Chapter 365: An Iffy Proposition
When Kang Lin had been absolutely positive that she’d be losing her discipleship at the end of the tournament, she’d felt more than a little guilty—okay, a lot guilty—about keeping the ridiculously powerful and expensive talismans that Master had given her. Now that the ambush had finally been sprung, she was quite glad she had them. The Teleports were about to come in really handy.
While Kang Lin knew about the square in question and could picture the buildings surrounding it, she’d never been to any of the roofs, meaning that she couldn’t Teleport there directly. And she definitely wasn’t planning on appearing on the ground anywhere nearby when Nascent Souls were fighting. She was neither an idiot nor suicidal!
Even though the Poison Claw Sect had a branch in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, they maintained a small compound near the tournament grounds for a myriad of reasons. The main one was simply that it would mean a loss of face not to have one, but the property also was a convenient nearby place to muster contestants and to conduct business.
Even its tallest pavilion didn’t give a view of the square, but it did overlook the roof of a building that was a lot nearer where she wanted to be. Of course, that meant she’d burn, at a minimum, two of the priceless talismans getting there.
For a moment, Kang Lin hesitated. It would not be an exaggeration to say that even one of those priceless gifts was more valuable than every pill, device, piece of equipment, and other cultivation resource combined that she’d normally would have owned or consumed until she reached Golden Core. Using two of them seemed like an unnecessary extravagance.
Before she’d reached the top four of her division in the tournament, she was positive she would have talked herself out of proceeding by telling herself she wasn’t worthy of Master or his gifts. New Kang Lin clearly saw that Master, at the very least, thought she was absolutely worth any number of miraculous talismans.
And she was starting to believe that he might just be right.
She tore the talisman and appeared on the top of the tallest pavilion in her sect’s compound. After focusing her eyes on her target, she tore a second one, appearing there a moment later.
Kang Lin rushed to the other side of the roof and looked out over the square. The first thing she noticed was hundreds of illusory clones of her Master spread everywhere. Which was to be expected. In fact, she almost grinned. That technique had to be giving his enemies fits.
The second thing she noticed wiped any potential evidence of mirth from her face—more than two dozen of the Rising Tide Sect juniors had gathered on the roof of a building at the edge of the square.
If they were there, how could Master retreat if he needed to? The answer terrified her.
He couldn’t.