The Outer court and the Depths

Illus continued on his way, walking through the forest.

Soon he reached his destination, a tree whose branches spread out far and wide in comparison to the others surrounding it. There was nothing special about the tree itself, but on the tree lay three panthers with sleek black fur, seemingly.

The first two opened their eyes at Illus's approach. They were approximately the same size and seemed to be adults. They coolly looked in Illus's direction and meowed at him as a greeting. They seemed excited as their tails twitched. They wanted to hunt

Upon their greeting the third cat opened their eyes and looked at Illus. Registering this Illus turned his head towards the panther. They were slightly smaller than the other two and anyone passing by could probably guess what they were; a family. The cat stared at Illus before closing it's eyes again.

Illus smiled lazily. Though it didn't seem like it from the greeting, other than Mae, he had the best relationship with the third panther, whom Mae claimed was named Shade. She was a spirit beast with great potential and was the daughter of the two panthers that lay near, Oz and Amy. They were very alike. All they wanted to do was sleep in comfort without having to worry about anything or anyone. Neither liked to train or get involved, but would do so if necessary.

Oz, the father, looked at their interaction and smiled internally. The only other person Shade would open her eyes for was Mae, and she was an exception. She commanded respect. Illus, on the other hand, was often scorned by spirit beasts. They did not like cultivators who refused to acknowledge their similar capacity for intelligence and would hunt them either for their cores or just for sport. Much like the other beasts Illus was now acquainted with, he had been wary at first of the human, but his worries were soon proven unfounded. Illus did not care for tradition. He lacked respect for life, but made up for it with respect for intelligence. All beings with consciousness and intelligence were equal in Illus's eyes.

Illus looked up at the panthers

"So we doing this or what?"

Amy nodded her head and turned towards a direction. Though they couldn't communicate with Illus through words, Illus was well versed enough in expressions to read through most things as long as they didn't introduce new information. Besides, they had already discussed the plan with Mae as an interpreter before hand. She was a spirit beast powerful enough to hold a human form and could communicate with both sides.

Today they were hunting a spirit beast who had been killing outer disciples of the Heavenly sect. So far it hadn't caused enough waves to prompt an Elder to come out, but it was only a matter of time. The Six Eyed Wolf was particularly nasty and it was rather strong for being in the outskirts of The Depths. Standing at 5th level Practitioner, it was stronger than Oz and Amy, who were both at 3rd level Practitioner and Shade who was 2nd. Illus was at 5th level as well, but generally spirit beasts were stronger than humans of the same realm due to natural advantages. Shade had not been alive for very long and the fact that she was almost as strong as her parents spoke to her talent. Soon she would advance and be able to take on the Six Eyed Wolf herself, but not soon enough so they had decided to team up with Illus to get the job done.

Their teaming up with Illus was not just for that reason however. Normally they would face the wolf themselves as training and escape with stealth, however, the wolf had something weird going on. From their observations, something was wrong it's blood. They weren't sure, but Amy had informed Mae that they suspected foul play, possibly from blood cultists, and she suggested that they bring Illus as insurance, so here he was.

Illus walked towards the direction Amy pointed to and spread his senses. Due to the fact that Illus almost never opened his eyes, even as a mortal, his senses were exemplary. Though Illus didn't practice or covet techniques like most cultivators, he had other things that even cultivators of upper heavens couldn't claim to have naturally. He had been taught stealth by shadow cats, making his already weak presence even more unnoticeable. He knew how to infuse objects with qi due to playing catch with Ost. He had developed echolocation and could sense vibrations in the air just by practice. These were things that could only be done using a cultivation technique and even then those techniques were more imperfect than being able to do it naturally.

Illus had a wide range and while he couldn't sense everything to a minute detail, something as big and loud as the Six Eyed Wolf would not escape his senses if he put in the effort and was in the vicinity.

Illus cocked his head and all three panthers stood up. They had senses similar to Illus and had known him for a while. When he cocked (tilted) his head, it meant he found something.

Illus opened his eyes and frowned, making the atmosphere scratchy and the panthers uncomfortable. Illus had a relaxing, refreshing atmosphere that relaxed things around him, but that "illusion" was broken whenever he got serious or opened his eyes. It made him look like a demon in some cases. It seems that in this case both were the culprit of him breaking his atmosphere. Even Shade got worried.

"Uh oh."

The panthers jumped down and tilted their heads, asking a question.

[A/N: I will just put their thoughts for the most part, I think. It's not them speaking, just Illus interpreting]

'What's wrong?'

They didn't have the echolocation or senses of Illus despite being spirit beasts who were supposed to be superior in that aspect. This only goes to show just how abnormal Illus is.

"There's a bunch of disciples and a few elders gathered by the edge of the Depths."

The panthers tensed. This was not good.

'A hunt?'

"Possibly, but I don't think so. From what I can make out the disciples seem inexperienced. They also aren't wearing robes. A test, perhaps?" Illus mused

The panthers stared at Illus with questioning looks. If anyone would know when the outer court test was, it was Illus.

"Don't look at me like that, I don't know."

Illus rarely got involved with the sect, despite being a disciple so he had no clue of the situation.

'Weird,' Illus thought, 'what's with the amped up difficulty of the test. Naturally, an outer court test in the Depths would be incredibly difficult. My test wasn't there. What changed?'

Once again, Illus had no clue and honestly couldn't care less, but this complicated things. Based on his senses the wolf was near the group and though their were elders, they were probably just upper level Practitioners who had reached a bottleneck. They would have trouble dealing with the wolf, especially if it was abnormal.

'What do we do?'

"There's not much we can do. The disciples won't be a threat for you guys. Just watch out for the elders. I should not get spotted by any of them. I don't want to get noticed. I should technically be in the core or inner court, I just never bothered to take the test. Regardless, we have to deal with the wolf before it kills too many disciples or a Supreme Elder will come to the Depths and fuck us."

The panthers looked at each other and nodded. There was nothing to be done.

'Shit, I really don't want to get noticed. I was having so much fun just existing. Don't make me do anything else.'

Illus's prayers, as you can probably guess, would go unanswered.