Be it the past or the current Bai Qi. He wouldn't put a 3rd level Warrior King before his eyes. It was just a very weak cultivator, especially considering that during his first life, he accustomed himself to treating only with Heaven realm cultivators. As for his current one, he had just left the [Delicate Flower Palace], where even Hudie Xiuying, a peak Warrior Emperor, had spoken with him as nearly an equal.

Granted, Bai Qi himself was right now nothing more than a 4th level Warrior Lord and all of the politeness he received in the [Palace] was just a result of his own good fortune, both for suprassing others during the contest and for being both a friend and a benefactor of Xie Ru, the now-designated heir of the [Fairy] legacy. And yet, nonetheless, no one could say that it was fake or that such treatment was unwarranted.

And even if Bai Qi wanted to boast, which he rarely did, never if unrequired, he was a man recognized by true experts of this [Great Forest] region, the people of [Shoumen] city only being some of them.

Even so, with neither Bai Qi nor even Ma Su being idiots and perfectly understanding what a meeting entailing an encirclement meant, Bai Qi felt no need to behave impolitely, and as soon as he found himself surrounded by over twenty cultivators, ranging from the 3rd level of the Warrior Lord realm, and up to the same level of the Warrior King realm, he immediately cupped his fist and even gave a half bow while questioning, even if it wasn't required, truth to be said, "Senior, do you require something from this untalented Bai Qi?"

Wang Yating was forty years old, just one generation of recruits before Ma Su, so she certainly was a person of the younger generation, at least when considering the hundreds of years that an average cultivator of the Earth Realm could live. Being called a senior by Bai Qi, someone far younger than her but still a promising genius of her own generation, was an honor, even if one considered the difference in cultivation and didn't know about her actual rank as the head of a power. Well, even if her small-power couldn't even hope to interest such a genius.

Thus, facing a mix of courage and politeness, such as the one that Bai Qi exhibited, even Wang Yating found herself at a slight loss. After all, seeing that someone like Bai Qi, the one to obtain the first place in the [Sword and Herb] festival, even if limited to a single event, was actually treating her with such respect, how could she, as both cultivator and a head of a power, not think about befriending such a genius rogue?

And yet, the intrinsic [Greed] of a cultivator, mixed with her assumed position as the head of the [Blue Owl Alliance], made Wang Yating forget about courtesy or befriending someone like Bai Qi. In place of that, she raised her arm, commanding every cultivator of the [Alliance] that she now headed to attack.

Bai Qi seemed to rarely give a face to the people he considered unworthy, but he still decided to do so for Wang Yating, even without knowing who she was. In truth, even Ma Su, who had somewhat recognized her as a senior of her own generation and remembered the blue feathered ornaments on their robes, and had informed Bai Qi about the [Blue Owl Alliance] as a gathering of ex-disciples from several ranked powers that couldn't obtain any standing in the cultivation world, even she was surprised by Bai Qi's politeness.

Not that it changed the outcome, as just a moment after Wang Yating's arm raised and lowered, commanding everyone of the twenty-one cultivator to attack, Bai Qi's qi-transmission entered her mind, {Deal with the two other Warrior Kings, but do not kill their leader.}

With the weight of the past few days, enduring capture and even interrogation, only to suddenly find herself in freedom's embrace, confronted by beings so vastly superior that she could be obliterated with a mere sneeze, Ma Su was burdened by an overwhelming amount of stress. It was a burden she longed to release upon someone. And now, Bai Qi had given her a way to do so.

Even so, Ma Su had decided to follow Bai Qi as her master or something even more unnatural, especially considering their strange relationship. And so, she found in herself the courage to question, {There are two ninth-level Warrior Lords among the group. Are you sure?}

Hearing Ma Su's worry from a normally emotionless qi transmission, Bai Qi found himself lightly smiling. Since their first meeting as enemies, Ma Su had never stopped to impress him. Not only did she accept and complete the mission in [Suipian Cheng], the one to sell all of his unneeded junk, but she was also the one to receive the worst treatment in [Heibei] or [Haibei] as recorded in some of the maps. Even after, in the battles during [Zihoadao] city events, or even during the latest events of the [Delicate Forest Palace], Ma Su had proven herself as nothing but a staunch companion.

Granted, Bai Qi knew that Ma Su wasn't simple as as to accept any Warrior Lord as her lord. But since she learned of Bai Qi's specialness, she even went so far as to plead herself to him, making their initial agreement, one tested by the freedom he gave her during the [Void Palace] incident, be set before the heavens. And now, she truly felt worried about him. How could Bai Qi's heart, even if ignoring the muddling from his acceptance of Wu Guang's nature, how he could not be moved?!

{Do not worry. I am far above what a simple cultivator of the 9th level of my realm can throw against me.} Bai Qi's transmission contained no lies, but he did omit some things. One was that as he flared his own aura, something that he hadn't done from several days ago, Bai Qi was no 4th level Warrior Lord but a 6th level one. As for the other one, as Bai Qi revealed his aura, one that could easily cross three levels of cultivation and even allow him to fight four levels above his own, his hands waved in dozen of seals, and an enormous glaive appeared in the sky, its simple projection being enough to obscure the sun, provoking a small eclipse on the lands around Bai Qi.

The authentic body of the glaive that gave rise to the projection obscuring half of the sky of the nearby lands was actually in Bai Qi's hands. And while it seemed simple, a half-moon-shaped head adjusted to a bamboo pole, giving it a look of nothing more than a mortal-made sickle, the sheer presence of it birthed an abnormal sign in the sky, showing that it was, indeed, nothing simple.

_______

Bai Qi's gains from the so-protected temple of the [Delicate Forest Palace], or actually [Delicate Flower Palace] as it was first named, were far above what even he could expect.

Even after refusing the [Protection Badge] and a high-tier Martial Skill, just for the sake of giving Ma Su's name and freedom back to her, Bai Qi had gained greatly.

Not only did he obtain some of the rarest spiritual resources, enough for him to refine them and gain [Heaven and Earth] qi enough to break through two levels, but he also obtained a gift from Zhen Jian personally, a formation to help him accumulate the energy from the orbs and oddities, as well as to assimilate the martial insights he himself, or his strand of consciousness to say the truth, shared.

Thus, since the moment that Bai Qi had returned to the so-called [Fairy Lands], the territory of the [Delicate Forest Palace] not only stopped being a 4th level Warrior Lord. Indeed, after all, Zhen Jian, the first Saint of this plane, one that was seemingly unknown to anyone, even his own contemporaries, had also granted Bai Qi his first weapon, the glaive he had used to help himself through the challenges of the [Little Fairy]!

And his rewards did not end just at that, as Bai Qi's [Void Ring] could prove - if someone could even look through the formation that no one else than the [Godess Fairy], Tianwan Fei Xian, set up by herself. Furthermore, it wasn't like if only Bai Qi was the one to get benefits, especially as he refused the [Fairy] offer of taking over the formation that still forced part of their consciousness to remain in this plane, one that both of them, Fei Xian and Zhen Jian had left long ago, becoming Saints, cultivators than no mere [God's Playing Ground], the now-called [Sky Tear Plane] could hold.

For the sake of obtaining a capable successor to the blessing, no more than a curse, of the [Primordial Root], both Fei Xian and Zhen Jian had continued to leave part of their actual self behind. And as Bai Qi would learn from the latter's martial insights, they both had suffered in the other planes of the [Astral Road].

But all of that, the curse and the actual relief of people who were both dead and alive - at the same time - had nothing to do with what Bai Qi, Ma Su, and Xie Ru actually agreed to. The former received rewards from Zhen Jian as the man to complete the [Man] part of the formation. As for Ma Su, even if she refused to carry on with the so-called blessing, she did receive a couple of benefits from the [Fairy], even if they would end up being just some scraps from Xie Ru's prize - one that she obtained just because she would end up being the only one to accept such a mix of responsibilities, power, and conditions.

Wang Yating had rarely felt remorse in her life, except for the moment that she actually failed to cultivate the first step of the unique ability of the [Delicate Forest Palace], the [Path of the Fairy], and had lost her chance to remain in the [Palace] as an elder, even if of the outer circle, as between her talent and age by the moment of test, she had hardly hoped to enter the inner one.

But even the fact of being evicted from the power that he called her home as she reached her thirties without gaining even a single insight into the Warrior Lord didn't shake her so much as the facts in front of her, where not only a youngster yet to reach the twenties released an aura far stronger than her at that age moved her so much as the other Warrior Lord accompanying Bai Qi, one that she had mistakenly assumed as a servant, suddenly released her aura.

And even more than feeling the aura of a 5th level Warrior King, enough to swat her and everyone present into dust without even caring, it was the identity of the one to release such an aura.

Ma Su, who had freed herself from the cloak that she used up to that point, was recognized by Wang Yating as no one else but a Warrior Lord akin to her at that point, even if several years younger, who was kicked out of the [Delicate Forest Palace] for going against the rules of a [Sword and Herb] festival that year. And now, not only she was stronger than her, Wang Yating, who had gone to all lengths to obtain cultivation.

But even Ma Su's robes, unadorned as they were, suddenly blazed with images of rose-hued magnolias, the so-rare sign provoked by the even rarer badge of a nominal elder of the [Delicate Forest Palace], or as it was actually called before the age of the [Great Forest Sect], the [Delicate Flower Palace]!