A black haired woman with a lean and well muscled body was striking a torso shaped rock. She had just a thin layer of cloth wrapped around her fists, but even so she was smashing them against the solid stone with enough force to cause a loud boom with each hit. A teen girl, wearing a similar tank top and training pants as the woman in training walked over. She waited patiently by the side of the courtyard. After a few more strikes the ‘older’ woman, who looked in her early thirties, gave the stone torso a kick and it shattered into dust and gravel. She then walked over towards where the teen girl was waiting, a towel appeared around her neck and then a bottle gourd appeared in her hand. When she reached the teen she took a drink and then the teen girl bowed at the waist.

“Teacher, First Sister was successful in destroying Ling Sheng’s spirit clone. Unfortunately, he still escaped.”

The older woman crushed the gourd in her hand and then tossed it aside, “Fine. Make sure your sisters are distributed equally among the search teams.”

The teen girl bowed again and quickly left the area. An ivory colored staff appeared in the woman’s hand and she ran her fingers over the lightly textured barrel shape. Sage had no idea of the intricacies of her abilities until she had turned against him. Before recruiting her, Whitestaff had been a bandit leader and when a small army showed up in front of her, she was impressed enough with their discipline and their offer that she joined up. He hadn’t dueled against her nor did she offer any additional information about her abilities. She seemed simple enough, fighting with an ivory colored staff that carried a great amount of power.

He had greatly underestimated her. Her fighting prowess was purely trained, nor was her white staff a powerful magical artifact. It had actually started as a simple shaft of wood many years ago, but after channeling her power for many years it had transformed. Her many disciples also used simple staves made of a white wood, merely to better camouflage the gradual transformation each weapon would undergo. Her abilities were not provided by or even related to her staff, it was merely an efficient way to extend her reach.

In fact, Whitestaff was the inheritor of an ancient sect related to the manipulation of the soul. Trained to manipulate and alter her soul, the staff was only a tool to allow them to touch an opponent from further away. Soul of the Piercing Cloud. It was a cultivation technique that expanded the soul. Instead of hiding within the spiritual sea, the soul inhabited the whole body. By making contact with someone else, a thread of soul could travel through their body and smash against their spiritual sea. Even that was only the simplest method of the ancient Soul Cloud Sect.

Another of their abilities was to alter the frequency of their soul. They could carefully attune themselves to the soul of another, causing a sort of resonance. A resonance they could use for many things, and the simplest use was for tracking. Sage had no idea how they were staying on his trail. Even when there wasn’t a single bird around and he’d carefully kept from making any tracks. All it did was slow them down, but they always caught up with him.

In another manor, less than a mile away, a messenger brought similar news to a man sitting on a chair. He was no longer covered in bandages, only bearing the mystical cast devices on his shattered bones. While the bandages were gone there was still a trio of hideous scars on his face, the stitches already gone and leaving him with three equidistantly spaced slashes. The mark of King’s talons across his face is a reminder of their conflict. It was quite difficult to leave scars on a cultivator, usually the many marvelous pills and medicines in their world could easily heal such things, but somehow King had managed to make sure those wounds couldn’t be completely removed.

Instead, Wu Chang was constantly pained by the marks on his face, making him short tempered and even more eager to capture Ling Sheng. The messenger left with a bleeding arm, the wound caused after he delivered the good and bad news. The man counted himself lucky for only receiving a slash across the arm and not losing any limbs or his life.

Wu Chang was actually a bit glad that Black Saber had been the one to die. Whitestaff was quite a bit weaker and less of a threat to him, in addition she also had a marvelous technique that allowed them to keep track of Ling Sheng. He’d been worried that his whole plot was going to be ruined when that snake escaped, but now he felt it was only a matter of time. He’d had the idea for this plot as soon as that man had been arrogant enough to try and recruit him. After making the bet, Wu Chang only wanted to test how capable the Jade Horde was and he was quite pleased.

He didn’t waste any time convincing them to go and pick a fight with the slavers, especially since he knew how important they were to Dawn Mountain and Red Jungle. Once the enmity was established all he had to do was turn Ling Sheng over to them. At the time, he’d been even happier to learn that the fool had even gone and gathered enough Spirit Stones to pay off his debts.

Out of nowhere, Wu Chang snapped the armrest off his chair and shattered it into splinters with his good hand. The other was still locked into a magical device to speed his healing and the Doctor at his side stepped forward to restrain him before he used that one to smash something else. Wu Chang grumbled and climbed out of his chair, his waist and chest also locked in a device and restricting his movement. He waved away the servants that were coming to help him move, only allowing the Doctor to assist him. The servants instead ran to fetch another chair, replacing the one he’d damaged. They moved quickly, swapping the chair out for an identical one, very much like this wasn’t the first time it had happened.

The Doctor brought Wu Chang back to his quarters and helped lower him into a large stone bathtub, big enough to be a swimming pool. Then he tossed in some special herbs and handed a pill to Wu Chang.

“Tell it to me straight. How bad is it?”

The Doctor frowned and then nodded, “It’s not looking good. The Breach Hawk didn’t just cut you. It seems to have scrambled the space inside your body. Space is one of the most mysterious and difficult elements to work with. I’m doing my best to cure you, but Space related resources are the most difficult and expensive to acquire.”

“So, I’m never going to be healed? That’s impossible!”

“No, it’s not that bad! What do you take me for? It will merely take much longer than normal for your bones to heal. That bird completely shattered many bones of your arm and torso. Without the proper natural treasures or pills, we won’t be able to completely remove the sequelae. Just like your face, you’ll be left with permanent pain or other minor disabilities. I will of course do all I can to reduce them as much as possible, but there’s only so much I can do without the proper materials.”

Wu Chang sank into the hot water and let out an aggrieved sigh, “That damned bird. Thank you, Doctor Silver for your hard work.”