159 Chapter 159 (1/2)

A little bit earlier in a location between Spirit Spring City and Jade Grass City.

Thunder boomed and the clouds parted as some passerby's trembled in their boots. No one had enough time to react, the moment they heard the loud sound the being in the clouds was already gone. The only thing indicating that someone was even there was the straight path in the sky followed by hurricane-like winds. This was, of course, Zhang Dong racing towards his destination.

'I'm only halfway there, they seem to be holding up though.'

Matt had his disciple window out and was looking at Zhang Liu's status. The protective measures that the system put on the youth were still there and they hadn't gone down much since he took off. This was letting him know that whoever triggered that mark to activate wasn't able to follow up afterward.

'Why did they stop though? Did someone get involved and protected the boy?'

Matt wasn't sure about the reason, maybe the whole thing was some kind of misunderstanding and his disciple only got critically wounded during this so-called Dao festival. It was in Dark Palm Sect territory, so he could very well be showing his hand too early. Revealing that he was a nascent soul cultivator brought with it various problems.

Before he could reorganize his thoughts on the off chance that it was some kind of misunderstanding, the disciple window blinked. The mark's energy level started going down going to a bit over 50% in a matter of seconds. Something had to be happening there, how could this defensive measure drop down from being almost fully charged to half.

'It should be able to tank hits from core formation experts at the great circle level... are there many people of that level piling up on him or something?'

Matt's palms started sweating profusely after he thought about the other option that was more realistic.

'There is someone at my level there...'

It didn't take long for the system screen to glow red once more and the protective technique to go down to just 10% of its maximum charge.

'I'm nowhere near that city... what's happening there?'

He started panicking, he was already burning through this spiritual energy to fly at an alarming speed. It would take him about thirty minutes to get there, this was an amount of time in which anything could happen to his clan members or allies. While his mind was getting overtaken by dread the energy counter went down to zero and his screen went red once more.

'God damn is there nothing I can do.'

He racked his brain for an answer, this system sometimes showed him new ways to use it if he only thought of a feasible way.

'Could there be something that I could have missed?'

The system did update slightly after he reached the nascent soul level, it even came with one big handy new feature.

'Maybe there will be an option that relates to that?'

He quickly went through his disciple window trying to find the answer, he even stopped flying so fast so that he could concentrate. He was rapidly clicking through the options and going through sliders to see if something new popped up.

'Sharing spiritual energy...'

'Transfering knowledge...'

'Affection levels, devotion levels...'

'Defensive measures...'

'Other...'

'Special feature tab...'

'There it is!'

There was an actual 'Fast Travel' tab that brought him over to a new section of his disciple window. Some of the options were grayed out, but the ones that he could bring up gave him various ways of traveling to his disciples.

[ Small Portal (One Way) [ 100 000 SP]: Creates a small portal the size of the user to the location of the disciple.

Instant Transfer [ 1 000 000 SP ]: Instantly transports the user to his disciple, can also transport the disciple towards their master.

Large Portal (Two Way) [500 000 SP]: It creates a large portal that allows two-way travel. ]

The things he could buy here had various requirements that he had to fulfill before he could even purchase them. The ones he could use had all the minimum requirements of him being in the early stage of the nascent soul realm. They also required a certain amount of devotion and affection that the system was counting.

He didn't have quite enough Spirit Points for even the cheapest one, that being the 'Small Portal' one. But thanks to having a large amount of crafting materials in the form of beast cores and some leftover spirit stones, he was able to get that bare minimum. About a week had passed since he used up all of his points, but thanks to having two cities that gained him points passively he was able to gather enough.

'Okay, I got it... now activate!'

He stopped in his tracts and floated above some unknown landscape. The moment he pressed the fast travel option it told him to select the disciple he wanted to travel to. This was a slight surprise as he was able to even select his other disciple that was Xue, guess you didn't have to spend the points for every student separately. You still needed a certain devotion and trust level to be able to teleport to a given disciple though.

Energy rippled after he selected Zhang Liu from the small two people list. The moment he pressed the prompt in front of him it transformed into a little teleportation gate that looked like semi-transparent liquid. He could see some blurry scenery on the other side, but he had to squint to make out the fine details.

'Is that... a fist?'

He was someone at the Nascent Soul level so he saw the whole thing in slow motion. The person that was punching forward was doing it slowly compared to what he was capable of now. He reacted somewhat instinctively and pushed his left palm into the little portal, grabbing the fist mid-flight. He used his superior cultivation to cancel out any spiritual energy that the person on the other side put into this attack.

Soon the portal expanded enough for him to walk past it, the destroyed scenery on the other side becoming clearer after he passed through the liquid-like gate. He gazed at the man that he was holding the hand of and noticed the forehead gem that he had, this made him think to the time a similar person visited his clan to give them the order about the secret ground.