The moment Ma Rong's soul sense spread out over the camp he could feel his presence being noticed. Several heads snapped around to his location, including that of the woman he had observed before. Now that he was using his soul sense, he could properly assess her strength: she was a water cultivator at the fourth stage of Dao Contemplation. Stronger than he had hoped, but still possible to deal with.

The bigger problem revealed itself when his senses swept through the rest of the camp: before he could even finish another thought, three more powerful presences shot out of the large central tent to the woman's side. Two at the third stage, one at the second – this was bad.

Their Daos were spread out: one earth, one more water and one wind. None of them directly countered him, but they were all tricky in their own ways. The odds weren't impossible, his cultivation advantage over all of them was still quite large, but they were certainly terrible. Ma Rong would have liked to be able to say that he had fought against worse odds and won but the truth was, that wasn't really the case.

He wasn't a fighter; he was an alchemist. That didn't make him defenseless, but he lacked the sheer amount of both experience and talent that someone like Liu Wei or Patriarch Zhao possessed. If either of them was in this situation, even without their higher cultivation, they would probably have a much easier time than him.

That was not to mention his age: he had already exceeded the usual lifespan of a cultivator of his level by about a century and his last breakthrough had been ages ago. No matter how good his alchemy was, the time was catching up to him. At least physically, he was a good bit weaker than a cultivator of his level ought to be.

Ma Rong wasn't worried about his life; even if the enemy cultivators hadn't guessed who he was yet, he just needed to drop his name a single time and they would never dare kill him. His alchemy made him an asset nearly, if not just as valuable as the sect leaders.

But being captured and chained up in the Roaring Thunder Sect also wasn't quite his goal. He had a mission to fulfill and a war to help win, so he needed stop these scouts from reporting to the army.

The four cultivators had finished a short exchange and the woman barked a few orders that Ma Rong was too far away to hear, then they took off in his direction. Ma Rong let several hundred blades of grass grow rapidly and shoot after them as sharpened spears, then he fell into a retreat.

This area wasn't an advantageous place for him to fight; nature cultivators like him were largely dependent on the surrounding flora and there was nothing but grass here for him to use. Also, his four pursuers were blissfully unaware of the small vial that was still being passed through the grass in their camp, and he wanted to keep it that way.

By now the liquid had converted almost entirely into invisible gas that was pressing on the glass from the inside, trying to expand. It would get to do just that soon enough.

The powder Ma Rong had dissolved was one of Ma Rong's many original creations. It was actually intended to be used to induce a sort of meditative slumber that allowed lower ranked cultivators to reach levels of concentration that were normally inaccessible to them. A mentor or master could then help guide their subconsciousness to allow them to more quickly harmonize their body with their soul.

While these circumstances obviously weren't present here, the affected may actually still experience a not insignificant bump in their cultivation upon waking up again if they took the opportunity – at least a couple weeks' worth of normal meditation.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

There had only been a few test-runs of the powder up until now, but one thing was certain: it was terrific at putting people to sleep. So terrific in fact, that it had been a problem up until now: The powder could only be applied in miniscule doses, because the sleep would be too deep for the mentor to reach their student otherwise. In this case, this issue had suddenly become an advantage: Ma Rong was hopeful that no one inside the camp who breathed in the vapor would wake up anytime soon.

Just before it was out of range of his power, he had the grass press down on the vial in force, shattering it and letting the gas stream out. He couldn't stay around to witness its effects; his enemies were hot on his heels. He purposefully flew just slow enough so they could keep up but not catch up. To keep the appearance of a real flight, he continuously peppered them with spears of grass from below, though none of them inflicted much damage.

After almost fifteen minutes of chase, they were finally above the massive forest Ma Rong had come from on his way to the camp. When the trees stretched to the horizon all around them, Ma Rong let himself drop to the floor. The woods embraced him like an old companion, treetops and thicket making way for his descent. Once he was on the ground, Ma Rong stood still, his arms clasped behind his back and waited for his pursuers to arrive.

He didn't have to wait for long. The Matriarch, clearly their leader, arrived first, followed by her companions, all landing a good thirty meters away from where he was standing. They were all armored, two of them brandishing swords and two spears. Instead of immediately attacking, the leader began speaking.

"Ma Rong of the Lunar Peaks Sect! I am Xiyu Zhai of the Rising Tide Sect, loyal subject to the Roaring Thunder Sect. You can't outrun us any longer. Surrender!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

"You are outmatched, alchemist!"

"Perhaps."

Ma Rong didn't let any of his worries leak into his voice. He wanted to appear as if he had already accepted his fate but was too stubborn to give in.

"Our men are already on the way to report your presence. Your resistance is futile either way. Surrender, or we will subdue you by force."

"You may try"

They wouldn't report anything for now, but that was something Ma Rong would keep to himself.

"Very well."

Ma Rong felt the woman's influence spread out as she began pulling water from the surrounding air and plants. He didn't move to intercept her. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused.

And then his consciousness expanded. Suddenly, he wasn't just an old man standing before four enemy cultivators. He was more. He was every rustling leaf, every swaying blade of grass, every blooming flower and every looming tree. He was the forest.

He felt the winds above him in the treetops. He felt every bug crawling along the ground. He felt every worm tunneling below. And he felt the strain of every plant as the water in their veins, the elixir fueling their life was forcefully pulled out, ripped away from their control by a power greater than them. He felt their desperate screams as their pores were forcefully torn open and their bodies threatened to burst. For a brief moment, his entire world was pain

And then, he pulled back.

He resisted with every plant, every branch, every leaf. He borrowed the Qi that flowed through them and their innate understanding of the element that they spent all day, every day pumping up from the ground to wrestle against this Xiyu Zhai's control of the water. His superior cultivation strained to make up for her innate advantage as a water cultivator, putting the two on equal grounds.

Neither of the two sides moved as this invisible battle raged on, the other cultivators seemingly waiting for their leader to make the first move.

He could feel the woman's confusion as the water failed to submit to her command and for a moment, even the water in the air began to be drawn back into the plants. Then the other water cultivator joined in and what had been a mostly even match turned impossible to win. Ma Rong knew that he was just a few seconds away from losing control entirely…

Or at least he would have, if not for the arm thick root that shot up from the ground, catching the utterly distracted woman square in the chest and throwing her into the next tree.

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