It seemed the token had mistaken that he held Tide Walker right now. But could the token make mistakes?

Liu Xing thought perhaps it could. It probably wasn't something with consciousness, just a set of programs to determine the treasures currently in his hands. Still, there was also the possibility that it was right, and the shark was truly Tide Walker, and the information it held was outdated. Ultimately, though, it seemed the token counted the shark as one of the treasures needing retrieval, and he was happy about that.

Liu Xing decided to grab a little stone from near his feet and show it to the shark. The shark looked excited, its dark eyes glinting with light. With a smile, he decided to throw the stone. Like a dog, the shark launched itself at the stone and caught it in its mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. Instead of bringing it back to him, though, the shark crushed the stone inside its mouth and swallowed. After a moment, its tail drooped and its face fell, as if disappointed with the stone.

"You're hungry, huh," Liu Xing muttered.

To the side, he observed that the women had finished consoling themselves and were currently discussing what to do. All of them had lost their families, so he deduced they wanted to stay together, at least for a while, since they shared similar experiences and could support each other.

Tide Walker came toward him, looking dejected, and he suddenly felt an urge to make it happy. It was probably hungry, and so, he needed to feed it. But what could a spear turned into a shark eat? Meat? Fish? Shaking his head, he rejected that idea. This thing was something akin to a mix of a treasure and a spirit beast, so it probably could only eat something not mundane. Suddenly, he remembered the shark swallowing the ball of qi that Wei Shuren had conjured. Granted, the shark had spat it back, but perhaps it liked eating qi.

Deciding to try the idea, he thought for a moment about how to do it. In the end, he summoned his gun into his left hand, fed it with qi, and then reabsorbed the bullet into his body. Then, he guided the qi out of his body. As he did so, the shark perked up, as if seeing a delicious meal, and began circling around.

"Wait a moment, please," Liu Xing said, a hint of a smile on his lips.

He decided to concentrate the qi he let out from his body and willed it to form into a ball. Truthfully, he had done something similar once, right after he had transmigrated into this body and this world. He had hoped to gain an advantage by recreating a technique from a show he had watched, but the result had not been optimal. The ball of qi hadn't swirled as fast as he wanted, the qi expenditure was quite large and continuous, and the effect wasn't very strong. He had shelved the idea and moved on with his life. But today, it seemed it had its use.

A ball of qi materialized between him and the shark. It glowed with blue light, swirling as if a little tornado were trapped inside. Tide Walker looked at it with shining eyes, and when he nodded, the shark swallowed the ball of qi whole. After a moment, it let out a content sound, its mouth curving into a wicked but satisfied smile. It seemed the shark was happy with its food.

As he continuously fed the shark, he wondered what it truly was. Had the red-haired man created it? Aside from the shark, he also had a whale. Was that bastard from the Raging Wave Sect? Had that bastard somehow modified Tide Walker? Thinking about him irritated Liu Xing, so he stopped and focused on the happy shark, considering the implications of its presence.

"Somehow, I suddenly got a strong treasure," he muttered. Or perhaps a strong pet, to be exact. This shark could swim in the air, swallow an attack and spit it back, and even its body was tough. The shark could easily tank attacks from Han Jiulao.

As he fed the shark, he also felt a connection forming between him and it. It was still weak, as if Liu Xing was barely recognized as its master, but it steadily grew stronger. He suspected that by the end of the day, his connection to the shark would be as strong as his connection with his gun and statues.

He smiled. The shark had come just in time. After all, there were missions he needed to accomplish in this Wild Tide Region, he was currently marked by the Nether Lotus Sect, and Han Jiulao had vowed to hunt and kill him. Liu Xing was strong, but if he was careless, he could die at any moment. So, every bit of help was welcome.

Thinking about future threats, his smile evaporated, replaced by a somber look. He thought about Han Jiulao. While Liu Xing was undoubtedly stronger than him, Han Jiulao was fast and more experienced. He looked young, but appearances were often deceiving in the cultivation world. Han Jiulao was an elder, and a position like that was not something achieved in less than a hundred years or without competence. He didn't know how big the Nether Lotus Sect was, but he doubted the sect gave Han Jiulao that position without merit.

"His teleportation is also troublesome," he muttered, caressing his chin. Han Jiulao had two forms of teleportation. The first was short-range teleportation for combat purposes. It was an annoying ability. Deadly, too, if the opponent didn't have comparable speed. The second was long-range teleportation, and this one was the most troubling. The long-range teleportation was activated using a Teleportation Formation, which meant there was a possibility that everyone in the Nether Lotus Sect could use it. After all, formations were a way to make techniques accessible to everyone.

But after a while, he shook his head. There was no way that everyone in the Nether Lotus Sect could use the Teleportation Formation. Teleportation was expensive. It burned through a lot of resources. One piece of evidence for this was the fact that, to this day, only half of the Wild Tide Region had been subjugated. If they could teleport willy-nilly, there was no way the entire Wild Tide Region could hold out. Also, while he had heard rumors, even the five great sects didn't use teleportation that freely.

While the evidence was circumstantial, it actually held. This meant that the Nether Lotus Sect could not afford teleportation unless its use was necessary. This implies that Han Jiulao was more important than he had initially thought, and the reason was obvious. It was because he could use teleportation in the first place. Han Jiulao had a space affinity, which could mean that using the Teleportation Formation was cheaper for him. Or, perhaps Han Jiulao was the one who actually made Teleportation possible for the Nether Lotus Sect.

This line of thought made him breathe a little easier than before. Although it didn't mean he was free of worry. The immediate thing he needed to do was to rid himself of the mark inside his body. As long as that mark remained, his invisibility's usefulness was diminished, and people could hunt him down easily.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

But, while he wanted to get rid of the mark, it seemed he couldn't do it right here and right now, because the women had already stopped talking and came to a conclusion.

The woman in the blue dress, her cheeks flushed and wet, her eyes still red, took several steps until she arrived right in front of him. Liu Xing stood straight and stared at the woman before him.

"We have decided that we want to go to the place called the Mirrored Tides Empire." She inhaled deeply, clasped her hands, and bowed deeply. "We ask for the esteemed cultivator to bring us there."

Liu Xing sighed. Their decision was... as he had anticipated. All of them had lost their families, so there was no way for them to go home. Their homes were gone. So, the most logical conclusion was for them to move together to a new place.

He didn't know where the Mirrored Tides Empire was located, but he assumed this empire was one that still hadn't been subjugated by the Nether Lotus Sect, or perhaps the home of a strong sect. In normal circumstances, he would have said yes without hesitation, but... he was under quite a time constraint.

"Mirrored Tides Empire, huh?" Liu Xing rubbed his chin. "Before I answer, I need you to answer two questions."

The woman was silent for a moment. The wind blew from the sea—or rather, a lake so vast it could be considered a sea. Then, with a nod, she answered. "Ask away."

"Do you know where Water Tower City is located? And is this city located inside the Mirrored Tides Empire?"

The answers would decide whether Liu Xing would escort all these women there or not. Liu Xing stared at the girl. A fleeting thought occurred to him to cycle his qi and project it, reminding the girl that he was a cultivator so she would answer honestly. But that thought vanished as soon as it came. While he understood that the world was not black and white, he believed people could be honest without the threat of bodily harm.

She inhaled deeply. "I know the location of Water Tower City. As for its location," she hesitated a little bit. "It's not part of the Mirrored Tides Empire."

Liu Xing grimaced. Then he could not bring them to this empire. While bringing these women to safety was important, his mission was equally important to him. This didn't mean he would abandon them. It just meant he could only bring them to another place closer to Water Tower City.

But before he could voice his opinion, the woman continued. "But, Water Tower City is quite close to the Mirrored Tides Empire... in a way."

Liu Xing's eyebrows rose. "What do you mean, in a way?"

The woman looked around, found a stick, and began drawing little circles in the ground between them. Liu Xing observed it for a while, then realized that each of these circles represented an island. She drew more and more; there were circles as small as dots, but then she also drew circles as big as his palm. After almost a minute of drawing and correcting the island locations, she faced Liu Xing once again.

"Esteemed cultivator, do you know why our place was lumped into one and called the Wild Tide Region, despite us not being united at all?"

Liu Xing had some rudimentary knowledge about this whole area that Moon Flower had given him. He knew that this region was generally divided into five parts: north, west, center, east, and south. Right now, he should be in the southern part of the Wild Tide Region, while the mother and baby he needed to deliver the Spirit Flower and the necklace to were in the northern part. However, even though Moon Flower had given him some basic knowledge and the general direction, it was still quite lacking, so he decided to shake his head.

"It's because we have similar characteristics." She began to draw lines in the ground between islands. For a while, he thought they were currents, but after she drew more and more lines, he began to doubt his guess.

He was no expert on navigating the sea; hell, he knew nothing about it, but in the past, he had seen several posts on the internet about sea currents. He remembered the currents of the earth flowed. They circled, merged, and split, and it was all logical. They flowed from one place to another. But the lines the woman drew? They were chaotic. She drew several straight lines, only to abruptly stop and draw horizontal ones. Many lines crossed each other; there were also lines that weren't circular, rectangular, or swirls like whirlpools, but weird shapes akin to amoebas, and more and more shapes. It looked like a too-imaginative kid's drawing. Still, while he couldn't grasp it, he felt these lines were connected somehow.

"Our sea is chaotic," the woman continued, "it's hard to navigate, but it doesn't mean it's impossible." She then pointed to a large island and drew lines around it. But different from before, while it still looked chaotic, there was also symmetry to her drawing. When she stroked a circular flow on the left, she drew it on the right too. When she drew an elegant curve on the right, she drew it on the left too. At this point, Liu Xing realized the name of that big island. "Mirrored Tides Empire."

"Indeed," the girl replied, and she drew a giant swirl, like a whirlpool, to the north of the Mirrored Tides Empire. There were several circles there. One was half as big as his palm, while dozens of little dots scattered around it. The girl pointed to the big island among them. "This is, as far as I know, the place where Water Tower City is located. In my village, I was quite a famous scholar. I know every remarkable city in the entire Wild Tide Region, but this city," she tapped the island where Water Tower City was located, "is in the territory of a sect, and knowledge about cultivators is hard to get."

Liu Xing nodded. This woman seemed knowledgeable, but a mortal would have a hard time learning about cultivators. Still, the focus of his thoughts was not on that, but rather the location of the Mirrored Tides Empire and Water Tower City.

"Where are we currently located? Is it here?" Liu Xing pointed to the place nearest his feet, which was the south of the entire Wild Tide Region map she had drawn.

"We're here," the girl pointed to the right of his foot on the map. If this Wild Tide Region map represented the south pole, then the girl pointed would be Australia. The Mirrored Tides Empire, as well as Water Tower City, were located roughly around where Western Europe would be.

As he looked at this, he frowned. "Didn't you say that Water Tower City was far away from the Mirrored Tides Empire? That distance isn't that far." It looked like the distance between perhaps France and the UK.

"Yes, because to go there, we need to follow this wind and water current." She started from the Mirrored Tides Empire on the map, tracing a line sideways. But instead of moving north, it moved south, where she followed a circle, then into a swirl, and launched off to the side. In this way, she traced quite a long and chaotic line, until finally, she arrived at Water Tower City, and even then, she came from the opposite side of the Mirrored Tides Empire. If this were a world map and that stick were a ship, then that ship would have traveled almost half the world. This made Liu Xing frown more.

"Why do we need to follow the wind currents?" Liu Xing asked. Then, he picked up a nearby stick and drew a straight line from their current location straight toward Water Tower City, not caring even if his line crossed chaotic currents and islands.

The girl blinked several times. "We... we wouldn't go with a ship?"

"Didn't I just carry you from that burning ship using a flying turtle statue?"

"Yes, b-but, isn't that turtle heavy and hard to use? Can it fly that far while carrying us?" She glanced at the straight line he had made.

The truth was, he had never used his turtle to fly that long or that far. But there was no reason he couldn't do it. "Sure, I think it's not a problem."

"Then, you could just... fly straight from the Mirrored Tides Empire to Water Tower City?"

"Indeed," he nodded.

The woman froze for a moment before her eyes shone. "Then, it's not a problem for you to escort us there? We can just fly in a straight line?"

"Well," he pinched his chin. "If we just talked about geography, then sure. That empire and my destination are quite close. In a perfect world, I could escort you all there and then go on my way to Water Tower City. But, while I drew a straight line, I imagine the journey would not be this smooth."

There were still some problems he needed to address before deciding to bring all these women across the Wild Tide Region.

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