Chapter 174: A Doppelganger?
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“I’m asking whether you know this man.”
The Divine Light Sect’s tenth elder, Lin Hantian grew somber, and the power of the essential core from the mid Primal Core adept swept out, his qi putting immense pressure on the body of the Valley elder, who was a mere elementary Connate stage adept. The elder’s face turned white, and fresh blood spurted from his mouth.
This time, the Valley elder knew for sure that these visitors before him were malevolent in nature and hurriedly shook his head in denial, saying, “I don’t know them! I don’t know them!”
“I’ll give you another chance to come clean… are you sure you don’t know them?” Lin Hantian asked again, his lips parted in a wide smile, revealing rows of yellowed teeth.
“No, I don’t.”
The elder of the Valley continued shaking his head.
“I gave you a chance.”
As Lin Hantian said this, the power of the essential core leaped from his hands, pressing against the head of the Valley elder. The devastating power of the essential core crushed him like a meat grinder in an instant, splattering flesh and blood everywhere.
“The truth in your eyes couldn’t get past me.”
Before this, Lin Hantian had seen the subtle look of surprise flash across the Valley elder’s face and was almost certain that the man recognized the characters in the portrait. He only interrogated the elder again just to be doubly sure.
“It looks like the both of them were from this G.o.dforsaken land of barren hills and treacherous waters… it is no wonder that the third elder would pa.s.s on this information from the seventeenth elder, Liu Xuanyu. After thorough investigation, they were certain these two were not from the Shenguang Empire, but they also couldn’t determine anything of their backgrounds even from the other four empires.”
After finis.h.i.+ng off the Valley elder, Lin Hantian settled again on the giant eagle’s back in a flash. “So they’ve come from a place like this. It is not unusual then, for Liu Xuanyu to have uncovered so little of the origins of these people.”
“This place is far too remote.”
Riding on the giant eagle, Lin Hantian sped toward the Valley.
Their sudden appearance naturally shocked the other three elders of Valley of the Medicine Masters, who kept at their watch posts… However, when the three of them saw that the giant eagle at Lin Hantian’s feet had a wingspan of more than 20 meters, their faces drained of all color.
“A Connate… Connate-level beast?”
“No… that giant eagle that you all see with the faint white glow wrapped around its body, that is clearly the mark of a Primal Core beast!”
“A Primal Core beast?”
As the three elders of the Valley confirmed that the giant eagle was truly a Primal Core beast, their faces changed again, and this time, they were consumed with mortal fear.
How could a Primal Core beast suddenly appear in their Valley?
And to top that off, one that was being steered by a strange middle-aged man.
But it did not take much for them to deduce this: The man riding this Primal Core beast was most likely also a Primal Core adept, and very possibly a much stronger one than the beast at his feet.
“Just now, I asked a man over there a question… he was not honest, and so I killed him.”
Lin Hantian stood on the giant eagle’s back and pointed to where he came from, as he watched the three flying beasts that the three Valley elders were riding grow increasingly restless and uncomfortable.
The three Valley elders looked to the direction of the watch post that Lin Hantian was pointing at, and the look on their faces changed dramatically.
They were just wondering to themselves, about why the sentry at that watchtower had not come with them. It was because he was killed by this man who was now in front of them!
“I only hope that you will not disappoint me.”
As Lin Hantian declared this, he lifted his arm, and the two portraits held up by solid shafts of white light flew out.
The two portraits were held up before the three Valley elder’s eyes.
With this one move from Lin Hantian, the three men came to a new realization: The man in black robes that was before them was not just a Primal Core adept, but a mid Primal Core adept at that!
The milky white essential core that this man was able to ama.s.s and condense into a solid state was the mark of a mid Primal Core adept
“Valley Head?”
One of the Valley elders, startled by the figure in one of the portraits, involuntarily called out in surprise.
As soon as he had let out the exclamation, his eyes immediately showed a sense of regret. The people before him obviously had ill intentions, and if they were in search of the Valley Head, it was definitely not for good.
“Valley Head?”
Lin Hantian’s eyes brightened. “That man there, you say he is your Head of the Valley of the Medicine Masters?
“To think that even a small sect such as yourselves, in a desolate place like this, can produce an early Primal Core adept… He must be the first of his kind in the history of the Valley of the Medicine Masters, right?”
Lin Hantian’s eyes narrowed in curiosity as he questioned.
“A Primal Core adept?”
The three elders of the Valley were completely stunned. This man claimed that their Valley Head was a Primal Core adept?”
“My lord, you… you must be mistaken? Our Valley Head is in fact not a Primal Core adept, but only a late Connate stage adept,” one of the elders of the Valley explained.
“Yes. My lord, it must be someone who looks just like him, you are mistaken.”
“Indeed! And this other person, we do not recognize him. Perhaps, you have made a mistake my lord… Our Valley Head is genuinely a Connate stage adept, and not even one who has reached his extreme level of cultivation, much less a Primal Core adept.”
The other two Valley elders piped in as well.
They said this, even though they knew for sure, and without a doubt, that the person in the portrait was their very own Valley Head.
Other than using a doppelganger as an excuse, how would they explain the ident.i.ty of the young man in the other portrait?
The young man with the handsome features and extraordinary aura about him was obviously the history-making Connate stage teenager, and also the head master of the Valley of the Medicine Masters.
Now, as they deemed the new visitors to be hostile, the three Valley elders tried their best to remedy the situation and make sure that they didn’t find out who exactly this person in the portrait was.
“Mm?”
As Lin Hantian considered the three Valley elders’ words, his brows furrowed. Was this man in the portrait truly a lookalike, a doppelganger?
To confirm the matter, Lin Hantian personally stopped a disciple of the Valley of Medicine Masters to ask him if he knew the person in the portrait… And for extra a.s.surance, he did not bring the three elders of the Valley to the ground with him.
The three Valley elders, still up in the air, had the still-trembling flying beasts at their feet, their eyes barely showing their subtle look of discomfort.
Now, their only hope was that their fellow disciple would not give them away.
Speaking of coincidence.
The man that Lin Hantian stopped to speak to was not just any person. He was in fact, the same disciple that the legendary Zhou Donghuang met soon after he arrived at the Valley of the Medicine Masters—Huang Mingfeng.
At that time, Huang Mingfeng had personally brought Zhou Donghuang to the practice grounds himself as if he were a familiar.
“Boy, do you recognize these two men in the portraits?”
Lin Hantian landed from the air and appeared before Huang Mingfeng. Naturally, this scared him as he stammered, “Flying… you can fly… You… You are a Primal Core adept?!”
“Tell me honestly, or I will have your head!”
Lin Hantian’s tone was cold, and his voice gave one the feeling of falling into an icy cellar. This scared Huang Mingfeng to the point of paralysis, as his whole body stiffened in response.
At that moment, as Huang Mingfeng looked up at the two portraits held up by Lin Hantian, and saw that one of them was a picture of Su Mo, he involuntarily let out a small shriek.
“What is it? Do you recognize him?”
Lin Hantian’s eyebrow twitched impatiently as he questioned the boy.
“He does look familiar… but, on closer look, it is not the same person.”
Huang Mingfeng shook his head, at the same time silently cursing the man before him. “How dare you threaten me… And so what if you are a Primal Core adept? Even if I did recognize him as our Valley Head, why should I tell you anything? What would you do… bite me? Come! I dare you to bite me!”
And it was while he was harboring these thoughts that Huang Mingfeng saw the young man in the other portrait, he had to look away after a quick glance.
“Your Head of the Valley of Medicine Masters, what stage of practice is he in?” Lin Hantian asked coldly.
“Connate stage.”
Lin Hantian’s tone was so ice-cold that he frightened Huang Mingfeng on another level, and without any further thought, he had inadvertently responded to Lin Hantian’s line of questioning.
He regretted it deeply as soon as he responded. Why did he not think of continuing the lie with this b.a.s.t.a.r.d?
“Connate stage?”
Lin Hantian frowned and considered the Valley disciple in front of him, who just a moment ago was paralyzed with fear and rooted to the ground as if his legs had been filled with lead. He asked again, “Your Head of the Valley of Medicine Masters, what stage of practice is he in?”
However, the Valley disciple did not seem to respond to Lin Hantian’s question and instead seemed to ignore him completely.
It was only when Lin Hantian took a few steps forward, until he was right in front of him, did he hurriedly respond, “The late Connate stage! Late Connate stage! The Valley Head is a late Connate stage adept!
“My lord…. please… please don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!”
This Primal Core adept could not only kill him, but could even destroy the entire Valley of the Medicine Masters, and with complete ease at that. So when this Valley disciple came face to face with the flying Lin Hantian right in front of him, he was truly scared out of his wits.
“Late Connate stage?”
Lin Hantian’s face sank a little. Could it really be that this person was just a lookalike?
Nonetheless, this time, Lin Hantian was not going to give up on this.
As he distractedly rolled up the two portraits and put them away, he went back to find two other Valley elders, threatening them with their own lives, and interrogated them about the Head of the Valley of Medicine Master’s current stage of cultivation.
At last, Lin Hantian was able to be completely certain about one fact:
The Head of the Valley of the Medicine Master, was indeed only just a late Connate stage adept.
At least he was at the late Connate stage a year ago.
“It looks like this person really is just a doppelganger.”
At this time, Lin Hantian did not even have the intention of approaching the Head of the Valley of Medicine Masters himself to confirm his ident.i.ty but instead rode his giant eagle out of the Valley. Before long, he emerged from the sky above one of the Sixteen Countries of the East Valley.
In Lin Hantian’s opinion:
A Valley Head from the tiny sect of the Valley of Medicine Masters in a barren and desolate place… even the most talented and outstanding disciple from the Divine Light Sect could not, in the short time of one year, advance two levels from the Connate stage to enter into the Primal Core stage.
Because of this, he knew that this person was just someone who resembled the man.
“According to some records of Eagle Eye… there are sixteen small countries in close range of the Valley of the Medicine Masters, they are collectively referred to as the Sixteen Countries of the East Valley.
“This must be one of the Sixteen Countries of the East Valley.”
Lin Hantian glanced down and then addressed the giant eagle at his feet, “Although the two are unlikely to have come from such a small place… Since we are here, we might as well stop at each of the Sixteen Countries of the East Valley to ask about it.”