Noah was quite surprised.
He wasn't sure if Jean was being serious or if she was just playing with him but he understood that there was a deeper meaning to her words.
'Does she want acceptance?'
He could understand that need but he really wasn't the right person where to look for it.
Luckily for him, some movements in the mountain path claimed the attention of the cultivators in the cave.
Sixty or so soldiers marched at a slow pace on the road, warily inspecting the area around them.
They knew that if an ambush was to happen, it would have been in that area.
The atmosphere inside the cave became tense as the cultivators focused on the mission, they had to wait for the trap to set off before they could assault the soldiers.
'Here is Samuel.'
Noah spotted the noble in the middle of the group.
'The scrolls must be with him, I don't believe that his family would give them to a simple guard. Though, that man doesn't seem simple.'
His focus shifted on the middle-aged man that was next to him.
He exuded a calm aura, he was definitely an experienced warrior.
'I feel that he is strong but not extremely so, there is something off about him.'
Noah couldn't know it but that middle-aged man was Abel, the wind mage that had chased him back in Evergreen forest.
"You are about to witness a good show."
Jean whispered next to him, it was clear from the light in her eyes that she was excited.
The group from the Muwlos family moved along the road, they felt that something was off but they could not find out why.
At some point, an arrow made of fire shot in their direction from the side of the mountain.
Its power was low but its speed was great, the soldier only managed to react at the last moment and dodged it.
However, right when the arrow hit the ground, an explosion occurred.
The fire had ignited the barrel that was hidden in the previously dug hole and created a reaction with the poison inside it.
Abel was the first to understand that the spell had never aimed at them but at the terrain!
He hastily grabbed Samuel and ran away from the center of the explosion while using his mental energy to inspect the events unfolding behind him.
The explosion was not strong, it only managed to push back the soldiers without hurting them, yet the poison burned quickly and released a green cloud.
The cloud expanded, covering the soldiers in the area and suffused cries could be immediately heard from inside it.
Abel watched it with wide eyes and decided to act before all his men were enveloped by the poison.
As he focused, wind began to blow from behind him.
From inside the cave, Noah stared at the spell and could not help but feel some familiarity with it.
'Don't tell me that he is actually here.'
He became a bit excited.
If it wasn't for the fact that he had been underestimated back in Evergreen forest, that wind mage would have caught up with him, preventing him from participating in the entrance test of the academy.
However, he had managed to escape and entered the academy, raising his battle prowess by a lot.
All his centers of power had improved and his assortment of spells and techniques had increased by a lot.
'You chased me back then to improve Samuel's chances in the entrance test and now I'm ambushing you to kill him. Life can reserve surprises at times.'
His grievances with the Muwlos family were finally about to be solved.
Abel's spell dispersed the toxic cloud, revealing the poor state of the soldiers that had been hit by it.
They were covered in green bruises with the weaker of them laying on the ground covered in their own blood.
The bruises pulsated, they seemed to synchronize with the heartbeat of the cultivators and began to enlarge as more blood flowed through them.
As seconds passed, the bruises became large pulsating pimples before they reached their limit and exploded.
Cries sounded again as most of the soldiers fell on the ground, incapable of dealing with the huge loss of blood.
Also, the wounds created in that way seemed to stop the empowered healing abilities of their bodies, leaving the soldiers that managed to survive the initial blood loss to bleed continuously.
'That was really effective.'
Noah praised in his mind.
Only the weaker soldiers died, the stronger ones managed to expel the toxins in their bodies by circulating the "Breath" of their dantian on the bruises.
Yet, their complexion paled, it seemed that a vast amount of "Breath" was needed for that process.
"Haha! That was amazing. The "Breath" of rank 1 cultivators can't deal with my poison at all! However, the effects on rank 2 ones are quite disappointing."
Jean judged, carefully analyzing the effects of her poison.
"If I only had more rank 4 materials, I could have dealt with them too."
She shook her head, sighing loudly.
"Is it safe to go down there now?"
Noah asked her.
"Well, you should avoid those corpses if you can but it is safe now."
He then turned toward the others hiding with him.
"Should we go?"
The leader of the group was the representative of the Royal family who was in another area.
He would lead the second wave of attacks in order to catch the soldiers of the Muwlos family by surprise.
"You go first."
Someone in his group answered him.
The others nodded in approval and even Jean seemed to like that idea.
No one would like to be the first to engage their targets as most of the attacks would be focused on him.
'Can't say I blame them.'
Noah understood that he had to take the initiative or the mission would be endangered.
He wielded his sabers and directly launched twenty wind slashes on the soldiers below him.
His attacks tore through the branches used to cover the cave, exposing their position to the group from the Muwlos family, and crashed on them in a few seconds.
Noah aimed for the soldiers that had already been wounded by Jean's poison so to better exploit the surprise effect.
Two of them were caught off guard and had their heads severed but the others managed to either block or dodge the slashes.
"Attack!"
He purposely yelled to gather the attention on him.
He wouldn't be so stupid to charge alone on them, waiting for his group to arrive, so he just moved the focus of the soldiers on his position.