Sitting with his back reclined on the tree, the teen in a trance-like state blinked, then he slowly exhaled, and closed his eyes again. His thoughts were no longer messy, and he was currently trying to fulfill the second thing he planned before.

"So the owner of this body was called Wu Guang, the last surviving member of a small noble family from the Coast Hill City. After most of the family were killed by assassins from the Underhill Group, supposedly in revenge for the fact that his father accidentally found their base and reported it to the City Lord. Because he was studying under the head administrator from the Lord's Manor in Boundary Hill City, he survived. When news of the tragedy arrived, his teacher, who was a distant relative from the side of his mother decided to send him away from the sect territory as an apprentice to Shu Qiang, a negotiator with close ties with the Three Hills Sect. And now that his master Shu Qiang was returning to the Sect, he was supposed to follow him there and attempt to pass the selection exam, as the sect only accepted disciples around 14 years old, and he would be turning 14 exactly on the day of the exam"

"Huh?" A puzzled expression appeared on the face of the teen

"The memories and knowledge of this Wu Guang are so imbalanced! He has almost no knowledge about cultivation, or the plane, only general information about the cities where he lived and some tidbits of stories about the Islands War or famous experts. At the same time, he is very advanced in administrator duties, speaks and writes the wilding language, and seems to have worked with city budgets"

"Well, I will have to use his identity and looks for some time, at least until I reach the Saint stage and can change my body constitution and appearance. And this strangeness most probably is just the result of an eccentric teacher" After voicing this, a smile blossomed on his face as if he had recalled a precious memory.

Then he calmed down, took a deep breath, and continued to the third task at hand, but right after he started, his face turned grave

"The astral currents shaved almost all the Dao laws that I had comprehended, and after the soul-body merge, I have no manner of recalling any of my previous strength or cultivation. From the good news, even in this body with no cultivation, my soul and consciousness were partially integrated, and are at a level that can be compared to pinnacle Earth Stage experts. All my memories remain, and as a follower of the Knowledge Dao, I had seen and studied millions of techniques, arts, formations, runes amongst other things. The usage of martial techniques from a higher plane requires cultivation that should be impossible to reach in a minor plane like this one, not to say it would trigger the fury of the Heavenly Dao if used freely. But the accompanying techniques are restricted only by knowledge, comprehension, and special cultivation resources. So excluding the third category, I have an enormous advantage that will help me progress quicker and partake in different areas"

After reaching this conclusion, his expression turned brighter, and he considered his next steps, considering all that he had seen while floating above

"The ambush failed, and the Shu family that Wu Guang is affiliated with safely escaped. They should have already either returned to the wildlands or reached Boundary Hill City, I should remain here, wait for them to send someone to investigate and appear as a survivor, after all, during the fight, even someone with higher cultivation could not have sensed if someone survived or was heavily wounded, and I doubt the ambushers will be so kind as to tell them that they checked everyone and put an animal tooth on the corpses"

After thinking of this plan, the teen, that decided to become Wu Guang, looked down on his chest, where the mortal injury was, now almost fully healed

"Hmm, I had to heal the body before performing the merge, so now I will have to find something and cut over the scab, so it looks fresh and bloody, and leave a light blood trail to the shrubs near the road and drop there" Right after thinking this, he stood up, walked to the road, and after some looking around found the tip of Hong Yong's spear. Backtracking to the place that he was killed, he opened the wound without any hesitation, then proceeded to lay on the ground, and crawled until he reached the nearest bushes.

Lying in the bushes, he closed his eyes and appeared as a heavily wounded person that crawled with his last strength to escape the massacre scene.

"Well, now I should just remain here appearing wounded, but as they will not arrive before morning, I should start searching my memory for some breathing and qi circulation methods, after all, I can't stay forever in this minor plane, and the path to leave is the path of cultivation"

__________________________________________________________________________________

It took at least eight hours for Palace Master Chen to arrive, as this time he did not use a movement technique, slowly walking the path from the city while sensing the surroundings and searching for any signs that could lead him to the path, tunnel, or side-pass that was used to evade the city. But he already arrived at the place where the ambush happened and didn't encounter anything.

Hong Yong's remains were before him "Good riddance" was the only thing that appeared in his mind after passing them. At this point, Master Chen had no doubts this man was the one to leak the time in which the Shu family would arrive at the pass as he was the only one who was supposed to accompany the Shu pair initially, but Shu Qiang six servants, two apprentices and a disguised Master Chen who was a supposedly traveling to Boundary Hill City had joined, and this made him use a glyph to send a message to report, although a Spirit expert could not sense it, an advanced Soul stage would instinctively sense the qi fluctuations when a glyph takes flight. Ironically, the spy was played by both his targets and his masters.

After passing the remains of the horse, Master Chen arrived near the remains of the servants and apprentices, here he saw that there were indeed only seven bodies, confirming what he saw while escorting the Shu father and son to the city. "Strange" he muttered and continued inwardly "Was there a survivor? Or they took the body for some reason, in the same way, that of the Moulding technique shell?" At this moment he saw a slight blood trail, and some crawling or hauling tracks from where the body should have fallen and into the nearby bushes. Noticing this, he expanded his senses, and after a second, rushed into them.

"A survivor!" He said with a surprised expression, then bent over the body and took its hand, instilling a wisp of spiritual qi into the body of a teen covered in dry blood and a ghastly wound on his chest. After checking the body with his qi, the Palace Master took out a pill from a star embroidered pouch hanging from his belt.

He proceeded to place the pill into the teen's mouth. After infusing some qi into the body again, his expression turned sour. Then after some hesitation, the Master took out a miniature vial containing several drops of a liquid that made the surrounding air glow with greenish color, looked at the teen's wound, and using some qi made a drop float from the vial and into the mouth of the wounded teen.

After that, he checked the body with qi again, his expression relaxed and with a slight nod left him lying there and returned to the road. On the road he sat down crosslegged and expanded his consciousness, trying to track down the movements, qi, and any other clues on the attackers.

Unbeknownst to Master Chen, the teen that he just scanned with his qi, fed a Healing Pill and later after sensing the minuscule amount of life force left even used a drop of precious wood essence was awake, and even could be considered in good health. As planned before, Wu Guang was lying in the bushes as a survivor of the attack, when the expert that was disguised as the old man in the cart appeared, he was a bit surprised, after all, he expected that they would send some minor people for investigation - but it seems that the matter was more important than the guess formulated from the memories he absorbed.

Wu Guang was planning to make a small show of awakening to be rescued, but he did not expect that this dignified old man would rush to his side and proceed to heal him without any hesitation.

When qi was used to sense the injury and body situation, Wu Guang was not panicked, after all, the integrated consciousness and soul power were on a level higher than the one introduced into his body, so he easily misled the diagnostic, drawing a ghastly image of his internal injuries and obscuring most of his life force. But the actions of the old man really touched him, not only he used a pill, but he even took out a resource like the wood essence! Even on a medium plane, elemental essences were rare and costly, not to say how valuable would it be in this minor one.

After laying down half an hour without movement, he considered that enough time had passed for the effects to appear, he slowly opened his eyes and made a light groan. After some moments, the expert voice reached him

"Young man, don't move yet, your injuries should have just healed. Wait until you stop feeling any pain and only then stand up"