"So this is...what did you say the name was again?"
One of the subdued thieves pushed in front to say, "Bai Tian, it might be surrounded by wilderness but it's a big city because..." He looked left and right before whispering in Hamar's ears, "There's a cultivator, and a strong one at that"
Hamar stroked his long white beard, "thank you" he pondered as he looked at the city from the outside. He was just nearing the city, he could see, hear and even smell the bustling street market.
He stopped firmly in the middle of a step, causing those following him to stumble before looking to each other.
Hamar thought for a moment then decided. He looked within himself and activated a special connection he had.
Suddenly the dragon spoke within Hamar's mind, "Connecting with the main body? I...I do remember this vaguely..."
Hamar nodded and sent a response to the dragon mentally, "Did you sense anything while I'm connecting?"
"No..."
"Too bad, at least the connection is still open. Without this connection I wouldn't be able to use laws."
Hamar stopped talking to the dragon and continued with what he was doing. He had a special connection with Hou's body in order to use laws from that main body as his own.
In this case he was planning to send out a stream of invisible space laws as a harmless beacon, hopefully gaining the attention of that cultivator in this town.
He sensed the space laws and thought to himself, "Ripple". He was creating a certain intention as to how the space laws would act upon the world.
Then he simply beamed them I to the sky and waited. For a few moments nothing happened and the thieves following Hamar began to become restless.
Bang!
Then suddenly, the ground in front of Hamar puffed up. Snow and dirt shot away and as it cleared a man could be seen.
He wore a pure white robe and held his hands together, "Fellow cultivator, how I failed to see your approaching! Greetings,"
Hamar smiled as he thought to himself, "hah, cultivator...if only he knew the truth..." He pushed aside his mocking and put his fists together.
"Greetings, I actually have some thieves here who want to repent and work for free. This one knows some qi arts too. I was wondering whether you would take them?"
"Of course fellow cultivator, if you would let me," he held out his hand and then flicked his wrist. A few needles flew through the air and landed into each of the thieves necks.
"If any of you misbehave this technique will instantly kill you, so behave. You got it!?"
The thieves broke out into a cold sweat and dropped to the floor. They all submitted easily, a QI master is nothing on average to a cultivator.
Hamar slightly flinched at home quick it was, stroking his beard he thought, "I never saw anything since I was in the sect but...mortals, and even qi masters, are nothing to cultivators"
Almost as if he knew what Hamar was thinking the other cultivator laughed and spoke, "Leave now and go to the guards station now!" He turned to Hamar, "a QI master really thought he could steal from you, ha! Their superficial control over laws with QI is nothing to us"
Hamar chuckled, "It is so, absorbing laws like a real cultivator is the true way...Anyway, we haven't introduced ourselves. My name is Hamar, nice to meet you"
"Hamar...an unusual name. My name is Xuan Yu, just a lone cultivator. If you have the time, how about having some tea with me?"
Hamar shook his head, "I will be busy for a few days, tea then?"
"Perfect! Break this when you're free!" After throwing a jade slip towards Hamar he disappeared again.
He caught the jade slip and inspected it, feeling the density of laws in it. He used his intuition to look into the slip and inspect what its mechanics were roughly.
As he was doing so the dragon perked up again, "A method of using space laws for coordination, inspection, and...hmm. It's an almost purely space law creation, how fanciful!"
Hamar smiled and shook his head, "Does it seem safe to carry? Even just a portion of Hou is better at laws than me..."
"Of course, you're not a cultivator! I wouldn't expect you to be proficient in laws. It's already good enough that using your connection you can use laws without your aura disrupting it all."
"I guess so...so? Is it safe?"
"Oh, yes. It does have some tracking features but if you place it on your body, and surround it with aura it should block it all."
Hamar raised his eyebrows and shoved the jade slip into his robes. He summoned up the flowing energy that was growing within his body, surrounding the slip.
Instantly, he felt something as the connection was broken. As he knew, aura and laws were incompatible, they could counter each other.
Hamar walked into town and after some talking, he was able to get a room in an inn, in exchange for special ingredients Hamar had been given before he set off from the sect.
He sat down on his bed and began looking at his resources. He had not brought much with him and was actually quite poor, luckily he could transact with laws with other cultivators. But conversely he couldn't do the same with mortals and to an extent qi masters.
He discarded the thought about resources, it was a problem he could solve when he was having tea with that cultivator, before that he had another problem.
Hamar crossed his legs and inspected his body. Unlike cultivators he did not have laws instead he had a mysterious energy called aura.
Hamar recalled something Hou had told him before he was missing and split, "As a swordsman using techniques foreign to this world, the Dao will reject you. Your aura is reaching a maximum, you will need to compress it to form the next level of aura. While you are doing this, the Dao will try to stop the foreign 'aura' from forming. Be careful when it happens, I'll help if need be"
Hamar looked up, "If only you were here to help...let's hope if it goes wrong that cultivator will notice"
He cracked his neck and began moving his aura, circulating it around his body and then creating a core. He recalled a technique of creating 'cores' to store many laws, mental energy etc.
His plan was to use this same technique but apply it to aura, creating a huge core of aura; therefore allowing more aura to go where the core is not.
"Without any help, this sounds like what Hou was describing..."