"Lin.... We arrived at mercenary city." Bo An sounded sad when she said that, opening his eyes after stopping his spirit cultivation, Lin saw unwillingness in her eyes and held the teenager girl's hand.

"My Bo An is strong in mind, body and spirit, don't cry now." Lin tried to calm the girl's emotions which from the look in her eyes, threatened to over-flood her cheeks in tears.

"En," Bo An nodded as if to affirm her so-called strength, holding tight to Lin's hand she continued while removing the moisture from her eyes in the other hand's sleeve : "Let's go watch the scenery outside, the three naughty dummies left to have some fun already." She tried her best to smile and to give Lin the last memories of them together with her smiling face and cheerful side, not with tears and sadness.

Taking her outside, he saw the long line of carriages, beast mounts and people stretching all the way to the obsidian black walls of this city, ahead of their caravan was other convoys and the two sides of the road which was made from the same black stones like the city walls, had teams of people moving back and forth in a predetermined distance and keeping a close eye on the caravan convoys waiting in order to enter mercenary city.

Each team had twelve people in some kind of black armor which looked heavy yet sturdy, none of them wasn't a spirit disciple and even females looked stronger than the cultivators in comparable realms amongst their convoy, there was three silver armored captains ahead of each dozen black armored people walking in formation and every silver armored captain was in the middle stages of the spirit master realm or higher.

Finally the single commander of each patrolling team was in a bright gold armor and sitting in the center point of his patrol team's sentry area, measuring the area each team is responsible for guarding with his eyes, Lin knew that each team is responsible for watching over an eight kilometers distance of this road, once an issue, scuffle or disturbance happens between the incoming convoys for any reason, they'll find one of the teams in the area they're in intervening to calm things down and maintain order while the other team members on the other side of the road will take care of overseeing the guarding duty.

"Eh!, Even our hired mercenary groups are wearing similar armors like these guys," Lin looked ahead and saw Li Yang wearing a green armor which twinkled under the light of the sun, Chen Fu and his wife Xue were wearing a golden armor like the commanders of these guarding teams with a few other gold armored people in the two mercenary groups, the rest were wearing either silver armor which was the majority or black armors which were the minority like in the case of little Tong.

"Their city forbids entery to any guild member who wouldn't wear his armor, but don't let appearances fool you the higher the rank of the armor the tougher it is to hurt these mercenaries, if you met them in battle you'll know the difference, the black armor is called dark-steel, deep-silver, heavy-gold, and crystal-green. They're ranked according to their armor and called likewise, dark-steel mercenary, deep-silver mercenary and so on, beyond that there's the cyan-warlord mercenary, blue-king, purple-emperor and finally the white-sovereign mercenary." Circling his neck with her left hand, Bo An pointed at different colored armors as she taught Lin what she knows.

"I see, come Bo An, let's go up and take a look at this city from above." Holding Bo An's waist with a strong arm, Lin activated his martial-spirit and flew directly upwards aiming to take a look beyond these high walls at the city of the mercenaries, these black walls stretched upwards for almost ten kilometers according to Lin's estimations, yet after flying up and being higher than the walls Lin only saw one extremely tall and enormous building completely made from white stones which could be seen from outside the city, it was directly in the center of that great city and a layer of fog was around it's center and blocking Lin's sight from seeing the city, that fog was stopping once it touched the top of the city walls and didn't spread out at all, like a layer of fog curtains covering the city and only that great white building in the center was allowed to be revealed.

"Heh, you thought you could just take a peek because you can fly, of course there's going to be a formation on the city. See, that's the mercenary guild's tower, not even my grandpa is allowed to enter the area beyond this layer of fog upwards. if you want to see what's beyond these walls then you'll have to enter like everyone else after paying your entrance fees. We should go down, if one of the seniors living in the higher levels of that tower found our actions to be displeasing then we'll be in some needless troubles." Bo An smirked when she saw Lin squint his eyes trying to look at the white tower, circling his neck with her arms she gave him a great hug while enjoying being carried by Lin to fly, even if she experienced flying ever since she was a toddler, this time was completely different and she felt like there's nothing better than being hugged by Lin to fly, such peace and tranquility she won't be getting any for a while to come unfortunately.

"Heh, alright let's go down before we annoy anyone, where did Sun and the others go?" Lin kissed her cheek then went back to sit on the roof of their carriage, spreading his soul sense out, Lin couldn't find Frostine, Sun or Fang Bo even after looking fifteen kilometers away from where they stood.

"To explore the area most likely, they promised not to cause troubles and always to stay in their cute forms and keep their distance from strangers, of course I told them not to try and enter the city under any circumstances." Bo An wasn't worried for their safety at all, Fang Bo would hurry here in the first sign of danger or trouble and they can help the others if they needed help, running her fingers through Lin's long hair, Bo An spoke while biting her lower lip slightly.

"You won't enter the city with us?" Lin hugged her to him tighter when he saw the look in her eyes, seeing Bo An nod sadly he continued : "Then I won't say goodbye to you, just busy yourself with cultivation and you'll find me knocking on the doors of your clan in no time." Kissing her cheeks again and again, Lin patted her back soothingly and Bo An was sobbing silently while clinging to his back with a death grip.

"You promised to come visit me before big sister Mia, if you dare go to her first I won't forgive you.... Or her." Finally after a while Bo An calmed down, seeing Lin's calm eyes stare at the side of her face she muttered faintly, when she saw the amused smirk on his face after hearing her words she felt embarrassment and hid her face in his hair, then she felt Lin's gentle kiss on the nape of her neck which tickled her into giggling.

"Bo An is so cute when she's jealous, look, the kids are back." Squeezing her in a final hug, Lin pointed towards the three incoming beasts, whenever they passed a group of kids a cheer of various calls would follow, the girls were awed by the cuteness of the three animals and the boys would try to catch them, however, the three beasts were not normal and would easily evade being caught by the kids arms while evading the pathways of strong individuals as they returned.

"En, take care of yourself love, Bo An will be dreaming of you every time I sleep." Whispering in his ears, Bo An pecked him on the lips with a fleeting kiss afterwards before releasing herself from his embrace gently and turning to run towards Fang Bo, reaching her beast companion Bo An took him in her arms and ran towards the south alongside mercenary city's walls.

Even if she hid her crying face from Lin, the tears which fell behind her as she ran betrayed the girl, and Lin sighed as he watched her go further from where he stood until she left his sight and soul sense range.

"Buddy, what did you do to Bo An?, Her eyes were red and she was crying!, Shouldn't you go after her and apologize for what you did?" Sun jumped on his shoulder and kept tugging at Lin's hair as he spoke.

"Hooit." Frostine nodded while patting her talons which looked like she's doing some kind of dance, she seemed to agree with Sun on what he said.

"Do you think I would hurt her feelings?, You two are unbelievable!, She's sad because Bo An is leaving us to go back to her clan. Humph, come let's go see how Zhang's date was, I hope nothing went wrong." Lin saw the two beasts nod as if Bo An's tears were his fault, slumping his shoulders in disappointment he walked towards Zhang who used the chance of the caravan convoy stopping to go train his physical strength in an open area outside the jurisdiction of the guarding teams to the north nearby the borders of eternal forest.

Whenever one of the mortal families saw him they would smile and greet him, the kids would swarm him and ask all kinds of questions or try to pat or hold Sun or Frostine mischievously.

The mercenaries in their official armors or the cultivators who joined their convoy midway would cup their fists to greet Lin, Qiang Chi brought Rong Qing and followed after Lin once they saw him leave the caravan convoy.

The former assassin had regained two stages of the apprentice realm during the short duration Lin hadn't seen him, and Qiang Chi kept giving the man which he still thinks as someone terribly dangerous envious looks.

Wei was in some kind of argument with the merchant called Hao which he kicked out alongside other merchants midway once the danger of the beast-wave cleared, Zan Shui and Su Meiyin held the princess's hands and looked at Lin from afar before leaving the convoy to go enter the city on their own.

Li Yang and Chen Fu were just a few hours away from completing the escort mission then leaving to use their share of sin energy to develop their groups however they planned, Wang was busy looking for a woman for his bestie and Lai was next to Wei and wishing for some isolating wax to plug his ears in order not to hear all that nonsense from the group of talkative merchants which were attracted to the loud voice of merchant Hao, soon the topic started to change to the prices and the market trend and Lai wanted to strangle both Wei and Hao while shouting : "The fuck would you call this an argument, why don't you fight it out already you hypocrites?, Clearly you don't stand being close to one another and here you're smiling and exchanging profitable ideas!".

Lin joined Zhang in the morning exercise with Chi and Qing while Sun and Frostine sat to the side to watch while enjoying the food Qiang Chi offered, first Lin was surprised by Rong Qing's fast advancement and completely different degree of strength, speed and reflexes.

Then he was surprised again when Qiang Chi activated his martial-spirit and his skin color and texture and body height changed, he transformed into a tall brown bear with thick fur bear claws and jaws full of fangs and everything, which helped the man absorb the majority of the hits he received, slashing and cutting attacks affected him slightly but blunt-edge attacks were almost completely neglected if they didn't surpass certain degree of force.

When Lin tried to use spirit energy to face Rong Qing in a sparring match, he was completely suppressed and very harshly to speak of what happened because the former assassin was capable of using five attributes, yes, when Qing used light or fire energies he wasn't doing it expertly and when he tried to use the chaos energy he only was able to use a miniscule amount because his meridian pathways couldn't handle this tyrannical energy yet, however, his usage of the darkness attribute was fluid and he could very easily mix it with his soul nature to suppress Lin's light energy which hadn't reached it's previous purity yet.

Just by relying on his years of experience, Qing was able to give Lin a demonstration of the different between them, thankfully Qing was able to use a lot of techniques including spirit armor because he used to be a tyrant once otherwise he wouldn't be able to suppress Lin at all, right now he's only lacking cultivation techniques suitable to his affinities so that he can fully develop himself while using all of his potential.

Of course if Lin was fleeing then Qing would be helpless to stop him.

After sparring with Zhang, Qiang and Qing, Lin looked at the line of carriages which almost had it's half inside the city by now, lanterns of stone with some kind of white crystals inside them were on top of high pillars made from the same black stone on each side of the road, one by one these lanterns lit up the road once darkness of the night descended, yet more caravan convoys seemed to be joining the line every couple of hours.

"We should go, Wei must be about to enter the city by now." Lin said then took Sun and Frostine in his arms and walked towards the city gate which was quite a few miles away.

"So big guy, did you and Tong talk?" Lin asked as he poked Zhang's side with his elbow.

"En, we did yesterday." Zhang seemed to blush slightly then walked faster.

"That's good to know, was it a short conversation or a long one. Tell me what happened man." Lin smirked when he saw this muscular build man try to ignore the topic and evade him.

"She was about to finish her shift and invited me to her carri-.... Never mind, it was nothing." Zhang grinned suddenly as he remembered what happened then suddenly halted his words, scratching the back of his head he tried to avoid the topic again as his eyes fell on Chi and Qing behind Lin who were likewise very curious.

"I see, you two go on ahead, take Sun and Frostine with you." Lin handed one of his companions to each of the two and smiled when he saw them give Zhang looks of annoyance.

Still, these two ran ahead towards Wei's convoy like Lin ordered and left their young master Lin to enjoy listening to what happened in Zhang's first date alone.

"No need to hide any detail from me, you know that I'm a good keeper of secrets, right big guy?" Lin said as he munched on some snacks until they return.

"Tong met me after I left your carriage yesterday and said she wanted to talk to me after her shift ends, since I wanted to get to know her I visited her carriage like we agreed. You see first I wasn't able to speak but she held my hand and kept speaking about a whole lot of things, then gradually she talked about how hard it was to cultivate and I said what I know and feel. Before we knew it, it was almost morning already, she kissed me on the lips and placed my hand on her chest and my mind went blank, when I woke up she was beneath my body and both of us fully naked with my penis inside her body. I never knew that doing naughty things would be this exciting!" Full of excitement and very spiritedly, Zhang narrated what happened and Lin laughed at Zhang's sight as his ox eyes widened and enlarged when he mentioned the last detail.

"Yes they can make your heart feel like bursting alright, so, do you like Tong?, I don't mean her soft body and all that but her personality, character and halo." Lin patted Zhang's shoulder and asked as they walked.

"I don't know, I never tried doing that with any female friend before, but I don't mind spending the rest of my time with Tong if that's what you're asking." Zhang's simple answer made Lin smile and say no more.

"They're about to enter the city, come let's go." Zhang noticed little Tong at the far end of the convoy and his eyes glowed as he left Lin and ran towards her after giving that excuse.

"Heh, I never took him for a love struck fool but he's actually very cute." Lin stopped to watch Tong who smiled cheerfully once she saw Zhang running towards her and sneakily gestured for a hidden part between the carriages away from the eyes of others, then took Zhang between her arms once he followed and started kissing him deeply while Zhang held her butt and raised her to his level.

Looking at the large gates which were widely opened, the smaller of the gates was the one on the far right, individuals would pass them on foot or mounted and rarely would they enter riding a small sized carriage but one thing was in common between all of the entrees they were all alone or small families, through the right most tunnel mortals would enter and the left one cultivators would enter, the one next to it was split in two as well with two wide tunnels and the caravan convoys would split in two before entering through each passage despite being the same convoy, the split tunnel in the right would be entered by the mortals alongside the carriages carrying the mundane merchandise and the tunnel on the left would be entered by cultivators and mercenaries alike alongside the merchandise containing even the weakest strand of spirituality.

The third gate from the right had a single elder wearing cyan armor which looked very light and weightless as he raised the cup of tea in his hand to his lips to take a small sip, he was sitting under a small pavilion made from four wooden sticks tied together by a piece of linen to shade him from the sun in the morning and a small and short-legged wodden table ahead of him, next to him to the left as he sat was a strange slap of rock completely white and smooth on the surface of it's rectangular shapewhich narrows on the top like the tower in the center of that city and was about five meters tall, to the right was the long tunnel below the black city walls completely open and empty of anyone seeking to enter through it.

There was a couple more tunnels to the right of that man but they were blocked by black stones on the first tunnel and white stones on the final tunnel, looking up from where he stood, Lin saw the great sign carrying the name of the city and the bold writing it was in caused Lin's eyes to hurt and his vision blur when he stared at it, below that sign was another smaller sign saying "west gate" and he felt nothing strange from that one when he stared at it, he lowered his head to look at the end of that third and empty tunnel then at the elder with goatee who calmly sipped from his cup of tea and seemed to care not at all for the hustle and bustle on the two forked tunnels to his left.

"He's wearing a cyan armor then he's a cyan-warlord mercenary, is it only for the entrance of lords this tunnel?" Lin crossed his arms around his chest and muttered faintly as he watched the inside of mercenary city through this empty tunnel, then he continued while looking at the two blocked tunnels : "Does that mean these two tunnels are specifically for kings and emperors?, Sovereigns don't have a tunnel does that mean they just fly over the walls!" Scratching his jaw, Lin looked up and remembered the fog which blocked his eyesight.

Looking at the caravan convoy which was just one convoy behind until it was their turn to enter then smirking slyly, Lin walked slowly towards the elder and his face was no different from a curious child around his visible age being amazed by the sceneries around him.

"Hrmmm!...." The elder underneath the makeshift pavilion raised his eyes to look at the approaching boy with obvious surprise, then he raised his cup to take another sip, finding his cup empty the man filled another one and drank while watching Lin walk slowly towards him and looking everywhere around.

"Greetings senior, this gate is empty and these two are very busy while these two are blocked, would you be kind enough to enlighten an ignorant junior?" Lin cupped his fist and bowed politely when he was tens of meters away from the elder's pavilion, raising his waist up he asked.

"Idiot!, Senior Xiao Yan he doesn't know the rules of-" Li Yang happened to look to the left before he led his mercenary group to enter with the convoy which was about to enter the tunnel, seeing Lin standing in front of this senior at the gate where only those who seek to challenge the trials to enter directly and gain the approval of the everlasting stone's spirit soul.

Trying to warn Lin, Li Yang found this elder smirk towards him while smoothening his goatee, that man in cyan armor raised an open palm towards Li Yang and the tyrant closed his mouth with fear very visible in his eyes.

"Even mortals are allowed to challenge this trial, since you are here why not try. You're just a junior in the apprentice realm and the trials adjust their difficulties according to the challenger, what is your choice kid?" Xiao Yan looked directly at Lin's golden pupils then spoke, seeing a few dozens of cultivators stand next to Li Yang including Chen Fu and Ning Xue and a gathering of mercenaries with worry in their eyes for the boy, made Xiao Yan very eager to know what this popular boy would choose.

"Since it adjusts itself then I would be challenging the abilities of those around my age right?" Lin asked as he looked at Xiao Yan's eyes without shying away from his piercing gaze.

"En, this trial tests dormant potential not fighting abilities, that's why you don't need to worry about exposing your secrets while taking the trials. You only need to cross a distance from the entrance of the tunnel to pass, how far is the distance?, That doesn't get decided by me. Now what is it going to be?, Challenger or a quitter." Raising his cup to drink, Xiao Yan gave Lin a sly gaze.

"Hehe, senior Xiao Yan is teasing me but I'm not shameless enough to show you my back after you wasted some precious time to explain all these details to me, I accept your offer and would like to challenge your city's trials please." Smiling, Lin cupped his fist and firmly said his wish aloud.

"En, good." Xiao Yan gave Lin an approving nod then slapped the white stone with a handful of fire energy, this fire was bluish-white and from it Lin felt a fire intent countless times stronger than his own.

"Buzz...." A buzzing sound was heard from the large white stone and a strange formation appeared on the floor of the tunnel in front of Lin's eyes, colorful and colorless runes and inscriptions appeared and disappeared then exchanged place and combinations strangely.

Wei was frowning, because this high-profile behavior of Lin would make people notice him prior to his fights in the arena, he wanted Lin to suddenly appear in the arena like a dark horse or a shooting star before they end their disguise and let the fake team continue with the trade delegation all the way to the sunrise empire in the east, while they sneak back into Tang city to send the water-pearl to ancestor Jianyu alongside some of the profits they'll gain from betting on Lin and auctioning the couple of sin energy bricks

Lai was excited to be able to witness Lin taking on the trials of mercenary city, despite these trials being very famous since a long time ago, not much of the younger generation would attempt them every year, because once you step inside the formation your bone age will be calculated then you'll be given the same difficulty like some great genius who might've lived a dozen millions of years back and passed the trials or didn't yet was able to cross the majority of the test!

Wang had grown to have similar blind faith like Zhang in Lin's abilities and was searching for Zhang with his eyes in the gathering of people, he had seen a few females with probabilities of being accepted by his best friend, yet, he couldn't find the big guy everywhere he looked and was befuddled by that because Lin was with Zhang and the two fellows who became Lin's latest lackeys, all of them returned except for the muscular man.

"Oy Chi, have you seen where Zhang went?" Nudging the young man with scars, Wang asked while looking around, thankfully he didn't notice the expression on Lin's follower before he managed to hide it.

"Young master Ming told us to go ahead before him because he wanted to speak alone with senior Zhang." Qiang Chi hurried to cover Sun's mouth to shut him up before he says something which he shouldn't reveal, then answered while looking at Lin who looked at the formation which lit up the floor of the tunnel, but in fact he was trying to avoid eye contact with Wang.

Rong Qing smiled when he saw Wang walk away to search for Zhang and looked at Sun who kept glaring at Chi who just held his muzzle to stop him from talking, the little kitten was hanging from the young guard's chest clothes and with each small lacerating swing of it's claws, Sun would cut a strand of hair from Qiang Chi's short and immature beard, yet the person himself stood at attention like a soldier made from stone and never flinched under the toying games of this beast companion of his young master.

"Hohoot." Frostine nodded repeatedly as if to encourage Sun to trim Chi's beard correctly, perching on Qing's shoulder she kept fluttering her wings excitedly which sent cool air in the surrounding area.

Li Yang and Chen Fu knew there was no going back from this after this senior called Xiao Yan gave them the first warning, turning to give the orders for their men to do their job and make the Cheng clan's caravan convoy smoothly enter the city and not to block or delay the entrance of other people.

Only the three of the tyrants remained outside with Wei, Lai, Chi and Qing to watch Lin as he challenges the trial.

Lin didn't take a single step inside the tunnel and waited for Xiao Yan to give him the signal to move and enjoyed watching this strange formation instead, while Xiao Yan studied Lin with his eyes wanting to see some nervousness or signs of becoming impatient on the boy, yet he only saw Lin calmly wait and wait with no worry on his face.

"Alright you can start now, once you step inside this formation you should wait until it calculates your bone age, then you'll only need to cross the distance being lit up by the formation to pass this trial. Good luck." Xiao Yan raised his cup to take a sip then lazily gave Lin the green light to start.

"Thank you." Lin cupped his fist again and slightly bowed towards the elder, then turned and took his first step inside the formation and didn't resist the gentle stream of energy from entering his body.

After this strand of energy moved everywhere in his body it exited his body and joined the formation back, then the formation glowed bright in gold blinding light then it was altered to the red color then turned silver and green then white before dimming out completely, Xiao Yan gave Lin another look but his eyes were different this time, this time he was looking at Lin's small body inside the trial's formation with appreciation and some disbelief hidden deep inside his eyes.

While smoothening his goatee, Xiao Yan tried to estimate the talent of Lin according to the brightness of each glow the formation made, unfortunately this formation was directly under the control of the holder of the keys of this city and the master of the replica of the everlasting stone, the only white-sovereign mercenary in this city and the strongest individual of the few white-sovereigns who take mercenary city as their base of operations.

"Ommm...." Again the formation inscriptions below Lin turned alive and started to brighten the tunnel ahead for a hundred meters.

Seeing that made Xiao Yan frown, from Lin's looks he's at least eight and half years old, yet the formation treats him as if he's younger than seven!

"Kid, how old are you?" Xiao Yan looked at Lin then decided to ask before he gets to start his trial, he wanted to confirm that there's nothing wrong with the formation as well, because according to his judgement someone as old as Lin should receive a couple hundred meters trial at least!

"Replying to senior, I believe I am about six and half years old." Looking at the elder, Lin answered with the truth.

"Eh!" Li Yang.

"Huh!" Chen Fu.

"No way the brat is this young, right!" Ning Xue gaped her mouth and kept tugging at her man's arm in disbelief.

Qiang Chi and Rong Qing were surprised all the same yet knowing that filled them with pride, their young master Lin was a genius with unbelievable prospects and potential.

Wei sighed because the more people knew about Lin the less the probability they'll bet against him in the arena, he felt his heart being squeezed when he imagined the amount of money he's going to lose alongside the opportunity to snatch more from the gamblers of this city which is becoming less probable every second now.

"Go on then junior." After getting hold of his tumultuous emotions, Xiao Yan gestured for Lin to start moving.

Nodding, Lin looked at the end of the tunnel and took his first step.

Once the sole of his right foot touched the white floor of the tunnel, Lin felt like his fourty-eight kilograms of weight has just doubled!

"Gravity huh," muttering faintly, Lin continued to walk while mentally calculating the weight addition with each step forward. "One ton, one and half, two tonnes. Hrmm, there's an additional spirit pressure in this point, so it's not just gravity pressure but spirit pressure as well." After the ten meters mark, Lin started to feel the difference and smiled while watching sweat fall from his forehead to the ground.

This was the kind of exercise which he felt like his body really needed, carrying two tonnes of weight and getting pressured by an increasing gravity were completely different things, add the spirit pressure and Lin was already loving this trial.

'what kind of little monster have you found Yan?, He's enjoying this pressure!' Xiao Yan shuddered when he imagined his junior self placed under this pressure from two fronts, thinking about the red color which appeared right after the gold color, he was certain this boy has the fire affinity like himself.

While the elder called Xiao Yan was formulating a plan to recruit this boy as his disciple, Lin was at the twenty meters marks and stopped for a few seconds to feel the difference.

"Now it's soul pressure being added huh, still this weak pressure is laughable. The gravity pressure stopped increasing like it used to in the first ten meters and after it reached the three tonnes the increase became only fifty kilograms per step, the spirit pressure is the only thing which never ceased to increase for now." Murmuring to himself, Lin walked forward step by step while fending the soul pressure away very easily, he was slightly worried about the new light energy inside his body which is freshly recruited, such energy isn't pure or disciplined like the two general's armies, RIP generals.

Reaching the thirty meters mark, Lin felt some kind of intent pressure trying to get into his body, however, the two fires in his chest stirred up and fought this foreign energy off.

"Eh!, This is fire intent energy, he doesn't have only the fire affinity but fire-intent as well. Excellent, he's mine this boy is mine, mine Xiao Yan's future disciple is-..... Tch, why did they come now?" Feeling the fire-intent energy from Lin's body, Xiao Yan was smiling widely because he's in command of this guard and allowed first pick if he found a promising junior to introduce him to the guild and take him as a disciple if he sees fit.

However, he felt the aura of his friends and the people responsible for the job of overseeing the trial gates, frowning deeply he really wanted to find the asshole who sent the news to give him a few tight slaps.

"Fuck, I will find out later, none of them is allowed to try and snatch him away from me." Grinding his teeth, Xiao Yan raised his arm and a barrier of fire energy covered the area, that made the small audience of Lin's friends and acquaintances frown because their show was stopped suddenly but Xiao Yan doesn't give a shit about it apparently.

Wei and the others decided to go to the other side of the tunnel to watch the show, however, the procedures before entering weren't to be skipped under any circumstances or the authority of the city will throw them in the dungeons and only after the disciplinary hall is finished investigating them will they be allowed to leave.

By the time they reached the other side of the wall, everything will be all over and Lin's fate would be decided long ago.

"Ara!, Big brother Yan isn't giving me any face at all, I heard there's some sort of genius attempting the trial and had to skip one session of massage to come see for myself." An elderly woman wearing a white cape clasped on the shoulders of her cyan armor had signs of fading beauty which started to fall under the ruthless years of time was standing outside the fire barrier, smiling widely she kept looking at this barrier while speaking with a tune which made Xiao Yan's eyes twitch at the corner when he heard her.

"Big sister Huang is here already, where's this little boy?" Another woman appeared and asked this elderly woman once she arrived, she seemed younger and livelier while the elderly woman seemed calmer and gentler, hearing the question from the new arrival the elderly woman only smiled and pointed at the fire barrier. "Eh!, Big brother Yan this isn't fair, I wanna see, I wanna see, I wanna see." Figuring out what is going on, this younger looking woman kept banging on the fire barrier while shouting like a spoilt brat.

"Sister Huang and sister Ting are here already, what did Yan do this time?" Another woman appeared and asked while touching the fire barrier which started to fluctuate under Ting's hits, in a split second the barrier regained it's calm and the younger woman was hanging from the new arrival's neck and started to complain : "You see big sister Jia, your stupid man refuses to let me see the boy, they said there's a little genius attempting the trial and he's blocking us outside." Taking advantage of the situation, Ting made Xiao Yan look the villain in his woman's eyes which made the man inside feel his head almost exploding from anger when he heard what Ting said.

"I see, Ting, you're not trying to drive a wedge between me and my man are you?" Squinting dangerously at Ting, Jia asked while patting her head.

"I-i-I'm not!, Big sister Huang, help." Sweating suddenly and feeling something not right, Ting tried to smile yet her words failed her.

Running like the wind, Ting hid behind Huang's back.

"The party started without us huh, seems like Yan is serious about taking this one as a disciple, about time if I were to say, he's the only one who doesn't have disciples among the seven of us." One short and bulky the other tall and thin, these two arrived together and the one who spoke was the tall fellow, the short one seemed to agree with every word being said from his friend and nodded seriously when the matter of Xiao Yan having no disciples was mentioned.

"We had something better than a disciple once, alas, the jealousy of others and the hearts of men are two things which I can never understand. Elder Feng and Yao are welcome to join us or to go back, even I his wife is left outside same as everyone else." Jia said while taking out a chair to sit and crossing her leg, only what she said made the mood among the few lords a bit dark and heavy.

Even Ting who was acting like a child earlier, sighed and brought a chair to sit next to Jia, Huang, Feng and Yao did the same and sat in front of the fire barrier and the stifling silence made the mercenaries working on the gates and the incoming visitors try to be as quiet as possible.

After all, just a few dozen meters from them was five lords, if such mighty individuals were staying silent, then they as the much weaker individuals better keep it that way.

The only people feeling delighted by this change were the people waiting outside to enter the city, things became a lot faster and what usually took ten minutes to be done was over in one!

The only sound to be heard on the west gates of mercenary city would be the clopping sound of the beasts entering and the creaking of the carriages, even the beasts were silent and mutely entered the city without whimpering or breathing aloud.

"Such unfair treatment brother Xiao gives his own wife and colleagues, sigh." Another man arrived and spoke yet his words were dripping wet with ridicule, these words only helped to make the sitting lords in cyan armors frown and give this person who just arrived contemptuous glances.

"Says you Ma, I didn't want them to witness my new disciple before my lifelong rival." Finally, Xiao Yan created a small opening on his barrier for his colleagues to enter while speaking, he was grateful inside for Lin, because if he took the trial seriously then it would've been over before this disgusting and arrogant fellow called Ma arrives.

Lin was at the sixty meters mark now, the suppression he's experiencing saw a great change when Lin reached the halfway point of this trial.

At the fifty meters mark, he wasn't only experiencing gravity or spirit suppression but a fusion of the two kinds of energies, in the beginning this fusion was clearly not expertly done however, each step forward on the ten meter area he took, the fusion would be perfected until he reached this next mark at the sixty meters point, instead of experiencing the suppression of gravity and spirit energy fusion, the mixture changed to spirit and soul energies fusion and gradually the fusion would become better again with each step forward.

'I see, from zero to ten it was gravity which kept increasing until it was replaces with spirit then soul then intent then faith energies suppression, from the fifty meters point it changed to show me the fusion of energies as they try to suppress me with different combinations on every ten meters with refined fusion on every step forward.' Lin thought as he understood what kind of trial he's getting.

Lin felt the new audience of old people but ignored it, he already have Kai and the little raccoon was countless times stronger than these people, if they wanted to harm him while Kai is here they wouldn't be able to touch a hair on his head if Kai wanted, if Kai choose not to interfere then Lin wouldn't be able to avoid getting bullied no matter what he did.

If so, then there's no need to overthink whether or not these people are possible enemies and he should focus on how these energies are fused, because Lin has every and each one of these aspects already and the matter of fusing his energies has been haunting his thoughts for a while now.

Besides soul and intent or intent and spirit or the difficult triple fusions, Lin has no control over his Qi vitality or his aura of faith energy, previously when the gravity increased and pressured him Lin passively resisted with his physical strength and the same happened when the aura of faith was pressuring him, he just felt like something inside his body was passively resisting the pressure coming from the formation unlike when the strange intent tried to invade his body or the soul force tried to confuse him or the spirit energy tried to block his light energy and push it back to the dantian, his soul force, fire-intent and light energy would be riled up like a dragon who got held by the tail and roaring angrily to push these different types of pressures away from Lin's body.

"Sorry to keep you waiting Jia, apologies brothers and sisters." Xiao Yan held his woman's hand and raised it to give it a kiss while speaking, then looked at Huang and Ting, Feng and Yao then slightly bowed to give his apologies.

As for the fellow called Ma, Xiao Yan ignored him completely and poured the others a cup of tea each before sitting with his wife Jia, holding her hand tightly he kept looking at Lin who slowly walked forward while doing his best to understand how the fusion is done between spirit and soul energies.

"Tsk, why's his trial very short?" The revolting man called Ma suddenly mentioned the matter of Lin's trial after giving Lin a fleeting gaze, before the others got to speak Ma continued : "Humph, old Xiao did you manipulate the formation?, This matter won't be tolerated by the higher-ups you know." Ma spoke as if Xiao Yan did indeed do something, which made the other lords glare at him.

"That would be for the best, I'm still taking the boy as my disciple even if he's trash in the eyes of people such as you." Xiao Yan tightened up his grip on his woman's hand as he spoke to hold her from saying anything.

"Your disciple?, Heh, then let me congratulate you in advance. Here's my welcoming gift to your first disciple brother Xiao, since he's too weak to hold a spirit tool right now I'm having a difficulty in choosing the right gift for him, uh-huh, this ore I found in the mining mountains when I went to ask a friend of mine for some heavy-gold available for purchase for my son's birthday gift. I believe it is an ore of dark-steel with a five percent possibility of it containing dark-steel's essence, I think I've seen enough of brother Xiao's first disciple already, let's just hope he's not the last." With a smug grin and cocky attitude, that man called Ma left a large dark-brown boulder where he stood and left this message before leaving with a wide grin on his face, Ma was feeling like the victor of this rare chance to beat his rival, his arrogance has blinded him from actually checking anything other than the discrepancy in Lin's apparent age and the trial, had he stayed longer to feel how much pressure the boy was enduring, certainly Ma wouldn't have took the matter as a joke.

"Heh, what a great gift, I'm sure he'll repay it to him soon little Jia." Xiao Yan looked at the boulder which Ma left in contempt, then he hugged his woman by the waist and pointed at Lin who reached the seventy meters mark as he spoke.

"Big brother Yan, your disciple is such a little monster. He endured the perfect pressure of spirit and soul energies which I wouldn't have been able to endure when I was in the peak-perfection of the disciple realm!, Who is this boy?" Ting didn't seem like she heard or noticed what Ma said or even that he left already, after spouting all these things she looked around and sighed when she found out that Ma was gone.

"Tehehe, little Ting just spoke without minding her words, had the bad man Ma been nearby then he would've known something which he shouldn't have known." Huang smiled while looking at Ting who flinched when she saw Jia glare at her.

"He didn't alright!, Stop it already, big sister Jia is scary when she's angry you know." Ting shrank in her seat and grumbled weakly while puckering her lips, she did her best to avoid looking towards Jia and kept watching Lin.

She didn't want answers for her questions as well, who knows what she might do or say to annoy Jia who was in a bad mood.

"Still, the boy is really putting all of us to shame, spirit and soul no problem he walked it and shrugged it like some rain on his hair, now he's doing the same to soul and intent. Like Ting said he really is a monster, brother Yan where did you hide him from us?, Beast mountains!" Feng the tall and thin elder, lowered his cup of tea to the table and asked while feeling sorry for the overconfident Ma who is bound to receive a great surprise in the future for his misjudgement.

"I don't even know the boy's name he just walked towards me, despite having arrived in one of the caravan convoys he ended up in front of me and asked me why these gates are busy and these blocked with stones while this one empty. Such a strange boy, I thought, then it struck me, why not give him the trial?, even I could've never expecting this fountain of talent to explode in my face." Yan leaned his head on Jia's head and told his friends what happened, but he was reminded of the son he had once, he wasn't great like this boy but he was his flesh and blood, yet he was taken away from him too soon.

"This kid!, Do you think he's going to pass the intent and faith energies fusion as well?" Finally the short and bulky man called Yao spoke while looking at Lin who reached the eighty meters mark on the trial.

"It doesn't matter, you all know how difficult it becomes on the last ten percent of every trial." Jia said while looking at Lin, she was looking at this stranger who suddenly received a place in her man's heart with worry, last time it happened it was with their little baby boy, however, after losing him, her man's heart broke apart grieving his loss.

"Ah!, Impossible, he isn't suppressed, how is he doing it?, Don't tell me he's cheating!" Ting shrank again in her seat when Jia gave her a side-glance full of disappointment.

"Bffft, look closely idiot, he's not wearing anything but mundane clothes, the only tool he has on him is that space ring. Still, that's quite a high level space ring for a 1-stage spirit apprentice, not to forget that this is a gigantic amount of potential for someone his age, it's fair to call it unfair I guess." Huang pinched Ting's cheek while covering her mouth, an action which revealed some of her inherent beauty and elegance, then she seriously said that judgement while feeling the fire-intent energy and some faith energy from Lin being mixed to resist the pressure away from his body.

Yes, the boy seemed struggling under this suppression, but she felt it clearly, he was getting better in using his unrefined energy fusions and polishing his techniques.

The others nodded silently as they watched Lin reach the ninty meters point of his trial, the first sign of pain and difficulty appeared on the boy's face as his body got slammed by a triple fusion of suppression energy this time and almost staggered back a step to return within the area with of douple energies suppression.

They saw him do his best to resist and his sweat drenched clothes sticking to his small body, the sight was just awe-inspiring these lords and the few ladies in the audience gasped when they heard the thumping sound of Lin's heart which started it's melody whenever Lin was under great physical strain.

In tandem with Lin's heartbeats, the six lords felt their hearts clinch slightly at the beginning before they forcefully calmed themselves and looked at each other in shock while a single thought popped up in all of their heads in the same time.

Qi refiner!

"Sigh, from the length of his trial the boy isn't older than seven, right brother Yan!" Short Yao asked Yan.

"Mmm." Xiaoxi Yan was smiling widely while making that sound and nodding.

"He isn't far away from attaining the energy of Qi vitality, has fire-intent like brother Yan, great soul force which I can't estimate, how much faith energy does he have? and how did he find time to accumulate it? I feel dizzy just trying to find an answer to these questions, what is his affinities by th-.... Never mind, he's even able to use energy armor!" Yao counted Lin's advantages and wanted to ask, then found the light energy armor cover Lin's skin and sighed in surrender while thinking about how such a genius isn't deserved by someone like Xiao Yan.

"Congratulations brother Yan, this is my gift to your new disciple." Huang searched inside her space tool then brought out a white cape like the one she's wearing to decorate her cyan armor but smaller, giving it to Yan she smiled while imagining Lin's looks when he wears it.

Jia's corner of her lips twitched slightly when she saw the gift Huang offered, while Xiao Yan gave it a look then accepted it anyway after cupping his fist, it was a spirit tool and has the ability to protect the boy's back from the all out attack from a master realm cultivator.

"This is my gift to him, congratulations brother Yan on your first disciple I don't think you deserve him.... Kyaah, bad sister Jia, you're a bully, hateful bully." Ting offered a pair of green boots but her ear was twisted by Jia when she started to speak nonsense, jumping into Huang's embrace she puckered her lips while grumbling.

"I don't know what kind of weapon he likes that's why I will give a pair of gloves, congratulations brother Yan on you now disciple." Feng took out a pair of soft and thin silk gloves, then looked at Yao who took a moment to think before taking out a silver chainmail which looked extremely lightweight yet soft and sturdy.

"Brother Yan, I was planning on giving this to my youngest disciple when he reaches the disciple realm and passes the mercenary exam, but the safety of your disciple takes priority for now my brat can wait until I make another one before he goes into any mission outside the city. Congratulations." Yao spoke and Xiao Yan appreciated with his eyes the creation of his friend, who is not only a spirit lord of the pinnacle stages but also a master blacksmith and forger who almost reached the grandmaster rank in his profession.

"From me he gets this pendant, it can protect him from the attack of a peak tyrant in case of danger, invigorate his spirit energy and ease his comprehensions passively as long as he wears it." Jia took out a small blue pendant hanging from a thin silver chain, placing the pendant in her husband's palm she closed his fingers around it and looked at Lin who managed to cross one meter in his trial.

"I think I've seen enough, watching this boy's trial really makes me want to go beat up my disciples." Yao cupped his fist towards his friends then gave Lin a final look before leaving, Feng smiled and gave his silent nod before following his friend, he was planning on actually showing his lazy disciples some sweet pain of hard work.

"Tch, don't give me this look sister Jia, I know you want to be all lovey-dovey with big brother Yan kyaah.... Alright, Ill leave, mercy mercy." While swinging her feet as she sat on Huang's lap and hugged her neck like a brat, Ting spoke while burying herself deeper into the gentle woman's embrace but she was held by the hair this time since Jia couldn't get an opportunity to snatch the ear, quickly surrendering and fleeing once Jia snorted and let go of her hair.

Ting pouted her lips as she flew back to her residence but her eyes were serious, the few girls in that residence which are her disciples didn't know that their cheerful master was about to show them a whole different side to herself.

"Guess I should be going too to give you some private time, this god-sent genius is the way this unjust world is trying to make amends with you two, maybe he'll fill the place your son's had once in your hearts." Huang said that before leaving.

Her words made Xiao Yan and Jia shudder in sorrow before they raised their heads to look at Lin who crossed another meter on his trial.

His breathing was no longer calm but rugged and hurried, his face was pained from resisting the suppression which kept changing sequence on each meter unlike before when it changed every ten meters!

Yet despite all these hardships he's under, the eyes of Lin were looking forward strongly with no panick or fear at all inside them.

Holding each other's hands these two looked at their companion and saw the sorrow of loss in the eyes of one another, their son was lost and the news about his whereabouts were ending after the tracks led to a forbidden area inside beast mountains, they searched for years yet found nothing.

Can this boy replace their little Tu in their hearts like Huang said earlier?, The alchemist who examined Jia said that it was nearing impossibility for her to have another child because of the injury she received once while searching for her Tu.

While these two lords submerged in their sad memories, Lin was struggling really hard with each step forward ever since he reached the ninty meters point.

The triple energy fusion of Gravity, spirit and soul was rudimental at the beginning, yet on the next step it was advanced in the way it fused the energies, on the last step of that meter it was expertly done and Lin couldn't find any flaws in the fusion of energies at all.

On the earlier stages of the trial the fusion would be demonstrated through this formation gradually in the span of ten meters, yet now it was demonstrated in three steps and on the fourth step the mixture of energies would change order.

At the ninety-one meters point of the trial, Lin experienced gravity, spirit and soul energies fusion, yet on the ninty-two meters point, the gravity was removed from the suppressing energies and exchanged with intent instead, then on the next meter the spirit was removed and he experienced another triple fusion with the addition of faith energy instead of spirit energy.

Ninty-three meters point, it was intent, faith and gravity suppression.

Ninty-four meters point, it became spirit, intent and faith energies fusion to suppress Lin.

However, the step he took to be within the borders of the ninty-five meters point of the trial, made Lin almost fall on his side because his balance was fiercely disrupted by the quadrupled fusion.

His face red as he did his best to remain standing, even his breath felt like it fell in his stomach as it entered his chest under this unbearable suppression, the gravitational pull was really strong this time and the other suppressing aspects were strong all the same.

'this is the influence of the rudimental fusion of four energies?' Lin gathered his strength to take another step forward while smiling inwardly at how much he's struggling at the last stretch of his trial.

Gravity, spirit, soul and intent energies were fusing together on a deeper level with each step on this meter and doing their best to push Lin back as if he's a foe which must be rebelled back at any cost.

Good thing was the gentle assistance his body kept sending to his legs to relieve their stress from this straining gravity, the cool streams coming from Lin's opened acupoints was a great help and enabled him to pass this small hurdle and reach the next level of the trial.

Ninty-six meters point was easier on Lin in comparison to the previous meter, simply because his faith energy was greater in comparison to his body refinement attainments, the only difference was that one was being harnessed and refined while the other energy is still in it's raw form yet greater in supply.

Gravitational force was replaced with faith energy in the fusion just like how Lin predicted, and he passed this meter after taking a moment in each step to remember the workings of each fusion level.

Ninty-seven meters point, the disgusting gravity pressure was back again and a lot stronger than the last time!, Not only that, it arrived in exchange of the easiest energy for Lin to resist amongst the four energies fusion, sadly it replaced soul force.

'sigh, it is like this trial knows about my weakness and is trying to focus on them.' Lin thought as he felt his leg weighing a few mountains, seeing that he's unable to raise it from the ground, Lin slided his leg forward slowly while concentrating on keeping his body standing and maintaining his balance.

Normally Lin would cross one meter in three steps, this time he was slower than a snail in crossing that short distance!

The fusion strengthened gradually as he advanced along with the gravitational force, moving a finger felt like raising a considerable amount of weights for Lin.

Seeing Lin getting slower and slower as he advance, Xiao Yan was ready to stop the formation once Lin fails his trial.

Jia was absentmindedly looking at the boy's eyes which never ceased to burn with self-confidence, she was reminded of her boy's junior years long ago when his liveliness and aura of youth used to fill their residence.

She was afraid for this new and first disciple of her husband, will he be able to accept his loss in this trial?, She thought.

Still Lin endured and by sliding his legs forward bit by bit he was in the ninty-eight meters zone, however, it wasn't joy and happiness that he found there but a slamming force and a pressure which made him feel his bones and joints groan in pain, because this area he didn't face a fusion of four energies but the whole five aspects fusing to suppress his body and aiming to crush it beneath it.

"Ughh...." Even with his endurance limits which far surpass others in his age or even adult cultivators with quite a history in experiencing pain, Lin found this five-sided energy fusion irresistible with his current weakened soul force and spirit energy which aren't in their best form.

A grunt escaped his throat as Lin knew that he won't be able to remain standing for Long, having no other option but to activate his wings and use them to push himself the remaining couple of meters, without hesitation he willed his wings to help him move forward while trying to resist this energy which was fundamentally fused.

Lin thought his wings would get him out of this predicament, yet he found himself skidding forward slowly after his wings fluttered to be stopped once his body reached the ninty-nine meters point, if in the ninty-eight point Lin was being crushed by the pressure then in this point he was grinded on the molecular level.

He felt his chin gets pressed on his upper parts of the ribcage, his arms hanging limb on his side as if they're crippled and his shoulders slumping down extremely by the effect of this advanced quality of energy fusion.

His knees buckled his spine forcefully bent over and every vein of his body was on the verge of bursting after throbbing to the maximum limit, even his blood felt like it was being forcefully paused in place.

"Thump.... Ba dum...." In that moment when Lin felt like his body is failing him, he heard his heart beating and from his back he felt heat overcome his skin and muscles as blood was forced out from his pores.

The light energy armor received a shade of red when all that blood was flushed out from Lin's body and he regained the ability to walk again as the surrounding suppression became tolerable.

Each step he took forward, the layer of blood would fade out until he was standing in the last and final point of this trial.

Only a single step and Lin would be done with this little test, yet after the layer of blood was evaporated, he found himself imprisoned in place with the highest and most perfect fusion of these five energies.

Crushed and compressed from every angle and even drawing breath felt like his chest had to push a continent just to take a faint amount of air!

'this is bad, I can't wait in place any longer. Move, move, move move, MOVE I SAID!' knowing that this situation was dangerous, Lin's eyes finally started to show signs of panicking as he commanded his wings to move him forward and away from this energy.

"What a Lively boy you have here little Yan, he almost broke my hand and here I was protecting him from bashing his head against the wall." The deep sound awoke the two lords from their daze, raising their heads to look at the ceiling of this tunnel they found an old man with such a great amount of muscles which his white armor couldn't hide how in great shape this elder was.

Lin's small body was held by the waist on this elder's large palm and clearly the boy was unconscious right now, looking down again at where he just stood a few seconds ago at the end of the trial's formation they saw the green line on the end which indicates that Lin has passed his test.

"Greetings sovereign, this Yan is grateful for your timely intervention and saving my disciple." Connecting the dots after seeing the green line at the end of the formation and Lin's unconscious body in the hands of sovereign Jianhong plus what he said, Xiao Yan was about to kneel on a single knee like he should when seeing this city lord but he couldn't, seeing his woman Jia kneel yet he being unable to do the same made Yan give sovereign Jianhong a helpless look because the reason of this strange situation must be him, only someone as unfathomable like this senior can manipulate Xiao Yan's body without him even noticing.

"He isn't your disciple yet, but that doesn't mean you can't be his teacher, both of you have the fire-intent but the kid doesn't have a strand of fire energy inside him, you can ask me for anything but you can't be his full master. Understood?" The extremely muscular and big in size and shape old man in white armor which Xiao Yan just called sovereign Jianhong, held ulthe unconscious Lin to his chest as if he's a large sized baby while speaking, giving Xiao Yan a glance he seemed apologetic for the man but he wouldn't allow Yan to be Lin's full master no matter what, yet he can allow him to be Lin's fire-intent teacher and that was clearly his bottom line.

Feeling slight unwillingness but he hurried to exterminate them from his heart, Xiao Yan lowered his head and cupped his fist then said : "I'm willing to be his teacher in fire-intent sovereign Jianhong, it would be my honor to teach your future disciple how to methodically use fire-intent." Then he bowed deeply while smiling helplessly at how much little Ting's predictions were correct, he really doesn't deserve such a genius.

When the boy passed the trial, neither he nor Jia were able to notice what he did and they simply felt him vanish from their senses and sight.

If it wasn't for what sovereign Jianhong did, then he really would've bashed his head against the formation hardened ceiling and since he was fainted then it was very possible that the boy could've been a splash of blood and gore right now if it wasn't for sovereign Jianhong.

"Good, you'll be rewarded twenty thousand contribution points and the freedom to choose one of the spirit tools or equipments in the blue rank treasury, when the boy wakes up you'll receive word to come give him his first lesson, these were his welcome gifts from you and your friends?" Jianhong nodded then went to touch the five meters rock at the entrance with his right palm while telling Xiao Yan of his rewards and responsibilities, that white smooth rectangular stone shrunk to the size of two fingers and flew towards Lin's forehead and covered him in a halo of green energy, then Jianhong's eyes fell on the gifts which Yan's friends and the disgusting boulder which Ma left and asked.

"Yes, mine gift is not amongst them, I was planning to give him this fire crystal vest but he isn't a fire cultivator, maybe this strand of wood lichen to help him recover, or this root of thousand years old vitality ginseng,...." Xiao Yan was taken aback by the sovereign's question, taking out a protective vest which caused the air in the area to rise a few dozen degrees higher as he explained, Xiao Yan was taking one valuable item after another while the over-exaggerated senior smirked and Jia raised an eyebrow at how idiotic her man was acting, just what kind of treasure can Xiao Yan possibly have which this sovereign Jianhong can't have with a snap of his fingers!

It was the sentimental value which mattered alright!

"Just the vest will do, Ill have it added to boy's belt or used as a decoration for one of his garments." Feeling like he had enough fun, Jianhong gathered the gifts and placed them in the ring on Lin's finger then gave that large boulder a look before touching it with his palm which made it turn to powder.

"That was fellow cultivator Ma Bingwen's gift, something about it might having a five percent chance of containing dark-steel's essence was said if I remember correctly." Xiao Yan offered the explanation to sovereign Jianhong once he saw the man frown and squint his eyes.

Even Jia with her seriousness had to stifle her laughter when she heard her man say the complete name of his rival in years now.

"Ma Bingwen huh," seeing Lin's complexion and breathing stabilize, Jianhong took the stone from his forehead and threw it back where it was and it enlarged in size, looking at the dark-brown powder on the floor of the tunnel he muttered the name lazily before turning to look towards the destination of pearl city for a few seconds then up towards the direction of the hiding Hongtian before vanishing from the sight of the couple of lords.

Patting her husband's back, Jia hugged Xiao to comfort him for losing the first disciple he tried to recruit.

The man gathered his scattered items back in his space ring and kissed his wife deeply to show her that he wasn't as sad as she thought before taking her towards the blue treasury to choose their single item from the place which only kings can get access to, they still have twenty thousand contribution points in addition to use them on this shopping spree which he plans to give her, for once Xiao Yan wanted to pamper his woman which he felt like he's been neglecting ever since their Xiao Tu's disappearance incident.

The tunnel became empty and quiet after everyone left, then another lord realm cultivator from the guild and similarly garped in the cyan armor arrived and waited for courageous individuals to test them, seeing the heap of dark-brown powder on the floor he waved his arm and caused it to be sent outside the city and the white floor of the tunnel to appear spotless clean.

Finally Wei and the others were done with the inspection routines and arrived with Li Yang, Chen Fu and Ning Xue to the exit of the tunnel where Lin is supposed to be exiting, after squinting their eyes to see the entrance they found Lin nowhere to be found and only some strange man was there!

Where's Lin? Where's elder Xiao Yan?, Yang thought while seeing Wei's face darken and contort like a demon.

"Young master Ming is heading this way." Rong Qing said and Wei who almost released a string of profanities turned to look at the direction Qing was pointing then ran with Lai and Wang while ignoring the convoy and the mercenaries.

Rong Qing and Qiang Chi followed while carrying Sun and Frostine.

'fuck these asshole mercenaries, to hell with the city and the plans I made, they dare kidnap that senior Ming's grandson!, They dare take my pearl! humph what courage.' Wei would look back at Qing to confirm their direction every once in a while before grinding his teeth silently.

Li Yang and Chen Fu looked at one another then at the Cheng clan's convoy which was missing an authority, before deciding to work some extra time for free just this once.

Ning Xue was wondering where little Tong went because she didn't see her since the convoy started to enter and thought the little girl went ahead, yet after the whole convoy was inside the city there's still no sign of the girl on the rear of the caravan!

While Li Yang and Chen Fu gave orders for the caravan convoy to start heading for the Cheng clan's residence, Tong and Zhang were tumbling in bed inside one of the rooms of a hotel near by the same destination of the convoy.

The girl was impatient after some foreplay with Zhang back in the convoy, she decided to take him along ahead of the convoy and pass through the individual tunnels, because she's a member of the guild her entrance took a small confirmation of her identity token and mission before entering and Zhang followed after her, they hurried towards the hotel picked a regular room and bang bang bang from the get go until the convoy arrived.

Smiling ruefully because their time was up, they agreed to meet up again in this room after things are settled.

However, once they snuck back to the convoy they were surprised by the chattering of the guarding teams, young hero Ming disappearing?, Wei and the others are searching for him!

"Little Tong where have you been?, I looked everywhere for you!" Ning Xue was very worried for the young woman and held her by the shoulders and gave her a cursory look from top to bottom, she felt like the little girl's skin is different somehow.

"I heard young hero Ming wasn't inside the convoy and took a look around before coming, had any luck finding him?" Looking around as if to look for the missing boy, Ning Tong was actually avoiding eye-contact with her godmother.

"The fat merchant went to look for the brat somewhere, what crappy luck are you speaking of when you're the lucky charm of the group." Muttering, Ning Xue cupped the cheeks of the young lady with her palms to admire her beauty while trying to find what makes the girl's beauty different this time.

Giggling, Ning Tong hugged the slender waist of this charming lady which raised her from young age, deep inside she didn't want her to know about her relationship with Zhang yet.

Zhang on the other hand was inside some carriage and feeling dizzy, despite his simplemindedness, Zhang knows what it means for Lin to be kidnapped, not only he has the water-pearl which is the hope for ancestor Jianyu to recover but also the formidable grandpa Ming behind him which will pour his wrath on the five clans.

'I did this, if I hadn't been distracted by little Tong's beautiful body and warmth, entering her felt so goo- damn it I got distracted just thinking about it!' walking in circles he got dizzier the more he thought, poor Zhang was having trouble thinking straight and once the caravan was inside the residence, he got out and ran for his room while snorting in anger at how dumb he was.

Soon, Tong gave an excuse of wanting to buy something from the auction house and snuck into Zhang's room, entering the room, she saw him huddled in a corner cradling his head in his palms and sniffling like a child.

Once she touched him he hugged her and hid his face in her chest, she felt a gentle feeling inside her chest which her godmother always mentioned, she felt like holding a big baby in her arms.

Pulling him to bed she soon knew the reason why he was in this state, his fear for Ming and his friends has overwhelmed him and most importantly, Tong felt sweetness in her chest and her eyes watered from joy when Zhang said that he couldn't think because he kept thinking about her.

After placing a basic isolation formation in the room, she straddled him on bed and gave this fellow which grew up inside her heart to seize it as a place only for his simple-self to exist, she gave him the night of his life filled with satisfaction and release.

When it was time for breakfast, Wei returned with the group which left with him yet Sun and Frostine weren't with them, once Zhang asked them about Ming they awkwardly said they couldn't take him back because he's now the disciple of white-sovereign Mu Jianhong.

"What?!!" Every mercenary who heard merchant Wei's answer gaped, gasped or blanked in the face yet their shock and disbelief was the common.

Shrugging, Wei shouldered his way to his room while snorting, he couldn't get Lin back but he received the word from the sovereign himself, when Lin wakes up he's going to be free to visit them as long as he doesn't leave the city without his new master's permission.

"Where have you been Zhang? I looked everywhere for you!" Wang's eyes brightened when he saw Zhang finally.

"Eh!" This time it was only Ning Xue who felt something click in her head as she remembered the glowing skin of little Tong.

Looking at the complexion of this big fellow who looked malnourished and calculating the timing he was gone and comparing it with the time Tong was absent, then the experienced woman just knew and was sure of her conclusions when she saw the man avoid her eyes, turning she noticed the stupid smile on her goddaughter's face and the looks she kept secretly giving the man and snorted before twisting the ear of the young woman who dared to lie to her and dragged her squealing to a room and shut the door.

"What was that about?" Wang raised an eyebrow before shrugging and pulling Zhang to see if the woman he just saw outside the residence was okay, however, Zhang removed his best friend's hand from his shoulder and patted him on the shoulder and said : "Brother, don't worry I will make my choice soon." Before returning to his room and closing the door.

Wang raised his head to check which direction did the sun rise from today and tears almost fell from his eyes when he affirmed that it was rising from the east, Finally he's grown-up, finally his mother will get off my back, Wang thought as he felt light as a feather without burdens, whistling carefreely he walked towards his favorite spot of any city, the brothels.

Lai saw everything and like Ning Xue figured it out he did as well and thought, what an idiot he couldn't see it when it happened under his nose yet he brags about being the best friend this best friend that all day.

Then he took Qing and Chi to finish handling the mercenary leaders business before giving them the seal of confirmation for their finished missions and taking the clan teams to empty the convoys and do the rest of the things which the greedy merchant usually handled with much joy and pleasure.

Finally Ning Xue left with little Tong who kept puckering her lips and feeling wronged as she got dragged back to their group's residence, every once in a while she will look back at Zhang's room while snorting in disappointment because Zhang wasn't aware she's leaving already.

Finally the Cheng clan's residence was devoid of mercenaries, Lin or his beast companions and even servants, the guarding teams of the Cheng clan would stay in inns until the next journey is confirmed, that only happens after the exchange happens and the real Tang Wei is swapped with the fake Wei who continues from this point towards the sunrise empire.

Rong Qing left to sell his brick directly in the auction house, he was in an urgent need for cultivation resources, protective equipments, weapons and cultivation manuals for his new and old affinities.

Qiang Chi wasn't required to stay and Qing took him along to see if he can give him a few tools.