Zhao Hai explored the periphery of the Mountain of Demon Beasts for seven days. However, he still wasnât able to find anything. He explored the mountain during the day and returned to the nameless town at night. By this point, he was very familiar with the people in the town. Any time he hunted a demon beast in the mountain, he would invite people from the town to eat and drink.
Fortunately, there werenât a lot of people in the town. There were only about a dozen people who would go to the restaurant to drink and eat. Two spirit stones were enough for everyone to drink. And not to mention a couple of spirit stones, Zhao Hai could even afford to use jade essence.
Zhao Hai didnât dare take out liquor from the Space. Although the Spaceâs wine was much better, Zhao Hai doesnât have the means to explain its origins.
If Zhao Hai was still using his status as a disciple of the Tyrant Blade Sect, then he wouldnât mind taking out a few bottles of wine. Sect cultivators were treated well, so it was understandable if they had a few good things with them.
However, Zhao Hai was now using the identity of a rogue cultivator. No rogue cultivator would waste the space in their spatial equipment to bring wine. Even if they have enough space, they wouldnât use it for wine. In any case, rogue cultivators couldnât easily get their hands on good liquor.
Despite going around for several days, Zhao Hai didnât make any progress. Zhao Hai also discovered five newcomers to the town three days ago. These five seem to be a team. From their equipment and their clothes, their status wasnât low.
These people looked like they were familiar with the situation of the nameless town. They didnât go to the restaurant to inquire for information immediately and instead looked for a huge courtyard to inhabit. Then they went to the restaurant to order some food while chatting with Shopkeeper Two. They wanted to inquire if there were any outsiders in the town recently.
Shopkeeper Two thought that these people were here with Zhao Hai. Therefore, he told them about Zhao Hai. As soon as they heard about Zhao Hai, the group immediately inquired for further information. But as Shopkeeper Two introduced Zhao Hai more and more, the groupâs expression became more confused. Finally, Shopkeeper Two saw that something was wrong, so he asked them if they knew Zhao Hai. Naturally, these people didnât know him. This caused Shopkeeper Two to be suspicious. He immediately stopped telling them about Zhao Hai. When Zhao Hai went to the restaurant to eat in the evening, Shopkeeper Two told him about the new group.
Hearing this information, Zhao Hai immediately knew that the group had the same goal as him. But because of what he had done before, the group of five were confused. When the group first heard about Zhao Hai, they immediately tagged him as someone who was also searching for the seal. But when they heard about Zhao Haiâs actions, their thoughts changed.
If one was simply seeking for a seal, they wouldnât waste several days telling everyone to look for a red-clothed cultivator. They wouldnât go around the same routes in the mountain every day. If Zhao Hai was looking for the seal, he would certainly have a map. He wouldnât have wandered aimlessly around the mountain.
After a period of consideration, the group thought that Zhao Hai didnât seem to be looking for the seal. However, they couldnât completely eliminate their suspicions. His appearance was too coincidental. The group didnât believe that there was such a coincidence.
Therefore, that night, when Zhao Hai went to the restaurant to drink with everyone, the group observed him. In the end, they were disappointed with their observation. Zhao Hai didnât seem to be a threat. He drank with the rogue cultivators every day and even treated everyone. Zhao Hai even made the group look at him in a favorable way.
What the group didnât know was that while they were observing Zhao Hai, Zhao Hai was also observing them. Although the group were also at the Soul Fusion Stage, they werenât good at hiding their status. Judging from their words and their clothes, they certainly werenât rogue cultivators. Even if they were rogue cultivators, it was clear that they had taken refuge under a certain group.
However, Zhao Hai didnât intend to get too much contact with these people. After all, they were competitors in the end. Zhao Hai just said hello to them and asked them to keep an eye out for a red-clothed sword cultivator.
The group of cultivators didnât know whether to laugh or cry when they heard Zhao Hai. They were still suspicious towards Zhao Hai, yet Zhao Hai was now asking them to help him look for a red-clothed cultivator.
In the next few days, Zhao Hai continued to walk around the periphery of the Mountain of Demon Beasts. However, Zhao Hai found that those people were following him. They also used a special artifact to control the smell and spiritual force coming out of their bodies. All of them were hidden. It seems like they were using an invisibility artifact.
It was also because there were people following him that Zhao Hai didnât head deeper into the mountain. Then two days later, the group of cultivators were no longer following him.
Zhao Hai knew that it was impossible for the group of cultivators to follow him all the time. They still had a goal to accomplish. If they continued to follow him, they wouldnât make any progress.
On the third day after the group left, they finally followed the route shown on the map. Every step and action made by the group didnât escape Zhao Haiâs eyes. This was because Zhao Hai planted silver needles in their bodies. Although these people had artifacts on their bodies, they were still in the Soul Fusion Stage. It was impossible for them to detect liquid silverâs dust.
With the other group leaving, Zhao Hai also prepared to enter deeper into the Mountain of Demon Beasts. But before leaving, he went back to the nameless town to say goodbyes to his friends. He said that he was heading back to Roaring Flame City to hand in the mission.
The nameless town has already been mapped by the Space. And since he had no need to stay there anymore, Zhao Hai said that he was leaving.
Hearing that Zhao Hai was going to leave, the people in the nameless town were a bit reluctant. There werenât a lot of people who were as generous as Zhao Hai. He has been a good friend to them these days.
When he left the nameless town, Zhao Hai received his horse and then rushed back to the Mountain of Demon Beasts. He was going deeper this time since he wasnât able to find any clues in the periphery.
Zhao Hai followed the route on the map this time. The road went very smoothly. After all, the route has been found after the clan sacrificed the lives of countless people.
Despite this, Zhao Hai didnât advance quickly. He was also mapping the surroundings with the Space. This way, liquid silverâs dust could travel farther into the mountain.
Fortunately, the day passed without any danger. However, the route wasnât short. It was impossible to traverse it in a day. Therefore, Zhao Hai needs to stay in the mountains for a few days.
When evening came, Zhao Hai didnât want to encounter any trouble. Although he didnât enter the Space, he still looked for a big tree and rested inside.
Several days passed as Zhao Hai continued to go deeper into the mountains. Ten days after Zhao Hai entered the mountain, two groups of people arrived in the nameless town. The first batch had 10 people while the second only had three.
The two groups used the same method as the first group of five when they arrived at the nameless town. They also went to Shopkeeper Two to inquire about the people who arrived in the town.
Because Zhao Hai had already left the town, Shopkeeper Two didnât say anything about him. However, Shopkeeper Two told the other two groups about the group of five who came first.
Zhao Hai also noticed the two groups. He knew what these people were doing. But what made Zhao Hai feel strange was that the two groups were all cultivators in the Soul Fusion Stage. Wouldnât it be better to send an Earth Monarch to the Mountain of Demon Beasts? Why were all the people that were sent in the Soul Fusion Stage? The strength of the groups couldnât even contend with the rogue cultivators in the nameless town.
What Zhao Hai didnât know was that the matter of looking for the seal was an open secret in the clan. Everyone who wanted to be on top would send people to the Mountain of Demon Beasts every year to look for the seal. But again and again, they were left disappointed. Slowly, it became a tradition for people to send people to the Mountain of Demon Beasts every year for about three months before attending the Clan Leaderâs birthday.
To hide from the outsiders that something was wrong, almost everyone who sent people to the mountain would only send Soul Fusion Cultivators. Although it wouldnât attract any attention, this action also caused a large number of casualties. Sometimes, not a single person in a group returned alive. Even so, the people in the clan would still send people. After all, finding the seal was the fastest way to the top.
For this reason, all of the cultivators that Zhao Hai saw were in the Soul Fusion Stage. He wouldnât see cultivators with a higher level.
But lately, although the people sent were still in the Soul Fusion Stage, these cultivators would have artifacts on their bodies. All the artifacts made the Soul Fusion Cultivators formidable to anything below the Earth Monarch Stage.
In this way, the casualty rate of the Soul Fusion Cultivators would be reduced. It can also make the surviving cultivators more familiar with the nameless town and the Mountain of Demon Beasts. So, in the next year, these cultivators could still be sent and search through the places they havenât searched in the previous year. This increased the efficiency of the search.
Shopkeeper Chen didnât know about this matter because he just joined the Pavilion in recent years. This was the first year he knew about this, so he was more formal in his approach. He only invited Zhao Hai to search and even spent a lot of money to obtain a basic map.
Shopkeeper Chen didnât know that the map he bought had almost become rotten goods in the clan. It was simply not worth any money. The person who sold the map to Shopkeeper Chen basically scammed him for a lot of money.
It was because of this that the group of five that followed Zhao Hai had an invisibility artifact with them. Moreover, they were more familiar with the nameless town.