In the dark of the night, a wide shadow traversed the cold night, jumping from tree to tree until it reached a mountainside and stopped there. The darkness surrounding him receded and two people came into view, one carrying the other.
After searching for over an hour Hao Xuan finally found a relatively safe place. It was a small cave on the side of a mountain, away from the dense forest and high enough that he could get a relatively good view of the surroundings.
He put the unconscious man on the ground, as carefully as he could, and checked his condition.
A sliver of Qi entered the man's body and circulated throughout, painting a clear picture of his internal body in Hao Xuan's mind.
"Three broken bones, minor concussion, several fractures…" Hao Xuan mumbled everything bit by bit.
But he was honestly surprised to see that the damage was only to this extent. This man had absolutely zero cultivation. Hao Xuan also checked his body for tattoos to confirm he wasn't one of those new people that were using the words of power and he was right.
Just an ordinary man, yet he was able to survive a frontal attack from a beast with the same power as an Origin realm warrior. It would be like getting hit head-on by a tank and coming out with superficial wounds.
"Meh whatever, I'll ask him when he wakes up," Hao Xuan didn't want to think about it anymore so he poured a low-level healing potion down his throat and walked back out.
The sky was dark and there was no moon anywhere in sight. An extremely cold gale was rolling in from the left side. Thankfully the cave wasn't facing that direction so it was much better for him.
A layer of thick black clouds covered everything in sight.
Hao Xuan took a step back and waved his hand. A small formation disk appeared in his hand which he threw down at the entrance. A barely discernable blue light came out of the disk and scanned the surroundings before a small illusion appeared above it and blocked the entrance. From outside it just looked like a normal wall-face. No one would be able to tell there was a cave here unless they came looking.
Hao Xuan sat down on the side and took out a large piece of grilled meat. It wasn't hot but still looked appetizing. Using his bare hands to hold it, he opened his mouth and bit down, spilling a few juices on his clothes.
"Baracus, did you get in?" he asked with a full mouth.
*Beep*
"I was only able to bypass the rudimentary defenses, there wasn't enough time for anything else," Baracus replied somewhat disappointedly.
Hao Xuan nodded contently, that was good enough for now.
"Nice, tell me everything."
Back when Hao Xuan was sitting in the hotel on the ship, he had Baracus try to break into their internal network and get as much information as he could along with making a connecting with it personally. Everything was connected to everything else, making a huge information network and having access to it whenever he so desired would definitely give him an upper hand.
Baracus only needed access to a single terminal to slowly get his hands on everything and the hotel's holograms were the terminals he had used this time. Since he had to stay undetected, Baracus had to take extra care and was only able to get the information that would be available to low to mid-level officers on the ship.
"The planet has two moons, completing their orbit in 24 days each. The day and night cycle takes 60 hours in total, with the days currently only lasting for 20 hours or so. The days are also exceptionally hot and nights extra cold. Two extremes."
"There aren't many seasons and the flora and fauna-"
Before Baracus could finish Hao Xuan rudely cut in.
"I don't care about that man, just tell me if there's anything related to the tournament," Hao Xuan muttered lazily.
Baracus seemed to have taken it personally and his tone became quite unfriendly.
"How about I just show you all the files I found and you can judge for yourself whats useful and what isn't?"
"Fine, show me!" Hao Xuan who still hadn't realized the change, accepted. A screen appeared in front of his eyes and one by one different named folders started filling up his view. Within seconds more than several thousand had appeared, cluttering the field of vision.
"Woah woah, stop," Hao Xuan waved his hands, "How many are there in total?"
"37,000 different files and folders, categorized into 150 different groups."
*Cough*Cough*
Hao Xuan couldn't help but choke on the piece of meat he was chewing on.
"And all this is from hacking through the rudimentary firewall?"
"Yes."
"God damn! Alright, well, shorten it up for me yeah? I don't need to every little thing, just what could affect the tournament and me."
After being shown the alternative, Hao Xuan remained quiet and listened to everything Baracus had to say, and he had to say a LOT.
From the local culture, religion, and weather to everything the first few teams had found. Hao Xuan sat there for over eleven hours listening to him non-stop. Baracus only stopped when the sun had come up.
Overnight Hao Xuan became one of the leading experts when it came to this planet. If it was something worth knowing, it had been stuffed into his brain by Baracus.
Hao Xuan's eyes had become weary. If not for his extraordinarily strong soul, there was no way he would have been able to absorb so much information in such a short timeframe.
Hao Xuan looked at the rays of sun piercing through the black clouds.
"Alright, so that means walking city should be coming around in 2 days right?"
"IF we are where we think we are. You need to find a landmark, something that's been recorded in the ship's records. From there I can tell you where the city will pass by since its general direction was recorded in the ship's logs."
"Or," Hao Xuan mumbled turning around, "We could ask where we are when this guy wakes up."
The unconscious man was comfortably huddled up in a fetal position, sucking on his thumb while snoring. There was a small puddle of droll under him.. It looked like he was quite used to sleeping on hard surfaces.
