A Man's Insanity: A Changing World

After a week,

Yang Zhai stood and looked at a tall mountain.

The mountain seemed to be touching the skies. The peak was piercing the clouds.

Even though I cannot see anyone, I am sure many eyes are looking at me. I cannot be careless: he reflected.

He was talking about the guards. This mountain couldn't be without guards; otherwise, this mountain wasn't Mantora Mountain.

He took his first step onto the Mantora Mountain.

Li Na suddenly opened her eyes and looked around.

"Si Yu, can you sense that?" She said with surprise.

Si Yu also looked at Li Na and nodded. They were cultivating right now when they suddenly felt something.

"Brother Fen!" They muttered.

They were alone in a room, cultivating.

Yang Zhai walked up the mountain and came to a stop. He saw people walking around. This place on the mountain was where the outside people gathered. As for the residences of the elders of the Mantora Mountain, they were hidden.

This place was like a huge village. There were wooden houses, taverns, and many other buildings.

Yang Zhai was accompanied by four other cultivators, all of them were rank 3.

"What's happening here?" He thought.

Why is it so calm here?

He walked around a little more.

"Brother Tzu, what happened?" a cultivator who was accompanying him asked when he saw a frown on Yang Zhai's face.

He didn't say anything and went to a stall near him.

"Wasn't a competition going to be held on the Mantora Mountain, why does it seem like nobody cares about the competition?" He inquired.

"Did you… just arrive?" The stall owner was silent for a while before he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"If you had arrived a week and a half before, you would know that it's been almost two weeks since the competition ended." The stall owner replied.

Yang Zhai frowned when he heard this.

It was supposed to begin two weeks from now, not end two weeks prior. Did the butterfly effect reach this far?: he thought.

The four beside him were also greatly surprised.

Even though he was surprised, he kept his expression calm.

"You guys, go somewhere and enjoy yourselves. I need to go somewhere." After saying this, he left.

He began to wander around and investigate what happened in the past few months.

This, of course, attracted Mantora Mountain's people, but they didn't do anything.

He only asked things related to the competition, it was quite common for someone to be curious about it, so nobody hindered him.

I need to know what went wrong here. This is important as this can happen again. I was cautious and arrived two weeks prior, but the competition ended. Even if I had arrived even a month prior, I would still not be able to compete: he thought.

He wandered around for an hour and stopped after that.

"I should stop for today, if I investigate further, they will become suspicious of me. I can continue it after making a friend on this mountain. I can ask that friend of mine everything." He muttered and turned around.

He had just walked for a bit when he heard a voice.

"Brother Fen!"

He turned around.

He saw Si Yu and Li Na running towards him.

"So, they are here as well."

Both of them came and jumped at Yang Zhai, trying to hug him. However, he jumped back and they fell face down.

But, they didn't mind this and stood up smiling, with dirt on their faces.

From their expressions, it seemed like they had seen him after ages.

"Brother Fen, we really missed you!" Li Na said excitedly.

"Don't call me Fen, on this mountain, call me Tzu Yu." He didn't say anything or ask anything else first, but stopped them from calling him by any other names than Tzu Yu.

"Hm, hm," they nodded without any hesitation.

"We really missed you! I thought we wouldn't see you again!" Si Yu started speaking with enthusiasm in his tone.

"Yeah, yeah, you can't imagine how much we missed you!" Li Na nodded and agreed.

Yang Zhai observed them in silence, his gaze steady. It was clear to him that these two were sincere.

However, he wasn't concerned about this right now, but

"What are you two doing here? By any chance, were you here to compete?" He asked.

If so, it's even better. I can just ask them what happened here. But… I need to first observe them carefully and see if they have changed in these few months.

As such, Yang Zhai first summoned Zuh Qil and asked it to guard him from any sneak attacks. And he himself began to ask Si Yu and Li Na many questions, trying to find out if they were still useful to him or had betrayed him.

"So, you are saying that you won the competition and even obtained the torus, and the one to inherit it was Jun Haru…" Yang Zhai was flabbergasted by what they told him.

So, my instructions ended up helping them.

"Yes, and that Jun Haru… how dare he inherit something you deserved! Not to mention that he was even smiling!" Si Yu's expressions suddenly changed.

"I still can't get it out of my mind… you worked so hard, and that Jun Haru… how dare he inherit that!" Li Na followed Si Yu without thinking.

"Anyway, follow me. We can discuss all of this somewhere else." Yang Zhai led them to a tavern.

Inside a tavern,

"So, nobody except you knows that I am here, right?"

"Yes, nobody knows that you are here."

"I see, tell me more about Jun Haru and how he is behaving these days."

"Well…"

They started to tell him everything about Jun Haru and many other things.

"Why did you not arrive at the place I had told you about?"

Yang Zhai asked. He was always curious about this.

"About that, we were captured by a rank 5 cultivator. He was going to auction us off at some kind of an auction. However, he ended up in a fight against another rank 5 cultivator, giving us a chance to run away."

"We lost everything to that cultivator. But after losing you, we had no choice but to head to Mantora Mountain, knowing that if we ever wanted to see you again, we had to make it there. That's why we came here…"

"However, we didn't find you even after we arrived at Mantora Mountain, and the competition ended up starting."

Si Yu and Li Na recounted everything to Yang Zhai, starting from the very beginning.

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