Chapter 53 - Lessons from a Train Bound to Nowhere
Kang Ya-Ting excused himself from the mysterious cultivator, Chao Su, as quickly as was polite, telling him to treat himself and his disciples to one of the various restaurants on the sect grounds—free of charge, of course.
The sect leader was in secluded cultivation back at the main sect mountain, so Kang Ya-Ting, not even sparing a brief moment for a word with his disciple, rushed out of the arena and straight to the elder who had been placed in charge of the Sixth Flawless Flowing City branch.
“Elder Dai! Elder Dai!”
“What has gotten you acting like a wet behind the ears recruit, Ting’er?” Dai Shuren shook her head. “Rushing in here like a fool.”
Kang Ya-Ting didn’t respond with words. He simply pushed the jade slip into her hands, and of course, her immediate reaction was to dive her spiritual sense into it.
Her expression took on the same expression he imagined his had when he’d done the same. “Where did you get this?”
He quickly relayed the story starting with Pan Jiang arrogantly confronting what he thought were trash wandering cultivators on the street to his inability to sense Chao Su’s cultivation to being manipulated into betting the Pan family sword to the results of the duel to the presentation of the gifted technique.
“Astonishing,” she said when he’d finished. “And this Chao Su just happened to be carrying this technique in his ring and was willing to give it away for nothing in return?”
“The odds against him having a Heaven-grade wood-aspected sword technique that was absolutely perfect for Pan Jiang are astronomical. Unless, of course, he’s got a whole library of techniques in that ring. Then having this particular one isn’t so strange.” Kang Ya-Ting knew that avarice was shining in his eyes, but he couldn’t help himself.
“And is it possible he’s really in the Nascent Soul realm?”
“It’s either that or he’s got an amazing treasure that hides his cultivation. I can’t know for certain which is more likely, but my guess is that he really has reached that high or higher.”
Elder Dai scoffed. “Higher? Really?”