Journey 1

It was already noon when Damian returned home. He focused fully on cultivation, and didn't come out until three weeks later. After he fully had broken through to the sixth layer of the Golden Core realm. He also felt his attainment in the technique [A Drop In An Ocean art] had reached the great achievement level. Now he could become invisible for a few minutes or hide his presence for a few hours. He could also hide larger and stronger attacks. His [Ten Thousand Rain Drops Strengthens The Mind art] had reached a master level where he could now perceive twenty miles away.

Damian went to jack to retrieve the requested pills. They were exactly what he expected from an expert alchemist that was just a step away from reaching the artisan realm. The pills were all of high quality.

Damian continued dabbling the market the following day, where he brought a spirit metal shield. It was made with fourth-grade spiritual metal, a realm higher than his thunder sword. It was suitable for cultivators on the Nascent soul realm; it had cost him a fortune ten yellow stones. Damian felt he was almost broke, but also understood just how difficult was to extract the ore from the spirit stone mine.

Spirit mines following the colors white, red, yellow, and green, produced spirit ores of the first, second, third, and fourth grades. This grading had been used for materials in general.

Damian spent the last days inscribing the shield into a proper spirit weapon, following one of the hundreds of blueprints he had acquired when studying the manuals for inscriptionists.

The day of departure finally arrived and both teams meet at the western gate of the city at sunrise. Now a wall had been erected with spirit threes of the second grade. The city had to send people deep into the forest.

Damian was accompanied by Christine and Nathan. Both of them had recently broken through to the third layer. Cedric, on his part, had broken through to the third layer. His companions were a male and female, both wearing black robes with a full moon. Both with light brown hair and blue eyes, the woman had a voluptuous contour, and her face was beautiful.

The male had a beard and could be considered handsome. He looked somewhat similar to Cedric. They were called Adrien and Agnes; they were Cedric's cousins, and both of them were on the first layer of the Golden Core realm.

After the team introduced to each other. They departed towards the west. Except for Damian and Cedric, they only knew they were to act as guards for them during the journey and that it would likely last a year. All of them swiftly moved using their movement techniques. In a few minutes, they reached the forest that was twenty miles away from the gate.

They continued their journey. Once they had reached the one-hundred-mile mark, Damian told them to stop. He asked the Lambert clan if they had any technique to conceal themselves. All three of them nodded. He then looked towards Christine and Nathan. They both shook their heads.

Damian asked Cedric and his cousins to move using their concealment technique. While asking Christine and Nathan to hide their Qi and to remain close to him while he used [A Drop In An Ocean art] to cover them and make them harder to detect.

At one hundred miles. They were more than capable of taking on a few demon beasts, but Damian had seen hundreds, if not thousands, of them in the next few hundred miles in his vision. Better be on the safe side.

They continued their journey for a few hours. Concealing their Qi meant they had halved the speed provided by their movement techniques.

The sun still hung in the sky. They still had two hours of daylight. They were four hundred miles away from the village. Fortunately, they had managed to avoid demon beast detection, part of it was because of their concealment, and another part because Damian took detours around most demon beasts.

They still needed to cross six hundred miles, and they should reach the chasm. Damian didn't feel like taking any risk, so they decided to camp there. Wandering in the forest at night was crazy. Predator demon beats were the most active at night. Therefore, they installed the tents and two formations. One for disorienting beasts that came too close, and another one for blending in with the forest. To someone looking from outside the camp, they would only see the forest.

Damian went to his tent and cultivated to be in top shape for the following day. They would only reach the chasm on the third day of their journey.

On the second day, they continued advancing towards their goal, concealing their movements and avoiding the demon beasts. However, they could not avoid the notice of a cheetah at the third layer of the Golden Core that quickly approached them.

Damian quickly noticed the actions of the cheetah and took out his sword. He then used [Divine Defensive Lotus art] to parry the attack of the cheetah, while also slashing a lightning slash. Then while the cheetah was busy parrying his lightning attack, he continued with [Ten Thousand Jade Swords Make One Copper Sword art] summoning hundred of swords. However, he used simultaneously [A Drop In An Ocean art] to hide a few swords aimed towards the vitals of the demon beast.

The other party members didn't sit idly by. They also launched several attacks towards the cheetah. The cheetah avoided several attacks, but it could not avoid all of them, some hit true. While the hits did some damage, they only delayed the cheetah. However, that was all Damian needed. Damian's hidden sword attacks struck true directly piercing the beast in the neck.

The beast launched a few attacks that the team dodged with the help of Damian's swift attacks, and soon the beast finally died.

Damian quickly stored the beast inside his bag of holding and told them to continue.

The battle had lasted barely five breaths of time.

The party pressed onward toward its goal. The day continued, and they had some more encounters with demon beasts that attacked them, but with the coordinated attacks of the team, they were quickly dealt with.

They were fortunate they were attacked by lone demon beasts and not by packs or swarms of them otherwise, they could have been in a dire situation.