Chapter 172: A Title
When I thought of cultivators traveling, the first thing that came to mind was flying swords. They were iconic and incredibly convenient—like having a personal jet, but better. So, it came as a surprise when the Core Elders from all the Sects decided not to have us travel on flying swords.
We streaked across open fields like bolts of lightning, each step a blur as the wind barely managed to keep up. We flew between ancient trees; our bodies defied gravity, leaping from branch to branch as though the ground had ceased to exist. The air was cool and crisp, but I hardly felt it. As we ascended the rocky mountains, our pace never slowed. The jagged cliffs became nothing more than stepping stones, our feet barely brushing the crumbling edges as we leaped from one peak to the next. The wind whipped at our robes, but it could do nothing to stop us.
After all that running, we found ourselves in a dense, swampy forest. The air was thick and heavy. Yet, even then, we moved like the wind, barely touching the squelchy ground as we traveled through the jungle-like trees.
Occasionally, I would grab some vines and swing around like Tarzan. My cousins gave me weird looks when I did that. Liu Bo didn’t even bother hiding his thoughts and outright told me I looked strange.
If I didn’t have to constantly always be a bit on edge in case the monstrous beasts attacked. I would have called this a rather enjoyful experience.
“Why do they even make us run through these things?” Song Song asked, frowning as a crimson-red spider the size of a fist almost landed on her hair. Her hand blurred as she grabbed the spider, crushing it like a bloody balloon. She tried to wipe her bloody hand against the leaves, vines, and trees, but she still ended up with a bloodied hand.
“If I were to guess, I’d say it’s for the same reason it’s not a good idea to use flying swords during Beast Waves. Flying monstrous beasts can be dangerous and fight well above their cultivation level compared to a cultivator in the sky,” I offered my theory.
“We have twenty Core Elders, five from every Sect. They can kill any flying monstrous beast before we even see them,” Song Song grumbled. Still, she seemed more understanding and less annoyed about running such long distances.
It was frustrating how the Core Elders told us nothing. But by now, I had grown used to and expected incompetent leadership from cultivators. After all, they spent their whole lives thinking that they just had to reach a higher cultivation level to defeat someone or something. Strategies were nonexistent and next to useless when it came to fighting cultivators at a higher level.