A few minutes earlier
A young man, at the early Qi Refining stage, was desperately running away, trying to find a spot to hide, without any concluding result:
"Stop right here, little brat! Your death anniversary shall be celebrated in one year!"
"Where are you going, junior brother Hanchen? If you're courting death, you must be ready to accept it when it comes to you!"
As the two cultivators, respectively at the late stage Qi Refining and the early stage Qi Building, kept spouting out nonsense while chasing the young man, Xiao Hanchen, snorted and kept going from hiding spot to hiding spot.
He wasn't naive: at the early stage of Qi Refining, he had no chance to outrun his pursuers, his only chance was to find a good enough hiding spot to use his Earth talent and lose them.
But as he exited the small valley they were in, he was horrified to see in front of him a large plain, devoid of any possible hiding spot, and stopped right there.
"Haha! Finally, it seems you have accepted your fate, junior brother!" the late stage Qi Refining cultivator laughed.
Xiao Hanchen clenched his teeth and turned around before getting in a fighting itionstance, ready to put his life on the line to try and take one of them with him, even though he knew how little his chances were. All because a damn centipede had crawled to his previous hiding spot and made them notice him… this stupid bug!
"Senior brother… no, Xiao Fengyu, you traitorous bastard! If I can't live to see another day, I'll at least make sure you follow me to the underworld!"
Despite his bold claim, Xiao Fengyu remained calm, rolling his eyes:
"Yes, junior brother, you will surely manage to go through a Qi Building cultivator to reach me all while surviving both his and my attacks long enough to unleash some kind of miraculous secret move you definitely kept hidden this whole time. How scared am I"
His voice, dripping with irony and contempt, made the young Xiao Hanchen grit his teeth. Just as he was about to attempt a suicide attack, the three of them saw something fall from the sky and crash, only a few hundred meters away from them. Xiao Hanchen, seeing an opportunity, didn't think any more and ran directly toward the crashing zone.
"Th-this blood aura… it's a demonic cultivator!" Xiao Fengyu exclaimed. "And judging by the impact, it's at the very least in the Qi Building stage!"
As he saw Hanchen run in this direction, he quickly turned to his companion, who he knew was a good dozen years younger than himself despite his higher realm:
"Fellow cultivator Wu, what should we do?" he asked.
Wu Leihao, the one who accompanied him, thought a bit before replying:
"Let's give up the chase" he said. "If we keep pursuing him, we'll definitely be able to kill him, but the commotion will attract the demon cultivator. I'm confident I'll either win or at least escape with my life but you will surely die, fellow cultivator Fengyu"
Hearing that, Xiao Fengyu clenched his teeth, both because he couldn't kill Hanchen and because he was clearly looked down upon by someone younger than him.
"Fine, then let's leave quickly"
Eventually though, he complied, not wanting to take risks as he thought that the demonic cultivator would probably make quick work of Hanchen anyway.
Meanwhile, Hanchen, approaching the crash zone, had his fear quickly catching up to him:
'Is… is it really a good idea?' he wondered, before shaking his head: 'Of course it is not, it's barely the least bad option!'
At this moment, from the small crater produced by the clash, a mangled man got up, slowly walking in his general direction, exuding great killing intent:
"Ahh… blood… I need… blood" the bloodied man said, sanity almost gone from his eyes.
Hanchen paled even further, his body freezing in fear. However, the man simply went past him, grabbed a rabbit that was passing by and began to… eat it?
.
.
.
Baotian could clearly see the shocked, and slightly judging expression on the young man's face, but he didn't care in the slightest: he barely took the time to skin the rabbit and cook it with a basic fire spell before biting into it repeatedly. Even with the Crazed Demonic Blood Burial Mantra, he needed blood to recover from his injuries and exhaustion. And more than that, after over a decade without food, he needed to eat!
"Argh, munch, it's, munch, so good" he mumbled disgracefully as he ate.
Back on Earth, as a baker, he had certain culinary criterias, which followed him into the Liu Clan. But gone were these days, meat alone made happiness!
Only after eating the rabbit whole did he report his attention on the young man:
"You're still here, kid?" he asked, surprised that he didn't run away yet despite his terrified look. "Oh, I get it, you think you can take me down while I'm weakened? If so, you shouldn't have given me time to eat and recuperate"
Hanchen was indeed considering running, just like he was considering hiding in a corner with his talent.
"I… just wanted to pay my respects to senior" he said.
"Hmm, I see" Baotian nodded. "So basically, you were being chased down and wanted to use me to either make them run away or be your shield while you escape, did I get it right?"
"I… don't understand what you're saying, senior" Xiao Hanchen replied in a really unconvincing way.
"No need to lie, I would have done the same"
Despite that, Baotian was still annoyed about the matter: what if the boy's pursuers had strong backing, and this backing came for him too?
"That said, in return for my help, I at least expect you to explain who was chasing you and why" he said, deciding to get more information before deciding on a course of action.
Hanchen hesitated a bit, debating on whether he should lie or not. Then, remembering how terrible he was at lying, he decided to just tell the story:
"I'm the second disciple of elder Xiao Shen from the Xiao clan" he began to explain. "As I began to show promising talent, unbeknownst to me, my senior brother Xiao Fengyu was getting more and more jealous. That I, a mere fifteen years old boy, reached the early stage Qi Refining before he advanced to Qi Building must have made him fear that I'd replace him as master's favorite disciple. Thus, he convinced master to send me to the Divine Storm sect, stealing their Nascent Soul pill to assist master's in breaking through. But before my infiltration, this bastard Fengyu intentionally tipped them off, resulting in a failure. I could only enter in possession of a Core Formation pill and was noticed by the Divine Storm sect"
He clenched his teeth as he continued:
"Since unlike my clan, this sect has Nascent Soul cultivators, not one but two of them, they ended the negotiations by selling me out and putting the blame on me. Master Shen only managed to obtain me a headstart, and to limit the level of the cultivators they could send after me, hence why I could run until now. Still, without you, senior brother and this Wu Leihao guy would have catched me and ended my life, so I sincerely thank senior"
'Hmm, I see, just a naive kid that got unlucky' Baotian thought before frowning: 'Wait a minute…'
"You're saying your clan sent an early stage Qi Refining cultivator into the Divine Storm sect, one of the Ten Grand Sects, to steal one of their treasures, and implying you would have actually succeeded without your senior brother's betrayal? And even then, you still managed to steal a Core Formation pill?"
Xiao Hanchen internally cursed himself for his stupidity but, not left with another choice, he admitted:
"It's my Earth Talent, the Shadow Embodying True Physic" he admitted. "With it, I can erase my presence to not be detected by cultivators' spiritual senses and become harder to detect to the eye as well. That's how I did it, I first asked the clan to provide me with a detailed plan of the sect and the way to their treasure chamber, and then infiltrated the sect by slowly moving from hiding spot to hiding spot, until I reached their treasure chamber. And then, I did the same to barely escape… Argh, I can't believe my own clan sold me…"
Xiao Henchan looked like he was trying not to cry, but Baotian had already stopped listening after the first sentence.
An Earth Talent!
Among cultivators, there were three categories of talent. The most common category was Spiritual Talents, which simply meant people born with spiritual roots. The level of talent could vary widely among them but generally, beside their cultivation speed and the limit of realms they could reach, they didn't have any other fundamental difference.
The other way around, Heavenly Talents were treated as myths, and it was debatable whether even one of them was ever seen in their realm. As nobody saw one, it couldn't be verified, but legends said that they were beings that could bypass the limits of cultivation formulas to some extent, advancing through realms through their own rules. It was to a point where even Liu Zhenyun didn't necessarily meet their standards. Also called Children of Heaven, they were beings that transcended common sense!
That said, they were indeed closer to legends than anything else. Thus, what was considered as the main forces of the cultivation world were none other than Earthly Talents. Though they couldn't bypass the fundamental rules of cultivation formulas, they each possessed a cultivation speed and a realm ceiling akin to the best of Spiritual Talents, and in addition had their own Earth Talent, a unique ability that kept evolving as they advanced in their cultivation.
Just as there was one Spiritual Talent for a thousand mortals, there was only one Earthly Talent for ten thousand cultivators! Though not legends, they were undoubtedly the kings of this world!
And seeing he had met one, at that one that was lower in realm than himself, Baotian saw a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and didn't hesitate to take it:
"I see, junior, it seems that fate was what brought us together" he said, trying to maintain some dignity, even after everything. "In that case, I have a trade to suggest you"
He smiled, his teeth still covered in rabbit blood:
"One that you won't be able to refuse"