By the time she stepped out of the building, The night had already unfurled above the cities spire.
She glared up, a silver moon gleaming like a jade talisman in the velvet sky. She then closed her eyes, when she opened them, A deep sigh escaped her lips.
This had truly been an enlightening night. She naturally found out many things, yet what she had found had left her restless.
One thing had truly caught her attention was that there was nothing much on the profession known as adept.
Although there were quite a few books mentioning adepts, but there was nothing about how to become one.
This led her to believe that the information was being monopolized by the rich and powerful.
In order to become an adept, one either had to have already been from a rich family, or join the adept towers or any other powerful adept organization scattered across the world,
And in order to do that, you needed have the appropriate connections, hence money and status.
And so the strong will keep on getting stronger while the weak gets even more weaker.
Proving that the path of the adept lay veiled in shadow, its secrets guarded by forces beyond her reach, she couldn't bring herself to wort about that now.
Fei Yue also read a lot about the current world and its inner workings to some degree.
Fei Yue read that much of the lower three heavens is governed by the Evergale Dynasty. with a history that dates back thousands of years, and the ruling class being powerful adepts.
Supporting the dynasty are small kings that rule various regions.
The only known currency are the gold and silver notes, with the exchange rate being a thousand to one, meaning one thousand silver notes are worth a single gold note.
The currency is graded based on its place in the world. In the lesser three heavens, there are lesser gold and silver notes; in the middle three heavens, middle gold and silver notes; and in the upper three heavens, upper gold and silver notes.
Although she couldn't tell exactly what made the notes from the higher heavens differ from the ones in the lower heavens.
Fei Yue couldn't help but imagine what the higher heavens might look like. However, with a wry laugh, she dispelled the thought.
The slums were once again empty. The stench of human activities assaulted her senses.
Although she hadn't noticed it before, her senses were a bit heightened. She could see better than she could before and hear better.
Her nose was picking up scents from various distances. So much so that sudden rush of information threatened to throw her mind into disarray.
As Fei Yue walked the desolate streets beneath the dark sky, her sharpened senses caught two voices speaking softly. Her heart quickened. A sharp voice broke the silence:
"What are you doing here?"
From afar, Fei Yue could barely make out the faces of both men clearly; however, she could tell that one of them was adorned in a black robe while the other was clad in white, their form Stark against the moonlight.
AtAt first, Fei Yue thought little of the murmured voices drifting through the wretched streets. Two strangers speaking in the slums' shadowed depths—surely a common sight.
But still she pressed on, her sharpened senses brushing aside the faint stench of decay.
Yet the next words stopped her cold: "You shouldn't be here. The Golden Order still hunts you for massacring that village." Her breath caught, the weight of those words piercing the night like a cold stealed blade.
At those words, she quickly drip dropped behind a crumbling building, whose rooftop was barely intact, given by the silvery glow streaming through the open roof.
The decayed wood groaned under her touch, masking her trembling breath.
Her heart faltered, she could scarcely believe it. The man who had once ruined her life was standing a few paces away from her, and yet here she was, powerless to do anything.
...
From her hiding spot, Fei Yue strained to hear the white-robed man's voice, faint under the moonlight's dim veil.
The white robbed man's voice, faint under the moonlight's dim veil. "How did you evade Di Tian's men unscathed?" His words carried doubt, his face barely lit by the silver glow.
Di Tian is strong, stronger than he would care to admit, yet not only did this person evade him, he managed to do it twice.
"Not unscathed," the dark-robed man replied, his voice low, edged with a wry smile that the moonlight caught.
"Nor without aid." Pain flickered across his face, subtle but clear to the white robbed man's sharpened eyes, though his wounds seemed slight.
The dark hooded man drew back the loose folds of his dark robe, revealing a gauntlet of pale, near-translucent crystal clinging to his wrist.
It shimmered faintly, like a star trapped in ice.
It looked sleek and was only a few inches thick, almost extending to his elbow. He lightly touched it, and the crystal began to pulse with green light.
Then he disappeared, shocking both the white-robed man and the eavesdropping Fei Yue. The white-robed man was even more shocked than Fei Yue, so much so his eyes widened and jaw went slack.
"Amazing, isn't it?" the dark-robed man added with a menacing tone.
An adept spell is powered by something called energy motes. It acts as some sort of conduit, with their body as the generator that constantly generates varying energies associated with their path technique.
So when they cast spells of any corresponding rank, they often leave traces behind. These traces of energy can then be traced back to the caster.
Rumors had it that there was a group of adepts far away from here who followed an unusual manner of practice. They called it witchcraft and used hexes and curses instead of spells.
They could hex any adept just by using traces of their energy mote, killing powerful practitioners from a distance without any form of frontal confrontation, making them a frightening bunch.
It is due to this that adepts would often make efforts to erase these traces to avoid their enemies. It was akin to leaving a backdoor to the soul; this was the rule that governs the nine heavens.
Yet this device, whatever it was, had defied this rule entirely. The dark-robed man was right; this artifact, whatever it was, was better than that of the grounders' people, whose artifacts functioned in accordance with the rules and were powered by the wilders' energy motes, and hence would also leave traces.
If the artifact doesn't require energy motes, doesn't that mean it can run indefinitely? It is little wonder this man and his followers were able to evade Di Tian.
Perhaps even the dark-robed adept didn't know the mechanism behind the object he currently wielded.
"Yes, it is amazing," the white-robed adept uttered with his gaze fixated on the crystal gauntlet on the dark-robed adept's left wrist.
...
Of course, Fei Yue had no way of knowing all of this. Her gaze was fixated on the black-robed man, completely disregarding any other information she might have acquired here today. Her gaze burned as she remembered her husband and daughter's screams piercing through the snowy night.
Although she hadn't noticed it, her demeanor had completely changed. Her crimson eyes started to release a faint red luster as her almost tangible hatred continuously rolled out of her, threatening to engulf the entire slum.
But despite all of that, she didn't dare to move. She feared even breathing too loudly, for if there was even a chance that the dark-robed man might recognize her, she would have to meet her maker tonight.
Fei Yue stood rooted in her hiding spot. She took two deep breaths in an effort to calm herself. She closed her eyes tightly as tears threatened to spill out of them; however, when she opened them, she was met with a strange sight. She could no longer see nor hear the two. Something soft and dark was blocking her view.
"Oh, what do we have here?"