Taking the fangs from the dozen ashen fire wolves, he had already gotten more than half of the mission's objective. So he decided to trust that Sun Qinglan and Lu Wenjie would get the rest as he started to return to the agreed place.
After another hour and a half, Lu Wenjie was already waiting with Sun Qinglan in the same place that they previously separated.
"They should arrive anytime." He said trying to calm his fiancée down as he was becoming even more furious at this new disciple who had suddenly appeared and was completely drawing his fiancée's attention.
"Yeah." She responded that way but deep inside she was preoccupied that Ling Xu was hurt and it was all her fault. If she didn't challenge him to fight as she was irritated after talking with Lu Wenjie after finding out about the arranged marriage, agreed by his uncle, this would never have happened.
Waiting a few minutes, time seemed to pass extremely slow as she was constantly wondering if Ling Xu was still alive or if he had been killed by the people that Lu Wenjie brought with him.
The wind rustled through the forest and the sound of the leaves could be heard in her ears. Suddenly, a few footsteps mixed with the sounds of the forest as a new figure appeared from the distance.
"Brother Xu!" She yelled aloud without realizing it, she was greatly surprised after seeing him still alive and not seeming to have any kind of injuries.
Lu Wenjie's face distorted as he saw him appear alone, without anyone coming. "Impossible! I asked them to kill him, what did they do and why aren't they here right now?"
He continued closing the distance until only a few steps remained. Keeping quiet all along, the atmosphere grew tense very fast as Lu Wenjie's heart started beating worried about what was going on.
He didn't understand why Ling Xu was still alive and even less why the other two had yet to come back.
As he was just a few steps apart from them, Ling Xu threw in the bag that Lu Wenjie had been staring at, as it had a few drops of blood coming out from it.
Touching the grass, he asked. "What is in the bag?"
"Open and see, it is what you asked for." He responded calmly. But his tone only worsened Lu Wenjie's mood as it seemed to hide another meaning.
Gulp!
Taking in a few steps, he reached the bag and looked inside of it. His eyes which were closed opened up as he was afraid of what was contained in it.
"Phew!" His face lightened as he found more than twenty fangs from the ashen fire wolves, with these fangs they had already surpassed the thirty that they needed to bring since him and Sun Qinglan had gotten another ten. The remaining fangs would give an extra low grade spiritual stone every pair. In total they now had thirty four grey fangs with a few fire patterns in them.
Lu Wenjie's fear came off as he stopped having the sense that he got ever since he apologized in the sect, when he went to ask him to go on a mission together. At that moment, he felt his profound breathing and became wary of Ling Xu's presence which gave off a strong and mysterious aura.
Because of this, he decided to ask those two in the seventh and eight stage of Qi Refining to come as he wanted to make sure that nothing unplanned would happen. But he worried out of nothing as he realized that they must have encountered something that needed their cooperation and they couldn't deal with Ling Xu yet.
"Then it seems we have completed our mission. Junior Ling, could you tell me where…" Lu Wenjie got up after taking in the bag where the fangs were as he asked Ling Xu what had happened to the other two that were still to be seen.
Swish!
Sun Qinglan was shocked and her eyes dilated as she saw him move his right hand. In the place where the sword moved, a clean cut was made as an arm dropped and hit the ground.
Plop!
"Arghhh!!!" Lu Wenjie's eyes were red as he used his left arm to try to cover the wound from Ling Xu's sword cut. Where his right arm had been, there was now only a clean cut, smooth and without a single uneven mark. "Ling Xu! What are you doing?!" He asked in confusion with a horrified face.
"What is going on?" Sun Qinglan asked as she seemed confused by the sudden change in Ling Xu. She couldn't understand what made him do such a thing without hesitation.
He remained in the same position motionless, his smile retracted and he showed a neutral face, as if nothing important was taking place. This face in the eyes of Lu Wenjie became very dark and only filled him with fear as he understood right away what was going on.
It wasn't that the other two had to deal with something and asked Ling Xu to go first, why would that be. If they needed to deal with a beast or something they would have used him as bait to help themselves and at the same time deal with him, taking the best of both worlds. And if it was some kind of precious opportunity that they found, they would have silenced him right away, why would they send him here?
Now Lu Wenjie clearly understood that they had been killed by him, he didn't know how since he couldn't believe he had the strength to kill even one of them alone, but he was clear in their fate.
"Wait! Wait! Let me explain what happened, please I beg you!"
Those were the last words that came out of his mouth as he was crying in pain and horror. The next thing that could be seen was another face rolling down from a body, detached as it hit the ground and rolled a little more.
It had the same horrified expression as the man that was in the seventh stage of Qi Refining. The only difference was their own facial features that clearly differed one from the other.
Shocked and afraid, Sun Qinglan's face darkened. She couldn't understand what was going on but she knew clearly that she would be next. All of a sudden, the image she had of this brother Xu she had ever since she made him fight her vanished.
What seemed a young man who had just become an outer disciple and was very strong as he could defeat her being two stages below, now was the image of a monster. Someone to whom lives didn't matter and he would kill mercilessly, clearly ending anyone even if they were in the ground begging to spare their lives.
Sun Qinglan had a bad image of his fiancé's character since she was forced into the marriage by her uncle and she had heard a few rumors back at Bright Moon City, but still she didn't believe that he would kill Ling Xu as she had never heard of him being capable of such a thing before and even less witnessed it.
"What are you doing?!" She took several steps back very afraid as Ling Xu moved and searched through the corpse, taking a spatial ring, the middle grade treasure sword and a piece of paper that seemed to be carved out of a special type of wood.
Ling Xu put everything inside of his own ring as he felt its space had become full after taking in three swords inside of it.
He then stood up and looked at her, his eyes which made expression look completely dark returned to normal. Taking in a deep breath that showed his profound mastery over the Formless Qi Breathing cultivation technique, he calmed down and stood there motionless.
"What is this feeling? I thought that I wouldn't feel this way, after killing that man in the tutorial, but it seems that after realizing that he didn't die inside I felt lighter." Ling Xu thought, feeling a pain in his mind and heart that he couldn't understand.
Apart from that man, he had also dealt with those thugs that were hired by Xiao Xuan to deal with him when he was in a fit of rage from the humiliation he felt. But even then, he didn't kill them and only crippled them, but that also made him feel a little guilty deep inside.
Afterwards, when he dealt with the night assailant, also called the worker at the Affairs Hall, a sudden pressure had started to weigh down in his heart. This also affected his mind as it gradually started to grow more chaotic thoughts.
If it wasn't for the enlightenment he entered after every week, making his mind enter a state of clarity, he would have already gotten very depressed from killing. But now that he killed three man in just a day, Ling Xu suddenly had all those thoughts brought back all at the same time.
"They are human beings after all, so it is natural to feel this way when killing someone of my own kind. But they all had ill intentions and if I didn't kill them they would have tried to do the same to me. Even if they couldn't because I surpassed them in strength, they would have tried their best to bring me down within the sect."
Thinking deeply about the consequences of leaving enemies to go around free while he could be in danger at any time, Ling Xu started to understand the rules of this world a little more.
"Killing shouldn't be allowed for normal people, and even less for those that are close to me. But once someone crosses my path and they have ill intentions I can't let them do as they please, even if they can't harm me or even burden my path of cultivation, they may put in danger those that I am acquainted with."
A few rules were being set within Ling Xu's heart as it seemed that a small portion of mist came out from his mouth. And with it the chaotic thoughts and weigh that was in his heart lightened a lot.
"Phew!" His breathing returned to normal, profound and ordered. His eyes showed once again the face of the young man who had just entered the Skyless Realm, eager to see this new world and advance in the path of cultivation that he barely knew anything about but felt it was so magical.
Taking his eyes off the corpse once again as he stared at it when feeling deeply what was going on with his mind and what pressed down his heart, he returned to look at sister Qinglan.
Seeing her dark face full of fear and unable to process Lu Wenjie's death, he exhaled once again. "Sister Qinglan, it seems I made you worry."
"Uh?" It was only one phrase, but with the change in Ling Xu's eyes and tone, she felt that something that she didn't know was going on.
"I am sorry for killing your fiancé, I wouldn't have done so if it wasn't because he wanted to kill me." He said calmly, showing a bit of warmth in his voice.
"What do you mean by that? I know Lu Wenjie, although I didn't want to marry him it doesn't mean that I will believe that he was planning to kill you just because you say so, you have to give me proof." Her face eased a little as she begun to believe what he was saying, hoping that this brother of hers that she had made just two weeks ago wasn't lying.
This was the first person that she had tried to get close with after entering the outer sect several months ago and she couldn't help but want to believe in him and her capability to see someone's character. Able to differ someone good and bad.
"The truth is, while I was on my way to hunt the ashen fire wolves with the seniors that he brought with him, I felt that something was wrong. Although it was just a feeling, I couldn't hesitate so I stroke the one in the front first."
Sun Qinglan's face tensed once again as she only heard Ling Xu killing someone without any other explanation. It seemed that he was telling her that he killed him just because of a feeling.
"After he was dead, the one who was in the seventh stage of Qi Refining was greatly shocked and I took the chance to ask him what was going on. There he told me everything." Ling Xu continued telling her how he found out that Lu Wenjie asked them to deal with him and that they would go to find this cave which seemed to have some kind of treasure in it.
He took the treasure map carved in a special type of wood with a green color and showed it to her. Sun Qinglan received it from afar as she was still quite a distance from him and after carefully observing it she started to feel that he was telling the truth.
She closed her eyes and processed everything that happened once again, recalling how worried she was as she felt that his fiancé didn't have good intentions towards him from the get go. The fear she felt before came from Ling Xu's actions as he didn't explain anything and was accompanied by a scary expression.
After a minute of deep thinking, her eyes opened once again. "I trust what you are saying brother Xu, I believe that you are not a bad person and you only did this because they had ill intent towards you first."
Ling Xu's face showed a slight smile as he saw his sister believed in him, this was the first person he had gotten close with inside of the outer sect after all.
"Then are you going to go find this cave alone?" She asked, wanting to know if he would bring her with him or if he would want to keep whatever he found there for himself.
"It's okay sister Qinglan, we can go together. Whatever we find will be distributed evenly between us."
"Great!" She exclaimed. "Then let me try to find this place for you, I have a bit of experience with following directions from a map. I once had to find a rare fire grass and we were given one with the general area it could be found and the paths that we could follow with the most probability of having it."
"I will leave it to you then."
They walked for several hours, going through the most superficial part of the Profound Roots Mountain Range since they didn't dare to delve in any deeper in case of finding any strong beast in the higher stages of Qi Refining. There could even be Foundation Building beasts or even stronger ones in the deeper parts of the mountain range.
After the sun had reached its highest point and had started descending for a while, they found the place.
The map that Sun Qinglan carried showed great detail and even had the drawing of a boulder that had a very peculiar form, it was the size of two man and had marks of being degraded by rain through the passage of time.
After the boulder, only a stone wall could be seen, and on the left side they observed the second drawing that showed that they had found the right place.
A very normal looking ivy on the stone wall could be seen, it had a subtle red color as it made it seem a little different from the normal kind that Ling Xu observed back on world.
"Is this the place?" He had a face of confusion as he couldn't see anything apart from the normal looking ivy and the big boulder degraded by rain.
"I think so, but why can't I see any sign of a cave around here?" Sun Qinglan was also confused as she felt that this was the place, but there was nothing that indicated that there was a cave around. Only this bare stone wall between the red ivy and stone boulder.