Chapter 32

If it had been a month ago I probably would have continued to stand there. My journey to the city and all the bandits I had fought had changed me. I almost brought elder Yui out to take care of them. If I did that there was a chance that other cultivators would be able to sense him.

Luckily I had already thought of a possible solution if I ran into trouble in the city. Although it would only work when I was in an area without a large group of people. With a grin I transported the man into one of my universes.

The shock of seeing the man disappear caused the other men to hesitate in shock. I took advantage and kept on sending them into the universe. Amazingly I had transported half of them before the first one reacted.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to transport all of them before they had time to react. With a yell one of the men charged me. The man was a low level seven cultivator. Out of the three of us the only one that was able to react before he reached us was Emma. Taking a couple steps forward she stepped into his charge shoulder first. Grabbing his arm she used his own momentum against him in order to flip him.

I was just as surprised as the rest of the men attacking us. That shock was their downfall. As they stopped to re-evaluate Emma as a possible threat, I was able to keep on transporting them. Before they could react again I had finished.

“Let’s get out of here before someone comes to investigate the noise.” I said before hurriedly turning and closing the door of the meditation room.

We quickly made our way to the receptionist's desk. There was a different lady sitting at the desk. She looked a bit surprised when she saw us.

“Is everything okay?” I asked her.

“Are you three all right?” She asked in a low voice.

“Why wouldn’t we be alright?” I asked, pretending to be confused.

“The fourth son of the city lord and his cronies were just here. They said something about hearing that a couple pretty girls were meditating in the tower. I’m assuming that was the two of you.” She said looking at Emma and Kristen.

“Well I’m glad we stopped meditating early and were taking a look around the upper floors of the tower. They must have thought we left and started meditating. When we went back down the tower there was someone using the meditation room we had been assigned.” I said in a relieved voice.

The receptionist nodded. “You are really lucky then. Let me get your change so you can get out of here.” She said.

A couple minutes later we had our change and were making our way back to the inn. If I had a choice I wouldn’t have stopped at the receptionists desk at all. It would have been suspicious if I hadn’t though. I was hoping that it would take some time before anyone realized the men were missing. Cultivators could easily meditate for weeks or even months at a time. Although I doubted any of those men were the type to cultivate for lengthy periods of time.

Once we got back to the room at the inn I had elder Yui join us. “I still can’t believe that we got away? What was that move you did to flip that guy?” Kristen asked Emma once we had told elder Yui what had happened.

Emma shrugged. “I don’t think any of them had much experience in real fights. They probably just used their status and strength to bully other people. As part of a border clan I at least received some training in how to fight people that are a higher level than I am.”

“In a fight, training and experience are often the deciding factor if two cultivators are around the same strength. Although being able to bridge an entire realm is rare.” Elder Yui said.

Emma nodded. “I was only able to throw him because I surprised him. Even after I threw him, I’m not sure I would have been able to win that fight. I was never able to win against any level seven cultivators in clan Ashton. Then again all of them had more training than that bunch did.”

“Where did you send them?” Kristen asked me.

“I’ve been using most of the energy over the past few days to create a third space. It’s a good thing they confronted us after we spent that time in the meditation room. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been big enough to fit them all.” I answered.

“Why not just send them to the same universe as the drake?” Emma asked.

“There are a bunch of reasons. The drake would almost definitely kill them. I’m also not sure how I feel about giving the drake humans to kill. Even if we do kill them, I'd rather that elder Yui did it so that we can use the energy to expand the dryad grove space. We might not kill them though, they could have some value as hostages if someone comes looking for them.” I said.

“Do you think someone will come looking for them?” Kristen asked.

“If they are related to the city lord, someone will definitely look for them. Keeping them as hostages is a good idea, it may help us when they catch up with us.” Elder Yui said.

I couldn’t help but frown. “You’re sure they will be able to find us?” I asked.

Elder Yui nodded. “Telling the receptionist that they are in the meditation room will probably buy us a few days, maybe even a week or more. But once they realize they are missing they will call in a tracker.”

I couldn’t help but wince. I had forgotten about trackers. My memories of this world told me what they were though. There were all types of abilities in this world. People that had abilities that were useful for finding people or objects often became trackers.

“Will they be able to track them? They are inside my space, I would think that would make it difficult for most tracking abilities.” I said.

“True. That would nullify the power of most tracking abilities. There are so many different tracking abilities though, at least one of them will be able to find us. For example there are trackers that are able to find objects even if they are inside a storage space, or trackers that can find the people someone has interacted with. It will just depend on how much money the city lord is willing to spend, and how long it will take them to find someone with a tracking ability that can find us” Elder Yui said.

“I’m just glad that clan Hill doesn’t have that kind of money. They would be crazy to pay a tracker enough to pursue outside their territory.” Emma said.

“What do we do now? I assume the best idea is to get far away from this city. But where do we go?” Kristen asked.

“We should keep on moving towards the center of the country.” Elder Yui said.

“I thought that was a bad idea since any magic vegetables we produce will be worthless.” I said.

“I was hoping to take things slowly. Now that we are being tracked we are going to have to accelerate your progress. If the city lord hires a level nine cultivator I won’t be able to protect you.” Elder Yui said.

“Will he be able to afford a level nine cultivator?” Emma asked.

“We can’t assume that he won’t be able to. He could also hire more level eight cultivators than I can handle.” Elder Yui said.

“We should get going then.” Emma said.

Elder Yui shook his head with a smile. “Leaving at this time of day would be suspicious. We should wait until morning.”

Since we all agreed I transported us back to the dryad grove. Over the past week the dryad grove had changed quite a bit. There was more space between the trees. The dryads had also helped the clan Ashton survivors set up some semi-permanent areas for them to rest. It was amazing what they could do by shaping a bit of wood. Elder Yui’s house had been a good example of their abilities. Unfortunately there wasn’t nearly enough space for them to set up structures like that for all the survivors.

Until all the survivors were able to be housed I had decided not to create any houses. Which meant everyone, including me, was living in either a tent or a lean-to. On the plus side that meant that I didn’t have to worry about waking up completely surrounded by dryads. Although they were never very far away.

The last thing I thought about before going to sleep was that eventually I’d have to deal with the dryad's feelings towards me. I had thought the dryads would eventually lose their interest in me, especially since there were so many other clan Ashton survivors in the grove. It hadn’t made a difference though. Now wasn’t the time though, not while there were no walls and we were living together with their mother and father.