Alex didn't have a compass, nor did he have the night sky to help him know exactly which direction he was going towards.
'How do I tell the direction exactly?' he thought. He had been flying for an hour towards where he assumed was the caravan, but he saw nothing.
"Hmm… what should I do?" he wondered. "Compass… something that can tell me the direction… Ah, maybe I can find those," he thought and immediately lowered his boat down towards the ground.
He then spread out his spiritual sense on the forest below, looking for something.
At first, it didn't seem like he would find it any time soon, but then after a dozen or so minutes, he found one and quickly released his Qi from the boat and stopped it.
"Well, I wanted a sunflower, but that helps too I guess," he thought and jumped down from the boat.
Alex landed next to a small patch of grass where he saw a few yellow flowers blooming.
These flowers were yellow in color and were called Yinful Daisy. These plants contained trace amounts of Yin Qi in them, and always looked towards the Sun for their Yang.
Even at the night, they followed the path of the sun and looked at them. As long as one knew the time of the night, one could infer the direction from these flowers.
"Since it's facing towards me, and it's 2 am in the morning, then west must be—"
Alex stopped. Something was weird here. "Wait, why is it facing towards me? The sun should be below us right now?" he said.
He quickly thought about the flower once more. "Ah, well… I didn't expect to see it attracted towards my Yang Qi. That's… problematic," he thought.
Alex immediately stood up and went far away from the flower. Until a certain distance, the flower looked towards him, but once he was away, it dropped down towards the ground and looked in a certain direction.
"That… should be east, right?" Alex thought. He quickly sent out his spiritual sense around the flower to see if there were any other plants or minerals with yang energy.
Only when he couldn't find it at all did he accept that west was behind the flower.
"Nice. I should go left to the left from West so that I can catch up with Sister and others right? I should at least reach the Southern forest so that I can reach Rubyroad just in case," Alex thought and flew away.
In the next 3 hours, he finally reached the Southern Forest, but he couldn't find any signs of the Caravan. Even if there were any, it was impossible with the beasts destroying almost everything outside of the forest.
Thankfully, there were no villages there, or it would have been disastrous for them.
'I guess beast attacks happen from time to time. Any villages that still stood would have disappeared by now,' Alex thought solemnly.
He then moved again, looking for the Caravan. 'Do I go diagonally too? Or have to change their course back to their original route?' Alex wondered.
He regretted not making plans on how to meet once they were separated. But to be fair to Alex, the only thing on his mind at that time was survival.
Now that he had survived, he would certainly do something about finding the caravan.
"Let's just go through what route I assume they would go through. Even if I don't find them, I can just go to Rubyroad city directly."
So, he changed courses towards the path the caravan might be moving towards.
Time passed and the sun came up, but Alex didn't find the caravan still. He saw a few other types of carriages and caravans, but not belonging to the Heavens Path merchant group.
At some point, he needed to log out so that he could eat, so he flew into a small patch of trees and sat down on a branch.
After making sure he wouldn't fall at all, he used his concealing and invisibility techniques. He didn't know why, but he knew these clones would continue to use these techniques even when he was logged out.
At least, that was what it did back inside the alchemy garden inside the Southern Forest.
He logged out and went to have his breakfast.
"Hey, what happened yesterday. You didn't come out," Emily asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I had to go out on a Caravan journey in the game, so I couldn't log out in time. But I did come out later around noon and ate the food. As always, it was delicious," Alex said.
"Thank you," Emily said while blushing a little.
"Urghh! It's too early in the morning for us to hear you being lovey-dovey. Just sit down and have your breakfast," Sarah cried from the dinner table.
Alex chuckled and said, "Maybe you should get a boyfriend too, Sarah."
Sarah then looked at him and said, "Who said I liked boys?"
Alex was a little surprised. Emily chuckled from the side and so did Hannah. "You guys knew?" he asked.
"Of course I knew. She's my friend," Emily said.
"It was quite obvious actually," Hannah said.
"Uhh, alright, I will just eat and go. I'm in a hurry anyway," Alex said and quickly finished his breakfast.
Then, he went back to his room and logged in.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself upon the tree, still fully concealed.
"Haha! It still works," he thought and flew up. He then took out his boat and checked the True spirit stones in the front compartment.
"Wow, this thing is expensive to run. Just half a day and I've already wasted nearly 5 True Spirit stones. Makes me wonder how expensive the sect's ship is to run," Alex thought.
He quickly replaced the true spirit stones and used his Qi to activate the boat. After that, all he had to do for the day was looking for the caravan.
He flew for hours on end but did not manage to find the caravan at all.
"They must have taken a different route. Whatever, I will directly go to the city then," he thought and took a direct route to the west, instead of trying to follow the route.
However, just as he was about to stray from the path, he heard something. Alex looked towards the front and could see some sort of smoke coming out.
He moved his boats in that direction and could finally hear a larger amount of shouting from that area.
"Is that a caravan?" Alex thought when he saw that. There really was a caravan under attack, but it wasn't the caravan he was looking for.
"Bandits!" Alex said when he finally saw what was happening.
He quickly sped up to help the caravan. When he got close, he jumped out of the boat and quickly took it into his storage bag before concealing himself and getting closer to them.
"Damn those bandits. Why are there so many across the empire? I should help those people in the— huh?" Alex was surprised when he finally reached the location of the caravan.
He lifted his concealment and got closer to watch what was happening.
The caravan was indeed under attack and one of the carriages was burning with smokes plumes coming out without stop.
However, the countless shouts didn't belong to the members of the caravan at all.
It was in fact the Bandits. The bandits were currently inside a barrier and were surrounded by green smoke that seemed to hurt them.
Alex looked down towards the members of the caravan and saw them looking at the bandits in horror.
Everyone seemed to be unaccustomed to what was happening, except for 2 people who seemed to be the cause of it all.
Alex looked at their red robes and recognized them, or at least he recognized the sect.
The red-robed man looked towards the Sky to where Alex was and got ready to fight. But then when he saw the Yellow robe on his body, he stopped.
"Xing'er, that man is from Tiger sect, right?" he asked the girl next to him.
The girl turned towards the Sky and saw Alex too. "Yes, I believe so, Elder brother," she said.
Alex was surprised that they met each other in such away. He dropped down to the ground and took another look at the men in the barrier.
They were now starting to claw out their faces from all the pain they were suffering. It was a truly inhumane way to kill someone.
But he did not feel any pity, as bandits were known to do such horrible things.
"Fellow Daoist, may I know who you are?" the man said.
"Greetings, my name is Yu Ming. I came to help, but… it seems you don't need my help," Alex said.
"Ah, these were just minor bandits that thought they could take their chances while the stronger ones were hiding due to the beast attacks."
"Even if we didn't help, this little caravan could have successfully fought them off. But since we saw them, we decided to help," the man said. "Oh right, My name is Xiao Huang. This is my senior sister, Luo Xing."
"Hello," Luo Xing said.
"Ah, yes. I recognize sister Xing. I assume you are going back to Rubyroad as well, right?" Alex asked.
"How… do you know that?" she asked, suddenly getting suspicious. The man named Xiao Huang suddenly flared up his cultivation base as well.
'True Realm cultivator? He did look quite old,' Alex thought.
"Please forgive me for not properly introducing myself. I am a Junior apprentice-brother to sister Luo Mei. She is on a caravan ride to Rubyroad city as well. However, during the beast hoard attack, I got separated from them."
"I was trying to search for the caravan when I spotted this one," Alex said.
"You are Mei'er's junior brother?" she asked.
"Yes," Alex said. "It's good to finally meet you, Sister Xing. I wanted to speak during the Annual competition, but didn't get the chance."
"Didn't get the chance? Or did Mei'er just not bother?" Luo Xing asked.
"Uhh…" Alex didn't know what to say.
"Whatever, I need to leave soon, senior brother," Luo Xing said.
"Ah right. I will finish them off now," Xiao Huang said and suddenly upped his Qi input in the 10-meter wide barrier.
The speed at which the men died increased by a lot and within a dozen seconds, they were all dead.
Xiao Huang swiped his hands in a gesture and 6 formation flags came flying towards him.
"Let's go," he said. The Caravan people tried to thank him, but he didn't accept any of it. Instead, he even let those people take the bandit's storage bag.
Just as the two of them were about to leave, Alex called out to them.
"Um, Sister Xing," Alex called out. "Would you mind if I go the remainder of your journey with you guys?"
