"If I may ask, what is your relationship to Junior Xiao? Although gifted in cultivation, I wouldn't have expected him to know you well enough to call you Edrick without any honorifics" asked Yin as they stood before the forest, the woods near Oie were a place she had once been visiting nearly daily, back when she used to be an outer disciple…
"I used to work as the lord of a small town on behalf of my family, I met Xiao during one of my strolls outside, he is rather conspicuous looking with his crimson eyes, wouldn't you agree? Isn't that typically the mark of one being the offspring of a noble sire, or something of the likes…" he replied with a slight smile, Yin had to agree on that point, to make sure not to offend any member of a clan, she had once learned the typical signs of someone belonging to such groups, just in case.
For example, the Xing clan all had blood red eyes, the pupils and irises almost looking like they were melting, or the Zhenniao clan, who all had bright, toxic-looking yellow eyes that seemed to want to flow outward, they also tended to have rather oddly coloured hair, the likes of which you would expect on poisonous frogs.
Edrick also had weirdly coloured eyes, but she was fairly certain that that was just him, the Elt clan was supposed to have completely dark eyes, sharply contrasting against the white sclera normally.
"...He also used to be carrying a rather odd sword, which is what is being bet at the tournament, by the way, I won it back then, and he would like to win it back- Though, to be frank, I am planning on giving it back eventually anyways, it doesn't really have any value to me" he added as they marched into the forest, the sun's rays were hitting rather hard today, and the temperature, as a result, felt much higher than it should be, especially with the current lack of fresh breezes, but once the green canopy was above their heads, it almost felt chilly all of a sudden.
"Is that so?"
"By the way, Yin… You haven't come to these woods in a long while, right? May I inquire why you stopped coming?" as he led the way deeper into the forest, the duo mostly ignored the herb gatherers and alike near the outskirts.
"Well, I ventured here nearly everyday back when I was an outer disciple, I wanted to impress the elders so that I could get access to better cultivation techniques, I thought that it would be a waste to start cultivation with a technique that was not quite suitable, or somewhat subpar, so instead of immediately picking a technique, I picked up a weapon first and went to train against the wild beasts and monsters here, and thanks to that, I managed to get my hands on the three techniques that I am still cultivating to this day"
Edrick had not known that in advance, so he was actually surprised that Yin would just go murder some random things without a shred of cultivation like that, as far as talent went, being able to cultivate three techniques at once was considered very impressive, and doing so to such a high level of proficiency with all of them was even more-so, she had begun at a young age too, so her body had been specifically tempered to wield her weapon of choice and cultivation techniques.
In short, she was a pretty big deal within the Myriad-Arm Sect, and it seemed inevitable that she would be promoted to core disciple, if the sect could keep a talented youth like herself, who had no ties to any clan, and was seemingly not planning on getting married, then they might just secure a future elder for the sect.
Unfortunately for them, they weren't the only ones who wanted to keep Yin, and Anoteros was already rather close to her thanks to Hui, enough that the tomboy was perfectly willing to trust and follow him alone into the depths of the woods, naturally, it was also because she was a far more accomplished cultivator and had been doing this for several years by now, so there was not much to fear even if he had bad intentions.
They walked in silence for a few minutes before Edrick spoke up again.
"Now that it is just the two of us, I'll let you in on the details of the beasts I discovered… You see, as I said earlier, I recently managed to gravely injure the murderous sasquatch, but you surely wondered how I didn't finish the job then, especially when it was a leg that I nearly severed, right?"
"I do have to admit that I was curious about that, considering how powerful that beast seems to be, to be able to go toe to toe with it and inflict a serious wound, it is hard to imagine that it could just turn tail and get away"
"Indeed, the reason it was able to flee is because that sasquatch had some assistance…"
"The beasts you are talking about, I presume?"
"Precisely, I can find them again solely because I cultivate the Mountain Sasquatch Body technique, they are also sasquatches, but not of the mountain variety, and as far as I am aware, their presence here is not known" he revealed, watching as Yin scratched her neck for a moment.
"I certainly did not hear anything about that, I only know of mountain sasquatches, and even then, despite the many times I have explored this forest in search of foes to sharpen my blade against, I had never encountered even a single one" she said, a humanoid beast had always seemed like a good enemy to face off against, as their way of attacking, whilst bestial and unrefined, would still be far closer to a human's than the other beasts and monsters she had found.
The only ones capable of that were the goblins, but those guys were a bit too short and cowardly, after a while, every single group of them would just drop their weapons and beg for mercy upon seeing her, they even taught their offspring to be afraid of her- Hell, even when a particularly strong one showed up, it had still been terrified of just Yin's shadow.
"If I am not incorrect, there are two other sorts of sasquatches here, pygmy sasquatches and skunk sasquatches, the former are somewhat small, at best good prey to train tracking and pursuing as they are fast and agile- But the latter, they are big guys and they are very aggressive, once I get one to reveal itself, it will charge at us without a second thought"
"Interesting, I put a lot of focus on defence, so the stronger the better" Yin revealed a rather fierce expression.
'Defence? I wasn't expecting that…' Edrick scratched his chin, although he knew a lot of things about Yin thanks to the wisps of knowledge and Hui, he had actually never gotten a clue as to what her cultivation techniques were all about, only that she wielded a type of sabre called a Piandao.
All in all, he was looking forward to seeing how the skunk sasquatches would perform against her…