She nodded. They already delimited quite the wide perimeter for their search. Just thinking of a kid able to come from further away alone... It was hard to believe. Unless he was helped along the way by a random warrior or cultivator. It would even explain why he was strong enough to join the sect in such a way. But if she had to consider that possibility, just how far would she need to enlarge the perimeter... Still, there had been no signs of Jin throughout the past three months. She probably still had time.

She looked at the leader of the shadows and gave him new orders: "Extend the search throughout the entire empire and find every family who lost a kid called Jin. As for the time period, extend it. He might have left his family younger than we thought"

The leader of the shadows did not even frown as he acknowledged the order and left. It would take a long time before he would be able to report to his liege again but if this was what she needed him to do, he would do so.

She walked to the balcony and truly wondered how it was possible for such a mysterious youth to even exist. Even her shadows had been unable to track his past after so long... It was a first.

A smile crept up on her face, lifting her lips.

The harder the hunt, the sweeter the reward.

...

Time flew by.

On a very average road within an average forest, a young woman aged around seventeen walked. She was smiling and humming. She was neither cute nor ugly and did not have a seductress's body. She did have a youthful charm though and seemed very energetic.

She had long brown hair and brown eyes like all of her three elder brothers. She wore the robe of the outer disciples from the closest sect to her family's farm, the Wind Slash Sect. It was of a pale green color with ink black traces mimicking a breeze.

As she reached her home, she saw her parents, hard at work as usual. Her two elder brothers were there as well. She waved at them happily and they stopped working as soon as they noticed her.

They hugged warmly and welcomed her back. They decided to stop working for the day and enjoy their family reunion. As they all sat down, she began to narrate the events of the past six months. Due to being a sect disciple, she could only leave so many times a year. This made those few days spent with her loved ones that many times more precious. To all of them. They marveled at her stories and gawked at her new abilities. To think she could lift her father with a single arm now. They joked around about how that would be helpful when farming. They all knew that she would never come back to cultivate the land though. But they were fine with it.

The couple had two vigorous sons to help them and succeed their lands. It was enough. After her daughter reached eight years old, she kept pestering them about becoming a cultivator like her eldest brother. At the time, the parents were rather angry about it. They took out some of that anger on the second son who was the only one who had known the eldest. The tales came from him and were straight fantasy. But they had been enough to brainwash their little girl.

Then again, after pondering for a few days, they decided to let her go and encourage her. They learnt from their bad first experience with this. And again, they already had two sons to give the land to. Their daughter's future might be no more than becoming another farmer's wife if she stayed anyways. They could bear to let her go as long as she came back from time to time.

They took her to the closest sect's trial, certain that she would fail. They were mortals and she was too, what kind of immortal's trial could she succeed? Anyways, regardless of the results, they would have done their best for their daughter's future. This time, they did not want to make a similar mistake. It was likely that their idiot second son babbled on about the first one leaving alone...They didn't want to lose another kid from such dumb things.

They expected her to fail but she succeeded. She entered the sect at 8 years old. As they walked away, still having a hard time believing what happened, they saw that all the kids that got rejected were fat or deformed boys. They quickly stopped this train of thoughts and went home to their two sons. It brought them joy to see the two smiling as they sweated in the fields...

And now eight years later, that little girl had grown into a capable young woman. However, after so long, they did not expect her to take out a poster of Jin...

Both father and mother recognized him instantly as their son even though it was no more than a drawing. That was because he was so similar to his brothers and father in looks. Both parents cried, rejoicing at the fact that he was alive. After so long, they finally knew. It was a relief.

It took a few seconds for them to realize what the poster was about and anxiety quickly crept up over the happiness.

Their son was a wanted criminal?!

Their daughter quickly told them about the many rumors about him and his legends. She spoke of how he slaughtered a sect alone and how he defeated an abominable monster the size of a mountain. She also detailed how he hunted dragons and ate phoenixes for breakfast... This was the countryside and many tales were bullshits. Still, the family was happy.

Until their daughter told them that she volunteered for an expedition to another continent... She was going to fight the forces of evil at one of the bases in one of the lower continents. She would leave in ten days for the Grundal Continent.