After visiting every follower, Anji gave them ti and space to consider. It was not an easy decision. She could not return to Lady Mang Yuan either. Hence, Anji decided to focus on her own training.
Picking a spot far from any shrine follower, Anji sat down and ditated near a rock pool of spring water. The sound of water was also relaxing and helped her to ease into ditation more easily.
Despite the whirlpool of thoughts, Anji easily entered her spiritual body and tested the limits of her new ability. Previously, Anji took a trendous amount of effort and energy to expand the range of her second sight in spiritual form. However, it felt almost as easy as breathing, even when she was far from her physical body.
There was no ferocious beast in the crypt. Anji’s body would be safe where it was. Hence, she decided to test the range of her movent ability.
The first thing Anji did was to leave the successor trial chamber. Its location was secret, but there was no secret to keep when Anji could travel past barriers in her spiritual body. These spells were not ant to repel spiritual bodies. It ant Anji was free to trespass and spy on everyone if she truly wanted. Perhaps this was the real ability of clairvoyance.
The mountain she was in seed very far from the main sect. It was close to one of the barrier edges in the abandoned mountain ranges behind the main sect’s headquarters, not inhabited by any secluded elders. Anji decided to take a peek outside the sect. It had been a long ti since she went outside of the Mystical Qilin Sect. The last ti she went outside, the nearby area was still a barren and lawless land. Thanks to the war, Anji expected the situation to be worse.
After passing the illusion array, Anji found herself looking at small but green fields. The season had changed while she was inside the trial chamber. It was just coming into sumr, and farrs had settled into the area near the sect’s border. Her second brother, despite the war, had sohow sorted out the lawless territory situation.
Feeling at peace looking at sothing so ordinary, Anji observed as farrs ploughed the fields as if there was no war going on. Then again, the murim war did not affect ordinary civilians normally. The demonic cult abducted ordinary people for human experints, which violated the murim code. Apart from that, no other civilians were hard in the war.
Thinking about this reminded Anji of her resolve to complete the successor trials as soon as she could. Although she could not do much as a single person, she had the duty to put an end to this war as the successor of the Mystical Qilin Sect, as well as the fourth daughter of the murim hero. It might be too difficult to travel in her spiritual body to visit the Celestial Dragon Sect. However, Anji knew it would be possible to visit her shifu in this form.
However, due to her shifu’s sensitive nature and second sight, Anji intended to sneak and spy on her from afar. Despite the busyness of the ongoing war, Anji was barely updated about it. She only knew how Yan Ping took her suggestions seriously and implented them. The miasma magnet talisman helped reduce the number of severe curse casualties, although miasma immunity pills were not as imdiately effective. The new triage centre and the redistribution of manpower changed the tide of the war, as major alliance sects rebuilt their strength after the ambush. Anji did not know more than this.
Hence, today she would spy to her heart’s content while everyone thought she was gone from the action.
It was a long travel back to the sect’s main headquarters, even in a spiritual body. Just because Anji was floating weightlessly did not an she travelled any faster than falcons. It was considerably faster than running, Anji had to admit. However, the lack of teleportation ability in soul arts made her question how slow it was.
Then again, there may be a way for spiritual bodies to manifest where they want to be instantly. Anji must not have unlocked or learned that ability yet.
Not in a hurry and with plenty of ti to be nosy, Anji took in the sights from above the clouds and enjoyed racing against wild sparrows mid-flight. After spending so long in a cave, the open sky and trees were a welcoming change, even if she only saw them in energy signatures.
Arriving at the main sect, Anji quickly blended with the ground, making herself as invisible as she could to detect even if most people could not sense her. She rembered how she could replicate and mimic the energy signature of her surroundings. Although her control was still poor, Anji thought it would help minimise detection as she snuck into the military eting room.
In the few months since she started her successor trial, not much had changed around the Mystical Qilin Sect. The dical centre was still busy. The researchers were still arguing over resources and fine-tuning the supplies they provided. Only the eting room appeared ssier. There were more maps and a new intelligence report. Anji recognised her brother’s handwriting almost instantly. More importantly, she noticed how Hong Nian Niang was back in action.
Ever since her miscarriage, Anji has worried about the Vermillion Bird Sect Leader at the back of her mind. Hong Nian Niang was a strong woman. However, she was not one without weakness. Anji was just glad to see that she was back on her feet and giving the demonic cultivators payback with interest in her burning vengeance.
Although Anji was unable to touch or manipulate any objects physically, observing the military eting room gave her enough information to know the situation outside.
According to the maps and letters exchanged, Anji figured that the Rainbow Alliance were considering coordinating a tid attack on one of the demonic cult’s outposts near Chang’an, where many hostages were held. It was a joint operation with high stakes. Reading the report, Anji wondered how the governnt in the capital did not realise the large number of kidnapped people. Did the governnt really not care about them? There had to be over three hundred hostages kidnapped from the capital city in the last half year. Sothing felt amiss.
Before Anji could investigate further, she felt a strong and unmistakable presence at the door. Imdiately, she ducked under the table and into the floor, blending in with the wood and earth energy signatures and praying she would not be discovered.
Monts later, Yan Ping entered, and Anji held her breath even though she did not need to in spirit form. She did not an to, but reflexes made her hide like a mouse. Technically, she was not an enemy. However, as a spiritual spy, it weighed heavily on her conscience.
"Oh well," Anji groaned silently. "If she discovers , I’ll just own up and apologise."
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