"Old man, you're attacking a guest after inviting them, aren't you afraid of heaven's punishment?" I said as I prepared to ask Y out, it wouldn't be a problem to kill this guy with X alone, but the fact that if I were to kill an elder inside their own sect was disclosed, I'll be hunted. And not to mention these guys are pretty strong, they managed to chase off a dozen Nascent Cultivators with just mere disciples.
"You're in a world where mercy is seen as weakness, you don't have the power to protect your own secrets and you were foolish enough to come here, so why shouldn't I take your things." The old man said as the dragon heads came after me.
I jumped back dodging the initial blow and shouted "Old man, you'll regret this!" I called then summoned X.
The puppet came out and dashed toward the ethereal dragon heads, blowing throw them, and went for the cultivator.
The alchemist slapped his thigh and caused even more smoke to shoot out from the pot in front of him, the smoke hovered and covered X, blocking his movement as it turned to solid matter, while the two other heads came after me.
X could easily get rid of his bindings, but it will take him some time, time I didn't have. "We had no enmity between us, but your hubris and conceited self asked for this!" I called then took a deep breath and spat as much Poison Qi as my body could allow me. Fueled with rage and wrath at this man's treatment, I didn't care for whatever he had to say. He, his disciples, and all of the herbs planted here will die.
The Poison Breath I used right now was composed of the most deadly poisons I've consumed, and it shot out shaped like a demon's head, then it came down on one side of the mountain wilting the spiritual herbs and killing any living thing that dared stay in its way."
"YOU FIEND STOP!" the alchemist said, as he just realized how frightening my poison was. Especially since a lot of his disciples were immediately contaminated by the massive loads of poison.
X released himself and shot at the elder who was distracted with what was happening, a single blow to the sternum broke the elder's bones, then X twisted one of the elder's hands breaking it from his shoulder.
"Child, stop this instant!" a cultivator, definitely in above the Nascent Soul spoke, and his words were heavy, not as powerful as Zhang Tian but they were strong enough to cause me to cough out blood.
"Good, good, so this is the Seven Peak Mountain, inviting guests then attacking them to steal their belonging, good," I said as rage boiled within my innards, I was feeling a suffocating sense of repression and oppression.
"Child, you attacked an elder of our sect, my hand had to be heavy, what seems to be the problem," the man said.
"Your elder invited me over, then attacked me to steal my belongings, and instead of investigating you attacked me with your divine sense, good."
"We protect our own first," the voice said as a man materialized in front of me. An old man with a kind-looking face, but he didn't sound nor act kind.
"You have caused damage to the third mountain, it was my only way to stop you." The old man said.
"Don't bullshit me, you already knew what was happening here, but you didn't interfere until you saw that I was able to cause damage to your property, you knew how rotten this elder was and still didn't act, but when you saw that I was able to defend myself, you come here to suppress me. Very good." I said as wrath was clouding my judgment.
"Child, you're not being reasonable, we protect our own, and I'll see to it that you're compensated for your suffering, you have already caused heavy damage to Elder Chung Yan, so you should drop this matter, and I'll see to it that you are satisfied." The old man said.
He then threw me a small carriage-like object.
"My disciples said that you took a fancy to this carriage, take it, and forget about this matter." He said.
I swiped the toy-like carriage into my pocket and said, "Then let it be so. I'll no longer have any relation to the Seven Mountain Peaks." I said and took off.
"Wait!" another person came rushing, he looked young, about thirty years of age. And seemed to have come in haste.
"You're Shen Bao?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"My wife had told me what happened, Master Ling Duan, this man saved my wife from certain death, and gave her a precious treasure, can I please welcome him at my mountain, I'll appease his anger…" the man said and I immediately felt a wave of divine sense being sent to the old man.
The sect master frowned looked at me and said, "So be it, once your affairs are done, Shen Bao, you'll leave, and we'll have no relation. Do not cross us, and we won't hunt you." The Sect Master said and disappeared the same way he appeared.
"Damn, that was close," the young man said, "I'm Tu Sei, Master of the Fourth Mountain, please come with me, I have a few things to discuss with you." He said.
"X, come here," I said and my puppet followed after me.
Once we arrived at TU Sei's Mountain, I realized that he owned a massive blacksmithing area, he was the smith of this place.
"Come, come, I and my wife welcome you," he said as I entered his smith.
The woman that was back at the Alchemist's Palace was sitting in a meditative state, cultivating.
"Why did you ask me here?" I asked.
"Let's sit down first," he said, he looked around as if suspicious of others listening on us then waved a hand.
He created a rippling barrier that seemed to be blocking divine sense.
"We can speak here without being spied on, but on the safer side use divine sense," he said.
"I'm pretty irritated right now, so whatever you want to say, make a point and make it fast," I said.
"Calm down, now, do you know a person by the name Lao Bofan?"
"Lao Bofan, I know him but he is probably dead, why?"
"So you really are Shen Bao of the Purple Cloud sect." just as he spoke the words, X had his palm up and in Tu Sei's face.
"How do you know of that? I asked."
"Calm down, Elder Bofan asked me to do this, he is not dead, nor is the majority of the Purple Cloud sect, at least the core disciples and a few of the main Elders."
"How come? I saw the aftermath, not even dogs and chicken were left." I said.
"You don't know what happened for some reason, but I and Elder Lao go way back before the sect was attacked, he sent me a jade slip, with information regarding you, I went to the Purple Cloud Sect a few days later to look for you, in his slip he said that you'll definitely be alive as you were away from the sect. Now I heard your name but didn't think you were the same person, but when you used poison I had a hunch and you confirmed it now. I'm on your side."
"I can't easily believe that, it's too coincidental," I said.
"Fate is no coincidence, you may believe it or not, but here is the jade slip you can hear it yourself." He said.
After listening to the jade slip it was Lao Bofan's voice, though it could be faked I wasn't going to go into details now.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Alright, it seems that the Sect Master of the Purple Cloud sect has done something she shouldn't have." He said.
"How?"
"Right, I'll need to go back to the beginning. But can you ask your puppet to stop pointing its palm at me?"
"Right, X, at ease," I said and X stood next to me but still kept an eye on Tu Sei.
"Right, now, it's been a couple of hundred years now, but the son of the Three-Legged Raven sect always fancied the Sect Master of the Purple Cloud Sect. But he wasn't powerful enough to take her by force so he resolved to trickery. On the day that the Sect Master of the Purple Cloud Sect was on the verge of breaking to the Soul Transformation Stage, Chuzi Yan the son of the Sect Master sabotaged her by using a fragment of the Destruction Ice Poison."
'Hmm, no wonder the amount was too huge, she shouldn't have accumulated that much if she had only contacted it while venturing.'
"So in doing that he tried to coerce her into becoming his while promising to cure her. Only to find out that the amount of Ice Destruction Poison that plagued her was too much to be cured. So he gave up and left her to die."
I was already pissed at the Sect that attacked the Purple Cloud Sect, but now, that I know that this Chuzi Yan did this, I'm really engaged.
"So, he didn't care for them and gave up, and when he found out that she was healed… he came back to get her again, right?" I asked.
"Yes, and we helped him, it was a really messed up thing."
"I see, I already noticed a few things that belonged to the Purple Cloud Sect already in the possession of the Seven Mountain peak."
"Yes, I had no hand in this, I actually managed to save a few disciples and sent them away, but that was all I could do without being suspected of treason. Anyway, here," he said and gave me another jade slip.
"This is where the Purple Cloud Sect remnants are. They used their Sect Palace's formation to protect themselves but they're no better than prisoners, and the formation they have is being bombarded every day. They won't make it past the year because once Chuzi Yan is out of secluded cultivation, I'll believe it will be the last day of the Purple Cloud Sect.