One-Eyed Monster

While Stan Sol was concluding its complete domination of Baharo, Qi Liu and his team were still on the mountain, struggling to find Hustace.

Some things are easy to say but difficult to do. Qi Liu’s earlier declaration, "I’ll go find the Young Master in the mountains," had sounded quite satisfying and impressive. But now, on this vast mountain, all he could do was keep climbing towards the peak.

Finding any trace of him was proving exceedingly difficult. His knowledge was too limited to conduct an effective search on this path. After all, he wasn’t a Hunter, but an inexperienced Politician. He lacked tracking skills; his judgments were merely the instinctive reactions granted to him as a "natural-born Politician." Often, these reactions played a crucial role. For instance, Young Master Hustace managing to slip away from his entourage and ascend the mountain so easily was a testament to the positive effects of these instincts. However, a lack of experience meant these "key roles" could only function sporadically. Young Master Hustace had indeed ascended the mountain alone successfully, but the fact that the unfortunate young master suffered from frostbite due to the night mountain winds (something Qi Liu was still unaware of) indirectly illustrated that these "instinctive reactions" were still too naive to manage an entire situation. It was conceivable that for Qi Liu’s "instinctive reactions" as a natural-born Politician to truly play a decisive role in entire events, he needed much, much more experience.

And this search for the Young Master on the mountain was clearly an excellent training opportunity for him...

During this training, difficulties were bound to arise one after another. These difficulties were key to enhancing the talents of a natural-born Politician. Qi Liu’s judgment, foresight, and decision-making abilities would inevitably be tempered amidst these challenges.

However, Qi Liu couldn’t hear these words. Even if he could, they would offer no help to his current predicament.

The few "companions" beside him complained incessantly, especially the Alchemist and the Witch he had insisted on bringing. The Witch was hunched over, and a few complaints after continuous mountain climbing were understandable. But the young Alchemist’s pointless complaints seemed deliberately derisive.

Yet, for the moment, Qi Liu couldn’t find a good way to respond to the Alchemist’s derision. After all, every taunt from the Alchemist hit the mark. He truly didn’t know what to do next. More seriously, he didn’t even know how to proceed up the mountain... Many things seem easy but are difficult in practice.

There were many forks in the mountain path, and he wasn’t sure which one to choose. Moreover, he considered another serious problem: what if Young Master Hustace had taken a different fork? With so many diverging paths, which direction should they search? They couldn’t possibly check every single one.

In fact, when Hustace ascended the mountain, he hadn’t been troubled by these forks. Firstly, at that time, there were still many Treasure Hunters on the mountain. People were coming and going. Hustace, wearing his Invisibility Cloak, simply followed the crowd. Many of the numerous forks on the mountain had been blazed by these Treasure Hunters. They had over-exploited this mountain, yet they hadn’t found anything they wanted, not even a single wild beast. Secondly, even when Hustace did encounter a fork, he quickly made a choice, always selecting a path that looked more like it led to the summit.