"Big Sister?" the boy brought Shin Sumi out of her reverie, "do you want one?"

The boy who had told her all the information she needed was holding a sweet plum in her direction.

Shin Sumi gently bowed in an exaggerated fashion before taking the sweet and biting into it. She could tell from the boy's eyes never leaving her and his reddened cheeks that he was highly intrigued by her. Had he been old enough to understand it, maybe it would have even been called infatuation.

More so than that, Shin Sumi could also tell that the boy was a bit lonely.

"Why aren't you playing with the other kids, young warrior?" Shin Sumi asked, curious.

The boy's eyes shifted nervously, emotion swelling to his eyes, "The other won't..."

Understanding a lot from his mumbling and silence, Shin Sumi quickly and expertly changed the subject.

"Say, do you want to play with me? I've been travelling alone for a long time and I haven't found anyone to play with..."

The boy's face changed from sad to the most genuinely happy Shin Sumi had ever seen so fast that a single tear was caught by surprise on his cheek.

***

"In a few weeks from now, the Sky Earth Sect will be attacked by the Blue Fire Sect. Most likely this isn't a secret for anyone. If the townsfolk here know, then the sect itself is probably already preparing for war with the Blue Fire Sect."

As the sole cultivation sect in the large Blue Fire Country, the Blue Fire Sect reigned supreme on this half of the continent. It was so big and powerful that the Dark Sky Starry Sect had no choice but to pay tribute to it.

Naturally it was the same with the Sky Earth Sect who was only a slightly bit stronger than the Dark Sky Starry Sect.

"From what the boy told me, this only happened recently, the Ghosts are probably unaware. What should I do for my mission?"

Infiltrating the sect and stealing an artefact. That was the extent of her goal in going this far south of the Blue Fire Mountain Range. However if a power like the Blue Fire Sect had joined the fray, then it was hard to tell what Shin Sumi was to do.

Back in her cave under the waterfall, Shin Sumi brought up a glowing jade compass. It was a small object infused with a lot of Shinsoo, truly a valuable item.

Sighing deeply and calming her heart, Shin Sumi slowly took hold of the compass with her divine sense.

"Seventh Ghost reporting to Seniors. The Sky Earth Sect has offended the Blue Fire Sect who is now coming for retribution. The estimated time of the battle is in two weeks, that is all I know about the matter."

Keeping her message short and to the point, Shin Sumi had only said the minimum, aware that the Ghosts back in the sect would understand the matter as much as she did.

Shinsoo communications were instantaneous, but for a matter as important as this one, the Ghosts surely would have to reunite and take a decision together, which could take longer.

Waiting for the response, Shin Sumi put down the jade compass and concentrated on stabilizing her cultivation base with the help of the pill that Nuan had just finished refining.

She reflected on what she had learned, trying to understand the mechanics of the deadly game the sects were playing together.

"I was sent to retrieve that artefact in order to stop the upcoming war between the Dark Sky Starry Sect and the Sky Earth Sect. If the Blue Fire Sect deals with the latter, then is there anymore point to me getting the artefact?"

"Or is the artefact more important than the war," she thought, "which would mean I only have a few days left to retrieve it."

Shin Sumi's contemplation of the matter was halted when the jade compass suddenly glowed a deep greenish gold.

From the link with her divine sense, a voice appeared in her mind. It was Patriarch Sen, of course, responding to her.

"Seventh Sister, you have done well to contact us. The matter of a fight between the Sky Earth Sect and the Blue Fire Sect brings good perspectives to the short term future of the Dark Sky Starry Sect. The Blue Fire Sect, on the other hand, is definitely more troubling than we had anticipated.

Your mission, Seventh Sister, remains the same. Your target however is now the Blue Fire Sect.

With the disparity of power between the two, the Sky Earth Sect will most likely surrender early and be made prisoners of Blue Fire. Were you to join the Sky Earth Sect before it, you will be taken to Blue Fire Country.

After that, we trust your judgment as a Ghost and your skills as a proud disciple of the Dark Sky Starry Sect."

Shin Sumi slowly detached her eyes from the now dull jade compass. After communications back and forth, the item had to recharge itself over time in order to be used again.

Her eyes were distant, her mind running wild. Concentrating, Shin Sumi replayed the Patriarch's orders in her mind three times to be sure to understand everything and the implications behind it.

"So the real goal of the Ghosts isn't to stop the war but to get that artefact in our hands, after all," Shin Sumi muttered, "At least the Dark Sky Starry Sect will avoid a useless war against the Sky Earth Sect."

However Shin Sumi's concerns didn't stop there. As the Patriarch had said, "the Blue Fire Sect is more troubling than we had anticipated."

Going to war with the Sky Earth Sect was one thing. Like her own, it was a relatively young and small sect. Unnecessary lives would be claimed by both sides and one sect would most likely be eaten by the other.

Going to war with the ferocious giant that was the Blue Fire Sect was on another scale entirely. It was, after all, a sect that had risen to prominence for centuries and had become the main sect of an entire country, far stronger than her own.

Even the Emperor of Blue Fire Country acknowledged the sect officially. Going to war with them would be like confronting a merciless Demon for the Dark Sky Starry Sect whereas for them it would be like swatting at a pesky fly.

Could the presence of a single artefact be enough to stop a war with such a foe? What difference could a mere treasure do?

Shin Sumi shook her head to displace the bad thoughts. Returning the jade compass to her bag of holding, she gently asked Nuan to turn into a book again.

The boy she had talked to in Long Ring Island had told her where the Sky Earth Sect was located, or at least the general distance and direction. With that knowledge, Shin Sumi knew she would be able to reach it in only a few days of travels.

"I will leave tomorrow. Another day should be plenty enough to work on the few other techniques the merchant 'gave' me."

***

A day later, Shin Sumi left the waterfall caves. She bid farewell to the man who had rented it to her, telling him that she would definitely come back given the opportunity.

"And where are you headed, young lady?"

"I have business to attend to in the Sky Earth Sect before... you know" Shin Sumi replied immediately, her face blank.

The man nervously scratched his head, his eyes darting back and forth between his young client and the ground.

"You better hurry then. You'll need at least five days to get there, I don't know how long you'll have to attend to your business."

"Hmn," Shin Sumi nodded as she was about to head out.

"Wait," the man caught her by surprise, "since I most likely won't be needing it anytime soon..."

With a light slap of his hand, the man produced a small token from his bag of holding. A flick of a finger later, the token landed in Shin Sumi's open palm.

"That's..."

"It's a merchant's pass to Sky Earth City. You'll need to go through there to get to the sect."

Shin Sumi's eyes opened wide, even as she tried to keep her appearance calm.

"Sir, this junior cannot accept-"

"Meh, just keep it for me, okay? And if you really want to repay me, then come back for a few more days eventually. Here in Long Ring Island we don't have many passersby and business is always kind of low."

Bowing low enough for her body to make a right angle with her legs, Shin Sumi thanked the man and turned around. She was confused but glad to have met a nice cultivator like him, although briefly.

"Next time however, young lady," the man spoke when she was already far away but still in ear's reach, "don't buy my son so many sweet plums. He could hardly sleep with all the sugar and the talk of his new 'Big Sister'."

***

Disguised as Yan Yan, Shin Sumi was flying towards the south east direction. She wasn't exactly flying but it sure felt like it to her. After her breakthrough, her physical abilities had shot up once again.

Every step she took sent her forward by a dozen mortal steps. And that was before she decided to accelerate.

She had been hiding her strength under a spirit formation of her design in order to fool the people of Long Ring Island but now that she was far from it, her full power was put on display.

Behind her Nuan was flapping her wings with passion, trying to keep up with the girl in the grey cloak. The Lion Bat had grown bigger and was faster than before but obviously no match for Shin Sumi's speed.

"Come Nuan, we'll arrive to the Sky Earth Sect faster if you enter my wrist" Shin Sumi said after stopping, looking back to see Nuan breathing heavily.

With a 'Yip' that could mean a lot, Nuan turned her head and kept flying, her skeletal wings gliding and swatting down in succession. She passed Shin Sumi and showed no sign of stopping, earning her a long sigh from Shin Sumi as well as a sweet smile.

"Fine. You're really stubborn, you know that?"

Maybe it was Shin Sumi's recent breakthrough who made Nuan want to train a bit more and become stronger herself. Despite spending every second of her life with the grey nut and then the Lion Bat, Shin Sumi still found it very hard to understand the spirit creature.

Nuan worked in mysterious ways, sometimes out of concern for Shin Sumi, sometimes according to her own beastly will.

Shin Sumi looked at the Lion Bat, letting her get an early start and thought "this pace will make us cover enough ground but it is slow enough for me to train a little bit..."

The muscles in her legs tensed and relaxed before producing a short burst of power and sending Shin Sumi after Nuan with a speed worthy of a Liquid Realm Inner Sect disciple.

Nuan was still a few steps away when Shin Sumi's image blurred slightly.

"Summer Breeze Wind Step!"

Shin Sumi was at a standstill, her legs caught in mid-air, when her image disappeared completely. The next instant she reappeared, still frozen in place, however this time she was ten steps ahead of her previous position.

"One more," she said as she blurred a second time and made a second invisible leap forward.

"Third time," Shin Sumi continued, excited. Her body froze slightly as the technique activated, but not enough to hide the grimace distorting her face. When her image became clear again after a loud boom that made Nuan stop and turn back, Shin Sumi was sprawled on the ground, head facing down.

"Ouchiiie! I lost control," she rubbed her bloody knees and stood up again, "this movement skill is harder to use that it looked in the book. It makes my image freeze in place at the same time as a burst of power sends me forward, but I didn't know that my own vision would freeze as well!"

"There's definitely something I'm doing wrong here. Don't worry about me Nuan, keep flying and I'll catch up to you. I need to try again, this time I'll activate it a bit earlier."

For an entire day with barely any breaks, Nuan and Shin Sumi both trained in their own fashion. The former by pushing her wings to her limit and becoming better at flying, the latter by successively advancing and falling, each time getting up with a better comprehension of her technique.

As Shin Sumi progressed, she found that each successful Summer Breeze Wind Step increased the distance and speed as well as the time during which she seemed frozen in place for any onlooker.

She ignored the reason for that, having not yet realized that every step in succession used a bit more Shinsoo as she gained more momentum.

Even more impressive than the speed at which Shin Sumi could master a new technique was her Shinsoo reserve.

For somebody of her cultivation level, the amount of Shinsoo she could muster due to her Sixty-Four openings was so much greater that it didn't make a difference to her whether she used one droplet or ten when she had an entire lake of Shinsoo at her disposal.

By the end of the day, Shin Sumi was able to take ten steps forward, making her body look like she was transporting herself instantaneously for dozens of meters.

"I feel like I am making good progress with the technique," Shin Sumi proudly told Nuan as she was setting up a hiding spirit formation around them, "however I wish I had somebody else around to tell me how it looks from the outside."

Nuan yipped quietly.

"No, it's not that you don't matter, Nuan," she teased smilingly, "but sometimes I don't know if you can really understand me or not."

Nuan looked at Shin Sumi, her bead-like black eyes unreadable. With no transition, she then started to clean her fur using her tongue.

Shin Sumi sighed and petted her for a bit, all the while thinking of her friends back in the Dark Sky Starry Sect.

"I'm sure Yue would love to help me with training the new movement skills. Lan Hui and Bai Xuengen too."

She frowned, thinking of the circumstances of her departure. She had left the sect after having killed an Elder, supposedly gone into hiding.

"I hope they don't hate me... Mei Yunei, Fu Xue, Sui Lin, Ken Duang,..."

Forcing herself to stop thinking about that topic, Shin Sumi brought out the Copper Bell from her bag of holding. Above her head, the moon was the only light source in the night sky.

Trusting her hiding formation would shield her from any cultivator travelling by, Shin Sumi disabled the spell that changed her appearance and aura, reverting to her own face and Shinsoo.

The Moon Severing Ephemeral Shadow technique was already swirling inside her, made hundreds of times more efficient with the astral body above.

"Please, Copper Bell, can you bask in the moonlight and then provide me with an endless supply of Moon Shinsoo?"

For a good portion of the night, Shin Sumi meditated, replenishing her lost Shinsoo from the previous day's training. At the same time, Nuan rested, more often than not nested on her master's lap.

She had spent an entire day flying by herself at high speed, which was quite a feat for a small Lion Bat. Thinking back on the Beast Pavilion of the sect, Shin Sumi wondered how the disciples could train and fight with spirit creatures only a year after they were born.

She had never really followed any of the Beast Pavilion's teachings despite Nuan hatching more than a year before. She had tried to, only to be turned down by the Elder in charge of teaching who said that Nuan was still too small and weak.

"Don't worry Nuan, you will grow stronger at your own pace," she had told her companion, "and I'm sure you're the only one with as many hidden talents as yours. I don't want you to fight for me!"

***

The following day, Nuan took off as soon as the hiding formation was gone. Smiling behind her, Shin Sumi didn't waste any time either and started raising her Shinsoo levels.

"Summer Breeze Wind Step!"

Flashing forward with each step, leaving a trail of frozen afterimages, Shin Sumi caught up with Nuan in no time. Her last step, the twelfth, brought her in front of the Lion Bat then she turned and opened her arms.

"Gotcha!"

Shin Sumi closed her arms around Nuan, only to see the Lion Bat dissipating in thin air and leaving her embrace completely empty, her large smile fading immediately.

"What the...," even her divine sense had been fooled. Turning around just in time, she saw the Lion Bat reappear a few steps away, having never stopped flying.

"Yip!"

Shin Sumi was speechless for a long time, until the Lion Bat had almost flown out of her sight.

Catching up to Nuan, she finally started to realize and understand what had been going on.

"No wonder you can use the movement skill as well, you've seen me train all day! Because our Shinsoo Seas are linked through our shared bond, you have also been able to feel how I activated the technique, right? Not to forget the fact that the technique has been inscribed within you even before I attempted to learn it...

Nuan, you are amazing, baby girl! Does that mean you know the other movement skills already as well?"

"Yip."

Was that a yes or a no? Even Shin Sumi didn't know.

After probing for a while, attempting to decipher the winged creature, Shin Sumi eventually sighed, abandoned, and started training the second technique on her list: Invisible Crane of Oblivion.

In three days, Shin Sumi successfully also mastered the Side-Step Shadow and the Flowing Waterfall Dance. The movement skills were harder to learn than she had originally assumed, especially since she and Nuan rarely stopped and all the training had to be done while moving at a fast pace.

Nuan hadn't shown any more examples of her hidden talents, despite Shin Sumi's best efforts to force her. For a portion of the night, both relaxed and meditated, Shin Sumi's Shinsoo levels becoming stronger every day.

It was at the end of the fourth day when Shin Sumi was about to set up her hiding formation that a sudden feeling assaulted her.

It was a horrible feeling. The smell of blood and iron as well as an infinite bloodlust surrounded her immediately, almost making her freeze in place with her head spinning.

Taking Nuan back into the dark red leaf pattern on her wrist, Shin Sumi silently made her way up the nearby mountain using Invisible Crane of Oblivion, making her almost unnoticeable.

There, behind the mountain, laid the Sky Earth Sect, or what remained of it.