Ambushing

Bai Hu crouched atop a rather thick tree branch. Just below him were 4 more black robed figures who talked while setting up camp. Bai Hu wanted to find out if they truly wanted to kill him or not before choosing his next move.

The sun was starting to set and one's vision is heavily restricted even if they use qi to boost it, thus, cultivators would not often travel at night even if they have something really important to do. Perhaps the only true motivator is a life and death situation.

He continued to wait in place without moving. About an hour passed when one of the figures separated from the group and Bai Hu quickly jumped from tree to tree in pursuit.

By now, the sun had gone down completely and the forest was filled with countless shadows. When they were sufficiently far enough away from the other 3, Bai Hu swooped down and jabbed his finger into the robed man's pressure point.

The man was rendered immobile, and Bai Hu hurriedly covered his mouth with a sealing talisman before dragging him even farther away.

Poof!

He threw the man down against a tree and uncovered their face.

A man with dark skin and a square face was revealed. Seeing his captor, he revealed anger and fear in his eyes.

Bai Hu spoke in a chilling tone, "I will ask questions and you will answer truthfully. Any attempts at making an escape, any sounds, or lying will result in your death"

The man gave an affirmative look and Bai Hu peeled away the sealing talisman.

"Who sent you and what did they want? And how many of you are there"

The square faced man put on a fawning expression, "As expected of a genius! My lowly self cannot even begin to compare-"

He stopped seeing that the young man was immune to his flattery and chose to be direct.

"Humph! Start counting your days kid, Senior Yuan Kai has paid for 50 people to target you. You shouldn't have-"

Swoosh!

Bai Hu's hand moved in a graceful ark and chopped off the man's head. His face was devoid of any emotion, though it was clear to see that he was furious.

"Since they want me dead, then they can forget about leaving alive"

Anyone sent after him will be killed, and those that don't come across him are simply lucky.

Bai Hu took the man's robe and spatial pouch before burning the body. As expected, aside from a hefty amount of spirit stones and rare herbs, there were also several talismans, concealment treasures such as the robe, and a few offensive and defensive treasures.

Bai Hu assumed that everyone partaking in this operation is equipped with similar treasures and was impressed by the lengths Mo Yuan Kai went in order to kill him. Even with the 4 kings working together, it must have cost them most of their resources to arm such a large force.

He smiled. Naturally, when someone gives you a large number of treasures that you don't have, your mood lifts. Bai Hu wasn't about to let go of such a big opportunity to arm himself and put on the square faced man's robe and smear blood all over it.

…

..

.

"H-help!"

3 black robed figures looked in the same direction to find their comrade limping towards them while covered in blood.

"Number 16! What happened?"

"Cough, a group of cultivators from the Sword Tower attacked me. I had to use a Wind Chasing Talisman escape"

The rest of them started to panic.

If it is found that they were trying to harm a fellow sect disciple, then their punishments would be worse than death. They couldn't even get rid of the Sword Tower disciples as that might harm the relations between the 2 sects.

They turned to "Number 16"

"How many were there? What are their cultivations?"

"Number 16" was still trying to catch his breath. Propping himself against a tree, he spoke.

"There... there was-"

Swish!

A long object appeared in his hands and traveled in a wide ark. 3 heads flew into the air and landed on the ground with a dull thud.

Bai Hu took off his hood and stabbed the Black Sky Gold Spear into the ground before taking all the spatial pouches the trio had and burning the bodies.

Aside from the spirit stones, they each had 2 Wind Chasing Talismans, 2 Aura Sealing Talismans, and a low grade magic treasure.

All of their magic treasures were different, making Bai Hu rejoice. There was a sword that can be controlled using Divine Sense, a shield made of overlapping black scales, a gourd that held a dozen water beads, and a set of 6 gold daggers that could be thrown and controlled.

With these treasures, Bai Hu's survivability soared along with his mood. Mo Yuan Kai might just die from anger if he heard that the many treasures that he procured had ended up in Bai Hu's hands.

He ran into several more groups that night, easily disposing of them using his disguise and the Black Sky Gold Spear. Perhaps he was just lucky, but he had managed to get rid of a fifth of his assassins despite the size of the trial grounds.

The next day, Bai Hu had officially entered the inner regions of the trial grounds and felt the pressure increase. The amount of beasts with peak qi refinement cultivation increased drastically, and there will even be Foundation level beasts.

After an hour of traveling, Bai Hu reached his first destination.

Behind a waterfall hidden deep in the forest, a cave housing dozens of bright purple lotuses. The lotuses had barely visible vein-like patterns on their petals and gave off an indescribable fragrance.

These were Purple Vein Lotuses that only grew in dark and damp areas. Near them, were small flowers with a scaly azure colored fruit at the end of it. The Purple Vein Lotuses and Azure Scale Fruits often grew together and are 2 of the core ingredients in Foundation Establishment Pills.

Luckily for Bai Hu, it seems that no one had come to this area yet, leaving him with the largest share.

It had been agreed by the 7 sects that the first one to arrive at the area will be able to harvest half of the materials there. The second person will harvest half of that and so on. Once there are only a few dozen materials left, that area will be deemed off limits and no one will be able to harvest any more herbs.

Every single one of the disciples who entered the trial had sworn an especially harsh heart oath on this matter, thus ensuring no one broke the rules.

Bai Hu moved with unerring swiftness, removing the herbs gently without hurting the roots and placing them in his sect issued spatial pouch. That spatial pouch had a hundred cubic meters of storage and thus was very convenient for Bai Hu, who had a lot of herbs on his list to check out.

After 2 incenses worth of time, Bai Hu quickly made his way to his next destination without pause.

Over the next few days, Bai Hu made it to a dozen different areas and managed to obtain a great many portions of Meridian Clearing Grass, Sun Setting Leaves, Nightshade Flowers, and Coiled Serpent Flowers. These herbs are the primary materials needed to concoct the Foundation Establishment Pill.

Other than that, he also got Coiled Dragon Fruits, Tri-petal Lotuses, Five Wonder Rose, and Green Spirit Ginseng. These form what is called the Coiled Dragon Pill, a pill effective for increasing the cultivations of Foundation and Core Formation cultivators.

What unsettled him was the fact that no one had plundered these herbs yet, making his spatial pouch quite full of resources. If not for the fact that he had the spatial pouches of the people he'd killed, Bai Hu might not have enough room for all these herbs. He didn't even run into any Foundation level beasts!

What Bai Hu didn't know was that many kilometers away in the outer region, huge battles erupted, resulting in the deaths of countless cultivators and drawing the attention of the Foundation level beasts.

Had he not chosen to go to the inner regions, he would have very likely been caught up in the battles that happened everywhere.

One month later...

A handsome youth sat legs crossed in a hidden cave. Around him were several formation flags which he had plundered off an unfortunate young man who made quite the unfortunate choice of hunting him.

They were Aura Suppressing Flags that formed to make an Aura Masking Formation. It was one of the best concealment formations and hid all traces inside the formation.

Despite this, the youth who was Bai Hu had an uneasy expression on his face as his inner monologue went about making assumptions.

"I managed to obtain hundreds of portions of each medical herb that Shui Bing and Master requested. I even entered several mines and got quite a lot of rare forging and refinement materials. So where was everyone that was supposed to show up?! Why are none of the areas looted?!"