Chapter 5 Encountering Immortals

In the outer regions of the Darkmist Forest, one could find a large over 2 meter tall man, with blood red hair and black eyes lugging the corpse of a gorilla behind him. Around his waist there was a simple red pelt which covered up until his lower thigh.

This man was naturally Xiao Chen. He'd now been living in the Darkmist Forest for a month and had mostly grown accustomed to his life in the forest. He'd hunt and eat, then hunt again and eat, and then sleep.

After killing the deer on his second day, he made many attempts to create clothing of sorts, but barely managed to make a sort of skirt although Xiao Chen didn't like calling it that, preferring to call it his "battle armour".

Nothing much had happened during this time, but one thing that did surprise Xiao Chen was the fact that he never had to piss or shit during the span of a month. Despite gorging on countless beasts, and drinking his fill of water, not once did he have to answer nature's call.

At first he assumed he was constipated or something of the sort, but then he just chalked it up to his new physique. It wouldn't be the most absurd thing that happened to him after entering the forest, not to mention he felt as though he was still growing in size.

'I wonder when I'll finally attain Copper Sheen.' Xiao Chen wondered as he arrived at his cave. Tossing the gorilla to the side as usual the young man grabbed one of his many makeshift knives from the side of the cave before processing the gorilla.

Over this period of time he'd become much more adept at dealing with animal corpses. After all every time he wanted to eat, which was quite often, he'd have to kill an animal and deal with its corpse. Because of this he was quite efficient and wouldn't waste much meat during the process.

Once he was done with the gorilla he swiftly started the fire and begun roasting its meat over the fire. "I wonder what it tastes like, I've never had gorilla before....." Xiao Chen muttered a bit of drool leaking from his mouth.

Throughout this time Xiao Chen could honestly say he'd lived a humble yet fulfilling existence. Sure did he desire more? Yes. But for now he was enjoying this slow life he had. If he did have one complaint it would mainly be that he hadn't attained the Copper Sheen level of the "Copper Bones, Vigorous Blood" chapter.

The Copper Sheen level was the first level of the chapter and despite his efforts he had yet to attain it. After Copper Sheen, there was Inner Copper, Copper Core, Copper Marrow and lastly Copper Bone. And that was just the Copper Bones half of the chapter.

Only when Xiao Chen completed the entirety of the chapter did he have confidence of going after the Luo Clan, which was his main goal for now.

Slowly but surely the gorilla meat roasted, and then Xiao Chen devoured the meat clean. "Eh, it was all right." He muttered to himself before gazing at the sky, it was still relatively early and thus Xiao Chen went out to grab a snack.

"Hmm, deer would be nice." Xiao Chen pondered as he walked through the trees. As he was lost in his thoughts, all of a sudden he heard a sound. It wasn't all that loud, more like a whistling sound almost as though something was cutting through the air.

"SWISH!"

And then out of no where they appeared. A group of almost 20 people appeared, all of them dressed in black robes, a distinct sword symbol on their chests. Every single one of them carried swords and currently one of them had her sword drawn and pointed directly at Xiao Chen's neck.

"You, have you seen this man at all recently?" She barked, tapping a ring which produced an image of Xiao Chen's old appearance. This caused Xiao Chen to raise a brow in shock, he couldn't even process what was going on and now they somehow could show his face out of thin air! Was this the power of immortals?

Seeing Xiao Chen's shock, the woman immediately pressed her sword closer to his neck, suspecting that he recognised the face. "Spit it out, have you!?" She demanded the edge of the sword about to slice the young man's neck.

"....What?" Xiao Chen asked blankly, the situation was completely absurd and it pissed off Xiao Chen, but if his life of thievery taught him anything, it was that sometimes bullshitting was a life saving skill.

"I asked you have you seen this man before!" The woman grew more and more agitated.

"Me no understand?" Xiao Chen decided his best bet was simply playing dumb, and when he meant dumb, he meant dumb.

"Senior Sister clearly he's a barbarian we aren't going to get anything useful out of him." One of the men to the side spoke up. This sentiment echoed throughout the group causing the woman to frown in annoyance.

"That doesn't matter, we need to find this man at all costs! Did you guys forget, the first group that detains him gets to enter the Sword Tower! When are we ever going to get this chance again?"

"Okay, how about this. He doesn't seem to know where the man we're looking for is, but there's also the possibility he's playing dumb....so why don't we just execute him?" A boy who couldn't be more than 15 years old suggested from the crowd.

Immediately Xiao Chen raised a brow and without delay came to a decision. As fast as he could he grabbed the woman's wrist before pulling her towards him. She was shocked to say the least, and a white aura began wrapping around her sword as he attempted to behead Xiao Chen.

"CRACK!"

"AHHHHH!!"

But he was no fool. Applying more force to her wrist which was completely undefended, it immediately snapped, her sword losing its white aura, as Xiao Chen immediately grabbed her by the neck. While this took some time to describe, this happened in less than a second leaving the surrounding immortals no time to react.

"If you don't want your Senior Sister to die I suggest dropping your weapons!" He roared applying slighting more force as he gripped her neck. Her face began turning red, as she struggled to breathe.

"Do I need to repeat myself!?" Xiao Chen asked, loosening his grip ever so slightly so she could speak. "D-Drop them!" She squeaked out, and with that all of the immortals dropped their weapons, save for one individual.

"Seems I was right, this makes things much easier." The boy chuckled before approaching Xiao Chen. With every step he took a brown aura began enveloping his body and sword more and more.

"Jiang Ming what are you doing!? Do you want him to kill her?" One of the immortals rushed forward pulling the boy back. To which the boy scoffed before pushing him back.

"Are you all retarded? Think about it for a second, he isn't a barbarian, barbarians run around in groups and even a barbarian wouldn't dress so....poorly. Further to the point, not only does he lack any and all cultivation, compounded by the fact that he was surprised by the Image Ring, his knowledge on cultivation is clearly non existent which is odd even for a barbarian.

All the signs point to him being a mortal, a mortal who's living alone in the Darkmist Forest, for an undefined amount of time, although not all that long considering the quality of clothing. So why would a mortal, who's alone, who clearly knows about the outside world live here of all places?

There are only two possibilities, first he's another wanted criminal unrelated to our investigation. Or my preferred theory he's our target, who after spotting us at the village ran away into the forest and by some stroke of luck ended up absorbing a natural treasure which allowed his physique to massively improve and enlarge. This would even explain the tattered clothes we found of our target. Then again, how could that even be possible? Not to mention that I was simply stalling for time."

Hearing this Xiao Chen was immediately alarmed. He'd already almost lost his cool when the boy somehow accurately deduced who he was but then he said it was all bullshit? How was that fucking possible.

But before the young man could even make a move, a pair of stone spikes emerged from the ground piercing through his feet, before countless stone chains emerged restraining his body and forcing him to let go of the woman.

"COUGH! COUGH! J-Jiang Ming you bastard." The woman groaned before passing out on the spot.

Xiao Chen was enraged, and tried to shake off the restrains to no avail. "Hmm, you truly are monstrous, had you known more about the workings of Qi I am not sure it would have been so easy to catch you despite my Peak Qi Gathering cultivation....then again you probably don't even understand what that means." Jiang Ming muttered as he reached Xiao Chen.

He then grabbed his senior sister before tossing her to the immortals behind him. "What to do with you....I mean clearly you aren't our target, that would be a bit absurd, but you did threaten a disciple of the Sacred Sword Sect. On the other hand it'd be a waste to kill you....."

"Just finish me already!" Xiao Chen demanded, this kid was beginning to piss him off. He acted like such a know it all, and had even managed to trick him. The only solace Xiao Chen had was the fact that the kid didn't even know how right he was, because if he knew who Xiao Chen really was Xiao Chen would have killed himself there and then.

"...No that'd be too boring. How about this, this is a sleeping pill. As the name implies it will put you to sleep for sometime, given your vitality I'd say a week maybe? In that time I'll take you somewhere, it will be a living hell, although you might die before you even wake up. If you accept these conditions just eat this pill." Jiang Ming suggested offering up a pill to Xiao Chen.

Not having much of a choice, Xiao Chen raged internally. Before he could even get revenge on the Luo Clan, another grievance had blossomed in his heart, equal to or even greater than the hatred he held for the Luo Clan.

"Jiang Ming right? This is the beginning of the end for you." Xiao Chen declared before indicating for him to toss the pill.

"I look forward to it!" The boy chuckled before flicking the pill straight into Xiao Chen's mouth knocking the young man out.