"Welcome, travelers to our humble village. I hope we haven't bothered you too much." The elderly woman said softly, inviting them to sit across from her.
There was hardly any furniture in the room, with the small table in front of the woman being the centerpiece, but Damien had no problem with this. He went and sat on one of the cushions surrounding the table while Ruyue followed suit, sitting down next to him.
Ling'er and Yan Cheng did the same, sitting on the opposite side of them.
"Nice to meet you," Damien said, "my name is Zhen Fang and this is my wife, Xiao Li."
The old woman nodded without much thought. "No need for a reintroduction, as I have heard it the first time. As for me, you can simply call me Elder Baba."
Damien raised his brow questioningly, wondering how she could have heard it when they had introduced themselves far from the village, but he suppressed his doubts. It was already evident that something strange was going on here.
"Oho, you seem to be a curious young man, aren't you." Elder Baba said with a smile, noticing his expression.
"Ah, it can't be helped. After all, the mana in this room is too strange for me to not be curious."
This time, it was the elder's turn to be surprised. "Your insights are much sharper than I'd expected."
"It's nothing much."
The elder looked at him deeply before turning to Ling'er once more. "You said you had something to discuss with me?"
"Ah, that's right!" She exclaimed.
"Elder! We were attacked by beasts on our gathering trip today! If it wasn't for esteemed cultivators, we would have surely died gruesome deaths!"
Elder Baba raised her brow before looking back towards Damien, who simply shrugged his shoulders in response.
"It's nothing much. We were just passing by."
Ruyue, who had been watching the whole interaction, was especially confused at this point. It was one thing to not want to receive thanks for their deeds, but it was another to adopt such an attitude.
Damien at the moment was acting much more indifferent than should be logical in such a situation. His responses were so curt that they left no room for questioning.
It was almost as if he was trying to draw a line that shouldn't be crossed, or he was trying to avoid staying here for too long.
And to be honest, that was exactly what he was doing. The more time he spent in this room, the more his eyes flashed danger signals in his mind.
The mana in the room continuously tried to invade his body even without his active pull, as if it was trying to scour him or read him.
It was the same strange feeling he had when he first entered the hut, but as time passed it became much more prevalent, allowing him to gain a slight understanding of what was happening to him.
During his time at the Celestial Star Palace, he mainly focused on training himself in the areas he already specialized in. But, he didn't stop there.
The sect had a specialty that was widely known throughout the world. It was a sect that raised Seers. Although he wasn't personally interested in embarking on that path, he didn't think it would hurt him to gain knowledge about it.
Whether he would be able to use that knowledge to his advantage later, or it would allow him to counteract anyone who tried to use such techniques on him, it would still be useful.
It was this research that he was remembering at this moment.
Seers need a medium to foretell the future or destiny of the ones they are trying to read. If it's on a larger scale, such as the fate of a world, such a medium would be the earth itself, but when it was related to a single person or group, something more personal was needed.
But if that person was sitting in front of you, and your mana could infiltrate their body, you'd be able to tell everything about that person.
Well, this wasn't an ability unique to seers, as anyone who could spread their awareness could achieve such a thing. But the results of such actions mean something entirely different to a seer.
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With such an in-depth understanding of a person's body, the seer would be able to use their mana as a medium to foretell that person's fate.
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And Damien was sure of it. He didn't understand why the mana in the room had such a foreign feeling, as if it was mixed with something it shouldn't, but he was sure about what this elder was trying to do.
The only thing that confused him was why he was the only one being targeted.
He could clearly see the movement of the murky mana in the room, and it was all centered around him. Even though Ruyue was sitting right next to him, it was as if the mana avoided her like the plague.
He didn't know this old woman's intentions, but he didn't care. There was no way he'd let some random stranger take a peek at even a single secret of his.
Especially now that they were taking on other identities for their mission.
"Damien! Damien!"
He was awoken from his thoughts by Ruyue shaking his shoulder. Apparently, the conversation had been continuing without him while he was ruminating over these things.
And at the same time he was brought back to attention, the mana in the room returned to its static state, unmoving.
"Thank you for the information," Ruyue said as she gave a slight bow to the elder, "we will be leaving now, but we will make sure to take care of the problem before we continue our journey."
Without another word, she grabbed Damien and dragged him out of the hut, and then proceeded to walk him out of the village entirely.
"What was that?!" She demanded after they had reached a far enough distance away.
"What was what?" He asked.
"Do you really not know? Or are you just pretending not to know?!"
"No, I seriously have no idea what's going on."
Ruyue sighed while massaging her forehead. "The whole time we were there, you were staring at the elder with murder in your eyes. It looked like if I didn't take you out of there at that moment, you really would have killed her."
"Huh? What are you talking about? I wasn't planning to kill her at all."
"What?"
"Yeah, I'm serious. That whole time, I was combatting that old hag's mana that kept trying to invade my body. There's no doubt about it."
"What are you talking about? That woman didn't even have a cultivation base!!"
"Huh? Then what was that murky mana that was encapsulating the entire hut? It was specifically targeting me, as well."
Ruyue frowned as she thought about it. She didn't sense anything like that while they were there, and the elderly woman didn't give off any suspicious impressions.
Rather, it was Damien that seemed to make the mood in the room plummet.
But she had been with him for many months now and had a pretty good grasp on his personality. First of all, he wouldn't lie about something so stupid, and second, he most definitely had something special that allowed him to perceive mana differently from others.
Her frown deepened as she tried to rationalize things, but it was to no avail.
"Whatever, we can figure it out later. For now, let's get on with the task I accepted from the elder."
"Apparently something is going on in the forest recently, and beasts are becoming wilder. I agreed to find the culprit and try to stop the problem for them."
Damien sighed, feeling like he was getting roped into a bunch of business that he had no part in, but only a second later, his eyes lit up.
'Wait a second…isn't this basically a side quest?'