Ch 33 – Lo Bai’s Shock

"Hmm…" A mellow hum lightly echoed in an extravagant room, with a floor coming from a rare stone found in dangerous mountains, tables created from the wood of living trees as strong as Rank 5 Gu Masters and beast emperors, crystal chandeliers constructed using precious crystals found in the depths of oceans, and many more.

Sitting on a soft sofa-like object was a man with long black hair and dazzling black eyes that seem to hold brilliant stars within them as if both orbs were the boundless cosmos. He wore a simple black robe, and even though it was simple in design, when it was coupled with his handsome appearance, elevated his looks to that of a lofty immortal detached from the mortal world.

Within a glance, anyone in Lo Clan City would instantly be able to tell who the man was.

He was Lo Bai! The only supreme elder of Lo Clan, and its founder!

While Lo Clan is famously known for its qi path Gu, its founder is actually a space path expert who was born hundreds of years ago.

In terms of strength, he can be said to be in the upper stages of Rank 6 Gu Immortals. Unfortunately, even if he had Lo Clan under him, he still doesn't have a single immortal Gu on hand.

But even if he lacked an immortal Gu, he was still an expert nonetheless!

A Gu Immortal, a being who wields unending primeval essence, a figure that even tens of Rank 5 mortal experts can't defeat!

The difference between a mortal Gu Master and a Gu Immortal is as vast as an elephant and an ant; it was comparable to a baby fighting a fully-grown adult, no, a martial artist who is also a master of deadly weapons!

Lo Bai was a legendary figure with many legends and tales circulating throughout the Central Continent.

He was a hero, a person who had lived a life similar to those of protagonists in fictional stories.

He slayed beasts and saved cities, charmed noble ladies, and wooed beautiful women; he defeated numerous experts and rose from the very bottom to the top of the mortal realm until finally, he undertook the biggest jump and became a Gu Immortal!

Lo Bai was an undeniable expert, a figure who has lived for hundreds of years and was a wise man.

As he squinted his eyes, he stared at the projection in the air in front of him showing a certain scene.

On a stage filled with cracks and fractures, there lay two figures.

One was a man wearing a yellow robe, with charred skin and fried hair. He looked pitiful, yet the man didn't even bathe an eye before moving on to the other figure.

He wore a black cloak that covered his body from head to toe, and under the hood of his robe, he can vaguely see the outline of a black mask with no eye holes. Under the cloak, Lo Bai "saw" black wispy shadows that covered the figure's entire body, surprising the mysterious Gu Immortal by a bit.

"Hmm?" He raised the pitch of his voice a tad bit, intrigued by this new development.

'While I didn't go all out, I should have still been able to look through that black shadow covering his entire body without much of a problem.' Lo Bai scratches his chin, furrowing his brows while noticing another thing, 'And his aura is just as they claimed, it is of a Rank 2 Gu Master.'

Noticing more and more of the cloaked figure's peculiarities and strange properties, Lo Bai straightened his back and leaned his body back into his sofa-like chair.

"Mingli," softly muttering a name, he watches as space warps ahead of him and from it, a person wearing a black robe appears.

"Lord Supreme Elder," kneeling on the ground, Lo Mingli bows his head respectfully and awaits Lo Bai's orders.

"Bring me the victor of the tournament, Locus," Lo Bai said wistfully.

Surprise to hear this, Lo Mingli quickly erases the question he has in his mind and stood up with his head still bowed, nodding his head and saying, "Yes, Lord Supreme Elder."

Disappearing once again, Lo Bai remains sitting in silence as he whispers, "Let's see what your secrets are, Locus."

…

Standing on the ground in silence, Kaleido watches as Hu Qiang's body falls down on the ground in front of him with a loud thud, the smell of burnt flesh entering his nose.

Kaleido stares at the boy in front of him. Hu Qiang lays there pitifully, with charred skin and burnt hair, his fluttering yellow robe from before was now torn and seared, while his body's vitality seemed to have been drained.

As time seemingly resumes, the crowd sitting on the seats stands up, erupting into loud cheers as glitters of light fall from the sky.

"WINNER: LOCUS!!!"

Despite being the winner, Locus, the disguised Kaleido, stands there in silence as a strange feeling welled up within him, 'Something's wrong.'

Darting his "eyes" around him and throughout the entire stage, a strange feeling of foreboding seemed to invade his mind, and his muscles tense up.

'Don't tell me-' Just as Kaleido was preparing to head off the stage, he unexpectedly feels the space before him warp and twist.

Similar to how he teleports from one place to another, he sees a new figure appear from nowhere, wearing a black robe that complemented his black eyes and black hair.

As the crowd swiftly notices the newly arrived figure, they quieted down and started to murmur to one another.

"I give you my sincerest congrats, Locus, for winning our Lo Clan's tournament," the figure bowed in quick succession as if expressing his lack of danger to Kaleido.

Not relaxing by a single bit, he pretended to relax his tensed muscles and asked, "Who are you?"

"Who am I doesn't matter, but what does matter is that my master asks of you to meet him right this instance," the person said with a voice that doesn't allow refusal.

Intrigued by this, Kaleido questioned coldly, "And what if I don't want to meet him?"

"Then you'll be punished for offending the Gu Immortal-"

Flick.

The illusory sound of flicking a switch resounded in Kaleido's mind as time seemed to have paused.

A barrage of questions rapidly swirled in chaos within his mind, and after an unknown period of time thinking deeply about the situation, Kaleido's eyes glimmered and his perception of time returned to normal.

"-and Supreme Elder of Lo Clan, Lord Lo Bai."

"Then lead the way," Kaleido nodded his head promptly.

Without wasting their time, the attendant waved his arm and the two disappeared in the next second.

As the warped space around him returned to normal, and so did the bent rays of light, he finally saw the room he was in.

An extravagant room, with furniture created from luxurious materials belonging to powerful monsters and rare resources that can be bought with a fortune.

Sitting leisurely on a sofa was a man with seemingly no aura, but that alone made him more dangerous as it showed the vast gap between him and Kaleido.

But Kaleido was calm and collected. Without even waiting for the attendant beside him to speak, he casually walked up to a chair and sat down.

Not being offended in the slightest, Lo Bai waved his arm and the attendant nodded his head in response, taking his action as a sign for him to leave.

When he disappeared, only the two figures were left in the room.

As silence lightly engulfed the room, Lo Bai finally spoke after a short pause as he said, "You're an interesting man, Locus."

Not waiting for Kaleido to speak, he continued, "Winning all of your matches without even breaking a sweat, you really surprised me. Even your final fight against Hu Qiang showed that you weren't even serious, so I should say that you must have already reached Rank 5?"

"…"

Seeing Kaleido remaining silent, Lo Bai chuckled and snapped his fingers, magically causing two cups of tea to appear on the table ahead of him.

"Mirror Crystal Tea, a pretty good drink made from the mirror crystals that give the tea a taste akin to the endless reflection of numerous tastes," Lo Bai smiled amicably, picked up his own cup, and took a sip of the crystal clear tea.

Kaleido remained silent, picking up the tea from his hand and raising it near to his head, but he still didn't take a sip nor removed the black iron mask covering his face.

As those events unfolded, Lo Bai, who was calmly drinking his tea, was instead frowning inwardly as he couldn't help but feel suspicious of the person in front of him, 'Even with my investigation methods, I still don't sense his true aura. I can still only feel that he is Rank 2!'

'But that should be impossible, I already used many different Rank 5 Gu to probe his aura secretly, but it didn't work… Unless, unless he used an immortal GU or a killer move that can hide his aura from common Rank 5 Gu.'

'Does he have a Gu Immortal backing him? Does he have access to a mystical unknown Gu that only he knows?' The more Lo Bai questioned, the brighter his smile became outside.

"The tea is good," Kaleido suddenly said, taking Lo Bai out of his deep thoughts.

Seeing Kaleido returning to silence, Lo Bai sneakily activated more Gu without Kaleido noticing, and said, "Hmm, you can ask me questions if you like."

Seemingly piquing Kaleido's interest, the quiet man finally spoke more words, "What are the differences between Gu Masters and Gu Immortals."

"Oh?" Lo Bai wasn't all that surprised by this question, but this question eliminated many of the theories he had in his mind.

'He is definitely Rank 4 or higher, meaning it's normal to have an interest in Gu Immortals, but if that's the case, this should also mean that him having a Gu Immortal backing him is out of the question…' Lo Bai quickly deduced many things, but all of that only happened in a split-second before he then responded.

"Hmm…" Lo Bai hummed, squinted his eyes, and said, "The main difference between Gu Immortals and Gu Masters is that Gu Immortals have transformed their aperture into blessed lands, they now produce immortal essence and one bead of it is basically unlimited primeval essence, and most importantly, the one thing that paved the gap between the ranks of Gu Immortals…"

As if pausing to give rise to tension, Lo Bai was actually instead using more and more Gu to slowly pierce his investigation through the black smoke covering Kaleido's body and see what was underneath it.

"Is dao marks."

"Dao marks?" Kaleido asked, intrigued by this term that he has heard for the first time.

"It can be considered as the main difference between Gu Immortals and Gu Masters, desolate beasts to beasts, gu materials to immortal materials. Dao marks, the thing that can amplify the strength of Gu Immortals."

"We gain them through things called tribulations that appear in a set amount of time inside our blessed lands, and after successfully facing a tribulation, we would gain more dao marks. The more dao marks we have, the stronger we would generally get."

"100 dao marks is equivalent to making your Gu 10% stronger."

"Oh…" Lo Bai noticed Kaleido's peculiar-sounding voice, a voice that seemed to have been enlightened by numerous things, and the relief the voice held could even be felt by Lo Bai.

"So it can be inquired that dao marks are usually invisible considering it should hypothetically exists everywhere. But what if the dao marks are visible even to the naked eye?"

'Visible dao marks?' As Lo Bai heard the question, his progress in breaking through the black fog that concealed Kaleido's body was getting faster and faster.

"Visible dao marks, or the visible light of dao marks, should only belong to immemorial desolate beasts that have reached quasi-Rank 9 as their dao marks are stored on their body and not their blessed land and Rank 9 is the theoretical highest rank that no one has ever yet reached. Since none has ever appeared, we can only assume that quasi-Rank 9 should have at least 300k dao… marks…"

Silence.

From the illuminated black fog, Lo Bai stared with a blank gaze at the markings on Kaleido's body colored black and white, and even though they didn't shine like what was said about the visible light of dao marks that quasi-Rank 9 beasts have, they were undeniably…

'DAO MARKS?! SUCH DENSE DAO MARKS! O-ONLY BEINGS AT RANK 9 SHOULD THEORETICALLY HAVE THAT MUCH!'

"Y-You! Who are you?!"

AN: This chapter has 2140 words.

Bars.

Anyways, your author is lowkey dying. My friends kept puking yesterday and I feel my stomach churn after waking up. Now I'm a bit scared if I'll suffer the same fate as them.

(February 6, 2023 – 438th day of writing)