Mystical Journey

"Where's Liz?"

"She'll be here soon."

As soon as he said that, there was the tapping of footsteps from the door.

A pretty little face peeked in through the door crack. She wore some light make-up, replacing some of her past innocence with an extra dose of allure.

"I'm not late, am I?" She blinked, looking at Garen and Accord, but her gaze was more heavily focused on Accord.

"You're just in time," replied Accord nonchalantly, smiling.

The door opened, and Liz evidently had not come alone. There were three others behind her, two men and a woman, and they all wore the Dragon Light Sect's pale silver costumes. There was the logo of a flying dragon embroidered onto their sleeves. The men were handsome and the woman beautiful, but they all had traces of cosmetic surgery.

"It just so happens that my few Senior Brothers and my Senior Sister is here with me. When they heard that we were meeting up, they wanted to join the fun. You two don't mind, do you?" Liz said with a giggle.

A hint of discomfort flashed past Accord's eyes, but he did not say anything.

"It's fine, it's fine," Garen interrupted hurriedly. He knew Accord's temper well, the man was unbelievably arrogant, and he was not afraid to show it on his face at the slightest disagreement.

But they had initially agreed on a three-person gathering, and Liz actually brought others in here, so Garen could understand where Accord was coming from.

""Let's get to know each other, I'm Liz's Senior Brother, Dios, shall we be friends?" The young man in charge held out his hand to shake Garen's.

"Garen. Scarlet Snow Sect."

"Scarlet Snow Sect?" Dios seemed to be rather unfamiliar with it, but he quickly searched up the relevant information, and found out that it was just a small sect. He just smiled politely. Looking at Garen, it seemed as though there was nothing at all unusual about him, he only had regular Level Four forces. He seemed even weaker than Liz, so Dios stopped paying attention to him and turned his gaze onto Accord instead.

"Accord from Star Cloud?" He raised an eyebrow, and held out his hand. "My older brother is very close to Senior Brother Eco from your sect, I hear that you have a powerhouse called Dark Light who's really something."

"You're not from Dragon Light? Dios, I never heard of such a person in Dragon Light." Accord frowned, ignoring both his outstretched hand and his question. This blatant display of rudeness instantly caused some dissatisfaction among the other two.

"I'm just temporarily staying in Dragon Light, I'm from Black Blade." The young man smiled slightly, but there was a hint of contempt in his gentleness.

"Senior Brother Dios is a Three-Blades-Level Black Blade powerhouse!" the one girl could not help but introduce rather haughtily as well. "It's equal to what you guys call the peak of Inherited Level, y'know!"

"Is that so?" Accord was exasperated, and wanted to ignore these outsiders completely, but the other party was acting perfectly politely, so he could not find a reason to pick a fight. If he continued like this, it just showed that he lacked moral upbringing, because he could not be bothered to deal with them.

The other two were also Liz's Senior Brothers from Dragon Light, but they were all over Dios from Black Blade, and Dios was a proud one as well. When he saw that Accord did not respond to his kind offer, he stopped trying to press the matter.

At first, he had only come here because he heard that Accord was an elite from Star Cloud. That was the only reason he actually bothered to come here for a look, and he had nothing better to do anywhere.

As for what Liz was thinking, he knew it very well too. This Junior Sister of him, who he was quite fond of, was trying to give her friends more connections. Unfortunately, the other two did not seem to be trying to help themselves.

Putting aside that Accord, even that Garen from the Scarlet Snow Sect did not seem particularly pleased.

Garen and Accord gathered together, quietly drinking their wine in a corner of the room. The others stayed together, laughing and chatting about something. Dios' arrival seemed to have attracted other disciples from the Dragon Light Sect to join in one after the other, and some members of other mid-range sects also approached them to socialize. There were even two Magnetic Region powerhouses, they seemed to be Dios' friends as well, and all of them were at the same level. Instantly, the room grew crowded. Soon, they received news from outside that the whole coffee shop had been booked.

Thank goodness the room Accord booked was big enough, or else it would really be crowded in here.

"Won't you go and get to know them? These are all powerhouses from the major mid-range sects," said Accord via voice transmission, his expression sarcastic.

Garen raised his wine glass, and took a small sip.

"What about you? Why aren't you going? There's a powerhouse at the same level as your Senior Brother there now."

"Forget it, I hate this type of socializing the most." A hint of impatience flashed through Accord's eyes. "Wanna go out for a walk?"

"Sure."

Garen nodded.

The two of them seemed completely inconspicuous among the crowd, and they left the private room soundlessly. Only Liz, who had been constantly paying attention to them, noticed them through the crowd, and melancholy flashed through her heart.

For some reason, she always felt as though there was a chasm between her and the other two.

But this thought was soon washed away by the conversations and questions she had with the people around her. The powerhouses around her were a crucial key that she could not afford to ignore. Dios and one of the powerhouses, someone called Herring, were also talking about training tips, and she benefited a lot from that conversation.

Maybe this was the price to pay for getting stronger…

That was what she thought.

She went through a lot before she could convince Senior Brother Dios to come here, if they could build a connection with Dios, it would be very useful for Accord and Garen. But she did not expect them to not appreciate it at all.

Thinking back to how Accord and Garen looked, and comparing that to Senior Brother Dios' gentle, warm, and unassuming smile, she vaguely felt her impression of her two friends deteriorating.

"You were the ones who didn't want to improve, if you're weak and still don't know how to build connections, I won't be able to help you either."

*************

Outside the coffee shop, there were many lines of parked luxury cars. The crowd was slightly sparser, it was already evening.

Garen and Accord stood beside the door, and talked about some recent developments in low voices.

"What do you plan to do in the future? Will you continue mucking it out with Scarlet Snow?" Accord asked.

"Maybe." Garen laughed. "Something big might happen soon, you must have noticed that many sects were annihilated, right?" No matter what, Accord was one of his few friends, and he had helped Garen out a lot back then. Garen had a duty to warn him.

"What's that? Do you have some insider news?" Accord seemed to be done with drinking, and he just poured the rest of the wine onto the ground, tossing the cup into a cleaning robot nearby.

"If you sense anything wrong, just get out of there ASAP. Remember, don't use any Teleportation Points," Garen advised him, with a hint of severity.

Accord saw that Garen was extremely serious about this, and his expression turned solemn as well.

"Sure, I'll remember that."

Putting aside that topic, the two of them started talking about some matters from the past, but neither could understand how Liz turned out this way.

She was leeching off a powerful senior brother, but the two of them treated such an attitude with the utmost contempt.

"Everyone makes different choices. We choose our own paths," said Garen calmly. "We can't force a lot of things to stay unchanged. Don't you agree?"

Accord released a long breath.

"True. Who knew that I wouldn't take it as well as you could."

Both of them hid their true powers to prevent creating a rift between them and their friends, but Liz had interpreted that to mean that they were weaklings who still refused to improve... Both of them were not particularly happy with that.

Now, chatting in the clean night breeze, they managed to force away some of that frustration.

But neither of them bothered to explain, so what if they explained? Some people were just naturally like that. So although they knew that Liz meant well, both of them were not as fond of her as they used to be.

"For the Major Battle this time, I've done all my preparations, and I'm ready to take the next step any time. What do you have planned?" Accord asked about the Major Sect Battle.

"Same here," Garen smiled. "The Scarlet Snow Sect is a small sect, so it's fine as long as perform well, and try to break past our limits. I think we should be able to get some good results this time."

"Hehe, you're that confident? You have a Herculean task in front of you, then let's try our best together."

"Of course." Garen reached out his hand and got a high-five.

"When the Major Battle starts, I'll introduce you to a hot girl. Didn't I say so last time?" Accord smiled craftily. "You shouldn't be single at this age."

Garen was exasperated. "You sure progress quickly, but we'll see how it goes. We'll see."

"There are three days left, I gotta make a trip back first." He glanced at the time. "Okay, I gotta go back, you tell Liz for me, I won't go in again."

"No, I don't wanna go in either. Just seeing the way those arrogant bastards look down on us just pisses me off." Accord waved him off. "We'll just tell her through our Imprints, we're just small-fry anyway, it doesn't matter if we leave or not."

He laughed self-deprecatingly.

"True."

The two of them exchanged glances, and both found it rather funny.

"See ya around."

"Yeah, see ya."

*******************

Without a moment's delay.

Garen went to the hotel Tesna was resting at, got her out, and hired a car to send them straight to the Scarlet Snow Teleportation Point.

Not long later, a pillar of white light shot into the air, heading towards another planet in the distance.

Accord was walking on the streets, and just happened to be standing in some shade at that moment, so he raised his head and looked at the volcanic white light headed in the direction of Scarlet Snow.

Suddenly, a black shadow appeared behind him.

"Yo, isn't that our Senior Brother Eco?" said Accord sarcastically as he turned around and looked at the shadow. "Are you looking for me, your junior brother, for something?"

"Black Light, this time Red Skeleton is here too."

"So what?" Accord laughed cynically. "You're in charge, I'm just the vice-captain."

"The Elder wants you to eliminate the others from the contest first. Focus on Red Skeleton and Black Jade Dragon.

"Sabotage them secretly?" Accord frowned.

"Up to you. But remember, you must do it cleanly," said the black shadow darkly.

"Are you ordering me around?" Accord stood up angrily, a hint of violence emanating from his body.

Psst!

A black shadow shot out from beneath him, and hit the black shadow hard. Clang!

The black shadow took two steps back, his hand quickly darting out to grab the poisonous black snake that had soundlessly appeared on his face. The snake's blood-red tongue had nearly touched his face.

Hiss…

The hand that he used to grab the snake was actually starting to rot away.

"I'm warning you, if you dare to try and order me around again, I'll kill you!" Accord laughed coldly, turned around, and left. "Also, tell the Elders that I'm aiming for a rank in the main headquarters, and not just in one of the eighty-one Planet Naga main divisions."

The black shadow trembled slightly, and walked into the light. He turned out to be a dark-skinned man, and there was already a slight sheen of sweat over his head. He stared at the direction Accord left in, but no one knew what he was thinking.