Chapter 68: How to Escape

The Senior Brother wanted to keep a low profile—how could that possibly be?

By the time the various sects rushed over, they only saw the fierce beasts returning to their respective territories as if by prior agreement. However, Lin Jiuge and Zhou Yan were nowhere to be found.

"What should we do?"

"Let's catch a beast and ask."

A truly unlucky tiger happened to pass by and was immediately surrounded by a group of human cultivators. Trembling with fright, when asked about Lin Jiuge and Zhou Yan, the tiger's eyes were filled with absolute terror, and its head shook so fast it looked like a pellet drum!

"It seems they are quite unharmed."

"What on earth did those two fellow Daoists do? Their reactions feel a bit too over-the-top," Jing Xia remarked.

"I'd like to know as well," Lan Ling chimed in.

The unfortunate tiger let out a series of wailing roars. Reaching the climax of its emotional trauma, actual tiger tears streamed down its face—truly enough to break the heart of anyone who heard it and bring tears to the eyes of anyone who saw it. The miserable beast was bitterly accusing Lin Jiuge and Zhou Yan of how mercilessly they had bullied their entire clan!

"Hiss... Are those two really human?" someone asked the ultimate soul-searching question.

"Did any of you notice? Whether it was Lin Jiuge drawing her sword or Zhou Yan executing his arts, their speed was terrifyingly fast and utterly precise," Jun Lin observed.

"Indeed. Fellow Daoists of the Mount Tai Sect, do you know anything about this?" Shangguan Bupo turned to look at the group from the Mount Tai Sect.

"As you all may have heard, our sect recently developed a new martial technique called *Swift Strides*. It was created by Senior Uncle Zhou Yan and Senior Uncle Jiuge. For now, only the two Senior Uncles have mastered it to perfection," a managerial disciple of the Mount Tai Sect replied cautiously.

"When it comes to pure speed, even aerial beasts might not be a match for the two Senior Uncles," another added. There had even been rumors within the Mount Tai Sect that if *Swift Strides* were cultivated to its absolute limit, one could evade the attacks of a Venerable, though whether that was true remained unknown.

Inside the courtyard of the Mount Tai Sect's headmaster, Lin Jiuci was studying diligently. Without her elder sister there to supervise, she skipped not a single task, while the three elders stole some leisure time to watch Lin Jiuci practice *Swift Strides*.

"Jiucai can be considered to have achieved minor success in this," the headmaster commented.

"Not bad. True to Jiuge's demands, Jiucai has indeed reached minor mastery," Li Yun nodded.

"Recently, news has come from that unknown mystic realm. More and more disciples within our sect are choosing to learn *Swift Strides*, and even other sects have been inquiring whether they can trade their own martial techniques for it. I turned them down, deciding we should wait until Jiuge returns to discuss it," the headmaster finally brought up the main business.

"What kind of news has come out from over there?" asked Exalted Wu Dao.

"Big news."

"Stop keeping us in suspense and spit it out," Li Yun said, slapping the headmaster's shoulder. With a relationship as close and moldy with time as theirs, who was he putting on official airs for?

"Cough, cough! It's about Jiuge and A-Yan. The two of them went to rescue people, ended up provoking a whole horde of beasts, not only saved the captives, but also carried off a bunch of beasts, and in the end, managed to make a clean escape."

After listening to the headmaster's account, Li Yun and Exalted Wu Dao exchanged a tacit look and each pressed a hand onto one of the headmaster's shoulders.

"Junior Brother, do tell us the details properly," the pressure in their palms gradually increasing.

The headmaster began to recount with a solemn face—starting from Zhou Yan's rapid reaction, to Lin Jiuge wielding a golden sword to single-handedly challenge a tier-three winged tiger, to the winged tiger summoning a beast horde for a coordinated assault, down to the perfect teamwork of one drawing the beasts while the other deployed arrays, not to mention the inhuman torture suffered by the five beast chieftains.

"I reckon Jiuge and A-Yan must have harvested their beast blood," the two senior brothers concluded after the headmaster left.

"I suppose so. Jiuge has been fretting about needing higher-grade beast blood for her future cultivation. Now that she's run into them, she certainly wouldn't let the opportunity slip," Exalted Wu Dao remarked.

"They probably didn't spare the lower-tier beasts either, after all, Jiucai still needs them," Li Yun said, glancing at the diligently practicing Lin Jiuci.

"Jiucai has been crying a lot less lately," Exalted Wu Dao noted, also looking toward his disciple.

"It seems ever since she had that very long dream about Jiuge some time ago, the crying decreased significantly," he continued.

"Yet, regarding Jiucai's inexplicable surge in cultivation, I remain utterly baffled. Clearly, we've checked her thoroughly, and there is nothing wrong with her." The senior brothers had been perplexed by this issue for a long time; even though Heavenly Master Tianjiji claimed it was Lin Jiuci's destined fortune, the two of them still could not understand it.

Meanwhile, Lin Jiuge and Zhou Yan—now notoriously branded as lacking martial virtue—had broken into the lair of the five chieftains and looted more than half of their accumulated treasures. They had even had to hold their breath while entering the lairs of the giant ape and the fire fox. Even if they had no use for certain items themselves, it wouldn't stop them from trading them with others. Crucially, the two hadn't bothered to conceal their auras at all.

When the five chieftains finally returned to their dens to nurse their injuries, only to discover they had been completely cleaned out, the dense forest erupted once more into a chorus of furious beast roars.

"Senior Brother, how are we supposed to get out of here?" Lin Jiuge asked. They had wandered in inexplicably, so there had to be an exit somewhere.

"To be honest, I can't answer that question either." Lin Jiuge gazed into the distance. They had entered so casually that they had completely forgotten to consider that leaving might also be a problem.

"Sigh." The two of them sighed in unison.

"Let's deduce: this place is the ruin of the Dragon-Bear clan. Yet as time passed, only those below the Yellow Realm in cultivation could enter," Zhou Yan began to calculate.

"True, and three thousand years ago, the Dragon-Bear clan could not possibly have been obscure. Why is it restricted to those with low cultivation?" Lin Jiuge followed his train of thought.

The two looked at each other.

"Senior Brother / Junior Sister, could it be like this?" They spoke simultaneously, and then both smiled.

"Since that's the case, could I trouble Junior Sister to find out where the Primordial Energy is weakest, or entirely absent?" Zhou Yan bowed solemnly.

"Very well." Lin Jiuge leaped onto a tree, reaching the canopy in a few bounds. She surveyed her surroundings, her gaze locking onto a specific direction. Then she looked back toward the Dragon-Bear ruins—*hiss*, that was truly ruthless!

"Senior Brother, I see it. There are three spots, sandwiching the Dragon-Bear ruins right in the middle. By stumbling in here blindly like this, we've inadvertently disrupted the mastermind's painstaking efforts," Lin Jiuge's expression darkened.

"Let's go take a look. Perhaps if we destroy this wicked place, things here will change," Zhou Yan said, having caught her drift. This place had been artificially and maliciously cultivated.

"Let's go check them out." Lin Jiuge had a hunch that destroying those three spots would infuriate their unknown enemy to the point of madness.

The two headed in a specific direction. The further they walked, the more they felt the Primordial Energy within their bodies becoming sealed away.

"Oh? How is there a Primordial-Suppressing Array here?" An unknown sword engraved characters rapidly in her sea of consciousness, carrying a distinct tone.

"A Primordial-Suppressing Array?"

"An ancient formation. By all rights, it should have been long lost," the unknown sword replied with rapid strokes of text.

"Do you know how to break it?" This was what Lin Jiuge cared about most.

"No, wait. It's a Triple-Reverse Primordial-Suppressing Array," the unknown sword hastily corrected its previous deduction.

"A Triple-Reverse Primordial-Suppressing Array?" That sounded even more unfamiliar.

"A rather malignant formation composed of three Primordial-Suppressing Arrays. To break it, all three arrays must be shattered simultaneously," the unknown sword carved.

"Does it have any special characteristics?" Lin Jiuge continued asking.

"Of course. This formation possesses three attributes: ice, lightning, and wind. Furthermore, upon entering the array, one's entire Primordial Energy is drained by it. The only way to enter is by stripping oneself of power and moving like an ordinary mortal," the sword carved out.

"What if we seal our own cultivation beforehand and enter pretending to be mortals?"