“We will never forget this senior, the Spirit Whale Merchant Troupe always remembers their debts!”

“I will never forget Senior’s gallant form!”

“Me neither! I will spread the word of the Golden Dragon for the rest of my life!”

“... Please everyone just calm down and tell me about these people, how did they get on this ship?”

After the battle was over Zhang Dong disabled all of the stowaways. With the help of some high quality rope, all of the silver knights and mages were tied up in the middle of this large ship hall. Under them, he created a mana canceling formation that would not allow them any access to any of their enhanced techniques.

While these knights were quite strong they had one large flaw, without items that could channel their mana they weren’t much stronger than lower Qi condensation practitioners. Even the golden knight mostly amounted to someone at the 5th Qi condensation level if he was stripped of the magical armor.

‘After they get knocked out it’s easy to get rid of the mana, if the flow is disturbed these people can not regain their previous might but the mana canceling formation won’t work in active battle, at least not without a large spiritual vessel with a lot of energy.’

“Lord Golden Dragon, please let me explain, I’m not sure if you have heard about us but we from the Spirit Whale Merchant Troupe are a coalition of merchants that trade between many large-sized sects, while we might not be the most prominent merchant group…”

The man continued to talk while Zhang Dong listened. First, they were just regular merchants that mostly did business with the middle-sized sects. There were other companies that were similar to that one merchant group he once interacted with.

That time he ended up together with the Divine Fist Sect which then led him to the other world. While these people weren’t as rich, they still possessed some resources that he could use and that he would not refuse. With how troublesome times were now, he needed all the help that he could get.

“So, you say that these people suddenly appeared as you were leaving the port city?”

“Yes senior, they might even still be there.”

“I see…”

The person he was talking with was the leader of this merchant troupe here. He described the events that transpired about an hour ago. After they loaded all of their items they headed for the storm but as they were going through these invaders had somehow appeared on board.

They could not explain how they managed to teleport themselves in without properly setting up a teleportation gate. Magic was somewhat different from Qi arts so they were able to use that to their advantage. The formations that this ship had were not designed to protect them against magical teleportation.

“Was the city you left attacked before they appeared?”

“I’m sorry senior, I do not know that we were preoccupied with our own problems, we did manage to leave the port without any problems though…”

‘This feels like a sneak attack more, did they want something that was on this ship?’

It was strange that instead of the city they aimed for this ship. But this was another of the empires, not the same monsters that were closer to his lands. They seemed like a band of religious nuts but they were probably not hunting others as livestock.

‘If they are not here for pleasure as those other bastards, then they are probably here to do business. They might have wanted to steer this ship elsewhere along with all the resources it had.?’

He could only speculate only after using some techniques on these members to make them talk would he be able to confirm his theories. But these knights could be testing out the waters before invading further. Words of their invasion were already widespread but they weren’t as forceful as the people from those tribes.

‘Maybe they are looking to test the materials this empire has to offer and steal them for themselves? A nation aiming more for profits than conquest perhaps?’

Zhang Dong could only shrug while looking at the knocked-out humans. They had regular human looks but were clearly more aligned with the western part of his previous world. Blond hair and blue eyes were very prevalent amongst them.

“I see, that will be all, you should go tend to your people now, here if there is anyone in a grave condition give them one of these pills.”

After the report, he gave the merchant a small pouch with some pills. The moment the man laid his eyes on them they almost popped out. While for him they were not anything special, the merchants could see their worth as the highest grade holy healing pills. If ingested by someone they would quickly heal even deep wounds.

“You have my gratitude senior, we will be sure to send out regards to the Long Clan and…”

“Ah, if you want to thank me then send them to the United Element Sect that I hail from instead.”

He chuckled a bit as any resources given to the Long Clan would not flow into his pocket. The pills were also very easy to make as he just grabbed some that were made by his sect members. After infusing them with some of his own healing energies they had enhanced properties that could even work against demonic corruption.

The biggest reason that he brought these pills along for his journey was for such an occasion. After trying to chase Wang Long down he had realized that he was losing too much time on helping others. Instead of spending hours healing the injured, it was better to prepare some pills that would work in a similar way. Only if the situation was grave would he need to act himself.

“In you go.”

All of the silver knights made their way into the regalia replica medallion that now had a full-blown prison building inside of it. With how much he was capturing prisoners the need to house them was created.

This he achieved by transplanting a working prison from his own sect. Inside were many cells with spirit and mana sucking formations just for such an occasion. Together with them were also autonomous puppets that were able to transport some food to the prisoners.

Escape was impossible as they were trapped in a pocket dimension and only he knew where the true exit was. Only a great circle nascent soul master would have a possibility of forcing himself out of there and even then as long as he held the medallion on his neck, it would be easy to suppress any escape attempt.

After the prisoners were in the medallion the wooden puppets dragged them into their cells. Later he would dump them off at his sect for questioning. Luckily for them, the techniques his clan used were in line with hypnosis and no torturing was included.

In his opinion, this method was superior as a tortured person could always lie after they reached their pain threshold. But if they were coaxed into thinking they were talking with some friend or family member they would spill the beans.

“I shall be off then, your ship didn’t suffer much damage, I also reinforced your formation so you don’t have to worry about it becoming unstable.”

All of the people here started to quickly bow before him. It was quite uncommon to see a person like him that just helped people out without taking much in return. If he wanted he could just ransack the whole ship and no one would know about it or care. With his current status he could just snatch everything up in the name of the Emperor.

‘I guess this isn’t going to be as easy as I expected…’

On the outside, he rocketed forward and approached the end of the wind storm. When he finally was outside he was greeted by quite the spectacular look. Instead of the huge winds, there was just tranquility and silence.

`The wind elements are all focused on the tornado around this area, after you go past it the concentration is really thin but instead…’

While at first everything looked calm, soon the scenery changed. Out of nowhere a thick bolt of blue lightning connected with something that looked like a pointy pillar made from steel. This produced a loud thunderous roar that sounded as if it was produced by a dragon.

“That’s probably where this sect got their name from.”

When he looked up he could see something that looked swirly. They were in the eye of the tornado but the sky above wasn’t clear. Instead, it was filled with clouds radiating lightning energy. But this wasn’t the source of the lightning elements yet. When looking at the clouds in the distance he could see a massive shiny pillar.

‘So that’s it, I can barely see it from here…’

There was a legend to this area, an immortal ascended to the heavens one day and left behind a pillar of lightning energy. It seemed he was versed both in wind and lightning elements that worked together nicely. He wouldn’t be sure until he got closer but that lightning energies stored in there would probably help him boost his cultivation to another level.

‘The lightning and this wind are separate from each other, even if I absorb all of it, the winds that protect this place should not dissipate.’

He could feel that the lightning elementals were thin here and only when getting closer to the central area would they increase in power. The wind's energies were the opposite as they were the strongest back here and slowly dissipated further in. While the winds offered protection the lightning bolts were a big hazardous risk.

‘Those pointy lightning rods were probably created to prevent the people here from being shocked, they might even thank me if I manage to get rid of them.’

Zhang Dong now had a target to get to, the lightning bolts that were raining down from the skies could be absorbed but it would be much faster if he got to the source instead. Then there was also the problem with these shiny knights.

In the distance, he could also see a city at which many flying ships were floating in the sky. They were attached with huge chains to what probably was the port city the merchants mentioned. Just as they explained to him, the attack only occurred when they were entering the wind barrier.

‘The city does look normal, those guys were not aiming for it at least.’

With no smoke or angry dead spirits hovering around after being killed he didn’t really have a reason to force himself into the port city. Yet before going ahead, he needed to scout out the area for any traces of mana, perhaps he could find the spot where the knights teleported onto the ship.

“Well then, I have my work cut out for me, time to go!”