Bai Ning Bing was happy that she had managed to reach Rank 4. However, questions still remained in her mind, namely, what on earth they were doing here? She kept asking Fang Yuan, who did not give her any straight answers, only told her to wait.
He seemed uncharacteristically relaxed, to be doing absolutely nothing in this village, when ordinarily he would be running across the place, trying to accomplish as much as possible.
On their second day there, Fang Yuan heard screaming coming from somewhere near the village. He thought that this might be the fortuitous encounter that Thieving Heaven Venerable had mentioned, and he went outside.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"Oh, Lord Gu Master, Lord Gu Master!" one of the villagers said, walking up to him. "There's a massive horde of beasts coming right this way towards our village! We don't have anywhere to evacuate! Is it possible that you can do something about this?"
Someone else slapped the person in question. "Lord Gu Master, I'm sorry that he was so rude, but we truly do need someone to help us, if you would be so kind as to..."
When Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing had gone to the mountain that Thieving Heaven had indicated, their presence had caused quite a disturbance. This had led to the beast groups fighting with each other, which rapidly spread from one area to another like a stack of dominoes. The commotion had actually ended up reaching their location, almost forming a mini-beast tide headed toward the normally peaceful hamlet.
A group of Stone Tossing Apes was approaching the village. Much like the name suggested, their primary method of attacking was slinging stones, with which they had very good accuracy. They were able to hit targets over a hundred meters in the distance with rocks nearly as big as a person's head.
A group this big would be troublesome to deal with if it had been Bai Ning Bing alone. However, Fang Yuan tested out one of the gu worms that he had been given by the Good Two-Shoes System. He had naturally made Bai Ning Bing test it out so that he knew what it did for his own safety, of course.
As he took out the Ink Dragon Gu and activated it, a dragon about fifty meters in length from head to toe, made entirely of ink, roared as it came to life.
It fed on large quantities of first-class ink, which he would likely only be able to get when he went somewhere like Shang Clan City, but it did not need to be fed immediately. The dragon rampaged, cutting through the Stone Tossing Apes like they were nothing.
Their attacks did very little to it, simply passing through it with very little resistance as the ink reformed over and over again. It was much like a beast phantom in that regard. With that done, the apes turned away for the time being, and the hamlet was calm yet again.
"Lord Gu Master, thank you for saving us!"
"Lord Gu Master was incredible!"
"He turned the tide all by himself! Such an amazing display of prowess. Truly amazing. We are fortunate to have Lord Gu Master here."
The villagers came by Fang Yuan, bowing and offering up small fractions of primeval stones, barely more than a few fragments, which were absolutely useless to Fang Yuan. So he waved them all off as he kept an eye out, wondering what this fortuitous encounter was. He would continue wondering as several hours passed and nothing had happened. By the evening, he was even getting slightly antsy.
Had Thieving Heaven told him something wrong? It did not seem characteristic of him.
But no real opportunity presented itself as of yet, and when Bai Ning Bing asked him how much longer he was going to stay here, he simply told her that if nothing happened tomorrow, then they would head back to Gu Yue village. Just as they were about to go to sleep, however, someone knocked at their door. "Lord Gu Masters! Lord Gu Masters! I'm so sorry, but do you have a moment?"
Fang Yuan walked over to the door and opened it, seeing that it was the village head, who seemed to be out of breath. He was just rank one in terms of cultivation, but the fact that he was a Gu Master allowed him to ascend to this position without any worries.
"Calm down and tell me what's happening," Fang Yuan said.
"Lord Gu Master, thank you for what you did earlier this morning. However, we have a new problem on our hands..." Since the Stone Tossing Apes could not come near the hamlet, they had instead gone in a different direction, and like a plague, spread their panic around. "There's a merchant caravan that was supposed to come by here," the man explained. "They were supposed to be here in the morning. However, we thought that it might just be delayed a few days for some reason or the other. However, there was a runner who came to our hamlet just now. Apparently, the caravan was attacked by a mass of Iron Fang Sabretooths."
Iron Fang Sabretooths were very powerful predators. Their bones and muscles were often strengthened with the minerals which they obtained from the flesh of the prey they digested until they could be as hard as iron. "I don't know what the full details are, but one of them could fly."
In such a case, that would be a Chimera Iron Fang Sabretooth King, equivalent to a Rank 4 Gu Master. Most merchant caravans did not have a Rank 4 Gu Master with them, and so if they were in a tight spot, that would explain why they were in so much trouble.
The village head prostrated himself completely before the two of them. "Lord Gu Masters, I have very little face with which to ask this of you given that you have already helped us once today. However, if you help this merchant caravan out, I'm sure that they will have enough materials and primeval stones to satisfy the two of you for your trouble."
He had managed to reach this position because he had had the favor of a Gu Master on one of the wandering merchant caravans. No doubt he held some loyalty towards that person, which is why he had come here like this.
"Please raise your head," Fang Yuan said. The village head looked up to see the kind face of a man with black hair looking back at him. "There's no need to worry. I'll go ahead and deal with it. After all, my sect believes that helping someone in need is only common sense." "But before we do so, I would like to speak with the man in question who was a survivor. He might have important details which would help us."
"Oh, of course, of course," the village head said. "However, uh, Gu Master, the man in question is not in his right mind and may not be able to give you many details."
"So be it," Fang Yuan said. "Still, take me to him."
To say that the man in question was now in a good state was a bit of an understatement. He seemed to be shaking as if he were suffering from cold and was swaying all over as if he had a high fever. His teeth were chattering, and one could hear their clamor even from a distance. "He really isn't in his right state of mind," the village head said. "We only got a few words out of him before he clammed up like this."
"I have a solution for that."