Stalker

"Finally... We're here..."

Hu Long stood in a sweat just past the Dabang Sect City's entry gates, heaving and panting as he buckled over, leaning his hands on his knees. He and Ryker had just gotten through the gate inspection, a fairly quick process since Hu Long had just the bare necessities in his pack.

The guards of course had no idea about Ryker's storage rings in Mini C's dimensional pocket...

"Hey, good job, dude! You're really getting the hang of it, now," Ryker said from beside him, clapping him on the back, which made Hu Long grit his teeth and hold back a curse as a shock went through his aching body.

He had wanted to squeeze out as much knowledge of the mana body refining technique out of Ryker as possible while they were still traveling together, so Ryker suggested that he practice the method while they were walking for the last day of their journey.

He figured it would hurt... but the pain he felt right now was ridiculous!

"Damn it...!"

Wiping the sweat off of his forehead and straightening his back, Hu Long let out a deep breath as he went right back into practicing the body refinement technique, mentally commanding himself to ignore the pain.

Although the soreness in his muscles and bones were almost unbearable, he couldn't deny the technique's effectiveness; after only three days of practice, he felt his physical strength skyrocket to at least double what it was, before, and the gains he felt from this one day of walking were almost comparable to the gains of the last three.

The amazing thing was that the technique seemed to bypass the 'recovery' process of the body, somehow keeping it in a state of continual growth as it broke the body down. Even though he was sore all over, he could still exert his full strength.

It would just hurt like hell, if he did.

"Well, looks like this is where we split up, huh?"

Hu Long looked over as he heard Ryker speak, and he nodded in agreement, adjusting the bag on his shoulders.

"... Right. You'll be going to look for your friend, then?"

"Yea, I'll probably ask around and see what's up. Guess you'll be looking to join the sect?"

"Mm. Good luck to you, Ryker, and thanks again for teaching me your technique."

He bowed to Ryker in salute, a faint smile on his lips. As the two of them parted ways, Ryker waving him off the whole time, Hu Long couldn't help but think that he was an interesting guy.

Maybe not someone he would associate with on the regular, but an interesting guy, nonetheless.

Clutching the recommendation letter kept inside his robes, he made his way into the city proper, eyes set on the sheer mountain cliff that towered over the buildings at the center of the city. This was the location of one of the Five Great Sects of the Eastern Region, the Dabang Sect!

--

A short ways away, among the throng of people chattering amongst themselves as they waited their turn to enter the city, a plain, unassuming woman stood watching Ryker and Hu Long's exchange from just outside the city gate. She had a notebook in her hand, in which she scribbled down some notes with a stick of charcoal, keeping her profile low as she stood in the shade of the city walls.

- Final destination, Dabang Sect? Possible connection, will investigate further. -

Closing the notebook shut, she immediately hid her presence and scaled the city walls, going unnoticed by the guards performing inspections.

She was up the walls so quickly that no one even had a chance to look her way, and she had timed her ascent with the patrol of the guardsmen atop the walls so that they would be heading away in opposite directions.

This woman was of course Xia Qingge, the hidden spy raised by Xia Qiao of the Great Void Sect. Quickly making sure the inner wall was free of too many onlookers, she lightly stepped off the walls to land on the roof of a high-rising building, rolling to the side as she landed to go over the edge and down to the alley, below.

'What could he possibly be doing, here...'

Having shadowed Ryker since he entered the Wandering Battle School's domain, she knew of his alleged plans to meet a friend, here. The question was, was that his true purpose, or was there something else going on... Could he actually have some connection to the Dabang Sect?

She relaxed her body and mind as she walked out of the alley and blended into the crowds, keeping her focus elsewhere as she followed Ryker from a good distance away. It was easy to keep him in her periphery as she weaved through the crowded street, since his head stuck out like a tall cattail amongst the stream of people surrounding him.

Her thoughts turned elsewhere as she stalked him to an inn, taking a seat outside at a nearby teahouse and placing an order as he entered. If he really was an associate of the Dabang Sect, things could get complicated.

Although its strength had declined over the years, it was still one of the Five Great Sects. Taking care of Ryker would be troublesome if he had strong ties to them.

However, all of her investigation pointed to Ryker being some kind of foreigner. He had never appeared in any citizenship records she or her team could find, neither here nor the Zhou Empire, and all the witnesses they'd talked to professed to never seeing this man, before. So just what business would he have in the Dabang Sect? If it was true he was meeting a friend here, how did they come to know each other?

She would have to keep careful watch over his actions, from now on.

--

[Careful, Ryker, you may have someone on your tail.]

"Huh? Where?"

Mini C took a pause before he answered, his voice uncharacteristically uncertain as he spoke.

[... I'm not sure.]

Ryker scanned his surroundings with narrowed eyes as he pushed through the crowd, but of course, he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. It was doubtful that he would find anyone in particular in the crowd of people pressing against him, anyway.

"That's weird..." he muttered to himself, finally spotting an inn and heading over to check in to a room. It was rare for Mini C to be uncertain about something like this; was there something wrong with the compad functions?

[There's nothing wrong, per se... I've just been getting a strange reading every so often as we've been traveling.]

Mini C explained his findings to Ryker, telling him of an odd blip in his environmental scanning results that would show up every now and then. However, when he focused his scan on the area in question, he would turn up nothing out of the ordinary.

He would have chalked it up to some strange quirk of having been in this new environment for so long, but when they entered the city, there was a noticeable spike in this phenomenon. All he could think of for explanation was that there was someone, or something, following them that could somehow evade the notice of his scanning functions.

[Just be careful. I'm still not sure if there's any need for concern, but better to be safe, than sorry.]

Ryker nodded, dropping his satchel to the floor of his inn room after having paid for the booking. He immediately jumped on to the bed, flopping onto his back and heaving a sigh.

"Haah. Well, do you think we should try and call C?" he said aloud. Since they were now in the same city, they should be within range for local compad communications.

Mini C just floated the compad from out of his bag and onto the bed in answer, the screen lighting up with a picture of a man that looked a lot like Mini C while having the word 'Calling...' superimposed on it.

Ryker gulped as he stared intently at the screen, the ringing jingle playing over and over. Would he finally be able to talk to someone from back home...?