Cultivation is just so scientific!

Chapter 554: Chapter 323 Arhat_2

“My subordinates have difficulty tracking the whereabouts of the two Arhats, so it’s not certain that they can gather accurate information. Please forgive me, Elder!” Manager Xin Shun didn’t make any guarantees but bowed his body as he spoke.

His subordinates were mostly Qi Refining Cultivators, far from being in the circles of the Arhats, not to mention lacking the authority to freely investigate around that checkpoint.

“Don’t tell me that after all these years, you have no sources of intelligence over there!” Li Yuanba said in a heavy voice.

He knew some things, of course, but they had little impact, so he turned a blind eye.

This Manager Xin Shun controlled the Senluo Sect’s commerce in Jieshan City, and in the process of dealing with the goods, he had also derived some benefits.

Li Yuanba didn’t oppose the fact that Manager Xin Shun profited a bit, but after allowing him to gain those benefits, he expected Xin Shun to do a good job when it mattered. Otherwise, he wouldn’t mind replacing the manager.

At least for the recent period, he was untouchable within the Senluo Sect—after all, his master’s grandmaster, Ancestor Lu, was currently guarding the sect gate.

Otherwise, why would Elder Situ deliver the lucrative post of managing Jieshan City into his hands if not for Ancestor Lu’s attention to him?

“Elder, I will handle it right now!” Manager Xin Shun, frightened by Li Yuanba’s threatening tone, no longer argued and took up the task.

Over the years of cooperating with the other side, how could he not have some connections? And these connections were solidly built on mutual benefits.

“Yue Xing, send this gift back to the sect for Elder Situ’s hands!” After Manager Xin Shun departed, Li Yuanba gave instructions to Deacon Yue Xing.

With Ancestor Lu above, relationships still needed to be maintained by himself.

To keep his current position as the Guardian of Jieshan City, he needed Elder Situ’s support.

Actually, if Li Yuanba wanted to probe into the whereabouts of the two Great Arhats from Qianye Temple, he could have asked Ying Hou, one of the three Golden Core Elders, which would have been more direct and faster.

But he didn’t want to put the three Golden Core Elders in a difficult position; he needed to consider them.

The message was to warn him to avoid any accidental encounters with the two Great Arhats, to prevent danger.

But if he were to leak the itinerary of the two Great Arhats to him, that would be betrayal. As Elders of the Righteous Path, they couldn’t commit an act of betrayal against the path.

Manager Xin Shun didn’t keep Li Yuanba waiting for long—within two hours, he had sent news.

There was no sight of the two Great Arhats leaving from the rear, and it was also uncertain whether the two Great Arhats were still within the Righteous Path’s Jieshan Mountain Pass, as they had not shown themselves since their arrival.

Li Yuanba felt a slight heaviness in his heart upon receiving this information.

The two Great Arhats couldn’t possibly be at the Jieshan Mountain Pass for cultivation—its Spiritual Energy wasn’t suitable for Great Arhats.

Having left Qianye Temple, they must have had an important matter to attend to.

Li Yuanba felt that it was probably aimed at him, and he needed to prepare for a possible attack.

He didn’t notify Jiang Pu and the other two Golden Core Elders. Although they shared a supportive relationship with Li Yuanba, they were not able to handle an attack from two Great Arhats.

He took out a mind-constricting band and put it on, then took out several Second Grade Array Flags to set up a Qi-preserving Formation, which could maintain a particular energy signature for an extended period.

The Formation’s function was singular—obtained from a Qi Refining Cultivator seeking Golden Core advancement by Li Shiming himself.

Its sole purpose was to sustain an energy signature indefinitely, constantly nurturing it with Spiritual Energy.

Li Yuanba did not know which method the two Great Arhats would use to locate him, and he definitely didn’t want to be found.

After setting up the Qi-preserving Formation, he channeled a strand of his energy into the heart of the Formation.

Then, without notifying anyone and under the cover of the darkening sky, he used the ‘Sky Concealing Secret Technique’ to conceal his energy and left Jieshan City.

As for the responsibility of guarding Jieshan City, the sect would believe it was the attack by the two Great Arhats that caused the breach and would not hold him accountable.

Cultivators faced with an invincible enemy have the option to flee immediately.

Even the monastery would not expect a Golden Core Elder to staunchly defend a city against an enemy beyond their match.

Li Yuanba left Jieshan City and, ten miles outside the city, deployed a Fourth Grade ‘Sumeru Mustard Seed Array Plate’; inside the Sumeru Mustard Seed Array, a separate space is self-contained, making him undetectable to anyone except a Nascent Soul Ancestor scanning closely.

He also released a drone powered by a spirit stone motor, the latest research accomplishment of his true self, Li Shiming. The spirit stone is transformed into stable electricity by a small Thunder Array, allowing the drone to fly for extended periods.

The spirit stone motor also supplied energy to various devices on the drone, extending its maximum flight duration up to a hundred days.

This was still an initial product. Once Li Shiming mastered the technology to automatically replace the spirit stones, it could become possible for the drone to remain airborne for years.

This model of drone, designed for reconnaissance, could reach an altitude of ten thousand meters. The Array Master Li Shiming himself had inscribed the array formation patterns, equipping the drone with a Concealing Array, making it undetectable to cultivators.

Of course, the invisibility function is relative—if a cultivator knew a drone was in a certain area and used Divine Thought to search, it would still be possible to find it.

However, the likelihood of this was exceedingly low. The drone used a combination of cultivation and technology, with an extremely weak Spiritual Energy reaction, mainly because the energy needed by the drone itself was not high.

Most of the energy used was in the form of electricity, a type of energy from the mortal world that cultivators would not notice. Coupled with the Concealing Array, the drone was very secure.

Previously, the drones were solely used by Li Shiming himself, but this encounter finally allowed Li Yuanba to also benefit from the technology.

As the drone took to the sky, its high-precision camera and micrometer-level chips displayed the entire area on his visor.

Li Yuanba was certain that Qianye Temple had a special passage through Jieshan Mountain Pass; many Arhats had already smuggled themselves into the Ten Thousand Great Mountains before.

He was unclear what route the two Great Arhats would take to smuggle themselves through; even though he had stayed at Jieshan City for some time, he could not fully grasp the situation at Jieshan Mountain Pass.

Besides the six Guardian Golden Core Elders from both sides at Jieshan Mountain Pass, there were other forces, such as the commercial branches of various sects and the combined forces of medium-sized sects, each with their own channels.

The drone switched to night vision and activated infrared thermal imaging.

Li Yuanba controlled the drone from his visor, narrowing its surveillance range to a fifty-mile radius around Jieshan City, where every life form within this range would be flagged.

By the third watch of the night, outside the Formation of Jieshan City Guardian Mansion, two figures appeared.

These figures emerged so abruptly that if Li Yuanba hadn’t been closely monitoring the Guardian Mansion, he would have missed their appearance.

The drone hadn’t detected these two figures in advance, neither with its infrared thermal imaging nor with night vision. They remained undetected until they chose to reveal themselves.

This discovery shocked Li Yuanba. The drone’s night vision and infrared thermal imaging only worked when cultivators did not guard against such methods.

Clearly, these two figures were very cautious, not only achieving Invisibility but also concealing their body heat.

Through the drone’s night vision, Li Yuanba saw two bald heads.

These bald heads were especially prominent when seen from the sky.

He could be one hundred percent certain that these two bald figures were the two Great Arhats from Qianye Temple.

He immediately produced his Identity Jade Disc and reported to the sect the infiltration of the two Great Arhats from Qianye Temple into Jieshan City.

Having discovered the two Great Arhats in advance let Li Yuanba account for his duty as the guardian of Jieshan City. It wasn’t feasible to expect Li Yuanba, a Golden Core Early Stage cultivator, to confront two Great Arhats.

As to how to deal with these two Great Arhats, it would be up to the sect to decide.