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They trudged along in silence. Barely two words had passed between them before both his teammates died.

Soundlessly, without warning. It felt absurdly slapdash.

Very philosophical.

Life was fleeting, like ants beneath heaven and earth.

They had all survived Clear Spring Stockade, only to die so easily on the road.

Their lives were worth less than weeds.

The important thing was this.

Both of them were dead.

Why wasn't he?

Lin Feng stood to one side and let out a long breath.

Never mind plot armor. There was no plot armor in this lousy game. The protagonist died all the time.

Crouching, Lin Feng turned over the guide, who had fallen facedown. The guide opened his eyes, eerie ghostly energy seeping from him, and grinned at Lin Feng.

Lin Feng's face remained blank.

One thrust through the throat.

The Dragon-Tiger Qi struck with devastating force. The ghost wailed once and vanished.

He wiped his sword on the guide's clothes.

A ghost had killed the guide without a sound, but Hundred-Household Officer Zhu had Dragon-Tiger Qi protecting him.

So Hundred-Household Officer Zhu probably hadn't been possessed by a ghost.

In the time it took Lin Feng to turn around, Hundred-Household Officer Zhu's lips had swollen and split. Black blood flowed from his mouth, and blood began streaming from his nose.

Poison.

Venomous insects?

Had something poisonous in the Western Hunan Mountains done this?

Lin Feng reached a conclusion, only to find it even stranger.

Then why am I fine?

Is it [Mountain God’s Power]?

He hadn't expected [Mountain God’s Power] to have this benefit, too.

In an instant, two people who had just been alive and kicking had become corpses. Of the three, only Lin Feng remained.

Dragon-Tiger Qi Protection kept ghosts from harming him.

[Mountain God’s Power] kept poisonous creatures from hurting him.

He was the one best suited to life in these mountains.

Who could have imagined that the rookie at the beginning would become the veteran of the team after just one act of the game?

Lin Feng looked at his two dead companions and took their waterskins, food, medicinal herbs, and sachets, hanging them on himself.

The guide's sachet had a powerful scent.

Hundred-Household Officer Zhu's sachet had lost its scent.

It seemed that was where Hundred-Household Officer Zhu's problem lay.

As for the strange odds and ends—the many sinister ritual implements on the guide—he left them alone.

Those shady things clashed with his Dragon-Tiger Qi.

He took Hundred-Household Officer Zhu's identification badge and tucked it into his robes, then picked up the map, gave it a cursory look, and headed onward.

There was only one path ahead. No choice to make.

Several places on the map had been circled in blood-red ink.

Lin Feng thought those might indicate danger.

Holding the map, Lin Feng slipped into a light meditative trance. [Sword Heart Clarity] sensed no danger, and the wind carried no warning either.

Unlike in Fog City, Lin Feng felt that this time, as he entered his trance, all the mountains of Western Hunan welcomed him warmly.

Like a child coming home.

Following the wind out of his body, Lin Feng saw ghosts packed throughout the woods. They all hid behind trees, clutching the trunks as they peered at him. When they realized Lin Feng could see them, the ghosts suddenly grew frenzied, and oppressive yin energy battered him from every direction.

For some reason, Lin Feng felt that compared with the Horsehair Worms, these ghosts weren't much.

Now that he could see them all.

He wasn't particularly afraid anymore.

As long as he could kill them.

Besides, he felt no threat from these ghosts. Before he could even move his sword, a tiger's roar rang out behind him.

The ghosts instantly scattered, and Lin Feng felt his trance break as well.

"Dragon-Tiger Qi really does roar like a tiger? Does it roar like a dragon, too?"

Lin Feng was immediately taken aback.

In that brief moment, Lin Feng felt another wisp of qi enter his lungs.

He was certain now that the mountains of Western Hunan truly treated him as one of their own, looking after him. He opened his mouth and gently exhaled. For a Shaman Priest, the Ninth Rank of cultivation was called Qi Gathering, and the Eighth Rank above it was called Qi Nurturing. The distinction was that in Qi Gathering, the Wind Spirit had chosen Lin Feng's lungs. Over the years, it would gently nourish his entire body from there. The qi was stored in his lungs, then exhaled when he needed it.

Qi Gathering wasn't especially powerful. At the very least, it couldn't manifest a likeness of Lin Feng outside his body.

It might not measure up to Liao Chi.

After all, Liao Chi had sold both body and soul to the Yaksha King, while Lin Feng had merely skimmed a little off the Creator's wind.

Once he reached Qi Nurturing, Lin Feng would be able to control the wind around him and use it to enhance himself: running faster when he fled, making his sword sharper when he fought. As for reaching what Zhuangzi described as "the drifting vapors, the dust, living things blowing their breath upon one another," or "riding the wind through the void, the blue heavens at his back, crossing a thousand miles with one sword," he would probably have to reach the upper three ranks first.

By then, even an accomplished Daoist who met Lin Feng would probably offer a word of praise: "Sword Immortal."

But all that was still rather far off. Right now, this Sword Immortal couldn't even be sure he would live to see tomorrow.

Rather than choosing to quit, Lin Feng decided to push on a little farther and see what lay ahead.

After lingering there for roughly the time it took to drink a cup of hot tea, Lin Feng felt a prickling at his back, as though some great danger were approaching.

The wind grew a little louder, rustling the leaves and urging him to leave.

To get away from here.

Looking up at the sky through the densely woven canopy, Lin Feng had a feeling.

The sky had darkened.

Even the air carried a damp scent.

It's going to rain!

Although Lin Feng lacked much common sense and had no valuable experience patrolling forests deep in the mountains, he still knew that getting soaked out here was no good thing.

Rain would strip heat from the body and leave a person to die of hypothermia.

These were high mountains.

If his luck was bad, a single bolt of lightning could kill him, too.

"Gentlemen, see you in a few lives. I'll be going first!"

Lin Feng offered that polite farewell and took off.

He was certainly fast, but distances in the mountains were an entirely different matter from distances on the plains.

The trail wasn't good, either.

It hadn't collapsed, but it wasn't much better than that.

Despite his nimble feet, the heavens soon turned hostile. Thunderclouds like stone fortresses blotted out the sky.

Rumbling thunder rolled in from the distance now and then, rattling Lin Feng's nerves.

The might of heaven!

The coin-sized raindrops had yet to fall, but the surroundings visibly darkened. Even the ghosts that had appeared intermittently nearby vanished, hiding who knew where.

Lin Feng had a feeling.

Mountains with sunlight and mountains without it were two entirely different places.

It seemed that the first thunderclap had transformed the entire forest.

Common wisdom held that on nights of thunder and lightning, ghosts and evil spirits had to lie low, or the thunderbolts from above would strike them dead.

But this was Western Hunan. Lin Feng didn't know how much truth there was in those sayings handed down through the ages.

Unfolding the map, Lin Feng discovered that the Auspicious Spirit Inn the guide had mentioned was still three li away.

That counted as nearby.

Even if the guide had said there was something sinister about the inn, he couldn't worry about that now.

He had no choice.

Between getting struck by lightning, being drenched in the rain, and taking shelter for the time being, Lin Feng chose shelter.

Another thunderclap rang out, and Lin Feng felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.

He broke into a run toward the Auspicious Spirit Inn, inevitably straying a little from the proper path.

As he plunged deeper into the woods, Lin Feng forgot one thing.

He had no compass.

There were no stars overhead.

Nor was there any sun.

How was he supposed to find his bearings?