CHAPTER 69: UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATION

The amount of spirit qi present in a cultivator’s body can be discerned easily if you channel spirit qi into your eyes in a specific manner. Of course, it won’t work if the person before you is far stronger than you or has concealed their cultivation realm through a technique.

Techniques are nothing but specific methods to control your qi to achieve the most efficient results.

Before the old man could speak, the guard handed him the parchment. The old man looked at it and nodded before bowing, "Come inside, young man."

Lin Feng nodded and entered, the guard followed, and they came inside a small chamber with a few cushions placed on the ground, the old man gestured for Lin Feng to sit on one. Lin Feng took the nearest and sat down, waiting for them to explain the situation.

"Would you like tea?" the old man spoke after sitting down.

Lin Feng shook his head, "Just tell me when this all began and how many children have already vanished until now and when the latest incident occurred."

The old man nodded, "Very well, these incidents began occurring one month ago, the first village affected was about an hour’s walk from here.

One night, a boy vanished, no one knew how or when he left the village, his parents were sleeping with him, but even they didn’t know how he departed without alarming them.

Even the guards standing at the entrance of the village didn’t see anything.

This incident was quite mysterious, but since it was a single child, and there was a chance the child had left at night outside the village for a walk through the fences, although it does sound absurd, this was the only plausible explanation everyone could somehow believe."

Lin Feng listened quietly without interrupting.

"As for why he didn’t return, others thought that some beast slew him. This incident was buried, but just three days later in the next village, three children vanished, and the circumstances were similar to how the first boy disappeared.

It again happened at night, and similarly, none of the parents or guards were alerted by their movement, and this incident caused an uproar, all the villages nearby came together and discussed it, but no one had any clue why or how this happened.

We decided to hire some cultivators to investigate, but they also didn’t understand what had transpired here.

In the end, they decided to stand guard in all the nearby villages, but it didn’t help, as on the same night they were guarding, two children from one of the villages vanished again, and the cultivator standing there wasn’t able to see anything.

This even terrified the cultivators, and all of them departed."

"What was their cultivation realm?" Lin Feng interrupted for the first time.

"All were in the Foundation Establishment realm, we can’t hire stronger cultivators," the old man sighed and continued, "There is only one thing we were able to discern, that all those children who vanished were below 12 and above 8 years in age.

The first village in which this incident occurred had only one child, and successive villages had more children vanish because the exact number of children who were below 12."

Lin Feng frowned slightly, the fact that no one was able to sense or see anything when they were fully prepared against it was somewhat troublesome.

"After these cultivators departed, we decided to submit a mission to the Frozen Heart Sect, we initially didn’t do it as we thought these cultivators would be able to discern something, and it takes some time for a mission to be accepted.

In these days, until you have come, one more village has become the victim of this incident," the old man sighed in sorrow, "It’s this village." The old man stopped speaking, as if mourning in sorrow.

The guard shook his head and decided to explain the later parts.

"We are the largest village in the area, and we had seven children, and all were sleeping in this house, and for safety, we even tied all the children with each other along with a boulder, but even that didn’t work... sigh, Even as we watched them sleeping, we couldn’t see how they disappeared. It’s like they were in front of our eyes, but suddenly they are gone."

Lin Feng’s frown deepened, but there were some things he could narrow down.

First, the perpetrator had used spatial laws to displace the children directly, but just as he thought this, he discarded it.

Using spatial laws like this would make the demonic cultivator the strongest cultivator in the entire world, but it wasn’t even remotely possible.

The fact that he or she was targeting only weak villages, their cultivation realm was definitely below Core Formation realm.

If they were a Core Formation realm cultivator, there would be no need to play hide and seek, he or she could have directly slain the entire village and taken what they desired, it was quite common in the cultivation world.

The second possible outcome was that the perpetrator was using some kind of treasure, what kind of treasure it was, was a little hard to pinpoint, but by listening to all these scenarios, he could think of only one thing, illusion.

By some method, the perpetrator was placing everyone in an illusion while taking the children away, and this treasure was strong enough to place Foundation Establishment realm cultivators in an illusion too.

"What is the time difference between each attack?" Lin Feng had heard the attack took place three days apart in the first case, but whether it was true for other incidents, he didn’t know yet.

"Three to four days, our village was attacked three days ago, so there is a high chance that one of the villages will be attacked tonight," the old man came out of his reverie and spoke.

"How many villages are left to be attacked?" Lin Feng asked.

"Three, only three villages in this area are left that still haven’t been attacked yet, but they are living in more fear than us, the thought that your children will vanish and you won’t be able to do anything is agonizing." The old man stood up, "That is everything we know about until now."

Lin Feng stood up, choosing one village to go to didn’t seem optimal, as there was a chance the village he chose wouldn’t be attacked.