Chapter 168 - 164: Pursuit
Li Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed planks, circulating the Spirit-Introducing Skill.
After reaching Great Success in the Microelement Meridian Introduction Skill, the meridians throughout his body reached a new level of clarity. His Spiritual Power now circulated even faster than before. It flowed from his Dantian, coursed through his entire body, and returned to his Dantian without the slightest pause.
After about an hour, footsteps sounded from outside the courtyard.
A knock at the door.
Li Yuan opened his eyes, got up, and opened the door.
Uncle Qu stood at the door. His expression was normal, but his eyes were a few degrees sharper than usual.
"Follow me."
No other words were exchanged. Uncle Qu turned and left, and Li Yuan followed.
The two of them left the outer settlement and walked along a gravel path toward the northern slope.
The slope wasn’t high, just a gentle incline of about a hundred zhang, covered in low shrubs and weeds. When they were halfway up, Li Yuan’s pace slowed slightly.
There was a faint Spiritual Power fluctuation in the ground beneath his feet.
It wasn’t natural Spiritual Qi, but something man-made. The Spiritual Power fluctuation was extremely subtle, hugging the surface of the ground. It was almost imperceptible without careful sensing.
’An Array.’
Li Yuan glanced around. Amidst the low shrubs, several unremarkable greyish-white stones were scattered among the grass. Their placement seemed random, but their spacing and orientation followed a pattern.
Uncle Qu stopped at the top of the slope and turned to look at Li Yuan.
"You noticed?"
Li Yuan nodded. "When was this set up?"
"Last night." Uncle Qu’s tone was calm. "That person you mentioned last time—I chased him for a while but couldn’t catch him. I did, however, get a sense of his operational area. It’s on the outskirts of the northern mountain range. He moves back and forth between a few fixed points."
He glanced down the slope.
"I can’t catch him by just chasing. The man is highly alert and fast. We need a different approach."
Uncle Qu walked to a flat stone surface at the top of the slope and squatted down.
"You still have that Spirit Stone, right?"
Li Yuan took the Spirit Stone out of his storage pouch.
The greyish-white stone rested in his palm, the Spiritual Power fluctuation on its surface still present.
Uncle Qu took it and fitted it into a newly chiseled groove on the stone surface. It was a perfect fit.
Then Uncle Qu brushed away the loose gravel around the Spirit Stone, and after confirming it was securely in place, he stood up.
Uncle Qu took a milky-white jade box from his robes and opened the lid.
A clear, sweet fragrance washed over them, more than ten times richer than any normal fruit, mixed with an extremely pure Spiritual Qi fluctuation.
Inside the jade box lay an emerald-green fruit, about the size of an egg, with a faint golden sheen flowing across its surface.
’A Spirit Essence Fruit.’
Uncle Qu took the Spirit Essence Fruit from the jade box and embedded it in a groove next to the Spirit Stone in the center of the Array.
The moment the Spirit Essence Fruit was set in place, the entire Array on the hillside came to life.
The greyish-white stones scattered in the shrubs simultaneously lit up with an extremely faint halo. The halos connected to one another along the Spiritual Power Lines on the ground, forming a web-like structure that covered most of the hillside.
The Array magnified the Spirit Essence Fruit’s scent several times over, spreading it in all directions. Any Cultivator within a two-to-three-li radius who was sensitive to the fruit’s scent would be able to smell it.
He clapped the dirt from his hands.
"This Array can spread the Spirit Essence Fruit’s scent for two to three li. That raiding Cultivator robbed the herb garden to gather materials for a Foundation Establishment Pill, and the Spirit Essence Fruit is the main ingredient he’s missing most. If he’s active nearby, there’s no way he won’t smell it."
’Luring the snake out of its hole.’
Uncle Qu pointed down the slope.
"The Array needs a continuous supply of Spiritual Power to be maintained. I’ll keep watch from the outside, and you’ll be inside the Array, responsible for supplying the Spiritual Power. The power inlet is in that stone at your feet. Just pour your power in, and the Array will run on its own."
Li Yuan glanced down at his feet. A greyish-white stone was half-buried in the dirt, its surface carved with several extremely faint Spirit Patterns that connected to the Array’s overall network.
Li Yuan squatted down, placed his palm on the stone, and infused it with his Spiritual Power.
The Spirit Patterns inside the stone flashed, and the Spiritual Power spread out along the lines on the ground. The Array’s operation became more stable, and the scent of the Spirit Essence Fruit grew stronger, diffusing from the hillside in all directions.
Uncle Qu nodded, turned, and walked down the slope, his figure disappearing into the shrubs at its base.
Li Yuan maintained his Spiritual Power output, sitting cross-legged next to the stone.
The Spiritual Power consumption wasn’t high. The Array’s structure was already in place; he only needed to provide the Spiritual Power to keep it running, which was like adding oil to a lamp.
Time passed, bit by bit.
The hillside was quiet. Occasionally, the wind would rustle through the shrubs. In the distance, the silhouette of the mountain range was clearly visible in the daylight.
After about half an hour, Li Yuan’s gaze flickered.
Someone was approaching from the shrubs to the northwest.
The footsteps were very quiet, but the fluctuations of Spiritual Qi couldn’t be hidden. Their Cultivation was around the seventh or eighth level of Qi Refining. They were moving quickly, weaving between the short trees and shrubs, pausing every few steps as if to observe their surroundings.
Li Yuan didn’t move, keeping his Spiritual Power output steady.
The person drew closer and closer.
From two hundred zhang to one hundred, from one hundred to fifty.
Then, they stopped.
A figure leaned out from behind a short tree.
Medium build, a narrow face with high cheekbones, and dressed in a faded gray cloth shirt. He looked to be in his early thirties. His eyes quickly swept over the hillside before finally landing on the scent emanating from the Array at the summit.
His nostrils flared slightly, as if trying to determine if the scent was real.
Li Yuan had seen this face before. It was the fifth one in the portraits Uncle Qu had given him.
The man stood for a few more breaths, then suddenly took a step forward.
Uncle Qu made his move.
A beam of Spiritual Light shot out from the shrubs at the base of the slope, heading straight for the man’s back.
The man’s reaction was incredibly fast. Before the Spiritual Light could reach him, he had already dodged to the side. Pushing off the tips of his toes, he shifted sideways for three or four zhang, evading the attack’s range.
The next instant, the man turned and fled.
Without hesitation, without looking back, his figure flickered between the shrubs and short trees, pulling away by thirty or forty zhang in the blink of an eye.
Uncle Qu emerged from the shrubs and gave chase. The two figures, one after the other, disappeared into the woods to the northwest of the slope.
Li Yuan did not give chase.
He closed his eyes and expanded the perceptive range of his Scent Memory to its maximum.
The Qi Refining Ninth Level aura signature he had memorized in front of the shop showed no reaction within his perceptive range.
The face matched the portrait, but the aura did not.
’It’s not the same person.’