Chapter 564: Farewell (2)
Su Yu was curious to see a sky horse here. Was this sky horse also scheming against him? That seemed unlikely.
The sky horse race had been an ally of the human race for many years. They even had several Mountainseas serving in the Martial Dragon Guards. If this sky horse youth was really plotting against him, the entire sky horse race would be endangered.
Or perhaps...
As Su Yu thought of a different possibility, he glanced at Xia Qing and her group. Interesting. Had Xia Qing arranged for a few clueless foreign students to join the mission as well? Was this a ploy to share the burden of his death with more people?
That was understandable. With someone from the sky horse race present, even if Great Xia was unhappy with these foreign students, the others would be able to avoid responsibility if they could get this sky horse youth to serve as the witness that the cult was the culprit behind his death.
The authorities would have a hard time deciding if they wanted to punish the sky horse youth alongside Xia Qing and her group. If they did so, they would have to worry about causing dissatisfaction among the sky horse race.
After all, the sky horse race had fought for the human race for so many years. After losing only one genius, a young genius of their race was punished even if they had nothing to do with the death. Would they be happy about it? Resentment would ensue. This was not something Marquis Xia and Xia Longwu would allow.
"She sure is smart."
Su Yu sneered inwardly. But he had to admit that this was a good move. Out of the eight foreign students, who among them were Xia Qing's allies? Su Yu was unsure. In fact, he wouldn't even put his trust in the sky horse youth. After all, you never knew what someone was thinking.
To be precise, he did not trust any of the students here, including Zhou Hao. He was not the type of person to place his safety in the hands of others, including the three Mountainsea beasts that had reached an agreement with Hong Tan to help him.
Without a proper way of restricting those fellows, he would never have trusted them. And yes, his distrust extended to Ji Xiaomeng as well. Who knew what she was thinking in that head of hers? She was the daughter of the Talent Fostering Bureau's director. Thus, it was quite suspicious that she had actually joined his mission.
Su Yu wasted no time and said, "Everyone, I am a blunt person. This mission seems easy. And it is indeed easy. But I have to make one thing clear. There is a bounty on me in the Myriad Race Cult. Thus, there is a possibility that they might make a move and plunge us into danger. Think carefully about this before deciding to set off with me.
"Of course, I don't know if they would really pull something crazy, but the possibility is there. Then again, the foreign students will be escorted by their dao protectors outside the academy. I'm not too worried about their safety. But I can't guarantee the safety of the others."
As he said that, his gaze landed on the four human students. With his stuffy voice, Zhou Hao said, "You're their target. In that case, can I run when they're attacking you?"
"Yes."
"Then it would be fine. I have great survival skills in the wilderness."
He was very confident. Su Yu was not surprised. This fellow was someone who had grown up in the wilderness. It was understandable that this fellow would be able to protect himself well in the wilderness.
His gaze landed on the others. Li Minyu smiled and said, "This is precisely why I'm here. I wish to face some cultists. I am trying to advance into the Skysoar Realm."
"That's ambitious." Su Yu calmly said, "But if they're really going to make a move against me, I'm afraid the attackers would be no weaker than the Skysoar Realm. Are you sure this is helpful for your advancement?"
Li Minyu smiled and replied, "There is no guarantee that they will show up. Even if they do end up attacking, you will be in more danger than me. If the cult is nowhere to be seen, I can simply try to find a beast that is a suitable opponent for me to attempt my advancement."
Su Yu's gaze settled on Chen Chen. With a smile, Chen Chen said, "I am a student of the Beast Taming Faculty. Out in the wilderness, I can survive very well."
Finally, Su Yu looked at Ji Xiaomeng. She had a cheerful smile on her face as she said, "Don't worry. I will be fine. If I encounter danger, I can teleport away. My dad gave me a teleportation talisman. I'm only curious about how beasts look like..."
Su Yu merely smiled, but Chen Chen said, "Is there a need to go so far for that? We have some beasts right beside us."
"You—"
Xia Qing and the others were furious.
Su Yu ignored them and focused on Ji Xiaomeng. Teleportation talisman...was Ji Hong so rich that he didn't know what to do with his money? Why couldn’t he share some of the wealth with Su Yu if he was so rich?
Su Yu was aware of what a teleportation talisman could do. In the event of an attack, one could instantly move away with the talisman. The distance one could move would depend on the rank of the talisman.
This was something only spatial talisman masters could produce. It was extremely expensive. How generous. Was she spending this much money just to see some beasts in the wild? How rich. Su Yu even wondered if Ji Hong was a corrupt official for them to be so rich.
Since these people insisted on joining after hearing about the potential danger, Su Yu couid no longer be bothered to keep persuading them. He said, "You already know about the associated danger so I won't be taking responsibility for your choice. As for our mission itself, it is very simple. We simply need to go to Nanyuan and kill some beasts.
"At Nanyuan, you can form teams among yourselves for the hunt or work alone. We can talk more after reaching Nanyuan. We will be setting off tomorrow evening."
Su Yu said, "We will be leaving silently in the evening. Keep your departure to yourselves as we want to avoid any unnecessary trouble if possible. We won't be driving. The route we take is hard to traverse with vehicles anyway. We'll be traveling on cloudrush horses.
"Keep one thing in mind. I am the leader of this mission. Be sure to listen to me during the mission. If you disagree, just pull out from the mission. Otherwise, don't blame me for dropping you during the mission. Any issues?"
"Nope." Zhou Hao agreed easily. Li Minyu smiled and said, "Since we have accepted your mission, we will naturally listen to you."
Xia Qing said, "I can agree to that."
Su Yu scanned the group again and repeated, "Like I said, you have all been warned of the danger. It will be great if nothing unexpected happens. But in the event of danger, you're liable for your safety. Don't come up to me and say that I have scammed you when you encounter danger. It is even possible that we might encounter Mountainseas."
The sky horse youth said, "So what? Between the eight of us, we have five Mountainsea and three ninth-stage Cloudbreach dao protectors. Su Yu, you worry too much."
"..."
Su Yu stared at the sky horse youth. So this fellow wasn't naive. Instead, he was stupid. Just look at how easily he had exposed the trump cards of the foreign students. Worry too much?
Su Yu couldn't be bothered to say anything. The sky horse youth continued, "We're only going out on a scenic tour and helping you with the mission while we're at it. If the cult dares to show up, we'll kill them all. We can even earn additional merit points from that!"
The sky horse youth said with excitement, "In fact, I can't wait for them to attack. Each cultist you kill will grant you merit points that can be added to your total earned merit. With enough total earned merit, members of the sky horse race can directly become a commander in the Martial Dragon Guards upon joining!"
Su Yu was somewhat speechless. He wanted to tell the youth that the sky horses were mounts. Since when were mounts allowed to be commanders? That was something new for him.
He looked at the other students and asked, "Is any of you from a race with a sect in the cult?"
"Nope." Xia Qing answered, "Only the major races will have a sect in the Human Realm. It's not like human experts would be willing to work for a weak race."
That was the truth. Even the traitors looked down on the minor races.
Bai Ce smiled and said, "Generally, most of these sects claiming to serve the minor races only exist to scam some resources out of the minor races. After a few minor races were scammed, the other minor races stopped falling for it."
That wasn't surprising as it wouldn't be so easy to fool a major race. There was a bunch of people who specialized in scamming the minor races within the Myriad Race Cult.
"Alright."
Su Yu had not mentioned the single character faction. It didn't matter if these people were aware of his enmity with the single character faction or not. It also didn't matter if they were pretending to be clueless. Nothing would change. He would treat any attacker as a cultist. And he wouldn't hesitate to kill these attackers.
They spent some time familiarizing themselves with each other. After that was done, Su Yu sent them off. He remained in the restaurant. A short while later, Xia Qing returned with a few individuals. Including Xia Qing, there were four of them.
"Brother Su!" Xia Qing introduced, "This is Bai Ce of the fox race, this is Niu Zhen of the barbaric bull race, and this is Zhan Fei of the iron-winged bird race. I already told them what you want me to say. Brother Su, is our target within Nanyuan?"
"No. It's slightly south of Nanyuan."
Su Yu did not say much about their target. He looked at the group and indifferently said, "As you have learned from Xia Qing, I will pay you ten thousand merit points to escort me to a certain location. Don't ask me anything else. If we encounter enemies, just let your dao protectors deal with them. Are your dao protectors all Mountainseas?"
Xia Qing smiled and replied, "Three Mountainseas and one ninth-stage Cloudbreach. Zhan Fei's senior is a Cloudbreach. His Mountainsea dao protector is staying in the academy. This dao protector might be a Cloudbreach, but as a member of the bird race, he is capable of facing Mountainseas in battle."
"Cloudbreach..." Su Yu muttered before saying, "I'm only paying eight thousand merit points for a Cloudbreach dao protector. If you disagree, forget it."
Zhan Fei nodded, "Sure. Money is not our goal anyway. We're only here for our friendship. I only hope that you will remember this favor. That is more valuable than mere money."
Su Yu smiled and said, "That is only natural. I agree with you, Brother Zhan."
Zhan Fei smiled, but he cursed inwardly. This Su Yu had just consumed some iron-winged bird blood essence recently. The stench of blood on Su Yu was too thick. That had definitely happened very recently. This was too excessive. This person deserved death!
Su Yu said, "How about the other foreign students?"
Xia Qing explained, "They accepted the mission themselves. Since we didn't know them well, we told them nothing. If it's inconvenient to take them with us, we can split up at Nanyuan."
Su Yu nodded.
Xia Qing asked, "Is that Ji Xiaomeng the daughter of Director Ji? Brother Su, should we leave her behind? It would be troublesome if she notices anything."
Su Yu smiled and said, "We will definitely be doing that. I'll leave her behind at Nanyuan. We can't do that yet. Just let her follow us for now. We don't want to catch Director Ji's attention too early."
After saying that, Su Yu frowned. With a sigh, he said, "I'm worried about one other thing. Will the single character faction make a move? But with your dao protectors around, I reckon they won't dare to try anything unless they have seven or eight Mounainseas or even a Sunmoon..."
At that, Su Yu smiled again and said, "Whatever. I doubt they will try anything unless they're mad. With your help, apart from those cult lunatics, who would dare to try anything?"
Xia Qing nodded and said, "I believe so as well. Then again, we still need to be careful. Brother Su, you should stick closer to us during the journey. Our dao protectors will be staying near us. Thus, you should stick with us in the event of danger."
"Thank you!" Su Yu cupped his hands and expressed his gratitude, "I'll be troubling you, friends. As for the pay, I'll be paying thirty percent first. You will receive the rest upon our return. Is this agreeable?"
"Sure." Zhan Fei smiled and said, "Honestly, we don't lack money. We have received quite a lot of resources from our races before coming to the Human Realm."
Su Yu smiled, "Brother Zhan is a generous person. But I still need to pay you what you deserve. This is what I should do, even if we're friends. You have no idea how grateful I am for your assistance."
Su Yu gave them another promise, "Don't worry. After this, I'll introduce you to my grandteacher. He will definitely leave seclusion as a Sunmoon. Even in the Human Realm, a Sunmoon holds a lot of weight."
It was the foreign students' turn to express their gratitude. Both sides were constantly acting. After a short chat, Su Yu paid them the deposit for their service. Over ten thousand merit points were paid to them.
Where had Su Yu gotten the money for this? Well, it was naturally from a loan. He had borrowed the money from Xia Huyou. He didn't even need to repay the money as he had paid for the loan with a cultural art.
He had to pay these foreign students something in advance to make everything more believable. Otherwise, he would seem too confident that they would join him on this journey.
They finally parted ways when it was late at night. They had agreed to meet again the next day.
Su Yu walked out of the restaurant and walked alone in the dark of night. After a while, he arrived in front of a research center. He stopped under a large tree.
After checking his Perception Jade, he confirmed that nobody was paying attention to him. He stood there silently, staring at the resarch center for a very long time.
Finally, he sighed. Ultimately, he decided to not bid his teacher farewell. That would only strengthen the sorrow in his heart for disappointing his teacher. Instead, he gave the research center a solemn bow.
He remained bowed for a long while before straightening his back and walking away. He had made sure that he owed nobody in the academy.
Of course, there were some favors that he would forever keep in his mind. For example, the old man in the research center behind him. That old man had taught him a powerful cultivation method without asking for anything in return. He was very grateful for that.
"Teacher, I will be taking my leave. Thank you for your during my time here."
Su Yu walked away without looking back.
Not long after he left, an old man appeared under the same tree. The old man had a complicated look in his eyes.
"He's too stubborn..."
The kid could have left the multiple character faction and joined the weaponsmithing faction. Zhao Li would be able to protect him. The kid had not been a part of the multiple character faction for long. So what if he had killed Di Feng? He had yet to involve himself in the struggle between the Invincibles.
"Perhaps...this is a good thing for him."
A long sigh filled with regret rang out. This shitty academy was getting worse by the day. Perhaps leaving was the right choice.