Xue Qiuling started leading Yin Long and the others out of Four-Kings Valley, telling Lan Yun and Yin Long that there was a location a short distance away from Four-Kings Valley that they could use to return to the dojo without having to walk the entire way. There didn't seem to be any beasts in the area that dared to attack them so Yin Long decided to take this chance to get an answer to something he was wondering about, leaning a bit closer to Xue Qiuling.

"So, seeing how you treated that Jyushi Mok, can I assume that the Jyushi clan's position within the city isn't stable? Or is it just that this Jyushi Mok's own status within the clan is so low that he's not worth worrying about?"

In Wolfsoul city, the Lang clan was the highest ruler, their reign undisputed. If anyone dared to speak to a direct Lang clan descendant as Xue Qiuling had then there was a realistic chance that they might actually be executed, they would at the very least be imprisoned for a bit. One of Xue Qiuling's eyebrows rose slightly at Yin Long's question, but she still answered it with a shrug of her shoulders while lowering her eyebrow.

"It's the first option. They used to be the unquestioned ruler of the area, but when the Fourth son of the previous lords took over as the ruler of the clan he sent out the order that the other organizations and clans had to relocate their headquarters to Starfall city. As a result, its only become easier for certain groups to sap away at their strength and expand their own thanks to now being located at the centre of the Jyushi clan's territory. So while the Jyushi clan is the nominal ruler of the city, our Heron's Ascension Dojo and the Crag's Howl Sect are about as strong as them, leading to a fair bit of tension between all of us."

Xue Qiuling's eyes imperceptibly swept over Yin Long's body as she spoke, a very faint glint passing through her eyes. This was something that had gone on for several tens of years already, it was a 'secret' that everybody in the territory already knew. So how come Yin Long didn't know it? Exactly where had he come wandering from?

She had her suspicions, but she didn't ask about them to get them cleared up, finding the answers on her own or tricking them out of Yin Long would be far more fun. And even if he did somehow turn out to be a spy or something from a different sect or clan, his strength was too low for him to be a threat, the instructors in the dojo were more than capable of dealing with him.

Her answer was within Yin Long's expectations, the new ruler of the Jyushi clan had probably made the other organizations move into the city in hopes of exerting greater control over them, but doing so was the same as inviting a tiger into your home. Starfall city was far larger than the villages where the organizations previously reigned, there were far more people and resources here that they could absorb to grow so it was an excellent environment for them.

Yin Long didn't have any other questions that he was in a rush to get answered so he unconsciously folded his hands behind his back and followed Xue Qiuling's group at a leisure pace while occasionally chatting with Lan Yun. Taking advantage of a moment where Xue Qiuling was a few steps ahead of them, Lan Yun leaned in until her lips were practically touching Yin Long's ear.

"That boy at the end, that Bai Mu, what was up with him?"

Lan Yun was the person who knew Yin Long best, she had seen both his actual face and the two masks he wore while was part of the Lang clan. So she knew that something must have been up for him to actually be the one to take the initiative to step up despite knowing that it would draw everyone's attention to him. Yin Long gave a light shrug of his shoulders, one of his fingers tapping his temple before he lowered his arm again.

"No clue, I just know that he stirred this thing up for a bit."

His voice was lowered to a faint whisper but he still didn't actually voice the specific thing that he was talking about, there was still a chance that Xue Qiuling was actually able to hear them. Lan Yun understood this, she also understood exactly what he meant when he tapped his forehead.

"Do you think he has ties to one of them? Maybe he's actually someone who snuck out?"

They had already encountered Netherworld Gates twice, something had actually almost managed to break through the first gate they encountered. If Bai Mu was tied to someone trying to create a gate, or even someone who broke through such a gate, things could turn incredibly grim. But Yin Long shook his head, a sliver of confusion passing over his expression.

"No, I don't think so. The feeling was unlike what I felt the other times, it felt far more... hostile and angry. But the feeling stopped shortly after it appeared so I couldn't discern the actual cause for it, I'll see if I can't check it some more in the future."

Lan Yun nodded her head silently but didn't pull her face away from Yin Long, leaning her chin on his elbow and proceeding to walk like that. Her intimate actions caused the expressions of the four men to distort slightly, but Yin Long's unbothered and unmoved expression provided them with some peace of mind and hope.

The group spent nearly seven hours walking after picking up the Firecloud Melon before they finally reached their target, an unassuming clearing that was only a few metres wide and long. Xue Qiuling swiped her bracelet and pulled out a white pendant engraved with a heron spreading its wings, making her way around the clearing while occasionally placing the pendant against a tree or the ground and infusing it with a sliver of Qi. A change occurred in the clearing after she infused the pendant with Qi for the 13th time, glimmering lines spreading out on the ground and forming resplendent runes that even covered some of the trees and gathered together into a spatial array.

Xue Qiuling nodded her head in satisfaction as the array grew brighter and brighter, leading Yin Long and his group to join the other men at the very centre of the array. A bright green light washed over them as the array fully activated, Yin Long closing his eyes for a few seconds to relish in the enjoyable sensation that accompanied him whenever he teleported.

This hidden array seemed to work in the same way as the array Yin Long's group had used to leave the city, it teleported them high into the sky and then surrounded them in a bubble so that they could choose where to go. They could see practically the entire city from their location high in the sky, Xue Qiuling pointing at the southern end fo the city, which just so happened to be the part of the city from which Yin Long had left it earlier.

"Look, see that four-segmented building over there? That's our dojo, it'll also be your home for the future. I'll be your direct Senior Sister so I'll give you a better tour in the coming days, I'll also arrange for someone to guide your friend, I'm not the one best suited to guiding her around considering her specialization."

Yin Long and Lan Yun's gazes landed on the building that Xue Qiuling pointed at, their eyebrows raising slightly due to how small the building was. The building was actually four light green wooden rectangular buildings that were connected in the shape of a hollow square, a martial field that looked like a plain located within the centre of the four buildings. They expected the building to be larger since the dojo was supposed to be on par with the Jyushi clan, but the rectangular buildings were each actually only about a kilometre long. Xue Qiuling could easily guess what they were thinking, smiling in a mysterious manner.

"Just wait, you'll be knocked off your feet."

The bubble started to move after Xue Qiuling finished her mystifying statement, shooting down towards the dojo so fast that the world around them blurred. It quickly reached the ground in front of the dojo, an empty circular area that seemed to be designed as a place for people and carriages to wait. Now that they were closer they could see that the entire building was surrounded by a four-metre tall stone wall, a single entrance in the shape of two doors carved directly into the wall, a middle-aged man with unruly brown hair sitting in a rocking chair beside the entrance.

The bubble dissolved and deposited Yin Long and his group in the empty area in front of the walls, the scents and sounds of the city reaching them once again. Yin Long's eyebrows couldn't help but furrow now that he stood directly in front of the building, a somewhat uncertain mutter escaping his lips.

"Compressed space? Or is it expanded space?"

He felt a sliver of the law of space radiating from the building but it was so faint that he could only barely feel it even while standing a few steps away. If he had to compare the feeling to anything then it would be similar to what he felt whenever he sank his mind into an interspatial ring and rummaged through it. His low mutter caused Xue Qiuling's expression to cramp slightly, her lips pouting as she blew out some air.

"Phf, you're a really unsatisfying person, you know that? Yeah, it's as you say, the entire dojo is covered in several space compressing and space expanding arrays, it looks small from the outside but its several tens of times larger once you actually enter it. We didn't use the arrays back when we still resided in Heron's Ascension village but were forced to utilize them when we had to move here. But I gotta say, I didn't expect you to discover it from here, you must be pretty used to being around arrays interacting with the law of space, no?"

Arrays that compressed or expanded space were quite a bit more expensive than normal spatial arrays since they had to be kept active at all times. They were also mostly obsolete, this planet was so large that it had an abundance of empty space that could be used to expand cities and buildings. But they were still extremely useful in situations where they were needed, the Heron's Ascension Dojo's current location being one such situation.

Yin Long didn't bother responding to Xue Qiuling's complaint or question, only smiling faintly and causing her to pout a bit more while clicking her tongue. She didn't prod further and led the group towards the dojo, cupping her fists at the middle-aged man sitting in the rocking chair as they passed him. The four men copied her actions, the man only giving an imperceptible nod of his head to their actions.

But just as Yin Long and Lan Yun stepped passed him and were about to pass over the threshold of the dojo, the man opened his eyes, a sharp light flashing through his green pupils. A pressure stained with the scent of blood and death immediately bore down on Yin Long and Lan Yun, squeezing down on their souls and making them feel as if they were standing in the midst of a battlefield covered in corpses and blood.

This was the bloodlust of a seasoned veteran of countless battles, it was enough to paralyze normal people and cultivators without sufficient experience. But to Yin Long and Lan Yun, who once worked as assassins, this sort of bloodlust only kicked their instincts into high-gear and caused their own bloodlust to bubble forth. If their target had the chance to show bloodlust, it meant that the assassination had failed and they would have to fight it properly.

So to them, sensing bloodlust was the starting signal of a battle, it roused every inch of their body and Qi for a quick and brutal fight to the death. But the middle-aged man retracted his bloodlust just as Yin Long and Lan Yun's own bloodlusts were about to burst forth, closing his eyes once more as he leaned back in the chair and chuckled.

"Good seedlings, good, good. Much better than the little tadpoles we usually get."

The middle-aged man's voice was strangely gravely and hoarse, it did not sound like it belonged to someone who looked so young. Yin Long and Lan Yun's bloodlusts receded before they could break out, their instinctively tensed muscles relaxing again. Jin Wang growled lowly at the man, all the fur on his body standing up as he was bent in a pouncing position. Yin Long tapped him on the head to quiet him down, continuing to step over the boundary of the dojo while Xue Qiuling apologized.

"Sorry, Old Instructor Meiyu only has two months or so left of his lifespan so he's become increasingly fond of testing both new and old disciples to ensure the future of the dojo, he really doesn't mean anything bad with it. But you should be proud of yourself, the number of people who can get such high praise from him can be counted on two hands."

The lifespan of Old Instructor Meiyu was well known within the entire city, everyone knew that he had already been part of the Heron's Grace Dojo for over 2000 years and was already at the very end of his lifespan so Xue Qiuling didn't have any reason to hide it. Yin Long shrugged his shoulders in an uncaring manner, but his gaze sharpened the moment he opened his mouth.

"Wait, you said he only has about two months left of his lifespan? Then why is he still so spry and youthful?"

Yin Long remembered his parents' slow descent into old age with extreme clarity, by the time they only had two months left of their lifespan they were almost completely bound to their beds. Their skin had turned wrinkly and their hair had lost all colour and was starting to fall out in patches, it was worlds apart from the seemingly youthful state of this Old Instructor Meiyu. His question clearly confused Xue Qiuling, who tilted her head questioningly while looking at him oddly.

"What do you mean? He's still got two months of lifespan left, he won't show signs of ageing until his Qi starts dissipating and becomes unable to maintain his lifeforce. He's at the Earthen Door realm so his Qi won't start dissipating until he only has a week or so left so he still has a bit of time before he starts showing the signs of his age and starts deteriorating. Have you not had the chance to interact with stronger cultivators in the place that you came from?"

Yin Long didn't answer her question, his finger unconsciously tapping his temple. Looking at the expressions of Xue Qiuling and the four men, this form of ageing and deteriorating should be the norm for stronger cultivators who reached the end of their lifespans. But if that was the case, why was it so different for his parents, why did the signs manifest so much earlier for them, already starting to show up by the time Yin Long was only seven years old?

Yin Long couldn't find an answer on his own, but he knew of one person who might know the answer, his teacher Bai Xiang. The Lang coupled had long speculated that it was Bai Xiang and his wife that helped them finally give birth to Yin Long and his sisters so if anyone would know about the strangeness of his parents' deterioration then it would be him.

The only problem was that he had no idea where to find Bai Xiang, the only clue he had was that he knew that Bai Xiang was going to take part in the next Six Dawn's Baptism, whatever that was. Yin Long stopped tapping his temple, his expression returning to his normal carefree and relaxed state. Right now he might not know, but he would in the future, he would make sure of that. So, for now, he should just continue as he was, sharpening his blade while moving forward. And this dojo would hopefully be the first step, he would find it terribly disappointing if the dojo was so weak that it couldn't even do that.