Xuanshui City is one of the sixteen main cities in the Northern Territory. It is located in the northeast of Qingliang City. The straight-line distance between the two cities exceeds five thousand miles.
Therefore, even though Gao Yuan set out early in the morning, he only entered the territory of Xuanshui City near noon.
After hurriedly traveling, he finally saw the destination of this mission—Linxi Town, located directly north of Xuanshui City.
At this time, he was wearing a mask and a cloak, standing in the air more than a kilometer above the ground, quietly looking at the market town at his feet.
Its scale is much smaller than that of the original Qingyuan Town, and the shantytowns outside the north gate are less than one-third the size of Qingyuan Town.
According to the map information previously obtained from Fenglong's group, Linxi Town is a small market town established less than fifty years ago, and its manager is a newly promoted Kaiyuan Realm family who moved from Xuanshui City.
"If there was only one Kaiyuan realm in this town, would it be the goal of my trip?" Gao Yuan whispered to himself.
Regarding this so-called 'reward and punishment mission', he was still a little confused.
Without him, the execution target of this task is really too small.
Although more than 40,000 intermediate spirit stones are a considerable amount of wealth, no matter how you think about it, you won’t force a monk in the late Kaiyuan realm to the point where the Exile Alliance offers rewards and punishments, right?
What's more, in the 'Alliance Arbitration Decision Document', several options are listed for the repayment method of the recovered spirit stones.
Among them, deductions by completing alliance tasks, or paying interest first and repaying the principal in installments later are all acceptable.
If that doesn’t work, you can just smelt the ‘Five Spirit Jade’ and sell it!
With one's cultivation in the late Kaiyuan realm, it only takes two or three years for the value of the 'Five Spiritual Jade' to be smelted to be enough to repay the debt of this spiritual stone.
In this case, why do we need to find such a difficult way to end it?
You must know that no matter how high or low the reward offered in a bounty mission is, it will eventually fall on the head of the person being rewarded, and this is the main reason why the amount of spiritual stones recovered this time is a fraction.
It can be said that once included in the task list of the "whip bearer", the target will either completely pay off the debt or die in the disciplinary action.
Apart from this, there is basically no possibility of the third outcome.
As for defaulting...
He didn't think that a small Kaiyuan Realm monk could rely on the behemoth of the Exile Alliance.
Even if the opponent is strong and he fails this time, the mission will not end.
In the future, tasks will only be assigned to stronger ‘whip holders’ with higher bounty standards until the task is completed!
Not to mention that the goal this time is only to be in the late Kaiyuan realm, even in the Hunyuan realm and the Soul realm, one may not be qualified to forcibly repudiate the debt.
After all, the two levels of whip bearers, ‘two-star’ and ‘three-star’, correspond to these two realms!
"There must be something fishy here!"
Thinking of this, Gao Yuan sighed helplessly in his heart.
If he had a choice, he would rather this mission be a hunting mission for 'Ember', even if it was for 'Flying Dragon City'!
However, you cannot choose to give up on the 'trial mission', otherwise you will be directly judged as a failure to become a regular employee, and you will not be able to submit an application for regularization again within three years.
"Well, no matter what, it's better to ask the locals about the situation before making a decision."
After muttering something to himself in a low voice, Gao Yuan tightened his figure and quickly fell towards the ground.
Within a few breaths, he dropped to a height of less than a hundred meters above the ground.
Unexpectedly, his whereabouts were discovered, as the escape talisman that had been activated in advance had completely concealed his figure.
In addition, the master-level 'Second Level Breath Condensation Technique' and the 'Whip Holder Suit' have a masking effect on one's own breath.
Unless a monk of the same level condenses the tentacles of his spiritual thoughts and detects them in his direction, there is no need to worry about being discovered by the other party even if they are face to face!
I saw him hovering in the air for a while and quickly locked on the target.
It was a fat middle-aged man in his fifties, who was walking alone on the gravel road leading from Linxi Town to Xuanshui City.
Gao Yuan glanced around, and then quickly fell towards the opponent like an eagle hunting for prey.
Still dozens of meters away, the power of his spiritual thoughts, with a mysterious wave, moved towards the opponent as a hood.
With his mind shaken, the slightly fat middle-aged man didn't even have time to react, so he fell straight towards the roadside.
Gao Yuan saw this, and the spiritual thoughts he explored immediately turned into tentacles, wrapping around the opponent and holding his body firmly before he fell to the ground.
Then he used the wind spell and led the opponent into the sky, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
…
Although Linxi Town was founded only a short time ago and the scale of the city is not large, the Chai family, as the managers of the market town, has extremely luxurious arrangements for its family residence.
Whether it is the buildings with carved beams or painted beams, or the decoration of flowers, trees, bamboos and stones, they are all very exquisite and extremely luxurious.
In the main room at the end of the house, a figure wearing a dark brown gown and a black mask was sitting cross-legged on a soft roof in a corner of the house.
His long, snow-white hair was spread over his somewhat stooped back, making him look rather old at first glance.
After a while, the figure moved slightly, reached out and took off the black mask, revealing the image of a thin old man with white beard and hair.
The latter waved his robe sleeves with a gloomy expression, and the black mask he placed on the table beside him disappeared.
The thin old man sat quietly on the spot for a while, a look of hesitation suddenly appeared on his gloomy face.
After a while, he gritted his teeth as if he had made up his mind, reached out and patted the storage bag at his waist, and a white jade plate about the size of a foot appeared out of thin air in his hand.
After the jade plate appeared, the hesitation on the face of the thin old man disappeared.
I saw him half turning around to face the table beside him and placing the jade plate on it.
Then he took out two intermediate spirit stones and skillfully inserted them into the slots on the surface of the jade plate.
I saw his lips moving continuously, reciting a few mantras in a low voice, and moving his right hand quickly towards the center of the jade plate a few times, and a silver stream of light lit up on the surface of the jade plate.
As the thin old man moved the magic formula in his hand, the silver light on the surface of the jade plate suddenly surged, projecting a silver light curtain nearly two feet in diameter in the void above it.
After the light curtain was formed, circles of invisible fluctuations centered on the jade plate continued to spread toward the surroundings, causing the surrounding void to emit a faint echo.
The thin old man seemed not to notice this, and just stared at the silver light screen above the jade plate with an expressionless face.
A moment later, when a look of impatience gradually appeared on the face of the thin old man, the surface of the light curtain suddenly fluctuated as fast as water.
After a while, the trembling of the light curtain gradually stopped, and a middle-aged man with a somewhat sinister face appeared in the central area.
"Lao Chai, why are you contacting me at this time?" The sinister man seemed a little surprised, looking at the thin old man and smiling.
Looking at the sinister man's face appearing in the light curtain, the thin old man's eyes narrowed subconsciously. He paused briefly before saying calmly:
"I just entered the Exile's secret room and received the 'Alliance Arbitration Decision Document' inside. The document said that if I don't pay the compensation for spiritual stones, I will be included in the 'Bounty and Punishment List'!"
"Oh? It's finally here. This is a good thing! By the way, it was just sent here today?"
When the sinister man heard this, he immediately showed an interested expression, and judging by his tone, he seemed to be looking forward to this matter.
The skinny old man's face suddenly turned ugly after hearing this, and after a while he suppressed his anger and said.
"It's not today, it was ten days ago! Thanks to you, I didn't have time to enter the Exile's space until today."
"Oh, you can't blame me for this. Who told you to go crazy when you saw me that day and insist on attacking me?"
The sinister man heard this and didn't take it seriously at all, and then said with a thoughtful look on his face:
"If there is no reply within ten days, your matter should have been forwarded to the 'whip bearer'. Maybe the person who took over the task has already set off."
"Hmm...according to the usual style of the Exile Alliance, the strength of the first wave of 'whip bearers' is generally not too strong, and after the meeting they mainly focus on confiscating spiritual stones.
When you see the person coming, you don’t need to panic. First stabilize the person, then find a reason to bring the person here to me, and your mission will be over."
The thin old man stared at the other party coldly, and then said in a deep voice after a long while:
"hope so."
…
Underground dozens of miles north of Linxi Town.
Gao Yuan wore a mask and a cloak and was sitting on a stone chair that he carried with him.
The fat middle-aged man whom he captured before had already woken up, and was standing in front of him with a shivering look on his face, pleading:
"Senior, everything that junior said just now is true, and there is absolutely no lie. Senior, please show your kindness and save junior's life!"
Gao Yuan stared at the other party quietly, and then his spiritual thoughts wrapped up the power of the true essence, and moved towards the other party with strange fluctuations. The latter's mind was shaken, and his vision immediately turned black and he fell to the ground.
.
Seeing this, he leaned back slightly, sat on the stone chair behind him, and then recalled what the middle-aged man had just said one by one.
According to the middle-aged man named Song Heng, the family that is now in charge of Linxi Town is named Chai, which is the same surname as the target of his trip.
It's just that the name of the Kaiyuan realm ancestor of the Chai family is not something this middle-aged man can know.
In addition, according to his description, Linxi Town has been peaceful in recent years, and nothing unusual has happened that deserves attention. There has been no news of anyone missing mysteriously.
"It sounds like everything is normal. Could it be that I'm too worried?" Gao Yuan pondered for a while and said to himself.
Ordinarily, this middle-aged man should not have lied. When the other party spoke just now, he was under his spiritual monitoring throughout the whole process. Apart from fear, he did not notice any abnormal mood swings.
But for some reason, he always felt that something was wrong somewhere in his heart, but after careful consideration, he didn't find anything unusual.
To be on the safe side, he returned to the outside of Linxi Town, arrested three more people and asked them the same question.
The answers of these people were basically the same as that of the fat middle-aged man. Even if there were some discrepancies, they were just minor details that had nothing to do with the overall situation.
After thinking about it for a while, Gao Yuan decided to wait until evening to go to Linxi Town to see the situation in detail.
…
Time passed very quickly, and the hour passed in a blink of an eye.
Gao Yuan used his spiritual thoughts to consolidate the consciousness seals of Song Heng and others one by one.
Then he took off his mask and quickly activated the disguise technique.
After the latter was promoted to the Grandmaster level, his response speed increased significantly. In just a few breaths, his face became exactly the same as that of Song Heng lying on the ground.
“Hope everything goes well on this trip!”
While putting on the mask again, he whispered, and the voice he used was exactly the same as Song Heng's voice before.
He didn't waste any more time and quickly got out of the underground pit.
Then he activated the blast technique and transformed into a line of light and shadow, flying away in the direction of Linxi Town under the cover of night.
…
A distance of dozens of miles can be reached in an instant.
Not long after, Gao Yuan arrived at the city wall of Linxi Town.
He activated the second-level Qi-gazing technique and looked toward the city wall, but did not find any suspicious energy fluctuations.
The latter, like other market towns in the Northern Territory, does not have an air defense barrier.
Gao Yuan was relieved. Under the influence of the wind wall of the Wind Curse, he easily crossed the ten-meter-high city wall.
Under the combined effect of the breath-containing technique, the escape talisman and the 'Exile Suit', he restrained all his aura and movements, and drifted towards a huge mansion on the east side of the North City like a ghost.
According to the descriptions of Song Heng and others, this rather grand house is where the Chai family's mansion is located.
From the perspective of Qi Wangshu, more than half of the buildings in these houses are vacant.
This is also understandable. The Chai family was a new Kaiyuan realm family fifty years ago. This house can be purchased directly, but the number of people can not increase rapidly in a short period of time.
After a calm journey, he soon reached the sky above the back house.
According to his previous plan, he instantly released his spiritual thoughts and headed towards the Chai Family Courtyard below.
While all the spaces within a radius of several hundred meters came into his mind, he also sensed a strange aura in a rather grand house at the back of the house - the power of the Kaiyuan Realm monk's spiritual thoughts!
At the same time that he discovered the other party, the people in the house also discovered him.
Gao Yuan did not act immediately. He carefully checked the area with the power of his spiritual mind and the aura-gazing technique. After making sure that there were no other auras lurking around, he breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.
"Clang!"
The sound of the door opening came, and in his sight, a thin figure appeared at the door of the room.
The cold moonlight shone on the man's face, reflecting the image of an old man with white beard and hair, who was looking up this way.
I saw the other party's lips closing slightly a few times, and a somewhat old voice suddenly appeared clearly in Gao Yuan's mind:
"The whip bearer?"
The other party's tone sounded quite calm, as if he was not surprised at all by his arrival.