At an abandoned alley, a burly man kept walking ahead deeper, away from the usual noise of the black market.
When he covered a satisfactory distance, he turned before throwing a question to seemingly nobody.
“Can I help you three gentlemen?”
Aksai asked in a deep tone, his right hand clutching the hilt of the sword in his hand.
He had already confirmed that there was nobody in the vicinity who could disturb him. This was the ideal place for him to get rid of his tail.
Aksai didn’t want to create a scene once he stepped out of the black market. Even if he were to stay safe, his identity would eventually get revealed by the city guards. It was better for him to neutralize his enemies in their own domain.
For a while, nobody answered. However, Aksai was patient. He stayed firm on his ground and waited quietly for the other side to speak up.
“I am a woman,” suddenly a voice rang out near Aksai as if spoken by someone very close to him, reaching Aksai’s ears in a whispered form due to the use of a simple Spirit spell.
It didn’t take long for his three opponents to show themselves in front of him while maintaining a safe distance.
Aksai recognized that the one who had just responded to him was indeed a woman. She stood at the lead while the other two men flanked behind her, seemingly in an ideal formation. It seemed that these three had fought many battles together and had a lot of experience in the field.
The leading woman was actually taller than the real Aksai. However, since Aksai was in his burly man form due to the effects of the appearance-changing pill, her stature and the various advantages that came with it were of no issue to Aksai.
The two men standing behind her looked like any other average cultivator. Just like him, they also wore wooden masks on their faces, guarding their identities. However, they didn’t bother to hide their cultivation levels.
The woman in the lead had the cultivation level of the 6th stage while her teammates were 5th Stage Spirit Refiners.
All three of them wore 1st-order leather armor made from some demon beast skin. These leather armor looked similar in appearance and quality, which made Aksai feel that all three of them were sponsored by the same person.
“Aaah. Forgive me for my mistake, my lady,” Aksai bowed as a formality while maintaining his eyes on the three. He didn’t dare to take his eyes off of the three opponents now that they had shown themselves.
‘This is odd. Why would these sneaky robbers show themselves just because I asked them nicely?’ Aksai had a fleeting thought. ‘Unless… They are not robbers. Someone sent them specifically after me. They… they are hired swords.’
His eyes narrowed when he thought of a possibility – the shopkeeper of the black market had betrayed him.
He cursed the ashen-faced shopkeeper in his head for acting as if he was defying the Lakir family. The damned shopkeeper sold that as his unique selling point to Aksai, which made the latter cough up so many spirit stones for a single layer of a shitty technique.
Aksai could have never imagined that the ashen-faced shopkeeper was the Lakir family’s subordinate and that Lian Lakir had set the perfect trap for many rebellious Spirit farmers like him.
However, the reason or the motives of his three enemies didn’t matter to Aksai much. He had already decided to take care of them for good to avoid further complications.
“What’s your purpose for following me?” Aksai asked in a cold tone. It seemed that his three enemies wanted to confront him. But for some reason, he didn’t feel any killing intent from them.
It was as if they wanted to spar with him for shits and giggles, which Aksai found odd.
The leading woman stepped forward in an attempt to speak to Aksai. But before she could do so, Aksai had already acted.
A Spirit fluctuation could be sensed in the surroundings. The leading woman realized a bit too late that the question Aksai had asked earlier was just for diversion.
A series of spell fluctuations could be sensed one after the other.
Aksai started to cast his spells, performing his Mudras seriously as he narrowed his eyes on his opponents. It was as if he had made up his mind to get rid of his three enemies on this spot.
At the same time, Aksai’s three opponents sneered inwardly when they realized that they were dealing with an amateur cultivator. The distance between both sides wasn’t sufficient for either of them to spend their time casting spells.
After all, the successful activation of a spell required one to have absolute focus and mastery in their spells. The spell also required the cultivators to perform complicated Mudras – hand signs that followed a certain pattern. Plus, really potent spells required one to make use of Mantras as well, cryptic chants spoken out loud or inside one’s head to ensure safe execution of the spell.
All of this complicated process behind a spell execution needed time. The better and more dangerous a spell, the more complicated the requirements of the Mudras and Mantras would be.
Plus, once one started the process of casting spells, they were vulnerable to physical attacks from their opponents. Stopping midway would only backfire on them.
That’s why Spirit Refining cultivators often create a safe distance between themselves and their opponents before engaging in spell-casting activities. More often, they fought using allies and subordinates to cover these obvious flaws in their battle style.
Veteran Spirit Refining cultivators who found themselves outnumbered would never dare to take the initiative to start spell-casting in front of their enemies. They would wait for others to make a move and then act in response.
However, Aksai had revealed an obvious flaw in the battle style of his own volition.
His three enemies couldn’t help thinking that the mission this time was too simple and the young master Lian behind them would be disappointed in this new hire for his amateur moves.
The dog that Lian wanted them to leash was just a pup who didn’t even have teeth inside his mouth to bite.
The leading woman approached Aksai first. Using Light Steps, she covered half of the distance between Aksai and herself within a blink of an eye. Her two allies followed right behind her.
However, just when they had shortened their distance from Aksai, they realized that something had changed about Aksai’s spell-casting.
Soon, their puzzlement turned into shock, and then the shock turned into dread as they watched Aksai cast his spells in a manner they had never seen before.
A vicious smile tugged at Aksai’s lips as he saw his opponents falling into the trap he had set for themselves.
[ Earth Control Spell ]
[ Wood Vines Spell ]
[ Ice Spear Spell ]
[ Automated Mudra casting ]
[ Automated Mantra Regulation ]
All of a sudden, Aksai’s hands moved as if possessed by the winds. They formed hand signs so fast that they almost visually deformed their physical shapes and created a blur. His opponents couldn’t even keep up with Aksai’s Mudra-casting speed using their strained eyes.
Before his three opponents could back away or change their direction, Aksai had already completed the execution of his spells.
Forming Mudras with such speed and accuracy was the domain of the Foundation Builders, often referred to as Hand-weaving because of the way one Mudra gave way for the next in succession to be formed.
If such Hand-weaving was performed by a Spirit Refiner, it could only be described with a simple term – Mudra-casting Maestro.
The result of Aksai’s unbelievable spell execution speed was apparent.
Three sizable rifts opened in the ground simultaneously. Out of these rifts, three serpentine-like vines protruded before shooting towards Aksai’s three enemies. At the tip of the three vines were Ice Spears, gleaming with a dangerous light.
Out of the three attacks, two found their mark.
The two 5th-stage Spirit Refiners realized that their hearts were pierced by the Ice Spears before they could even defend themselves.