Ma Chang’s shout caught the attention of Li Qiuyue and the other three outer sect disciples. They quickly flew back from the danger of Ma Chang and the lackeys frontal attack. 

Li Qiuyue’s bright eyes darkened as she caught sight of Ma Chang. Then her gaze swept across the group, even falling on Yu Liang for a split second in recognition. Yu Liang froze in fear, knowing full well that Li Qiuyue probably recognized him from the failed poison attempt. He side-stepped into the shadow of another person and breathed a sigh of relief when he had successfully escaped the immense pressure of a protagonist’s gaze. Phew… However, his relief didn’t last long as Ma Chang and Li Qiuyue began fighting. 

“You dare to attack fellow sect members in broad daylight!?” shouted Li Qiuyue in a righteous and outraged tone. The clanging of swords filled the air as everyone began to fight. Li Qiuyue took on a few members along with Ma Chang while her teammates fought with the remaining lackeys. 

Yu Liang didn’t dare involve himself, especially since he had zero knowledge of martial arts! This body might’ve had experience, but it wasn’t like he could forcefully recall those skills at will! With light steps, Yu Liang flew back and hid behind a tree. He knew the general direction to return back to the sect, but honestly, he was a little scared to get lost in the forested mountains because there were definitely strong spirit beasts lurking about! So he had decided to wait and follow Li Qiuyue and the others when they would eventually return back to the sect.

As the fighting progressed, there was a sudden vibration that shook the earth beneath their feet. This was it! The stampede of spirit beasts would be coming soon! Yu Liang braced himself and jumped up, surprisingly effortlessly, onto a high tree branch to avoid the oncoming stampede. However, he stumbled a bit and clutched the tree desperately to steady his feet. 

“What is this!?” cried a lackey as the stampede of spirit beasts eventually came into view. 

The stampede was fast, and there was an immense pressure and aura from their turbulent emotions that suppressed everyone quite a bit. Yu Liang tightened his hold around the tree even more as he watched in horror of the stampede plowing down trees in their path. He wasn’t even safe up here in this tree if the stampede continued their paths toward them!! 

Quickly, he decided that even if he got lost, it was better than dying today! Yu Liang jumped across the trees, only stumbling a little bit as he tried to escape the path of the stampede. As he heard anguished cries of pain and suffering behind him, he quickened steps in fear. However, just as he distancing himself successfully, his foot slipped and caused him to fall straight to the ground. 

Bam!

His body made impact with the ground, and Yu Liang cried out as he felt a throbbing pain emanating from his ankle. Shit! He probably twisted it on the misstep! Yu Liang cursed his bad luck; his body shook from the vibrations of the stampede’s incoming direction. Just as the animals broke through the trees, Yu Liang rolled himself away from the path. He didn’t escape a few crushing steps on his body, causing more intense pain, but the last attempt at escape was successful as he moved away from the stampede into path where less animals ran past. He was able to maneuver himself away and limp into a hidden small cave to hide out from the spirit beasts.

Sitting down, Yu Liang carefully surveyed his injures. He had quite a lot of deep bruises and cuts but nothing life threatening. The only huge hindrance was his throbbing ankle… He tried putting a bit of pressure on it and was immediately met with resistance and a sharp pain. Fuck! He cursed again before resigning himself to hiding out in the cave till his ankle healed enough for him to walk properly. 

Luckily, Yu Liang had eaten a big breakfast, so he wasn’t too hungry. He hunkered down for the day and decided to hide himself until he could leave. Luckily, the cave wasn’t too deep and was only about the size of his room back at the sect. There weren’t any other living things inside the cave; other than probably spiders and insects… But he ignored that thought and settled onto the slightly damp stone ground and proceeded to sleep.

When he awoke again, it was dark out. The cave was pitch black at first. Yu Liang didn’t really like the dark as his over-imaginative mind would sometimes play tricks on him. However, he soon found that his enhanced sight even carried over to being able to see a bit in the dark better than normal people. Breathing slowly, Yu Liang kept his senses sharp. He didn’t hear many sounds other than the chirping of crickets and the occasional rustling of leaves probably from the wind. The entrance to his small cave was fairly hidden by foliage, so he didn’t think that others would find him easily. Honestly though, he was sort of a sitting duck if anyone did find him… 

However, there was no use in worrying about what-ifs. Yu Liang decided that he’d take this momentary setback to focus on figuring out how to cultivate. Sitting in an upright position, he rested his hands on his thighs comfortably, closed his eyes, and began to take slow and even breaths. 

In and out… in and out…

Somehow, instinctively, this body knew how to pull in the surrounding energy to supplement his qi and replenish his body. With the natural energy flowing in and out, Yu Liang’s body relaxed, and he felt something in his lower stomach tingle slightly. Then an image of something appeared in his mind… It was slightly blue in appearance… Was this his spiritual root? It most likely was. If he had a blue spiritual root, then he had pretty good strength and capabilities for cultivation. Most common cultivators had yellow and green roots with blue being a bit rarer but not uncommon. The stronger cultivators had orange and red colored roots. So judging by this scale, Yu Liang had a pretty good spiritual root. After cultivating for a little bit, Yu Liang wondered what elements were associated with his blue spiritual root… Maybe fire? That’d be pretty cool and heroic-sounding! But if he had water, maybe he could breath underwater like he’d read in some of his Xianxia novels… 

Yu Liang found that as he was thinking, his cultivation staggered; okay, clear mind and body… He refocused on cultivating diligently. After a few hours, Yu Liang opened his eyes to find that the cave had brightened up a bit from the sunlight that peeked through the foliage. His body felt a little refreshed, and the swelling on his ankle had gone down quite a bit. He managed to push himself up and off the ground; his two feet were steady on the ground with only minimal pain on his bad ankle. After testing his cultivation, Yu Liang was able to gauge that he wasn’t too bad cultivation and strength wise but he wasn’t all that impressively strong either. Maybe there were tests at the sect that could clearly gauge his cultivation level for him since he really didn’t have too much knowledge about how to tell which rank he was at. 

Yu Liang’s stomach grumbled loudly, and he was suddenly reminded that he hadn’t eaten for a full day! His new goal was to get some food from a nearby river that he’d passed and hopefully get some fish… As he headed out to the small river, he managed to catch two fish, but then he realized that he still had to figure out how to make a fire. He’d seen it on television before, but real life was something else… 

After a few more hours of struggling with starting a fire, he finally managed to get it lit up so that he could roast the fish. By this time, it was already lunchtime, and his stomach was protesting fiercely. 

Grooooooowwwwwllllllll…..

It sounded like an angry beast and it was going to eat him from the inside out if he didn’t get some food in there soon! 

Yu Liang quickly and carefully roasted the fish and began eating it as soon as he could. The fish was refreshing but seemed a little tasteless without seasoning; however, he wasn’t picky and quickly devoured both fish within minutes. Yu Liang licked his lips and fingers with a satisfied expression. Hah… That was good. He breathed a huge sigh of relief. Now that he was properly fed, it was time to get out of here and head back to the sect!

But the only problem was that he was lost and really didn’t know how to get back! He thought about it for a minute however… When they had followed Li Qiuyue’s team into the forest, he’d kept an eye on the sky to orient himself according to the sun. It had been early morning-ish so the sun was still further east when they’d left. And since they left in the direction leading further away from the sun, Yu Liang figured that as long as he headed east towards the sun, he was bound to run into the sect or at least a town… right?