Seeing Nalser being enlightened, Sweeper and the rest quieted down and tactfully left him to contemplate. When they had exited the room, Sweeper turned to Dummy and asked, “With your ‘Thousand Faces, Thousand Lives’ can you take Masters appearance and take his spot until his enlightenment ends?”

Dummy thought for a second and said, “Technically yea, I can mimic his appearance perfectly, I can lower my cultivation level to match his as well. However, anyone who is at the Celestial King level or higher will be able to see through me. Also, that little girl, Mei was it? She may also think that something is not right but she shouldn’t be able to see through my disguise.” Sweeper nodded and told them the plan of action. “Dummy, for now take on Masters place and buy us some time. Enlightenment can only be stumbled upon but never be found. This is a very precious opportunity, we can’t disturb him at all costs for now.”

Dummy nodded and his appearance started changing. In a few moments, he looked exactly like Nalser. The change was perfect down to every little detail. Even his aura was the same. He nodded towards the others and left the Starry Island.

***

As for what happened outside, Nalser had no idea. He was currently completely immersed in the enlightenment. He was currently contemplating over the Laws of the Heavens. To achieve this at Qi Gathering, was the first in history. Since Sweeper and the rest had used their Aura to shield Nalser from any prying eyes, no one else knew what had happened to him. If they knew, they would completely lose their confidence in themselves.

Time ticked by as Nalser’s understanding continuously grew, he started understanding the Laws of the Heavens. The Laws of Heaven were extremely abstract and any sort of enlightenment gained regarding them was unique. If a thousand people gained enlightenment about the Laws of Heavens then all of them would gain their own understanding, never would be there two people who would gain the same kind of understanding. Hours passed, soon 4 days had already passed. And Nalser was still contemplating. However, the time limit set for Mei was slowly ending.

***

They had agreed with Nalser that Mei would give her families answer in 7 days. Until then, Nalser would roam around the city. Currently, in a relaxedly decorated room, there were 7 people. The room had an ancient look and it gave a peaceful, serene feeling.

On the master’s seat sat a middle aged man with streaks of grey hair in his hair. He was wearing azure blue robes and he had a strong, oppressive aura surrounding him. On his left sat 3 old men who were wearing all similar robes but they had long grey hair. There were some scars on some of the old men’s faces. On the opposite side of them, to the middle aged man’s right hand sat a dignified woman in her middle year. She was still gracious and you could not see a single grey hair in her blonde hair. There were some wrinkles visible but they only gave her a mature aura. She currently had her eyes closed as she was waiting for her husbands decision.

On the right of the middle aged lady, sat a buff youth. He had azure hair and a strongly built body. His aura and his eyes were both sharp like a sword. On the opposite side of the middle aged man, at the ends of the two rows, sat a young lady with blonde hair. That person was precisely Mei. When she returned home, without any further ado, she told her Father what had happened to her. Although, she didn’t disclose more than Nalser allowed her, she was also surprised to find out, that Xi Wei had gone insane.

She found out that all the Elders he had gathered to chase Mei with had been slaughtered and Xi Wei had been so terrified of the enemy that he had gone insane. He kept raving something about Ancient Empyrean Experts slaughtering the whole Clan, that it wasn’t his fault and etc. All’n’all he had completely broken under the pressure. Hearing this, Mei was both glad but also suspicious. Although she couldn’t understand Nalser’s cultivation base, she knew that he wasn’t an Empyrean level Expert yet and also there were more people than one. So this meant that behind Nalser stood a very strong power. At least, someone was looking out for him, even if he himself didn’t know that.

Although the Golden Branch didn’t specify why their Elders and Xi Wei were there in the first place, the sudden disappearance of Xu Mei had made people draw connections between the two. That was also the reason behind all the bewildered gazes that Mei had gotten on her way back to her Family. When she had explained the situation and Nalser’s offer to her Father, her Father asked for a bit of time to think over it.

Today was the day that her Father had promised to give her the answer. Now everyone were waiting for the answer. Mei was quite nervous because she had already said that she would follow Nalser whether or not her family would accompany her or not. As she sat there nervously, she finally gathered her courage to break the silence, “Has Honourable Father reached his decision yet?” As she asked that, everyone’s gazes, except for the middle aged woman, were directed towards this Father. The middle aged man just let out a sigh as he opened his eyes, “If you call me like that, it feels like we are strangers Lil’Mei. Everyone in this room is family, we can drop the useless honorifics.” Hearing this Mei calmed down a little but still pressed on, “Father, have you come to a decision on the proposal?” “Ahh, Yea. I have thought it over but I would like to ask a few things first. Is that okey?”

The middle aged man asked in a gentle tone, in his gaze was only gentleness. Mei nodded her head towards her Father and him, taking it as an agreement, asked, “Well, first of all I want to ask, why do you believe that he can protect our family? I know you said that his backing is strong but if we leave the Clan, we will be facing a lot of Major Clans that have been keeping envious gaze on you especially. Are you sure that his backing is strong enough to guarantee that we will have no problems?” Mei just lightly smiled, currently everything was going just like Nalser had predicted. This was one of the things they had talked about afterwards.

Mei just smiled mischievously and said, “Nalser is someone, who follows the Ancient Path and has also promised that he will give us cultivation methods for the Ancient Path. He will also take care of the elixirs needed until we reach the Empyrean Level. Besides, does Father think that someone who can offer these things like it’s nothing much, is someone whose background is lacking?” This made everyone nearly drop their jaws to the ground. Ancient Path cultivation methods were really rare. Even their clan has none even though they have existed since the Ancient Era. The people who follow the Ancient Path never allowed their methods to leak out, so maybe only the extremely old and powerful Ancient Clans may have a method or two. Mei’s Father however, was quite worried. He didn’t want to blindly jump from a frying pan into a fire.

After he gathered himself a bit, he asked again, “Who is the guy he needs help killing? To give such rewards, I can only suspect that that persons background is not weak at all.” It was obvious that this man had been a Clan Leader for a long time. With every thing, he would weigh all the pros and cons before making a decision. Mei just lightly shook her head in helplessness as she said, “I do not know who he wants to kill or why. All he told me was that the person is man from a Major Empires Royal Bloodline. That is all.” The man just let out a sigh as he heard this. Currently the cons were heavily outweighing the pros.

He grit his teeth and resolutely asked, “This is the last question: After we help him kill the person, provided that we survive, what makes you think that he will still keep us by his side? Maybe he will just throw us away the moment we have outlived our usefulness?” Mei just smiled bitterly to that question, “I have no guarantee to give that he will not throw us away.” Just as her Father was about to sigh and reject her proposal Mei continued, “However, I believe that he will not throw us away.” Just as one of the older men wanted to ask why she thought that, Mei lowered her head and said embarrassedly, “For some reason, I feel like killing that man is just a side goal for him. His true goal is something bigger, something more grand, it isn’t something petty like little revenge. For that reason, he needs people to stand behind his back to keep it safe.” Hearing this, everyone in the room gave a peculiar gaze to Mei. Even if Mei herself had not realized it, they knew very well what the reason for her unfounded confidence was. Her Father, seeing Mei like that, could only sigh as he asked, “What is you basis for this overwhelming confidence in this young man?”

Hearing this Mei was startled, she had not thought about this to be honest. She felt like Nalser wasn’t a bad person, he was a bit weird but that was all. He had not done anything to actually win over her trust. He had just given her a choice and she had pushed for grander terms. Even though Nalser cropped the terms a bit, he had relented to her. However, she couldn’t understand it herself, why she actually trusted his words. Seeing Mei like that, everyone present let out a sigh as her brother spoke, “Lil’ MeiMei, your trust in this person may be completely unfounded, you know that right? In the future, it may be your downfall if you blindly trust someone like that.”

She wanted to refute her brother but she couldn’t find the words to do so, so the only the she could do was give her brother a mean glare. Finally, she grit her teeth and said this, “He is a gentle person who doesn’t toy with peoples feelings like that.” Hearing this angry rebuttal, before her brother could say anything, Mei narrated how she had met Nalser. She had been semi conscious at the time the Elder trusted her to Nalser. As she narrated everything in detail, the others had also started to understand, where her confidence in Nalser came from. Thinking about it, they felt that Mei’s trust wasn’t wrong, Nalser could have just discarded her and go on with his life without getting involved with them at all.

However, he went out of his way to help her. He even offered a way of survival for Mei, when everyone else would have distanced themselves from her. Now, Mei’s Father was truly put in a hard spot. He could understand where Mei’s confidence in Nalser came from, however, he could not get rid of the feeling that Nalser was keeping something crucial from them. Thinking about it, he suddenly discovered what had been eating at him, “Hey, has he mentioned what would happen if you suddenly changed from the Modern Path to the Ancient Path? I do not believe that it is as simple as that.” Hearing this Mei started thinking and it was question she couldn’t answer. Nalser had never mentioned anything regarding this. However, now that she thought about it, it truly wasn’t as simple as changing the cultivation method. They would probably have to start cultivating all over again. It wouldn’t be something disastrous for her or her brother or anyone else from the Junior Generation.

However, the Elder Generation was a different story, they had spent most of their lives to reach where they have reached. To tell them to start over again would be the same telling them to throw away all the efforts they had invested. Realizing this, she told her thoughts to everyone in the room and all of them let out a sigh. One of the old men looked towards the Father and said in a helpless tone, “It is just as we feared. It truly is not that easy. It would be extremely beneficial for the Juniors but us old foggies would soon become obsolete and an obstacle to them.” The middle aged man just gravely nodded his head, however Mei chipped in, “That may not be the case.”

Everyone looked towards her with a questioning gaze and her Father asked, “What do you mean by that?” Mei just said, “I have been inside the Library, where all the techniques and such are recorded. It was humongous. It was easily double the size of the Royal Capital. I refuse to believe that he doesn’t have techniques that the Elder Generation can use there.” Hearing this, all the elders had a new spark in their eyes. When before they thought that she would just say something to comfort them, now they understood that, what she said made sense.

If the Library itself was that big, there may be techniques that even they can use to stay relevant. Maybe even overcoming the Tribulation won’t be a dream any more. These old men had all given up on trying to take on the Tribulation and had decided to live out their long lives as ordinary Nascent Soul Elders. Under the Celestial/Empyrean level, they were actually the highest level experts already, so it wouldn’t be that bad. They all nodded to each other and then to the Patriarch. Seeing this situation even the Patriarch had a new spark lit in his eyes. He decided to take this gamble. He was already walking on tight rope over a pitfall of jagged rocks. If this gamble failed, he can only blame himself. He closed his eyes as he said, “Okey, we will follow you. However, is there a limit on how many people we can take with us?”

Every ones gazes fell onto Mei who said with a slightly downcast face, “I do not have the authority to take anyone to be honest. He said that I can choose a maximum of 70 people for the screening. The one who makes the final decision will still be him. I honestly have no idea on what requirements he chooses the people, so I would take the people most loyal to the family.” Hearing this, her father just nodded. This was within their expectations, No matter who it was, they wouldn’t trust something so important completely to a person he had only known for a few days.

Having reached the decision, Mei also informed them of the deadline and they started covertly gathering all the people who were loyal to them.

***

While they were all discussing this, Dummy was growing increasingly agitated. During the four days he had been acting as Nalser, he had suffered 43 hidden attacks. 49 “Bandits” had tried to rob him and for some mysterious reason, a lot of rumours about him being Devil Way cultivator had spread. It was extremely obvious that someone was trying to get rid of him and Dummy wanted to release his true cultivation and slaughter this whole town already. Unfortunately, He couldn’t find out who the assassins and “Bandits” belonged to or otherwise that family wouldn’t exist any more. Suddenly, excitement ran over his face. He just got word from Sweeper that Nalser had exited his enlightened state. He would no longer have to pretend to be him. As he entered the Island, he was greeted by a burst of peculiar Aura.

When he followed the Aura to the cause, his jaw almost dropped to the ground as he lost his composure. What greeted him was Nalser Blinking around the training room. This wasn’t Domain Blink but rather a real Blink. He was using his own strength to teleport around. To be able to teleport like this in the Qi Gathering Stages was unheard of, all Artefacts that could allow a person to teleport like this were usually either Dimensional Artefacts like Starry Island or some other special Artefacts. But you had to be at least Core Formation to use those kinds of Artefacts. The techniques to use teleportation, those were rarer than a Qilin horn or a Phoenix feathers. And without a doubt those techniques were all at the Celestial/Empyrean level.

This currently was a historical moment. As Dummy stared slack jawed, Librarian went next to him and said, “It is amazing isn’t it. He gained enlightenment towards the Heavenly Law of Freedom and has managed to get the innate ability to do small distance teleportation. You got to hand it to him, just when you think that he couldn’t surprise you any more and that you had seen it all, he goes and flips it all upside down.” Dummy could just weakly nod to that.

Nalser turned their understanding of things and limitations completely upside down time and time again. However, he didn’t feel jealous, he felt anticipation. He was excited to see just how far Nalser could go.

***

Soon, Nalser stopped blinking around and sat down with closed eyes. He was imprinting the feeling and limitations completely to his soul. When he finally opened his eyes, a little crystal orb appeared in his hands. On the orb, you could see Mei standing there and her voice echoed out, “My Father agreed to follow you and in 3 days we will wait for you in the agreed location.” A smile spread out on Nalser’s face as he turned towards Librarian, “Do you know any techniques a kin to mind reading?” Librarian was confused as he said, “Yes I do, the bigger the gap between us, the easier it is for me. Why?”

Nalser’s smile turned a bit cruel as he said, “I need your help to weed out the poisonous grass amongst the Herbs.” Hearing that, everyone understood what Nalser was planning to do.