From what he had known from xianxia novels, practitioners tend to disdain mortals and by now, he didn’t even have a shred of qi. But, when he looked into their eyes, they didn’t show any disdain, only confusion and curiosity. “Huh, did i judge too hastily? Is this not xianxia world?” Such thought came to mind, but seeing the qi seeping out of the hovering old man, that thought perished as soon as it arrived.

Doing his best to release the awkward situation, he tried his best saying something meaningful, short, and full of goodwill.

“It’s a nice sunny day, isn’t it?”

The universe being as usual, liked to go against MCs, the cloud started to gather and the night started to become a tad darker than before.

“But, it’s raining? And it’s not sunny?”

“Shut up first! Sorry about that, we just want to make sure who are you and what are you doing here in this no-man area”

Being rebuked by the Elder, the disciple who answered felt wronged. He just corrected a wrong statement but he was being scolded.

“It is a no-man area? Sorry for entering a restricted area, i will leave soon”

“No, no, by no-man area i mean no mortals ever came this far because there were no settlement 10 km around here and it is quite far for mortals to walk by themselves”

They are basically saying, “we are just curious how you reached here” with confusion written all over their faces. The curious one still emitted a curious aura exponentially so the sentence before exempted him.

As an expert of speaking, Tethra could readily form a perfect answer so they wouldn’t be hostile to him-

“Ohh i just arrived from some sort of hole, and here i am”

-Just to increase the awkwardness. Because that was clearly a very childlish excuse that would make even the most logical person speechless. But what can he do? That was the truth here! He was clearly being truthful, yet they didn’t even be grateful about it.

“Ahahaha, so that’s why. But, since you were mortals i think 10 kilometres would be too far for you to walk back to. Do you want to come with us or do you want to go alone?”

Since the objectives were completed after Elder Pan observed the surrounding with his qi sense and found nothing, he decided out of goodwill to bring along the mortals he met.

Even though Tethra’s face just showed a slight smile, his thought already running frantically about the fact that settlements were around 10 kilometres from here, just how much time he would have to walk to reach that settlement. So, he expertly and gladly, accept Elder Pan’s suggestion.

“Of course, thank you in advance, but how are we going to go there? Using a Teleport Scroll?”

“Huh? Teleport Scroll? No way! Are you some cave man from primeaval period? We can now use our identification card to teleport to our affiliated city!”

The disciple that just talked showed his own identification card. The plate that he just took from his clothes seemed to be filled with white runic lines. The plate was small, around 3” long and 1,5” wide. He didn’t even know how the identification card function without name but probably the runic lines said it all.

“Ohh haha, i’m quite old-fashioned” Tethra unashamedly found the right excuse to get off of the topic.

They never bothered to reply Tethra and just used their own identification card by inserting a little bit qi to it. The runic lines started to shine, then some sort of runic words came out of the card and made circle above them and below their feet. The runic words kept circling in place and they were surrounded by some sorts of thin white wall that kept fluctuating.

“You can go with me, mine is exclusively used by Elders of my sect so i can bring along another person” Then Elder Pan used his own identification card too, but the runic lines were black instead of white. The process was the same but Elder’s Pan runic words circles were a bit larger than other, it could accomodate another person.

“Haha, thank you then, by the way, who are you guys?” Tethra, after getting explained that the teleportation spell needed 5 minutes to activate, started to talk to the diciples.

“I’m Tethra, 20 years old”

“Whoa, so you’re that young? I thought you were in your middle twenties! I’m Lin Xiang, 20 years old, Strength to Qi 9th stage!” Tethra, with his 5’9’’ height and quite rough handsome face could be passed as a middle twenties person because of his mature looks.

“Don’t go boasting it a lot, you’re already stuck there for 2 years! By the way, I’m Ke Long, 20 years old, Strength to Qi 9th stage”

“Shut it! I’m just laying foundation and training my skills, like you’re any different than me!”

“Just ignore them, they are always like that since little. I’m Lin Bao, 19 years old, Strength to Qi 8th stage, Lin Xiang brother. And the one beside you is Elder Pan, an Elder from Divine Ravine of Hope Sect” Elder Pan amicably nodded his head at Tethra then went back to stare at the front.

While talking, Tethra got amused by Lin Xiang and Ke Long boasting fight, but he could see they cared each other extremely well. But, as soon as he think that, he remembered a crucial point of a xianxia world, cultivation. He must know the cultivation level here, so he looked toward Lin Bao with confused face.

“Seeing that you’re confused about our cultivation, I really started to think that what you said about arriving from some sort of hole is really true. Since Lin Xiang and Ke Long were already in their own world, let me tell you about cultivation levels”

“It’s really true!”

“Anyway, the cultivation here are divided into 7 stages which have 9 sub-stages you have to pass to go to a higher stage. They are the Body Refinement stage, Body Adaptation stage, Strength to Qi stage, Revolving Qi stage, Core Forming stage, Liquifying Qi stage, then the Immortal Mortal stage. I heard there are other stage above Immortal Mortal, but they were rarely seen” Tethra already had stars in his eyes since Lin Bao started talking about cultivation. Now he really wanted to try cultivating.

“Seeing that you are excited about this, probably you have never entered a sect yet. Well, you can later enter the trial for the sect and even if you failed i can still help you enter with my family influence as an ordinary outer diciples. But don’t hope too much, a 20 years old mortals basically has no chance to cultivate until the highest cultivation level”

Lin Bao didn’t want to see the expectation Tethra had crumbled after cultivating, so he crushed it right from the start to let Tethra cultivate without depression. But, the stars insides Tethra’s eyes hadn’t dimmed down, instead they shined more brightly.

“Well, even if you failed, we can still use our nanotech system to modify your dantian a little bit so at least you can reach Strength to Qi realm when you reached 40 years old”

Hearing that didn’t make Tethra depressed, rather a dumbfounded expression could be seen on his face. After hearing the word ‘Nanotech’, it just dawned on Tethra. Teleportation Technology, Identification Card with many functions, Nanotech. It needed 5 seconds for him to react.

“A xianxia world has technology more advanced than earth??!!”

Then his world exploded in a mixture of white and black light.