After he teleported away, he appeared in a small clearing. It wasn"t chosen by him for anything, and it was merely a place he had chosen at random. He started to watch the environment around him, searching for a possible painting subject. However, he was distracted by a faint feeling he had forgotten something... It was like he wanted to do something, but something else came up, and he had forgotten what he wanted to do. It wasn"t going away, so he recounted what he did. First off, he helped Ye Jian break through, then he gave him a Green Immortal"s Peach, then he ate one himself, and then they came to Ye Jian"s parents... And he summoned another two peaches."Oh right! I wanted to give them to Ye Jin and Xie Ja!" Meng Li remembered. He couldn"t help but sigh quietly. He teleported to Ye Jin"s house, where Ye Jian was a moment ago. Unfortunately, as fast as his thought process was, Ye Jian already entered the house. As such, Meng Li had no choice other than call him out once again to give him the two peaches.
Ye Jian emerged in a few seconds, perplexed.
"Brother Meng, why have you returned so fast?" he asked, confused.
"I recalled something. Here, give those two to your parents. Their main function is increasing a person"s talent, so it should be quite helpful." Meng Li explained and handed Ye Jian the two small peaches he grabbed from his bag of holding.
"Oh right, roughly how much was your talent increased after ingesting the peach?" Meng Li asked, interested.
"I wasn"t really paying attention, but it increased my speed of absorption by about a third." Ye Jian answered. Although the peach"s effect of increasing his talent was barely helpful to him, he had realised that his talent was extraordinary in this life - which was quite strange considering that his parents" talent could only be described as below average.
Even if those peaches wouldn"t make his parents geniuses on par with him or Meng Li, they would at least make their talent on par with the core disciples of major sects. Which was quite impressive - such a talent would be able to guarantee one to reach Origin Core, and the only thing preventing them from doing so were the laws left behind by Meng Li"s master.
"Thank you, brother Meng." Ye Jian thanked Meng Li wholeheartedly. He was practically devoid of any suspicions towards Meng Li, even though he still wasn"t able to trust him fully, due to w.a.n.g Tao"s betrayal. It scarred him on a deep, emotional level, and Ye Jian would find it hard to trust people in the future. Fortunately, Meng Li, after all those years, managed to gain Ye Jian"s trust.
"Don"t mention it, brother Ye. Your father is a good friend of mine, after all." Meng Li answered with a small smile.
"I"ll be going now. When you feel ready to break through, alert me. I will also be able to help your parents, though I don"t want to reveal to them everything I"ve said to you." Meng Li bid farewell to Ye Jian. Ye Jian didn"t respond, simply nodding with a serious face. Meng Li teleported away after receiving Ye Jian"s confirmation.
He returned to the clearing he was in and started painting to pa.s.s time.
A few days later, Ye Jian broke the rock Meng Li left with him. Meng Li stopped what he was doing and glanced at the painting. It depicted a sleeping bird, hidden in the leaves of a tree. It wasn"t at all aware of Meng Li"s existence, even though he was sitting only a few metres away from it. The painting still lacked the essence he could sense from the one he had created in that trance, all those years ago. However, Meng Li wasn"t disappointed. He didn"t expect this painting to be the one where he grasped the Dao of Painting.
He simply stored all of the supplies and teleported away. The small bird never woke up during all of this.
Meng Li appeared before Ye Jian. He was standing in a hidden corner behind Ye Jian"s house, so that no one would be able to notice him teleporting there. When Meng Li appeared, he didn"t say anything, simply motioning for him to follow Ye Jian.
They entered Ye Jian"s home, where Ye Jin and Xie Ja were waiting. They were fully dressed, with some light luggage on their bags. Meng Li could sense that the luggage was actually extremely light - only some clothes to make it seem full. He guessed that most of their travel equipment was in Ye Jian"s bag of holding. However, what surprised Meng Li the most was that both of them had actually reached the third layer of Qi Gathering. He guessed that the Qi in the peaches was enough to elevate them to such a level within only a few days. However, their control must be quite lacking for their level.
They both seemed extremely energetic and smiled at Meng Li as he entered. He replied with a small smile.
"Brother Ye, what are your plans for now?" Meng Li asked Ye Jian. He would follow what he said, as it was Ye Jian who had more experience of the cultivation world.
"The Zu Family caravan is moving out today, we should head over and ask if we could join." Ye Jian answered.
Meng Li couldn"t help but show a bit of confusion on his face, but he quickly hid it. He sent a sliver of Spiritual Sense to Ye Jian to converse with him in private.
"Didn"t you want to break through to Qi Sea before going?" he asked.
"There"s no time, the next time this caravan leaves is in half a year. And we don"t know practically anything about this world, so we should have someone lead us." Ye Jian answered. This entire conversation lasted less than a second, so Ye Jin and Xie Ja didn"t notice anything and were just about to step outside the house.
"Alright. We"ll have to find a quiet place to finally break through then." Meng Li didn"t really care - he could take care of everything by himself, but he decided that he would let Ye Jian handle most of the decision-making. He would help only in extremely bad cases, and wouldn"t help with transportation, like teleporting them or using Spiritual Sense to gather information. Or, he wouldn"t as long as Ye Jian"s parents were with them - he didn"t want to reveal his strength to them, since it might widen the gap between them. It was already hard to convince Ye Jin that he should still treat him as a friend when Ye Jin didn"t know his strength, and if he suddenly realised that Meng Li was actually the strongest person in the world, he might... He would definitely not be able to treat Meng Li the same.
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Meng Li didn"t reveal anything on his face and simply walked behind Ye Jian, as he led the way to where the Zu Family caravan was stationed. While walking, he also supressed his aura to the fourth layer of Qi Gathering. No one weaker than that would be able to tell his cultivation, but anyone stronger than the fourth layer would be able to, but they wouldn"t see his true cultivation.
In a few minutes, the small group reached their goal. This was a remote part of the city, which Meng Li didn"t pay much attention to previously. While looking around, he noticed that the smell of herbs in the area was extremely dense. In fact, this was the part of the city where Zu Family stored their herbs - their warehouse. The caravan stopped in the city for a short amount of time, and spent practically all of their time in the warehouse, packing the herbs up and restocking their supplies. Their visit lasted for about a week on average, and they were departing on this very day. It was before noon, and every member of the caravan had gotten a full night of sleep in preparation for the road ahead.
Ye Jian led the small group to a small building near the warehouse. Near the warehouse, Meng Li could see several carts containing cargo, with horses attached to them. The coaches were already in place, ready to depart. The only thing they were waiting for was an order from the leader of the caravan.
Ye Jian walked into the small building, and emerged with a chubby middle aged man. The man carried himself extremely proudly, and his head was so far up Meng Li could see his nostrils better than his eyes.
"So those are your companions? Alright, you can go with us. You won"t have to work, but you have to take care of your own food, light, and bedding. You"re only paying for a place to sit on the carts." the man said to Ye Jian. He simply glanced over Meng Li and Ye Jian"s parents, and didn"t notice their cultivation, which was strange, since he was a third layer Qi Gathering cultivator. He wouldn"t be able to sense either Meng Li or Ye Jian, but he should be able to feel both Ye Jin and Xie Ja"s cultivation. Meng Li, intrigued, used his Spiritual Sense to investigate. He found that Ye Jian used a secret art to mask his parents, but he left him out of it - that"s why he didn"t feel anything. It was a mysterious art, which Meng Li didn"t know - it wasn"t a really high standard, but Meng Li was interested. He made a mental note to ask Ye Jian to teach him later.
After the chubby man stopped talking, he turned and shouted at the entire caravan.
"Get ready everyone, we"re leaving!" his shout was loud enough to be heard by every member of the caravan, as well as some people living in the surrounding houses.
Ye Jian led Meng Li and his parents to a small cart where they would sit during the journey - it was a cart which carried cargo, but it wasn"t full - it had just enough s.p.a.ce to fit four people, but it wasn"t comfortable. On the top of an uncomfortable place, they also had to have their own beds and make their own food. The environment was not at all pleasant, but Meng Li didn"t care. He didn"t need to eat with his cultivation base, and he didn"t need to sleep either - worst case, he would simply go into the woods and leave Ye Jian some token with his Spiritual Sense to crush when they reached their destination and would live in the mountains, painting all day like he did for many years already.
The cart was shaking constantly while it moved, and the seats were quite uncomfortable. However, Meng Li wasn"t affected - his body was st.u.r.dy enough not to feel any pain or have cramps from the uncomfortable seat, and he could easily negate the shaking using Qi.
"Brother Ye, do you want a sword now?" Meng Li asked all of a sudden. Both Ye Jin and Ye Jian raised their heads, Ye Jin looking quite confused. Ye Jian looked at Meng Li for a few seconds, contemplating, before he nodded.
Meng Li acknowledged the nod and tapped his bag of holding, while he summoned a steel sword. He did so to make Ye Jin and Xie Ja think that he was taking it out of the bag of holding - since Ye Jian carried their luggage in his bag of holding, he a.s.sumed that they knew of its" existence.
The sword he summoned wasn"t special at all - it was a simple, steel sword. From the brief scan of the world, he knew that spiritual weapons were exceedingly rare, and that even Qi Sea cultivators only could get their hands on Qi Gathering spiritual weapons. Since they wanted to lay low, he didn"t need a spiritual weapon, and even with a normal sword, he trusted that Ye Jian would be able to use it to the full capacity.
The moment he summoned the sword and the handle touched his hand, Meng Li experienced an extremely wonderous feeling. It was as though the sword was a part of him, and he could use it as he wished. He felt that if he waved the sword in his hand, even if it didn"t manage to touch anything, even the mere air would be able to split the earth and create a ravine.
The feeling was wonderous beyond compare, and Meng Li couldn"t help but freeze when he held it. It wasn"t a short freeze either - he remained still for more than ten seconds, staring silently at the blade of the sword in his hand. It was thin, merely the width of three fingers, and quite long - more than a metre. To Meng Li, it was as though the sword became the most beautiful thing in the world...
He snapped out of it only after Ye Jian said his name louder. The feeling abruptly stopped, leaving Meng Li feeling quite hollow and seemingly... Disappointed?
Meng Li didn"t know where this feeling came from, but he couldn"t help but feel sad. He silently handed Ye Jian the sword, and to his surprise, when Ye Jian took the sword, Meng Li"s hand actually subconsciously gripped it, like he didn"t want to let it go. He released it in a split second, but Ye Jian still noticed. He sent Meng Li a look of confusion, but didn"t ask.
Meng Li simply sat there, looking into s.p.a.ce, with confusion in his eyes. What was that feeling about? And why did it stop suddenly? Meng Li didn"t know the answer to these questions, but he made up his mind that this night, he would go out into the woods and try and learn the sword.