It would be an unimaginable shame to get killed whilst on the road to the nearest town or city, by some robbers that he had no doubts existed, given the dangerous description of the cultivation world left by the Poisoned Continent ancestors.
At least as 5, as long as they revealed their magical energy, they would probably scare away most bandits. Even at the 1st level of Qi Refining, their magical energy strength was equivalent to that of a Trash 4th level Qi cultivator.
Hell, gathered together, if it were not for the fact that they didn't know how to hide their cultivation levels, they could probably go around pretending to be a group of bandits themselves.
Furthermore, Gaston had left everything behind when he left his continent.
All of the power that he had, the status, the connections, the knowledge of any and everything, it was all gone. Here, he was a nobody that knew nothing about anything, and he knew nobody on top of that.
He could hope that his Elite title provided to him by his Stage 0 foundation could be of some help to him, but placing his bets on hope wasn't exactly how he reached the top of the Poisoned Continent.
At least if there were 5 of them, they could help each other out as well as protect each other. Strength in numbers, there was nobody that better knew just how true that little saying was, nor was there anybody that better knew how to use it either.
At least not in Gaston's own, humble opinion.
Several plans had already started forming in his head about what he could possibly encounter once he set foot in the cultivation world, and how to handle those scenarios.
In such a state, whilst still wildly theorizing in his head, he climbed down from his tree after confirming that the footprint was several hours old, and that there was nothing else in his immediate surroundings.
After climbing down, without even needing to think about it, Gaston made the decision to not make any changes to his plan, and he began tracking and following the footprints that headed toward the smoke.
Ultimately, he didn't want to start over completely. Not if he could do anything about it at least.
Rather than make new friends in what was highly-likely to be a brutal civilization, he would rather begin with the 4 men at his side that he had some trust in.
After all, he couldn't deal with the mutiny on the Ancient Ship without their help, and he also couldn't survive the dangers of the forest without them either.
But this wasn't just true for Gaston, it was true for each of them as well. On top of that, Gaston was confident that betrayal would come far harder for his crewmates than it would for him.
He hadn't just spent all that time together with them without also analyzing them, studying them like he had always done with people that he allowed near him.
As a very anti-social person, both during his time on Earth and here in his new world, Gaston, if he could have things his way, would spend most, if not all of his time, alone.
Gaston found solitude addicting, and in that sense, he could understand the difficulties that other people, like junkies, faced when trying to put down an addiction.
Every second spent just in the presence of another being was... a hinderance.
It wasn't truly completely unenjoyable, but the problem was that it just couldn't compare with being alone.
The way he saw it, if being alone, something that required no effort and was instead extremely relaxing, was a 9/10 experience, then he just couldn't rationalize doing anything else.
Why on Earth, would he instead put in effort into wearing socially acceptable clothes, putting on a socially acceptable expression and spend effort into both listening and then replying with something to someone, when even at his most comfortable, it was merely, as he would describe it, an 8/10 experience.
The mask of humanity that he had to put on by itself was too big of a price to pay for something that ultimately even at its peak, paled in comparison to the pleasures of solitude.
Not to be mistaken, the mask Gaston wore was very believable, as nobody, not even those he had spent decades being around every day, had seen through it and thought of him as a psychopath.
Which, would be the first instinct of anyone that saw him without his mask, even thought it would be a false one.
Gaston himself had seen real psychopaths, he could even say that he had both served with, and under several of them in the military. It was because of this that he could definitively say, that he was not one of them.
He never allowed for his real emotions to display themselves in front of others, but they were definitely there, even if they were dull.
With that being said, the average person's instinct would still not be too far off. People would be right to be afraid of seeing him when he was not wearing his mask of humanity on his face.
Even though he possessed emotions, he firmly believed that he had no limits, and was willing to, and had done, whatever he deemed necessary, or even sometimes, whatever he wanted to do.
His skills as a killer were not only utilized on the battlefield, regardless of how much the military had wished that that was the case. Whether it be on a "job", or even on occasion, just dealing with someone he found disrespectful, he used these skills fairly often.
That was another reason for Gaston to make sure that the persona that he put on anytime he wasn't alone was bulletproof.
It also however, contributed to making socializing an even more burdensome experience.
A pity, that regardless of his personal preferences, both during his time on Earth, and now here, in order to achieve what he wanted to achieve, he found himself having to spend time with others.
Thankfully for him, even if he couldn't be as comfortable around others as he was alone, he still founds ways to make the ordeal enjoyable for himself.
After all, as was previously mentioned, the experience might never be able to reach a 9/10, but it was still a solid 6, or even 7 on most days.