At the same time, Su Qing decided to try slapping one of the wood cultivators. With the loud sound of wood crashing together, he was sent flying a whole metre before crashing to the ground, unconscious.

"Ehhh!" Su Qing stammered. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hit so hard..."

She could hit harder than Su Qing... right? If she was weaker in her strongest suit than a spirit...

Hong Ling stood at the side watching leisurely, seemingly having no plans to intervene.

As Su Qing reached out to slap another bandit...

"Wait, stop! We surrender!" one of the fire bandits said.

The other two bandits were jarred for a moment as she quickly kowtowed to the ground, but they quickly followed. It was quite clear they stood absolutely no chance, and at least their captors didn't seem to have any intention to kill them.

Hong Ling sighed before squatting down to slap the metal ground, forming it into 14 handcuffs, one for each bandit.

"T-that's made of Star Iron!" a bandit nervously exclaimed. "I thought only Nascent Soul metal cultivators could manipulate it at will!"

Haha, big surprise that Hong Ling was hiding his cultivation. Mei activated soulsense again... and found he was suddenly now at the 8th stage of Qi Gathering? Wait what?

She looked closer and noticed he was absorbing residue qi from the broken formation and unconscious cultivators. She thought spirits couldn't hold onto their own qi? He quickly rose to the 9th stage... then sat down to meditate.

"Give me a moment," he said. "Su Qing, cuff them in the meanwhile."

"What about me?" Mei banged on the barrier. "I can help too, let me out!"

"I have no interest in tending to you if you get hurt from retaliation."

"Hmph!"

Su Qing was a little clumsy at first, but got the hang of it before long, quickly cuffing each and every bandit.

In that span of time, Mei who still had spirit sense active noticed to her shock, Hong Ling broke through into Foundational! Maybe he wasn't actually pretending? But that made no sense?

As far as she knew, spirits used magic by manipulating external qi or receiving qi. But while strong in their own right, their abilities would be determined by how dense the qi in the air was, which was their biggest weakness. It was also why they were so often contracted to cultivators, overcoming that flaw. A spirit that could cultivate... how overpowered would that be?

Mei waited for tribulation clouds to appear but nothing happened. Weird...

Huh, that probably meant this wasn't his first time reaching it. Which made sense given his absolutely insane cultivation speed. Mei guessed being sealed into the jade immediately reset his cultivation progress.

Oh! She got it! Could it be that he was cultivating so fast because he had reached Foundational hundreds of times, each time faster than before?

Suddenly, Hong Ling stood up, his expression instantly serious. He quickly removed Mei's barrier and sent her floating off into the distance with Su Qing. A cloud of misty qi formed around them, hiding them from sight while allowing them to see.

From the entrance of the chamber, the sound of flowing wind could be heard. Swiftly, an elderly man flew over, dressed in white robes lined with red and black.

Mei was struck by a feeling of deja vu as she stared. Somehow, she felt like he looked kind of familiar...

Ok, never mind, she had never seen him before.

"Who are you?" Hong Ling asked.

The old man let out a cold snort.

"You have the audacity to ask? I am an elder of the Xing Clan, Xing Detian!"

"I have no idea what clan that is." Hong Ling said curtly.

"Have you been living under a rock? Well, no matter! Explain yourself. Why are you here?"

Mei suddenly got a sense of deja vu again. Xing Detian, Xing Detian... why did that sound kind of familiar?

...

...

Ah! She remembered now! Back then, since Wang Wei made a lot of money selling pills at the auction, a sect elder tried to poach him as an inner disciple. She wasn't there since she got mixed up and walked out alone... Senior Han followed after to be safe and tormented her with endless chatter...

The only reason she knew was because Wang Wei was a huge braggart back then and told her all about it when they returned. She only remembered because she was really jealous of him earning 3500 Jade... and also because Detian was a bit of a weird name.

But why the heck was he here?

After sort of figuring it out, Mei began paying attention again and saw that the two were fighting. Oh. She missed their whole argument. Probably not important anyway.

The bandits had been moved a safe distance away as well, she realised.

As Detian swung blade after blade at incredible speeds, Hong Ling deftly dodged each of them.

"Hah! For a Foundational cultivator, you sure have guts, huh?" the old man laughed. "Asking me to let you go if you could dodge a hundred attacks from me... this is the first time I've seen a pup so brazen!"

"And you're a weirdo for accepting."

Ah, so that's what was going on.

Detian ignored Hong Ling's brazen remark.

"You are skilled indeed, that's undeniable. But this ends here!"

From his fingers, intense fire qi began to flow out, condensing into an orb. Then, he morphed the metal from the ground into a thick shell around the orb, which quickly began to glow red from the heat. Yet, Detian didn't seem fazed in the slightest as he held it in his palm, imbuing more qi into the metal ball.

"Boy. If you don't surrender, this bomb will go off. The moment it does, the entire chamber will be engulfed in flames. There are things even skill can't dodge."

Mei suddenly began to feel rather scared. Was Hong Ling's barrier really strong enough to endure that?

"Old man, didn't you agree not to harm the bandits? Are you trying to kill them as well?"

"Hahaha! Don't worry, I've placed a barrier around them. Only you will be struck."

"Wait, look over there." Hong Ling pointed to Mei and Su Qing as he removed the mist. "Put the barrier over them as well."

"What?!" Detian was taken aback as the two of them suddenly appeared. "A concealment spell so effective... Fine, I will place a barrier over them as well!"

...

"So are you going to surrender?"

"No, I'll dodge it."

"Are you daft?! Do you think I'm bluffing?"