Matt was feeling a bit uncomfortable right now. He was surrounded by people from all sides. His sect members would need at least a day to get here and he felt that just leaving without a word would be a tad rude.
“So… long time no see?”
To his question there was no reply, the people were bowing face down and with their butts raised into the air. They were probably afraid to meet the gaze of the man that almost single-handedly took out the Dark Palm sect.
Zhang Dong just wanted to facepalm but instead, he just nodded and gave a more compelling order. He knew from his experience how people like this operated.
“Rise up, that’s enough.”
The people slowly moved their heads up, their eyes were uncharacteristically sparkly. He could tell that he was getting revered by this group. From their standpoint, he was one of the most powerful experts in the whole empire, a nascent soul realm master. He had also aided them in this time of need and previously saved the Chief’s son from a powerful monster.
The first man to get up and walk up to him was the old Tribe Chief, he didn’t change all that much in these past two years, maybe a wrinkle or two here or there. He clasped his hands in respect once again before finally opening his mouth.
“Honorable Senior, you have aided us once again, how can this Tatar Tribe ever hope to repay you?”
While the chief was speaking the rest of the Tribe people started standing up. Yang Rong and Cheng Yun that he met before were side by side. They had apparently buried the hatchet and Yang Rong in particular had grown up to be a respectable young man that was on his way to be the next Tribe Chief.
“Ah, You don’t need to repay me, just live your life, as usual, it was just luck that I was close by while all of this was happening.”
Zhang Dong glanced at the charred Dark Palm members and was brought back to reality. He didn’t have time to exchange more pleasantries with these people. He had to map out the area and find a good spot for his sect to flourish.
“But I shouldn’t linger, I didn’t come here to play around.”
He wanted to leave but the Tribe’s people couldn’t let such a chance slip by. This was a powerful nascent realm master, they wouldn’t have a second chance like this in their lifetime. They needed to somehow lure him in and maybe accept one of the youths as a disciple.
“Please Honorable Senior Dong, we must hold a giant feast, why don’t you rest and let us show you some gratitude?”
The village chief glanced to the side at some of his people that were quick to pick up on his scheme. They sprung to action fast, they surrounded Zhang Dong even closer and started begging him to stay, they were a lot of young ladies even mixed in to appeal to the man’s male side.
“Please Grandmaster won’t you stay?”
“Won’t you stay to enjoy our tribe’s best foods?”
“Please let me be your disciple, I’ll offer my kowtows of respect!”
“Do you need some servants for your travels, I’m sure the youths would be helpful, take as many as you want!”
“My daughter is a good cook and she can clean, she would be great as a maid for you my lord.”
Various people started clamoring for his attention. If they had even one of their family members work for this man their status would skyrocket.
Matt raised his eyebrow at the Tribe’s people. They were moments away from getting massacred by the evil cultivators. You’d think that no person would be able to make a quick 180 after a traumatic event like this but here they were.
He got reminded of how tough people in this world were. When they saw an opportunity to further their cause they went for it. He knew well what this was about but he needed to quench their enthusiasm. He had no time to stay here, he even remembered what happened last time. They sent him a group of young girls to his quarters as a bribe. He was in the middle of courting Feng Liena so he didn’t think this would be appropriate.
‘Wonder what she would do if she found something like that out…’
He was a bit curious if the woman would be jealous or envious. It wasn’t strange to have multiple wives in this society so would she care if he had any flings? He on the other hand was an old fashioned modern type of man, that would rather have one warm woman than ten lukewarm ones.
“Stop, let me speak.”
Everyone quieted down after the white-haired man raised his hand while speaking out.
“I don’t need any more servants and I don’t need any disciples.”
“I also really don’t have the time so I’ll be leaving.”
He started floating up to the people’s dismay. They knew that they couldn’t keep this person here but they just had to try. They kept their eyes on his magnificent form almost as if they were hoping to get a cultivation boost from it.
He then vanished from their sight, almost like a blur as he took off into the deeper parts of the forest. Everyone from the Tribe was saddened that they couldn’t real him in.
“What a shame… if he took one of our girls as a concubine no one could go against this village.”
“Or if he took one of our boys as a disciple, we would be the greatest tribe!”
The people chatted it up almost forgetting about the charred Dark Palm sect people. The same that were still out cold and they would probably take a few hours to get over their shocking experience. The only reasonable person was the Tribe Chief that immediately ordered his people to get some rope and tie up the evil cultivators. They might have been crippled but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t escape into the woods.
Zhang Dong had moved forward into the forest but he had seen something odd. While passing the village from the top he noticed his name being mentioned on some signs. After further investigation, he figured out what it was.
The bathhouse he previously used had his name added before it. There was something about it being a secret ground for cultivation. He could feel some residual Qi in the water that was probably left by him when he cultivated for the first time. He had caused lightning to descend from the clouds which was enough to make this a desired spot for cultivation for these Qi condensation tribe people.
“I should sue them for copyright infringement!”
He flew away but he didn’t realize how far his presence here had changed the place. The secret cultivation ground was just one thing. The Tribe even hosted sightseeing tours. They took people to where he fought the tentacle faced monster and told the tales of his gallant adventures. They also let people stay at the building he lived for those weeks at exorbitant prices.
His mind was preoccupied with the strange Tribe that was going crazy for him so he didn’t notice that he had arrived at the place that started it all. He came to a halt and saw the damaged tree stump from where the miniature version of cthulhu sprung from.
“Hey… this brings me back…”
He moved towards that leftover stump, it was in bad shape as the monster burst from under it, destroying most of the tree in the process. He was still wondering if this was some kind of tutorial area and if the monster was a pre-planned encounter. He could have also been unlucky arriving at a bad time.
“This thing sure pulled a fast one me…”
He remembered running away in fear even though he was much stronger than the creature. He was inexperienced and unable to use his techniques to their full extent. It took the Tribe’s people getting in trouble for him to finally man up and face the creature. In the end he just overpowered it with his powerful body and lightning.
While reminiscing about the past he realized that he had come far. He had managed to somehow bumble his way into a leader’s position. Going from a shut-in to a sect leader which was comparable to kings from his old world.
He snapped out of it, this was no time to remember the good old days. He still needed to find a good location for his sect to set up shop. He looked to his system map while disgruntled as he didn’t expect to find anything worthwhile in the lowest of the low regions that he was in now.
“Hm?”
His eyes went wide as he noticed something out of place. There was some kind of signature here and it was right below him. He was standing right next to the tree and the open field that he was transported to at the start of his journey. Could this have something to do with it, was his question.
This was quite a strange signature as it didn’t show up normally. It looked like a giant black spot and it was right below him. The blackness spread throughout his system map. It made it seem as if something was blocking out the signal from reaching there.
He had to investigate, it was a highly unusual sight and he had reasons to believe that it had something to do with his arrival here.
“This looks sketchy…”
He didn’t like this, the spot below him wasn’t that far underground but even he couldn’t feel anything there when he used his spirit sense. If he didn’t have this graphical interface he would probably never have spotted this anomaly.
He steeled his resolve and dived down into the rocks below. At his level of power, he could force his way down the hard ground but at a slow pace. He burrowed his way while lighting the path with his golden aura, eyes glued to the map.
Zhang Dong could see that there was a naturally formed cavern leading to one of the blacked-out parts. He descended into it and burst through the wall. He came out in a large cave, the area lit up the moment he came through from his shiny aura.
There was nothing out of place with this corridor so he followed it towards his destination. The splashing of water echoed through this place as it was some kind of naturally formed underwater passageway. The further he went in the closer he got to the black spot on his map.
Finally, he arrived at his destination, the black spot in the area revealed itself to him. It was an out of place obsidian wall. He moved closer to it, it was clearly nothing that had formed naturally as it was way too smooth.
“A wall?”
He placed his palm on it, it was really polished and the light he was exuding was bouncing right off of it. It looked man-made as if someone placed or carved it here. This strange wall was clearly made of a different material than the ones in the corridor. It looked like hard obsidian.
He knocked on it with his knuckles and noticed that this material was very resistant. Normally a simple knock on some rocks from someone with his strength would have caused some cracking.
He decided to form a fist for his next test. He inserted a small amount of spiritual energy and punched out. The hit landed on the black wall and the whole place shook, the wind pressure alone from his hit caused the normal corridor to quake and tremble.
The obsidian wall stood without a scratch though, he felt like a normal person punching an iron wall. His hand was even trembling and he didn’t even leave a dent on it.
“What is this made of…”
He wondered if he should put all of his power into another punch but before he could do that the wall started lighting up. Some strange symbols appeared which glowed blue and a light shot out that enveloped his whole body.
‘Scanning in progress, please remain still, intruders will be eliminated.’
He heard a strange robotic voice call out to him. A small orb appeared out of the wall and started scanning him from top to bottom. He had activated some kind of mechanism, it talked about elimination if he was deemed an intruder. He could only put up his defensive bubble and hope that it wasn’t powerful enough to cause him harm while he waited.