The first bell of the afternoon rang just as Cheng Hao and Blindlight made their way back into the house. As the child opened the door, an inviting fragrance wafted over, making his mouth water. He was pleasantly surprised to find Fuyin and Xiao Wu were just about finished preparing their meal. By the time he had cleaned himself up properly, everyone was sitting at the table, waiting for him.

“Pardon my tardiness, I encountered some trouble…” the youth excused himself with a bashful smile as he joined them.

“Someone that could trouble you? Must have been quite the large army…” Wang Fuyin remarked as he ate, still unable to completely get over the fact a grandmaster of his same Tamperer path, an experienced general of countless battlefields, was sitting across him. He had long since been grown used to Lu’s wisdom and knowledge, but even that had required him some time to accustom himself to, let alone associating the image of a knowing elder with that of the weird child before his eyes.

“I wonder what he must have got out of them this time…” Xiao Wu tilted her head and spoke unapologetically words, “Last time you conned a whole bandit group out of their life savings.”

“Ah, that was fun, alright.” The golden-eyed youth distractedly poked at the meat in his plate while shaking his head with a sigh, “This time however, I might just have incurred the wrath of someone I probably shouldn’t have…”

Cheng Hao's countenance was incredibly serious.

“Little Wu, Little Yin, Senior Lu, starting from tonight I will begin a session of cultivation behind closed doors. I ask you not to disturb me during meditation unless it's extremely important, however don’t hesitate to call out to me in the case something actually happens.”

“As soon as I come out I will head off to the ruins and obtain the manual so I can finally let Little Wu breakthrough to Middle Level Inferior Stage. By then, I can only hope everything has been resolved somehow…”

"But brother, didn’t you say that with Fuyin’s Advanced Stage cultivation, most threats should be easily taken care of?" Xiao Wu looked at her brother's face, questioning him, "What was it that made you change your mind?"

Cheng Hao chewed upon a piece of steamy steak as he began recounting what had happened with a straight face.

He did not conceal his usage of the Golden Aura and its effects, nor his advancements in terms of physique. Being from distinguished backgrounds, both Xiao Wu and Wang Lu had their mouths agape as the way they looked towards Blindlight couldn’t help but change: to create such a divine technique, it truly did seem as their views of the golden dragon had been flawed from the very start! Fuyin, on the other hand, gulped as the figure of Cheng Hao effortlessly strangling Goldy appeared in his mind…

After a few moments of silence to let the rather sudden piece of news sink in, the golden-eyed youth also shared his worry of having possibly poked a hornet nest by killing the young master of a distinguished family.

“This just had to happen as I was going to leave… Seems like even I have run out of good luck at long last!” With those words, Cheng Hao ultimately stopped talking and focused on the lunch before him. As he chewed, his eyes would at times lose focus and he would be lost amidst his thoughts, his mind wandering who knows where. At those times, neither Xiao Wu nor Wang Fuyin dared interrupt his thought process and simply ate quietly, barely exchanging any words.

As time quickly passed, the sun eventually fell from its peak overhead and followed its path until it eventually reached the horizon. Like so, kissed by the sunset as afternoon turned into evening, the group of five made their way back to the hut from their second daily session in the Beast Forest. It had been a bountiful harvest for most of them: Fuyin had deepened his studies in the art of war even further, while Xiao Wu could now manage five flying blades at once and effortlessly fight half a dozen opponents at her level, a frightening amount that would make people pale in fright if it were disclosed. Even more astonishingly, Blindlight had once again broken through, entering the Advanced Stage!

Glancing at the dragon, now almost ten whole meters long, Xiao Wu couldn’t help but grimace in her heart: could they still call themselves unparalleled geniuses if even a snake was clearly outclassing their whole lot by a landslide?

After a sumptuous meal, it was finally time for Cheng Hao to begin meditation behind closed door. It didn’t take long for any final layers of preparations to be laid. Finally, with everything having been sorted out, the golden-eyed youth ultimately headed for the small storage space on the back of the hut and proceeded inside. Before closing the door, he turned around and couldn’t help but feel his heartstrings being pulled as he saw the worried faces of the two children, one not older than nine, the other merely fifteen years young.

“Have a good session, Master!” Fuyin waved somewhat bitterly.

Xiao Wu was slightly red-eyed, but still managed to blurt out a “Take care, bro.”

“Mn.” Cheng Hao nodded his head with a smile. “See you, children,” he said just as the door closed and darkness filled the small enclosed space of the storage room. The white haired teen and the emerald-eyed girl sighed with feeling and only looked away after many breaths had passed.

Inside, the boy took off the black scarf on his neck and placed it on the side, sitting down cross-legged.

The boy’s gaze focused as a piece of rice paper appeared in his hands at this point. Atop it were symbols, countless of them, and together they made up a mysterious scripture. It was his work of these last few days, an extremely complex and ancient technique that he had once found in a ruin but never had the chance to put to use. As his eyes fell upon the archaic words, Cheng Hao’s eyes lit up, “Now then, ‘Heaven Thus Forbid' Manual… show me why exactly you were worth an entire Grand Sect’s demise in order to bring you to completion!”

An excited smirk found its way onto Cheng Hao’s face as the youth began chanting solemnly…

That night, Cheng Hao fought against time and with his life on the line to forcefully accumulate enough Spiritual Energy for him to breakthrough to Basic Stage.

Meanwhile, as the twelfth hour kicked in, Wang Fuyin also fell in deep slumber on Cheng Hao’s bed, his consciousness transported far away to face off against hordes of enemies: there, he would risk many years’ worth of cultivation to test the new knowledge acquired during the day.

Xiao Wu sat on her own bed and silently gazed at the shut door in a corner of the room and the golden dragon sleeping before it. Her eyes shifted and the white-haired youth’s motionless body entered her field of vision next. Xiao Wu had a conflicted expression on her face as she glanced about: even after being hailed a peerless genius, she still couldn’t help but feel that she was slowly yet inexorably being left behind by the people around her. Watching on as her companions grew and gradually outclassed her bit by bit was unexpectedly extremely painful.

After all, in her eyes, Cheng Hao was a frightening monster, with most of her achievements being fruit of his aid, while Goldy had left her even more flabbergasted, continuously breaking through to Advanced Stage in a matter of three days. Even the newcomer Fuyin had turned out being an outstanding individual!

Indeed… With such reliable companions at her side, she couldn’t help but feel an impulse to get stronger herself if she wished to stay by them!

At this point, her hands fished below the pillow and grasped onto an object that had been sitting there for the past few days, gathering dust. As Fuyin lay on his comfortable mattress, his breathing regular as he slept soundly, Xiao Wu got off her own bed carefully not to make any noise, her gaze fixated on her hands with which she was now holding a featureless azure mask.

A pair of emerald eyes lit up in the dark. Like flames, the emerald green burned with fierce determination as the mask was worn, completely covering her feminine traits hardened with makeup.

A breeze blew and curtains fluttered as a door was soundlessly opened. Xiao Wu breathed in and out once to brace herself before her figure flashed and an indistinct blur flew out from the entrance to the hut.

Like so, three days passed, and the rumors of an eccentric person challenging people left and right to nightly duels spread amongst the disciples of the Vacant Sect.

…

Ever since Cheng Hao had entered secluded meditation, Xiao Wu had been diligently taking in the first rays of sunlight from the east every day at dawn. Then, she would practice the Vengeful Talons and the Purple Moonlit World against the Spirit Beasts in the morning and in the afternoon. During this time Goldy had been accompanying her, drawing over monstrous opponents for her to challenge and then cleaning up the beast corpses with a quick snap of its sharp fauces.

Fuyin also hang around on the side, actively studying formations and military knowledge, occasionally asking Lu for pointers and only taking breaks sporadically: it would only be as the stars came out that the azure-eyed youth’s disciplined research would come to an end and he would rest.

On the other hand, Xiao Wu’s passion and determination to grow even stronger had brought her to make some time even at night to test her monster-trained abilities against fellow humans!

On the eve of the third day of Cheng Hao’s closed door training, the sun had long since sunk below the horizon and whatever bright colors had been dyeing the sky had already faded away into blackness. At this time, Fuyin lay supine on his bed and Goldy was all coiled up in one corner of the hut, asleep.

Under the cover of the crickets’ summer song, Xiao Wu put on an azure training outfit and a fresh pair of sect robes that she wore above it. Her slender fingers then snatched below the hiding spot beneath the pillow and picked up the azure mask hidden there, her actions already ingrained as routine.

Soon thereafter she was running out of the house at the quickest speed she could muster, off to challenge her first target for the night!

She ran at full speed until she reached a solitary hut on the periphery of a ward a half hour walk away from her own. She had left a challenge letter here a night prior, and tonight it was time to keep true to her word.

She stopped a few steps away from the door and waited patiently. As soon as the twelfth bell rang, a young man walked out from the house. He was in his late teens, had a muscular body clearly visible even beneath the loose Sect robes, and a large battle-axe dangled horizontally behind him. His cultivation was not as impressive as his build, hanging around the higher tiers of the Inferior Stage, but being a cultivator that focused on a weapon, he was the perfect opponent for the current Xiao Wu to train the blade!

"I apologize in advance for any trouble my selfless actions might cause to you," the hooded, masked Xiao Wu bowed respectfully.

Seeing the respectful salute, the burly man's expression warmed up and he saluted back: at times, politeness could go a long way.

As the other was mannerly and humble, the axe youth confirmed in his mind the decision he had made to accept the challenge, even if only to give his own judgment on this 'Night Challenger'.

However, he was bound to be unable to solve the mystery behind this eccentric person’s identity.

After all, the figure clad in the azure of training wear and the white-striped black of the sect robes was wearing their hood and an azure mask to cover their face: the young man didn’t even bother trying to make any concrete guesses regarding their name. After all, there were simply too many people in the ranks of Vacant Disciples for him to tell one apart from thousands based solely on their frame.

At least, the other’s crystalline voice seemed to be for the most part feminine, but as it carried the androgynous timber of a child, he still couldn’t figure out for certain whether the other’s gender was actually male or female.