Chapter 511: Being Followed

Rai City.

Haan Di. Dadangar Subcontinent.

A few weeks after Aksai’s Aether cultivation breakthrough into the Wisp Mastery realm.

The sky above Rai City was painted in soft orange and gold as the sun dipped low on the horizon.

The wide stone streets of the city bustled with life. Merchants shouted over one another to sell their goods. Spirit beasts, tamed and collared, walked beside their masters.

The scent of roasted meats, strange herbs, and wet stone filled the air. Adventurers, mercenaries, and cultivators of all kinds moved about, each carrying their own stories and scars.

Aksai stepped out of the grand gates of the city administration office. He looked like any other drifting cultivator returning from a difficult mission into the Wild Devil Lands.

He didn’t look back. But he didn’t need to.

Aksai’s eyes drifted toward the crowd ahead, though his mind was focused behind him.

Four of them. Quiet steps, steady breath, disciplined aura.

Spirit Refining realm?

No. That was just the surface.

They had used refined techniques to suppress their presence, wrapping themselves in cloaks of false Spirit essence, careful not to draw attention.

On the surface, they looked like low-tier Spirit cultivators. But Aksai’s Wisp Mastery Aether senses didn’t rely on appearances. Where others sensed Spirit essence, Aksai could sense souls.

He didn’t need to guess. He could feel them.

Two early-stage Foundation Building realm. The other two, mid-stage Foundation Building. All four disguised well enough to fool most.

But not him. Not anymore.

One had to say that the Aether cultivation had a lot of hidden uses for Aksai even though he was still yet to master decent Aether spells to make use of his newfound Wisp Mastery realm.

Just the passive effect of sensing Spirit cultivators’ souls using Soul Sense AKA Aether Sense was enough to give him a significant advantage over the other Spirit cultivators despite various assassin-friendly Spirit techniques they had access to.

Aksai walked on, moving at a casual pace, his wooden boots made of flexible green vines generating suppressed noise against the cobbled path.

His black robe swayed gently as a wind brushed past, carrying the sounds of a busy city with it. Behind him, footsteps followed — not too close, but not far enough to be a coincidence.

He didn’t recognize them. Not by face or aura. But they weren’t rogues. That much he was sure of.

The way they stayed in perfect sync. The careful balance in their breathing. The practiced rhythm in their paces.

All of this depicted a picture in front of Aksai.

These were not drifters or mercenaries thrown together by chance. No. These four had trained together. Moved together. Trusted each other enough to cover one another’s tracks.

Only sect cultivators did that. Only people raised within the sect estate and rules would take such precise steps.

“Interesting,” Aksai muttered under his breath, lips curling into a faint smile.

He had just confirmed the completion of his mission — a simple tracking and retrieval task that had taken him deep into the Wild Devil Lands after the chaos that had unraveled in the Wild Devil Lands.

The Spirit farmer had done it cleanly, without drawing too much attention. After that, he had returned to the administration office to file his success and update his status.

Now, with the legal entry permits freshly stamped with encrypted Essence Equation runes and tucked away, he had sought a legal entry into the neutral zone Haan Di from the Wild Devil Lands through Rai City.

Basically, Aksai had retracted his steps and came back to the same city he had used to get inside the Wild Devil Lands. He could have tried illegal channels to get entry into the Haan Di but that would prevent him from taking part in the official auction events conducted in the White Mountain City. He didn’t want that.

As such, he made use of his assigned mission from the Rai City’s city administration and the chaos unfolding in the Wild Devil Lands as means to gain legal entry, making up a proper story for his long disappearance. This way he could avoid exposing himself as someone who cooperated with Haitin.

Of course, few key players from the Big Five Sects would eventually come to know that Aksai had attended Haitin’s wedding. After all, he was forced to meet the Core Formation Lords of the Big Five righteous sects as well as the Haan Di Lord because of the late Hayaat Blackblood.

But his dealings with the Haitin wouldn’t matter to the Core Formation Lords. And since he still appeared to be smallfry, the Big Five Sects wouldn’t bother with him unless he gave them a reason to.

As such, Aksai only needed to ensure that his on-paper story checked out for the time being until the lines were blurred by the passage of time and it didn’t matter anymore.

Thus, Aksai had maintained a clean record by using all the right steps. And yet, he was being followed.

Aksai was sure that these followers weren’t from the Big Five Sects. They didn’t need to hide their presence if they wanted to question or threaten Aksai for some reason. But since he had never met them before, he wondered if he had offended anyone recently.

Even while thinking about many things at once, Aksai didn’t stop. He didn’t turn his head. He let them think they were still hidden.

He passed through a crowded market street, weaving between stalls and shouting vendors. The scent of fried spirit ingredients wafted through the air. A street performer danced on glowing tiles that changed color with each step. Aksai paused briefly to let a group of armored beast tamers pass in front of him.

Behind him, the four followers adjusted their pace. Smooth. Too smooth.

Aksai continued walking, slipping into a quieter path that led toward the southern edge of the city. The people thinned out. The chatter faded.

Only the sounds of distant hooves and the soft rustle of trees remained.

What his pursuers didn’t know at the time was that Aksai was purposely creating an assassin-friendly situation around him by leading them outside the Rai City.

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AN: Rai City was first mentioned in chapter 316. White Mountain City was first mentioned in chapter 172.