Chapter 23 - Seeker (3)

His name was Seeker. He had given himself the name long ago, discarding his old useless name and his past life. There were so many things the Seeker lacked, so much that he desired which as of now he didn’t have. The name seemed fitting for somebody like him. A traveller, a man without a home, searching for a place to belong. He had actually only lived in the Windwing village for a year until they kicked him out just hours ago.

Seeker shook his head upon thinking of the village. That place was doomed now anyway. Perhaps they could drive off an unbound bandit troupe by themselves, but an emissary of the Crimson Cross? No chance!

He had no idea how he had crossed paths with the Crimson Cross again in this place. Somehow Seeker had managed to trick Vakhtang into thinking that he was clueless, although the confrontation had been too close for comfort. Seeker had been running from the Crimson Cross for 10 years now. How awful would it have been if he had been truly recognised?

Although most of his confrontation with the Black Thunder Bandit troupe had been a façade, the disbelief and fear he felt from Vakhtang a few minutes ago was 100% percent genuine. He had no idea why such a big fish was swimming so close to the feeble Windwing Village and he probably never would, not that that bothered him. Perhaps that fiendish immortal had noticed the ulterior motives in his words, or perhaps he hadn’t, but the fact remained that Seeker had survived that close encounter. Remembering the riskiness of the situation worsened his modd, causing him to start mumbling under his breath.

Seeker was contemplating these things when he suddenly looked up to see a young white-haired man clad in tattered blue Daoist robes and a bronze locket hung around his neck. The most eye-catching part of the young man were the two shining artefacts strapped to his waist like how a samurai would carry a sword. But these artefacts weren't swords, instead they seemed to be... deer antlers?

‘Why is he carrying deer antlers around?’ Seeker thought to himself with an incredulous expression on his face.

He looked up into the man's emerald-green eyes and then shuddered. Seeker could tell instantly that he was in deep waters again. If he hadn't figured out that this man was an immortal by now, he wouldn't have deserved the name he was so proud of. However, what frightened Seeker wasn't the fact that he was an immortal, but it was instead the look in his eyes. This man clearly did not have good intentions at all! Seeker didn't take his time examining this otherworldly young man; not at all! With enough flowery words, most immortals wouldn’t make trouble with him. Within half a second of even seeing the young man, Seeker was already on his knees kowtowing to him.

"Greetings oh great immortal! It is truly a privilege for this humble one to lay his eyes upon your great figure! Your great stature and domineering aura show that you must be a true dragon among men! May I know what one as great as thou desire with this humble one?"

"..."

The immortal didn’t reply to Seeker and instead winced as he spoke. Seeker was confused. Did his words not please the immortal? As if to answer his question, the immortal stepped forwards to approach him, raised his hand, and slapped him across the face.

SMACK!!!

"Eeeaaaaahhhhhh!!!"

Seeker was both figuratively and literally gob-smacked! The slap held considerable power and hurt like hell, but by some magical force, Seeker didn't move an inch from his original position. His mind right now was flooded with shock. How could this immortal slap him without any provocation?! Was he associated with the Crimson Cross as well? Although these were Seeker's thoughts, he was careful to maintain his flattery. If this immortal was both hostile and unrestricted by the Bounded Laws, then Seeker was in trouble. He put on a hurt and offended expression, not hiding any of the fear in his eyes.

"Exalted immortal how have I offended you? Please tell me so that I can..."

SMACK!!

'£@&#%!'

He hadn't even finished speaking when the corner of the immortal's mouth twitched, and Seeker was greeted with another glorious slap on the other side of his face! Tears could be seen hanging from the corner of Seekers amber coloured eyes. Real, genuine tears!

'Why is he doing this to me?!’ Seeker thought. ‘What have I, Seeker done to deserve this?! Sure, I haven't lived the most righteous of lives and have offended many people in my days, but what have I done to tick this guy off?! I've even met him before!!!'

Seeker tried to speak to him once more in hopes that the immortal might have a change of heart. Swallowing his pride, Seeker kowtowed once more and addressed Yu Yin respectfully.

"Exalted immortal, I...

SMACK!!

This time the slap really, really stung. It wasn't enough to seriously injure him but it was enough to get a simple message across to him, the message being: "shut up!". Seeker was damn confused. He had barely even started talking this time before being slapped across the face for a third time. Seeker looked at the immortal who was now evidently ticked off.

"Listen up you two-faced bitch!” The immortal spoke, almost yelling. “I do NOT want to hear you spewing crap when you open your mouth! I've come to speak business and all I'm hearing from you is a load of rubbish! Don't be surprised when I slap you if you try to speak lies again, am I clear?"

…What? Seeker had a puzzled expression on his face. He wasn’t even lying, so what was this immortal talking about. Sure, his flowery words and flattery were hardly sincere, but was that a reason to slap him silly like this? Perhaps his façade wasn’t good enough. Seeker needed to be more convincing with his flattery.

"Oh great immortal, I would never..."

SMACK!!

"Esteemed Immortal, please listen to my..."

SMACK!!

Okay, that was it! Now Seeker was mad.

"Stop it! Please don't slap me again or else how am I going get around in the future without my good looks?!"

The immortal blinked at him. Ah crap, now he’d done it. If the immortal was ticked off before, how bad were things going to be now that Seeker had let his mouth run off like that?

"Your good looks?" The immortal looked at him with a confused expression.

Seeker could understand why the immortal was confused. No matter how he looked at it, Seeker's countenance was slightly above average at best. It would be a long shot to ever call him good looking. The truth was that Seeker was half-disguised right now. He could still be recognised by his original appearance as all he had done was put make-up on make himself more average. This way he’d draw less attention.

Anyways, it was time to try and pacify this immortal before things got really bad. Seeker averted his eyes from Yu Yin's gaze and replied in a soft voice.

"I apologise Immortal, I misspoke. I was actually..."

SMACK!!

Before he even had the chance to speak, Seeker was slapped again.

"Your name is Seeker right?" The immortal asked.

Seeker nodded with a questioning expression on his face but he stayed silent this time. He really didn’t want to get slapped anymore. Perhaps he should take a different approach.

"Why do you hide your true appearance?" The immortal inquired

"Somebody once told me that good looks are a curse in this world..."

…

…

Yu Yin rolled his eyes and could only use all of his efforts not to let out an exasperated sigh. This Seeker was seriously an idiot. Good looks are a curse in this world? Yu Yin could understand why women might think that way, but Seeker? Was he trying to make him laugh?! Was he doing an impression of Layla or something? Besides the idiocy of Seeker’s behaviour and the extremely obvious insincerity of his flattery, there was another about him thing that annoyed Yu Yin.

He took a deep breath and grinned at Seeker, finally ready to talk about his real objective.

"So, your village has spirit stones eh? Tell me about that!"

Seeker suddenly glared at Yu Yin, defiance in his eyes.

"I'll never reveal anything...!"

SMACK!!

'This really is strange though’ Yu Yin thought to himself. ‘Whenever this guy lies it feels like ants are crawling all over my soul! I felt this earlier a little when he was talking to those bandits and it didn't bother me at all, but damn, it feels like hell when he pulls that crap on me! I wonder why this Seeker has such an effect on me?'

Almost every time that Seeker had started speaking, Yu Yin’s soul started feeling extremely uncomfortable. He wasn’t in pain or at risk in any way, no, this was nothing like that. Instead a strange emotion had subtly started prodding at his soul. To describe the feeling, it felt like watching somebody slice a cake unevenly, or looking at a group of marbles that were all perfectly aligned aside from one and being forbidden from correcting the anomaly. Simply put, it was an annoying, mildly infuriating feeling.

This feeling wasn’t present when Seeker had talked about his appearance for some reason, and Yu Yin had no idea what was triggering this feeling. In the end he guessed that he felt this feeling whenever Seeker was planning on lying. His solution: whenever Seeker made him feel the strange feeling, Yu Yin would slap him to make him shut up.

After having been slapped for the nth time, Seeker grumbling something under his breath about his new approach not working and then spoke again.

"Fine!” He said. “The village chief over there has a whole stash of them hidden at a specific location in the village."

“Great! Could you also tell what makes these Spirit Stones so valuable?” Yu Yin inquired.

“You don’t know?” Seeker asked in confusion. “But you’re an immortal aren’t you?”

Yu Yin narrowed his eyes, annoyed at the question. Seeker seemed to get the message as he quickly continued.

"Spirit Stones are shards of crystallised soul energy that are used as a currency among Immortals.” Seeker explained. “They’re rarely found in the mortal world so I don’t know too much about their other uses.”

Yu Yin stood there in stupor upon hearing Seeker’s explanation, his eyes widening at the implications of this new information.

‘Spirit Stones are actually a thing?!’ Yu Yin thought. ‘A cultivators' currency?! Why haven't I heard of such wondrous news already? It's great that I have more money to collect now but surely I, a treasure connoisseur, should already know about these spirit stones right? For me to have access to the Yu Family library and still not know about them, somebody would have had to remove every single...oh.’

A vein popped up on Yu Yin's forehead as he came up with yet another reason to strongly dislike his family. Nevertheless, he knew about the cultivators' currency now and he would never let an opportunity grab some money slip from his fingers.

"Do you know where these spirit stones are kept?" Yu Yin asked.

"Maybe..." Seeker replied.

Yu Yin's brow twitched.

'Why does he think he has the right to play games with me?’ He thought. ‘Does this fool not know I can kill him with a flick of my wrist?’ Yu Yin thought angrily. ‘I didn't sense anything on him that could change that, so who the hell does he think he is?! Humph! I'm feeling magnanimous today and the thought of killing somebody disgusts me anyway, so I suppose I'll let him get away with it. That doesn't mean I'm done with him though!'

After concluding this thought, Yu Yin's eyes began twinkling slightly as all sorts of wondrous ideas of how to get Seeker to cooperate passed through his mind. He started chuckling at the mere thought of some of them, giving Seeker a bad premonition. After 10 seconds of this, Yu Yin spoke.

"I understand that you have a rather poor relationship with both the Windwing village and that Crimson Cross guy, so what do you think would happen if you suddenly appeared in the middle of a conflict between those two?"

Seeker's eyes narrowed and he drew a sharp breath.

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

Yu Yin's smile widened even more as began to stroll around Seeker with his hands behind his back. He looked like a true scholar teaching a profound lecture, even if the contents of that lecture were rather questionable.

"If something like that were to happen, I think your only chance of survival would be if a magnanimous, handsome, heroic and righteous immortal stepped in to save you don't you think? But what are the chances of that happening? Slim, right?"

Drops of sweat began to roll down Seeker's cheeks as he suddenly twigged as to what Yu Yin was thinking. His heartbeat became slightly erratic, and he even let out a small gasp.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Seeker stopped speaking for a few seconds and thought about Yu Yin’s retort. The more time that passed, the more grave Seeker’s facial expression became. Seeing the emotional state that Seeker seemed to be in, Yu Yin finally voiced his intentions.

"Here's what's going to happen.” Yu Yin said. “I'm going to take you to the Windwing village and you're going to grab that stash of spirit stones for me. My job will be to prevent the occupants of that place from murdering the crap out of you. When we're done, I'll get you out of there and if I'm feeling generous, I might even give you an award! Do we have a deal?"

There was no way that Seeker was actually getting a reward, but Yu Yin kept that part to himself. Seeker let out a sigh before he stood up straight and nodded.

'It's not like I have a choice in this matter. You're going to take me there either way...'

Yu Yin smiled and put his hands on his hips. He looked like a proud father who was in approval of his first-born's wise life decisions. He self-cast [Acceleration] and grabbed Seeker with one hand before dashing off in the west towards Windwing village.

"I'm glad we could come to a deal!" Yu Yin exclaimed.

Yu Yin was truly satisfied right now. Why wouldn’t he be? He was about pick up a stash of free money. Yu Yin didn’t think there existed a person who wouldn’t appreciate free money, and a lonely stash of immortal’s currency stashed away in a mortal village certainly seemed like free money. The only thing he needed to worry about was if Vakhtang wanted to contest him for this treasure.

As for how Seeker was feeling, Yu Yin didn’t really care. Even if something did happen to Seeker, it'd be his own damn fault. After all, he literally brought this entire situation upon himself. Who asked him to get kicked out of his village? Who asked him to lure some bandit troupe to attack said village? Yu Yin was just taking advantage of the situation.

Upon thinking this, Yu Yin couldn't help but stop and do a double-take.

'Wait! What kind of crap does a person need to do to get kicked out of a village anyway?’ Yu Yin thought. It seems like a pretty harsh punishment for somebody as young as Seeker?'

"Seeker, I have a question for you."

"Mn?"

"How did you get kicked out of the village?"

"Oh! Nothing much! I only deflowered the Village Chief's daughter."

"..."

"..."

SMACK!!

"Ow! But Immortal, I didn't lie that time!"

"I'm well aware of that Seeker..."

Thus, Yu Yin continued on, mental preparing himself for the upcoming battle…