Aimless Ascension

Half Li in the east. That seemed like a very specific spot. Could it be that more people were stalking him?

Well, half-li was quite some distance, and that ghost seemed certain. Unless someone behaved suspiciously, Gale wouldn't notice.

Well, it doesn't hurt to try, however, if he went there usually the lurker would flee before Gale got a hold of him. Not to mention the brief battle he had with the ghost probably alerted the lurker.

Well, from that distance, they wouldn't be able to see much, but could clearly feel the undulation of natural energy.

That brought him back to the ghostly person. If Young Master Han didn't employ them, then who? Young Master Han's family because they were worried about his well-being? No, their conflict hadn't gone that far yet.

Perhaps the Artisans guild? Trying to dig out the secret of the artificial fate lock? Well, they were a reputable association, spread all over the globe, but for them to do something like this. . .it wasn't unheard of.

Certainly, they could try something, considering the spy they employed was this good. Nobody in their right mind would think Gale could discover the stalker.

Clearly, the spy was someone special and not from Wayshire. It must have cost hundreds of gold coins to employ them. Only a certain few in this valley could afford that sum of money.

​ The Han family/the mayor's family, Sun Ziang, the Artisans guild, or Shi Fan. Gale wrinkled his nose at the last option. Shi Fan certainly had the means and reason to send a spy after Gale.

Now that he thought about it, it was most likely. Han or the mayor's family wouldn't throw away that sum of money so easily. They could literally employ half a dozen silver rankers and kill Gale with that much money. What's the need to spy on him? Gale still has this option open in the back of his mind, just in case.

Sun Ziang wasn't a real option, either. He was probably a newcomer to this town like Gale, who wasn't that familiar with the outside world. Moreover, Gale hadn't given him any reason to spy on him.

Artisans guild was a viable option. They had the money and reason, but throwing away so much wasn't a profitable business. The artificial fate-lock Gale provided for checking wasn't really a feasible reason enough. First, Gale used low-grade ingredients on making it. Only the scripts in them were something special, though they needed to be tested.

The amount of money that ghostly entity costs could easily buy such low-level fate-locks at the right market.

So after eliminating all the options, only Shi Fan remained. Gale had seen him with all the wealth, even 1% of such wealth could inflame greed in men. Of course, Shi Fan would be worried. It was the natural reaction to have, however, Gale didn't know he would go that far to make sure.

Gale thought he had a certain understanding with that dude. Gale clearly made sure he had no use of all this treasure. Then he remembered how trepid Shi Fan's aura was the last time he met.

"Hmm," Gale contemplated, as he climbed to the top of the house. There was no staircase to climb, but a practitioner hardly needed a staircase to climb this much.

Shi Fan clearly couldn't escape safely with all those treasures on his own as he didn't have a dimension storage device. Hence, he called the person who helped him escape into this unremarkable valley to escape again and while they were at it, there was no issue spying on the threats after all.

Any rational person would feel no remorse for making such a decision.

'All of this made sense.' Gale sat cross-legged on the roof and closed his eyes. He recalled how much meat that dude roasted that day. Evidently, all of that wasn't for a single man.

'Looks like I'll have to visit that guy soon,' Gale thought, and focused. 'But now I need to look out for the lurkers in the background."

Hundreds of invisible Qi threads emerged out of Gale's body as they moved in all directions at his command. Although the Ghost specifically mentioned east, Gale wouldn't take their word for it.

That's why he applied this high-grade spirit art to detect their presence. There was no low-grade version of this art, but there's one in mid-grade called Qi Sense. A very specific few in the Iron and Silver ranks were capable of using it, as it needed an unimaginable amount of intent and control.

Evidently, the art Gale applied wasn't the Qi Sense. Actually, he wouldn't be able to sense more than ten metres of his surroundings if he tried only with Qi Sense.

Qi Sense took a large quantity of Qi, which Gale hardly had access to. Thankfully, the higher grade of the art required little Qi, even though the requirement of control and intent increased by another notch.

The higher version of Qi Sense was called Spiritual Sense. Through this ability, the practitioner had to transform their Qi into invisible threads like the lower version of the art and then link those threads to the natural worldly energy.

That linking with natural worldly energy was called Spiritual Resonance—something only Master practitioners were capable of. Although Gale's master wouldn't acknowledge that Gale was a Master already, he did have a few capabilities of a master.

Through Spiritual Resonance, Gale gained a few more options in his arsenal. Through the link he could recover his Qi rather quickly, but most importantly, Spiritual Resonance would let him augment most of his spirit arts.

That's what he was doing currently, augmenting Qi Sense to Spiritual Sense.

As Gale was hardly a master, he couldn't link with the natural energy in a short time or during a close fight. He could use it to make someone breathless and jammed lower-ranked practitioners' blood pressure easily, but Spiritual Sense was something even most Masters had a problem controlling.

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Much of this instalment went by in contemplation, which I seldom like write, but I think I had a need to explain all this. There were still some stuff left to explain. . . . Hmm.