"Another fog tide?" Han Xuhan muttered to himself, scanning a corner of the fog-tracker map laid out on his desk. On the map, the Salted Fish Mountain Peak was about to be swallowed by a large mass of darkness, labeled with the warning: Soul Disarraying Poison.

Unlike before, Han Xuhan wasn't afraid of the fog anymore; especially since he had used a certain type of fog to teach his fellow disciple Jiang Chen a proper lesson.

The poor lad had no idea why his vital energy had stopped working during their duel yesterday. Every time Han Xuhan remembered his confused face, it felt like a cool breeze was refreshing his body and mind.

Thanks to Qian Yun letting him abuse the Displacement Technique, Han Xuhan was now capable of collecting specific types of fog from all around the mountains by relying on his map.

This collected fog went through the Displacement Technique to his spawn point in the artificial realm of laws, and from there, Qian Yun could send it back to wherever Han Xuhan was.

Before challenging Jiang Chen to the duel, Han Xuhan had picked a type of fog labeled on his map as 'Vital Energy Drainer'. Tun Shi Tian had flown to the location where this fog was at that time, and then set the Locator Key for Qian Yun to handle the Displacement procedure.

All in all, the operation had gone smoothly enough for Han Xuhan to gain some confidence in this method. No matter which member of Chen Yan's little coterie came to collect the bribe, Han Xuhan was going to drive his lesson home.

"Zhanxian, Tun Shi Tian, don't go outside for now. And hold yourselves back even if you sense a breakthrough close by. The fog might slip past the protective arrays if you forcibly open up a channel for the energy of heaven and earth to enter the hut."

Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian typically didn't have to worry about being affected by the fog, especially when it came to attributes that would only harm a normal human body. But this immunity as an undead came with a heavy price.

Fog which could affect a cultivator spiritually, for example—the currently approaching mass of fog carrying the Soul Disarraying Poison, affected Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian much more intensely than humans. Han Xuhan had discovered this while testing his wooden mask against various types of fog around the mountains.

Perhaps this was nature's method of balancing the way of life. Every powerful immunity was accompanied by a terrible weakness.

Leaving the minions to their own devices, Han Xuhan quickly went out of the hut, adjusting the wooden mask on his face. As the probationary representative of the Salted Fish Mountain Peak, he had a duty to warn everybody about the oncoming fog tide.

Habitually, he started from Xuanyuan Zhou's hut, but her door was locked shut from the inside.

Not even the windows and the backdoor budged under Han Xuhan's hammering fists. As he was about to leave, he discovered a note sticking out from underneath the doormat that read: In seclusion, do not disturb.

Han Xuhan couldn't help but wonder about what technique she was trying to cultivate so secretly. Judging by those books she was reading the other day, it might have something to do with undeads, which was undoubtedly good news for him.

He would love some advice on how to keep his minions under control...

Mu Ran, on the other hand, had yet to return from his most recent venture outside the sect. So there was no need to visit his hut.

Upon reaching Xiao Wu's hut, Han Xuhan noticed the heavy fluctuations of qi in the surroundings again, giving off the impression that someone was having a major breakthrough.

When Han Xuhan made his way to the backyard of the hut, he found Xiao Wu resting inside the narrow hole in the ground, rubbing handfuls of pitch-black water all over himself. This time, the big guy made no attempts to hide from Han Xuhan what he was doing.

"How many hours of the day do you spend inside that hole, Brother Wu?" Han Xuhan said suspiciously. It couldn't be a coincidence that he kept finding him in the same situation whenever he came to visit.

"It's a coincidence! I just came in!" Xiao Wu protested vehemently.

Han Xuhan scrutinized the pulsing qi around the hole, realizing that the black water was the source of the fluctuations. Xiao Wu had to have dumped tons of precious cultivation materials in the water.

Recalling his recent experience of visiting the Frost Pill Mountain Peak, Han Xuhan guessed that the alchemic bath Xiao Wu was taking was an attempt to stimulate certain latent attributes inside his body. Some rare medicinal baths for martial artists had similar goals.

After warning him about the fog, Han Xuhan left the hut and checked the progress bar for Xiao Wu's Quest.

[ Quest Progress: 19% ]

"An increase of 3%? Does that mean my guess is right? Or was I just close enough to make it count?"

Regardless, he now had a proper lead on the quest. He could use it in his future attempts to dig out Xiao Wu's secret through casual chatting. Whatever this secret Mystic Art was, he'd get to the bottom of it soon...

A while later, Han Xuhan was more or less done warning the entire Salted Fish Mountain Peak. On his way down the mountain road, he came across that deserted area where he had once 'hallucinated' an encounter with a ghostly female disciple.

Casting a cursory glance at the grove by the side of the road, he kept walking. But a moment later, he sensed an eerily familiar movement of qi coming from the direction of the grove.

Han Xuhan froze, gaze glued to the dense wall of trees and shrubbery that enveloped the area, unsure whether to go check it out or not.

"Elder Daheng said my mask wasn't working properly... It was all a hallucination..."

The movement of qi in the grove became more and more obvious to his perception, clearly being manipulated by a cultivator. He could even hear a faint voice in the distance.

"There was no hut there back then..."

Struggling to reason his way out of the puzzle, Han Xuhan took a sharp breath and turned around, heading straight into the grove.