The day after, Xiao Wu and Cheng Hao both woke up early, at the ringing of the five o'clock bell. The sun had yet to rise and the world was still blanketed by the night sky. The canopy was still pitch-black, like tar or petrol, and only the faint flickering of the stars and the light reflected off the moon lit up the morning. Xiao Wu sat up on her bed. Her long, purple-bluish hair was in disarray, her masculine makeup was kind of smudged and her nightclothes were all crumpled up. She slowly looked around: "Ah!"

She was a bit taken back while seeing the golden dragon and the two other youths sleeping in the room. However, a rotation of her cultivation base helped her clear up her tired and blurry mind. As soon as she did, she recalled with a light,soundless giggle.

Right…

It had only been two days, but so many things had happened!

Without her noticing it, her purple lips arranged into a smile as she took in the faces of her slumbering comrades: this feeling of fellowship and adventure she was inwardly feeling… it was actually quite sweet! So sweet, she had yet to feel any pangs of nostalgia as of yet.

As she quietly stood up, she tried her best not to make any noise so as not to wake her sleeping companions. Secretly, Cheng Hao waited for his apprentice and martial sister to (cross)dress up and leave. The faint sound of cloth fluttering and of light steps heading outside was heard as the door was opened and closed. He waited a few breaths before getting off the bed himself.

He was careful not to disturb the sleeping golden dragon and white-haired youth that were sleeping on the floor as he made his way to the door. Just as he was about to leave however he froze on the doorstep. He turned around and he walked to Fuyin. As he leaned in to examine the youth that had passed the night on a barely passable mattress, the golden-eyed child's expression grew warmer and he nodded with satisfaction while exhaling a puff of hot hair: the sleeping youth had actually broken through to the Advanced Stage! After a brief moment of consideration, Cheng Hao gently lifted him up and laid him on the comfortable bed, feeling quite satisfied of this new disciple of his! As for Goldy, he was considerate enough not to prank him after he also broke through to Peak Basic Stage the day prior: he did deserve a break as well.

Finally, he also left the wooden hut.

Of course, Xiao Wu (and Cheng Hao) had woken up so early to cultivate the I See A Purple Moonlit World scripture!

While the former dashed to the ruined tower, the latter had to run all the way up the gargantuan walls. There, they each captured the rays of virgin sunlight coming from the rising sun and further developed their I See A Purple Moonlit World scripture. As soon as they were done they dashed back, Cheng Hao hurrying back as fast as he could to avoid being discovered while secretly practicing the technique.

Today, however, he didn't need to make a beeline through the Beast Forest and this way some innocent beasts were spared: Xiao Wu had remained at the tower a while longer, wishing to further deepen her understanding of the Purple Moon and its usage.

After listening in on Cheng Hao and Fuyin's conversation the day prior, she had come to the realization that there were many geniuses she couldn't even fathom in the world. Thinking of her goal to become an unparalleled genius and lead her Clan back to its former state as a super force of the Nine Heavens, her fighting intent had been lit up!

Because of her fighting spirit, Cheng Hao had been able to take the longer route around without needing to reap the lives of spirit beasts that were meant for his disciple to take as training.

This way, by the time both the master and apprentice arrived home, it was already the sixth hour. Xiao Wu wasn't surprised to find Cheng Hao sitting at the kitchen table as he was wroting down some strange scripture atop a piece of rice paper, courtesy of the Wang youth.

Due to Fuyin's appearance, Cheng Hao had ultimately chosen to delay his departure for a few days in order to give the kid some guidance. He wanted to guide him… to rush all the way to the Peak Advanced Stage!

That way, he would have the combat strength of several Advanced Stage cultivators, the Wang Protectors, on his own!

Although mere puppets, Wang Lu's seal of approval alone had convinced Cheng Hao of their potential might when it came to fighting cultivators of the same stage. Although battling the higher stages would be somewhat hard with numbers alone, especially seeing the qualitative leap between the Advanced and Superior Stage, it was still not impossible. After having reached such strength in the Vacant Sect, where even the strongest Elders would barely possess an Advanced Stage's worth of cultivation, he would feel safe leaving him behind to look after Xiao Wu.

This way, he could also bring Blindlight along to dismantle some traps and gain some more treasure artifacts to feed the Primordial Beast. It would take less time with the dragon along and would be much safer, so he could afford to stay behind a few days to teach the kid some stuff before leaving.

He would use this time to breakthrough to the Basic Stage himself before setting off to take the Aura Manipulation Manual hidden deep within the ancient ruin. After all, unlike Xiao Wu, he had no talent for Aura Manipulation, so he had no reason to wait any longer when he could just breakthrough easily. The sooner he could gather more strength, the better after all!

Everything could somewhat fit in the time frame he had in mind in his original plan, where he would have had to leave the Heaven Devouring Dragon behind to protect the Young Xiao Mistress. In that case, he not only would have needed more time, he also would have had to be much more careful in his explorations as he would have been alone. He had some experience being stuck in a ruin or two, so he would have been extremely careful and would have proceeded very slowly.

In a way, it could be said that Fuyin's arrival had been a blessing in disguise. This was also why Cheng Hao had ultimately chosen to really help out the kid with his problems, without half-assing it as he had first intended to.

Deep within the beast forest, as Xiao Wu and Goldy engaged in their own struggle against the local spirit beasts, Cheng Hao and Wang Fuyin sat together on one side and discussed the Trial of the Gate Chart.

Like that, time passed and it soon reached noon.

"Brother's it's the twelfth bell! Should I go prepare something?" A Xiao Wu completely blood-stained from head to toe asked as three black blades hovered behind her back, with another one in her left hand. Her progress was extremely fast, as expected of a ten-thousand-foot-tall pillar genius of Xiao Lan's bloodline, and she was currently trying her hand at four Black Dragon's Vengeful Talons at once.

"Do you want some help with the dead bodies, master?" Fuyin took back many rolls of paper and it could be seen by his somewhat vacant gaze that he was currently engaged in conversation with the other Wang in his consciousness.

"You two, it's so nice to have such thoughtful friends! Still, do go ahead, me and Blindlight will clean up here." As he was saying this, Cheng Hao had already begun gathering the beast corpses in his Heaven&Earth Pouch. Occasionally he'd just throw them in the air, and a golden-reddish flash would fly by and munch down on the monster meat as if it were a delicacy.

The golden-eyed child raised an eyebrow at Xiao Wu's current appearance before chuckling, "Just be sure to have something hot and juicy waiting for us when we come back… and it'd be really nice if the cook was clean enough that I don't find eyeballs and bloody flesh in my lunch!"

"Sure thing brother Hao!" Xiao Wu grinned sheepishly in sharp contrast to her bloodied robes and called over to the white-haired youth, "Let's go home, brother Fuyin!"

"Mm." Fuyin nodded and walked over. As they went off in the direction of the house, Cheng Hao could hear them faintly discussing something about genders and cross-dressing. He couldn't help but chuckle as he realized someone had yet to fully figure out Xiao Wu's odd habits. In a few minutes, the small clearing had been cleaned of the mountain of corpses that had been lying there. However, the ground and trees were still dyed crimson and the smell of death had yet to be dispelled by the wind.

Just as Cheng Hao was about to call it a day he heard a few voices talking loudly behind him.

"Man, what was all that crap about this forest being filled to the brim with monsters? We haven't encountered one even after a whole hour of searching!"

"Third brother is right! Senior Zi, should we turn bac- Uh? Senior, there seems to be someone up ahead!"

"Shh!" The sound of shushing could be heard as those voices quieted down all of a sudden, turning into faint whispers.

Undoubtedly, they had gotten a hold of Cheng Hao's presence.

The golden-eyed child frowned as he realized he had already been discovered and could not hide. He could run away, but that'd be meaningless, for he would still have to come here tomorrow, and the day after, and then the ones after that with those cute students of his to train them and to feed that glutton dragon. The next close-by Beast Forest was way too far away to walk to and fro every morning and afternoon.

What's more, in the case these guys turned out to be possible threats to Xiao Wu and Fuyin when he was gone…

A trace of chill flashed by the golden eyes, an eerie glow spreading throughout his body as the aura of a fierce predator that could engulf the world was forcefully suppressed: in the end however, he decided not to fight as of yet and to figure out the situation first.

Just then, a man emerged from the bushes behind Cheng Hao and noticed him sitting there, his back towards them as if he had yet to.

"To think that there really is someone!"

Cheng Hao completely ignored the group: they were a bunch of two low and three mid levels Basic stage cultivators.

Although their leader was actually a peak level Basic stage cultivator, about to step into the Advanced stage -most probably that 'Zi Senior' the other five cultivators were talking about-, even with him there, they posed no threat to Cheng Hao so he decided to ignore them.

"Hey kid, what are you doing here?" The group's leader approached, somewhat warily. "Maybe, you need big brother to show the way back? I could do that, for a price!"

Although their motives seemed kind, their eyes said something different than their mouth did: for a kid to be this deep in a beast forest… what other explanation could there be, other than him having some treasure on him? In their eyes, someone so young should not even have a cultivation base yet, let alone be able to fight back against them in the case they truly came to exchanging fists.

And such a fragile and foolish-looking child was right in front of them, so why not scam him out of the treasure and then run, leaving the kid behind?

After all, there where rules in place that prohibited Vacant Disciples from killing each other, but disciples robbing weaker disciples was part of the routine of the Vacant Sect and was turned a blind eye upon!