Three strikes, three opponents!
This was what Hou Niao had gained from months of training in the Soul Realm. This was the ability of a dedicated sword cultivator. At this moment, Hou Niao was filled with confidence in the path of his cultivation.
Without the slightest ceremony, he began gathering his spoils: three longswords, five Treasure Gourds, and assorted personal belongings. He was so desperately poor that he did not even spare the thumb rings on their fingers!
He was in no hurry to leave. There was no one here anyway, and his horse had only just begun grazing and resting.
He brought over the other three horses. They were far better than the inferior horse he had bought so hastily at the horse market, which was also why he had been forced to rest before entering White Poplar Forest.
Sitting on a rock, he began taking stock of his gains. They consisted of:
Three hundred low-grade Spirit Stones, two mid-grade Spirit Stones, eight bottles of assorted pills, several dozen talismans, assorted materials, more than a dozen manuals of cultivation methods and techniques... and, of course, three swords and three horses. As for mundane gold and silver, those hardly needed detailing.
Treasure Gourds belonging to cultivators below Profound Connection could not be fitted with restrictions, so the most useful things to him were actually the Treasure Gourds themselves. Counting his own and the one Immortal Guan had given him, he now had seven Treasure Gourds. With a few more, could he string them into a necklace, or perhaps a belt?
He checked the Treasure Gourds again, hoping not to overlook anything, and discovered a piece of Jade Slip in the leader's gourd. He took it out and found these words written on it:
"Better not to meet than to meet;