciple obviously, but that just like the aloof swordsman he had already reached the worldly realm, which considering he didn’t look anywhere past his mid twenties was quite the feat.

There was something that set apart those who had set foot into the third realm from cultivators at lower stages. A certain sensation radiating from them, different for all cultivators who had taken that leap forward.

Chun Dai felt heavy and cold, he radiated barely contained danger in waves, like a sheathed blade hanging over the nape of your neck, a suffocating pressure that would certainly drown weaker mortals if he left it.

The golden prince himself, Guan Hui Chen, had this same phenomenon, now that Yu Xiang thought about it. He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed immediately but he chalked it up to the nature of his presence.

Opposite that of his subordinate, Hui Chen's presence was light as a feather and comfortable like a pillow. It put you at ease but at the same time ensnared your mind, making it harder to go against his flow, be it in a conversation or in a fight. Or at least that is what the young reincarnator assumed, having never been near the heir in a combat situation.

Mu Ning instead felt... earthy, for lack of a better word. The scent of nature suffused the space all around him, bringing Yu Xiang's mind back to the time he spent in his garden back at the inner compound. It was invigorating in a way that the green eyed cultivator couldn't really describe, but despite that Yu did not doubt that the other man could be dangerous in a fight, despite the almost nurturing inclination that he could glean from his presence.

Yu Xiang broke out of his contemplation as Chun Dai stepped forward, answering Mu Ning's bow with a simple nod of his head, his demeanor not showing the slightest change even in front of someone that was at least theoretically in his league.

"By order of the Golden Peak sect's heir, me and my charges were tasked with exploring and mapping out the interior of the hidden space your patrol discovered." The red clad swordsman swiftly confirmed the other disciple's assumption, handing him a sealed scroll that he'd taken out of his spiritual pouch.

Something about the core disciple's words made Yu Xiang frown slightly.

Why 'charges' and not 'team'? Wasn't he even going to hide the fact that he would be pretty much carrying them through the mission? Did he just not care? Or maybe that was simply Yu reading too much into the older cultivator's words?

Mu Ning unfurled the scroll easily, whatever method used to keep it sealed recognizing him as a member of their sect, then started reading through the message written inside.

Chun Dai didn't seem to mind that the other cultivator was taking his time to make sure everything was in order, simply staring unblinkingly over their heads at the nearby trees.

Yu Xiang at least expected some kind of reaction from the swordsman at not being taken on his word, but the core disciple's icy blue eyes were just as indifferent and unwavering as usual, the other disciple's not fazing him in the slightest.

The young reincarnator kept expecting something to happen but his predictions were proven wrong as Mu Ning got through the entire scroll with no issue.

Was Yu Xiang just too pessimistic? He had been carrying a certain preconception from back in his past life about how cultivators behaved and thought, but every time he expected someone with too much power in their hands and not enough years under their belt to act cartoonishly arrogant and throw their weight around he was left... not disappointed, but something similar enough.

Despite having lived in this world for almost seventeen years now, he still was surprised when cultivators acted just like normal people would.

His upbringing was probably at fault there, he supposed. Since he could first remember he'd been mostly isolated from other cultivators around his own age, willingly at that, and most of his early socialization had been with people much older than him.

Add to that that once he'd left the sect's nursery behind, he'd found that the outer compound was not a place suited for making friends.

Everyone was constantly competing against one another, be it for spiritual herbs, spiritual beast cores, and anything else they might desire, and even without that competitive spirit getting in the way most outer disciples spent pretty much all of their time in isolation, trying to advance their cultivation and cutting away anything that might get in their way.

Hell, to finally get someone to talk to he had to quite literally scoop Lin Fen up the moment he'd joined the sect, fearing that his habits would be tainted by the maddeningly focused behavior of the other disciples.

Of course, the fact that he was a novice alchemist had made him even more interested, but his main motive had been securing some living and intelligent company for himself, in order to avoid losing even more of his social skills over the years of almost total isolation.

Hell, he'd probably gotten more proper social interaction in the last few months than in the ten years he'd spent as an outer disciple, which was somewhat sad, all things considered.

But in the end, Yu Xiang was still left with the conclusion that despite his prejudices and expectations, even here, people were still people.

"Everything seems to be in order." Mu Ning finally said as he closed the scroll back up and put it inside the folds of his robes, bringing the green eyed cultivator out of his moment of introspection. "Forgive me for making you wait, now let me guide you to the site of the hidden space's entrance."

Chun Dai quietly acknowledged his words with another nod as they finally left the place where they'd first landed their ship.

The trio of inner disciples guided them towards, then into the nearby forest, rapidly moving between the trees.

Exactly as they had expected the forest was nothing to write home about, just a barely noticeable amount of spiritual beasts used it as a home, probably because of the two treasure mountains nearby, which held both better resources and a higher amount of spiritual energy in the atmosphere. Which once again raised the question of how exactly a hidden space had formed here.

Yu Xiang knew almost nothing concrete about hidden space, apart from the obvious, but what he'd read on the topic was normally such phenomenons needed a not insignificant amount of energy to come about, which would've normally made one forming in this forest an impossibility.

Obviously, they were missing something.

"We're here." Mu Ning said after a few more minutes spent running through the forest.

Their group didn't really need him to tell them that as they could now all sense the fluctuation in the ambient spiritual energy. Sometimes it plummeted until it almost became completely undetectable, while other times it spiked until it reached a level comparable to that of the inner compound of their sect.

Such sharp fluctuations were a dead giveaway that something bizarre was going on, so Yu Xiang was not surprised that the patrolling inner disciples had discovered the anomaly.

As they ended their sprint their group found itself in a small clearing, obviously manmade as they could see where trees had been uprooted and their wood used to create an improvised shelter for the cultivators guarding the hidden space.

Just a simple roof and three walls, just enough to keep them comfortable for a couple of days. After all, cultivators had no need for the same precautions as mortals braving the wild.

The mundane cold of the night was no threat to them, and the rain was just an annoyance at most since such things as colds were problems of the past once a person advanced a bit in their cultivation.

Waiting for them in the clearing there were another two people in blue, probably the other members of the patrolling unit. One of them was another young man closer to their age, while the other was a woman. As Yu Xiang laid his eyes on her, her deep blue eyes met his own emerald orbs and both of them recognized the other.

Standing before Yu Xiang was a woman a couple of years older than him, which he'd met only a few months ago in a restaurant, saving a drunk noble scion from her annoyance and saving her brain from having to tolerate more babbling from the drunk and passionate man.

Huang Lei's features softened a touch, and she favored him with a friendly smile.