“Ohhhh, ahhhh,” Lulu breathed, voice muffled. “Harder! Yes! Just like that. Just… like… that…”
Her masseuse—a youthful woman in the early stages of the Gathering realm—handled Lulu’s vocal enthusiasm with professional aplomb. “Of course, young mistress. This one is gladdened to see their efforts are appreciated.”
Calvin rolled his eyes, not that anyone could see him do so with his face buried in what very well might have been the nicest pillow he’d ever touched. Not only was it unbelievably soft, the down stuffing sourced from spiritual birds that nested on One-Talon Lake, but there was also a formation built into the table beneath it that wicked away excess heat and moisture and kept the pillow at the perfect temperature
You could always trust Lulu to be dramatic.
“Mhmmmmm,” Lulu agreed enthusiastically, her voice sounding like she was a thousand miles away. She was clearly enjoying herself immensely.
Any further thoughts of Lulu were pushed away and Calvin let out a low groan of his own as his masseuse—a slightly older woman with a marginally higher level of Cultivation—found just the right spot on his back and pressed down firmly with the side of her hand. She was clearly experienced in working with cultivators beyond her own level of strength, carefully leveraging her weight and cultivation into a single point such that she could really dig into his back despite him being more than a full major realm ahead of her. Simultaneously she used a technique—a curious mix of fire, wood, and traces of other elements—that relaxed his muscles and sent waves of soothing heat through his back.
For a moment, the dull itch in his bones that had been slowly growing in intensity since he’d drunk the Golden Marrow Tempering Jade Dew elixir receded, chased away by the woman’s technique. It didn’t fade completely, and her qi could only reach the bones nearest to her hand, but a tension Calvin hadn’t realized he was carrying released, his jaw unclenching and his muscles relaxing. His groan transitioned into a sigh of relief and the woman made a pleased sound.
“You are carrying a great deal of tension, young master,” she whispered softly, “No doubt your many duties have weighed heavily on your flesh. This one is just a lowly, ignorant Gatherer, but has heard from your fellows that a healthy spirit inhabits a healthy body.”
“Hmmm,” Calvin made a vague sound of agreement, “Important to be relaxed when you’re cultivating…” he mumbled. She moved her hand down his back and used the technique again, sending a fresh wave of relief that radiated down to his hips. “Ohhhhh––“ he breathed, and faintly heard a snort of amusement from Lulu.
He’d had mixed feelings about Lulu’s evening plans, but he was starting to come around on her way of thinking. The last few days had been extremely stressful and draining, and the three of them deserved some time to relax. It helped that everything was significantly cheaper than he’d been expecting. They’d avoided the most overtly fancy establishments, but even the places only a single step removed felt practically free compared to what he expected from his time at the sect.
A handful of low grade spirit stones––the sort the Sect gave out in its goody bags and wouldn’t even convert into contribution points––had bought them a veritable feast of exotic delicacies, spirit beast meat, and spiritual wine that the three of them had struggled to consume. This place too felt unnaturally cheap, enough so that Calvin had needed to check several nearby locations offering similar services to verify that the price wasn’t some sort of bizarre scam. They’d paid less for the several hours of service from three highly trained Gathering realm experts than he’d spent to simply enter some places staffed primarily by mortals within the sect.
Calvin had always known the sect was practically robbing its disciples, but he’d never realized just how blatantly they were doing so.
Opening one eye, he tilted his head just far enough that he could see a sliver of the room to his right. The private room they’d reserved at the Tranquil Vein Pavilion was dimly lit by the amber glow of several braziers hanging from the ceiling, fragrant smoke drifting down from them to perfume the air. The walls were paneled with geometric shapes of brightly varnished rainbow wood, different tones used to form a mesmerizing pattern that blended seamlessly with the floor where wood transitioned smoothly into polished stone tiles.
Most of the room was taken up by the three cushioned tables on which he, Lulu, and Wallis lay face down, each tended to by one of the pavilion’s attendants. Lulu had of course claimed the central table, with Wallis and him on either side of her. They’d been offered private rooms, but none of them were overly concerned about modesty––nor the pavilion’s secondary services––and a spirit stone saved was a spirit stone earned.
Lulu’s masseuse was hard at work, both hands slowly making their way up one of Lulu’s well-muscled legs with an occasional pause to apply more scented oil. Past her, he could see the third woman carefully kneading Wallis’s broad shoulders, rising up on her tip toes to improve her leverage. More importantly, he could also see the low table on which they’d piled their things, or at least the ones they hadn’t left in their rooms at the Eight Peaks outpost like their provisions, the beast core, and the bag with the cult leader’s severed head. They appeared undisturbed, which was what Calvin had expected but had still wanted to verify for his own peace of mind.
…not that it would have been difficult for a thief capable (or powerful) enough to steal from a small room with six cultivators in it to make the items look as though they had not been disturbed while robbing them blind.
Calvin took a deep breath and buried his face back in the pillow. That was not a productive train of thought, just like assuming that every inquisitive fellow disciple was a senior investigating him to discover his secrets and steal the Scroll.
His masseuse noticed his movement and leaned down, a few strands of her hair falling to tickle his ear. “Is everything alright, young master?” she asked softly.
“Mhm, all good,” he reassured. “That technique feels amazing.”
“Thank you, young master. ’Tis a specialty of our Tranquil Vein Pavilion.” She leaned in closer, her voice gaining a sultry edge and her breath warm against his skin. “If the young master would be amenable, this one is trained in many of its myriad uses.” She trailed a finger along his hip, warmth lingering in its wake.
Calvin could appreciate her attempts to upsell him, but wasn’t interested. “Hmm, perhaps another day. Just the massage for today.”
“Of course, young master,” she agreed quickly, returning to the work she was already being paid to do.
It was nearly morning when the three of them finally left the pavilion, dressed once more in their new secondhand clothes. Lulu walked like her legs were made from firm gelatin, wearing a dreamy smile that was utterly at odds with her usual toothy grins. She leaned heavily on Wallis for support even as he did the same to her, reminding Calvin of the occasions when he sometimes encountered them slowly making their way back to their shared home after a particularly enthusiastic day at the training ground. He doubted he looked any more composed, even in the rather formal black and green robes he was wearing. He felt like a candle that had burned all the way down into a warm puddle of wax, his body propelled forward more by qi and willpower than any conscious flexing of muscles.
The street outside was quiet compared to how it had been the night before, only a handful of cultivators in practical clothing moving with purpose along the dimly lit thoroughfare. Without their sect robes, most people paid them little mind, though Lulu’s new dress––a gaudy pink slip with a plunging neckline embroidered with birds along the hem and most likely intended for someone with less generous proportions––did draw some eyes.
By silent agreement, they meandered through the cultivator district until their feet carried them to a small square where they settled in to watch the sun slowly creep up over the distant city walls. It was a poorer section of the district, though still significantly nicer than the basic accommodations back at the sect, far away from the enormous Eight Peaks outpost and the luxurious buildings that surrounded it. The few cultivators already present in the square wore simple robes unmarked by sect or clan affiliation, and none moved with the fluid grace Calvin had come to expect from those who had stepped into the Foundation realm.
Calvin meditated silently, passively observing the ongoing changes in body and their reflection in his spirit as he cycled his qi. His bones had started to itch the morning after he’d drunk the elixir, the sensation slowly escalating from a faint tingle to an unpleasant pins and needles sensation that set his teeth on edge but thankfully didn’t seem to affect his control of his qi.
It had taken some time to initially notice what exactly was happening, not helped by the fact that nothing had outwardly changed on the Scroll’s front page which he typically used to assess the state of his cultivation, but eventually he’d realized that focusing on the quality of his Physique––which usually showed just the incomprehensible jumble of meaning that was the Blood of Adam––now also had a section devoted to his new Golden Jade Marrow. From there, it had been easy enough to figure out how to observe the change directly, the gradual buildup of qi within his bones as individual particles of marrow were burned away and replaced by golden filigree with the translucent luster of jade.
Slowly, the streets grew busier. Several people attempted to approach them, but a faint flicker of Wallis’s steely aura was enough to dissuade them. Smells of freshly baked bread and food cooking began to perfume the air and Wallis slipped away for several minutes, returning with a tray ladened with three bowls of yogurt and a plate of flakey pastries that smelled of fruit and cheese. Calvin accepted his share of the bounty with a quiet word of thanks, thoroughly mixing the mound of slivered nuts, toasted oats, and diced fruit into the yellow-white yogurt and nibbling at the flakey, cheese-filled golden-brown miniature pie. It was simple food, purely mortal without so much as a drop of qi infused into it, but it was fresh and fragrant and delicious.
A peek at Lulu and Wallis’s bowls showed that his had nearly three times as many nuts as theirs did, and lacked the small, salty fruits he so disliked when paired with yogurt. His lips quirked up into a soft smile. Wallis wasn’t always as loud about it as his partner, but he always knew how to show that he cared.
They lingered there for another hour, meditating and just enjoying each other’s company. Calvin could have sat there longer––they’d found a surprisingly nice bench and while the qi in the air was relatively thin, it was not nearly as overwhelmingly chaotic as it had been along the district’s main roads––and he expected Wallis was of the same opinion, but for as long as Calvin had known her Lulu had never been one for sitting idle. Even ordinary cultivation could be a struggle for her, one of the many reasons she was as enthusiastic about dual cultivating with Wallis as she was. Eventually she began to fidget, then bounce, and finally Wallis pulled her against his side and kissed her on the tip of her nose.
“We’ve eaten, drank, and been massaged,” he remarked. “And Calvin’s upcoming duel does not permit us to overly linger––“
“Not to mention the room fees!” Lulu piped up,
Wallis nodded severely. “Indeed. Paying for two sets of accommodations from the Sect seems ill-advised when one will suffice. That leaves us with just one more task from your list, darling.”
Lulu threw her hands up in the air, bouncing like an exuberant child. “Shopping!” she exclaimed.
“Indeed,” Wallis confirmed, “I do believe that is the one.”
“Shopping in moderation,” Calvin stressed. Spirit stones didn’t grow on trees––unless you counted those you could earn by selling spiritual fruits and flowers––and they were already loaded down with a number of goods they’d taken from the bandits or gathered along the way. In a way he was glad the off-putting altar that the cult leader had tried to summon had sunk back into the pool of blood and vanished with his death, though no doubt that meant it was now hidden in some hidey hole they hadn’t managed to locate just waiting for the wrong person to stumble across it. At least they didn’t need to try and cart it back to the sect, nor was it standing in the middle of what passed for a busy road in Nine-Pine Gulch.
Lulu, ever mature, stuck her tongue out at him.
Calvin raised an eyebrow and she pouted. “I have great self control,” she lied to his face.
Calvin hummed doubtfully. “So I never did ask, what did you spend all those contribution points on that you needed to sell your shares of the Glitter-toothed Snail-shells?” he asked innocently.
Without looking away, Lulu clapped her hand over Wallis’s mouth. “I told you, advancement resources,” she answered quickly.
“What kind of advancement resources?” Calvin probed.
Put on the spot, Lulu scrambled for a good answer, then gave up. “Um, expensive ones?”
“Right.”
Wallis finished prying Lulu’s hand away from his mouth, taking it in both hands and kissing it tenderly. “What Lulu meant to say is that we would of course appreciate your assistance in ensuring we do not waste our meager savings,” Wallis translated.
Unlike within the sect, where Outer Village had one Alchemy Hall, one Array Hall, one Armory Hall, and so on where every disciple went when they were looking for a new pill, talisman, or weapon, here there was a seemingly endless array of competing shops and merchants attempting to fill each and every niche. If you needed a specific item, there was no knowing if it was even for sale, much less where you might find it if it was. You had to search through dozens of locations, sometimes hundreds. Some at least attempted to specialize, a single master and their apprentices producing goods for sale, but if you were really unlucky, you might end up digging through bins and dusty shelves in a general shop where even the proprietor barely knew what they were selling.
It was a very different system, with its own advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes you found what you needed, perhaps even at a bargain price. Sometimes you didn’t find it, but stumbled across a hidden gem you didn’t know you needed. And of course sometimes you spent an eternity searching and didn’t find anything at all.
Calvin found that he quite liked it, though he imagined it would become rather insufferable if there was something he actually urgently needed. Even in just a few hours of shopping, he’d managed to buy a handful of underpriced goods he expected he’d be able to use himself, trade with other disciples, or even turn into the sect for contribution points. Most of what he picked through was garbage, the Scroll assaulting him with a waterfall of Wretched quality assessments, but there were a handful of diamonds in the rough.
He also discovered that it was a very good thing that he’d accompanied Lulu and Wallis, because Lulu had no eye for quality, or perhaps more like a wretched eye for quality.
“Oooooooo,” Lulu breathed, eyeing a beautifully decorated spear displayed behind glass in a refiner’s shop. It was slightly longer than her usual spears, the shaft carved from a dark wood inlaid with lines of silver metal, and the leaf-shaped blade seemed carved from obsidian shot through with blue veins like a drop of dye dispersing in clear water.
“I see the young mistress has a fine eye for quality,” the merchant immediately jumped on her enthusiasm. He’d initially given them the stink eye when they’d come in, probably because they weren’t exactly dressed like the sort of people who could afford his wares, but he’d immediately come around when Calvin and Wallis had simultaneously flared their cultivations, staggering the portly Gathering realm man. “This is the Sky-Piercing Glass Arrow, a true marvel directly from the hands of Master Refiner Mingzhuo.” The merchant wasn’t a refiner himself, but rather someone hired to man the storefront so the refiners could focus on their craft.
Calvin eyed the spear dubiously. “May I?” he asked. It wasn’t really a question.
“Of course, of course.” The glass was quickly slid aside and the man carefully lifted the spear from its stand, reverently presenting it to Calvin.
Calvin took it wordlessly, idly spinning it through a few basic arcs––one couldn’t be friends with Lulu for long without learning how to handle a spear––while focusing on what the Scroll was telling him. The materials themselves were alright; High Mountain Nightsteel Fir, Heavenfire Glass, and Cold Moon Iron, all of Very Low or Extremely Low quality, but the craftsmanship had downgraded the spear to the bottommost edge of Extremely Low. It was a fine decorative piece, but it would shatter like, well, glass, against any serious defensive technique or even just the hide of any marginally durable spirit beast. And to call the maker a master refiner…
He returned the spear to the merchant’s hands, turning to Lulu. “Garbage,” he told her firmly. “Let’s go, that place down the street looked promising.”
The merchant sputtered, but Calvin ignored him, and Wallis helpfully steered Lulu out of the shop after him.
“But it was so pretty…” Lulu whined.
Calvin sighed. “Lulu. You want a spear, not a pointy stick with delusions of grandeur.” And what delusions they were. Five mid-grade spirit stones? For that much you could get an actual Foundation realm weapon back at the sect, one that would serve you well for years. Lulu’s current spear was not only miles better, but it had also been significantly cheaper.
The next shop––Blue Fang Armory––proved to be little better. The craftsmanship left a great deal to be desired, the maker unable to adequately draw out the properties that made the materials well suited for making weapons. They were at best suitable for Gathering realm cultivators to slap each other around, and nothing more. And the prices! After the pleasant surprise that was the cost of dining and entertainment, it was a splash of ice water to see weapons that Calvin wasn’t entirely sure could penetrate his skin go for ludicrous sums of spirit stones.
They went through three more locations in less than half an hour, all reputable shops recommended to them by some of the locals they encountered, before they finally gave up on finding Lulu a new spear. The only thing Calvin had seen worth buying was a Low quality sword the fourth shop had on display, an heirloom of the store’s founder, but it was not for sale at a price any of them could afford, and it wasn’t like any of them actually used swords anyway. Everything else was just terrible.
It was the same story with the handful of technique manuals they encountered. Calvin was not permitted to examine the contents of the manuals, but just touching them was enough to know that the contents were not worth the material they were written on. Shoddy techniques, terrible martial arts, and a handful of self-sabotaging manuals were listed for prices that boggled his mind.
Somewhat demoralized, they returned to the outpost. None of them had come away truly empty handed. In addition to Calvin’s finds, Lulu had purchased a fan made from some rather excellent Silkwing Heron tail feathers whose maker hadn’t managed to overly damage the feathers in the process, as well as a fine length of Warblossom Silk that cost ten contribution points an inch at the sect but she scooped up for a fraction of that price. Wallis too had found a few items he’d asked Calvin to look over, most notably a fragment of a Roc eggshell erroneously labeled as spiritual slate that was a key component for several body-tempering elixirs. Overall however, their shopping trip felt like something of a disappointment.
They were on their way up to their rooms when they encountered Senior Brother Aris, who was standing by a window humming softly. He turned to look at them as they drew closer, eyeing their bags with undisguised curiosity.
Without bothering with a greeting, he gestured at them. “Just souvenirs, or did you find something interesting?” he probed.
Calvin saw no point in lying. Their bags weren’t proof against a Core realm cultivator’s spiritual senses, and nothing they’d purchased was worth all that much to someone like him. “A few things,” he began, but Lulu interrupted him before he could finish. Apparently she’d calmed down a little bit about their senior’s identity in the past few hours.
“All the weapon stores in this city suck,” she exclaimed. “It’s all style with no substance, and they get so offended when you say anything about it.”
Wallis stepped forward, prepared to apologize for Lulu’s lack of tact yet again, but Aris burst out laughing, bending over and leaning against the balustrade as though a Core realm cultivator needed support staying on their feet. “Well yeah,” he exclaimed between peals of laughter, “are you truly surprised?” Calvin frowned and though Aris couldn’t possibly see his face from that angle, he elaborated, “Do you think any truly skilled craftsman would want to stay and live here if they had the option to go somewhere else? And if they do stay, it’s usually because they’re part of one of the sects or clans. They don’t sell the good stuff to outsiders.”
Calvin paused, considering the senior’s words. That…did make sense. At the Eight Peaks sect, no one cared how good the equipment of Foundation Realm Outer disciples was. At the end of the day, they were only in the Foundation realm. You could gather every Outer disciple in the sect together and they wouldn’t be able to scratch any of the sect elders and leadership. But in a city with only a handful of Core realm experts…
He bowed. “I understand, senior brother. Thank you.” Lulu still looked confused, but Wallis was pensive, and the couple echoed his words a moment later.
Aris’s laughter tapered off and he straightened, fixing the three of them with an intense look. “It may have its quirks, but at the end of the day,” he told them, “we are all lucky to be disciples of a Great Sect. Remember that.” And then he turned back to his window, paying them no more attention than the statues that lined the stairwell.
The three of them exchanged glances and then Wallis led the way further up the stairs, silence lingering until they filed into the room Calvin had picked out and closed the door behind them.
“Well,” Wallis began, “this has been a good diversion,” his eyes fell on the sealed bag in which they’d stored the cult leader’s severed head, “but I do believe it's about time to head back to the sect.”
Lulu turned her spear over in her hands, pensively rubbing her thumb back and forth along one of the grooves carved into the wood for grip. “Yeah, I guess.” She sighed glumly. “I thought the markets here were supposed to be something special.”
Calvin gently waved the bag in his hand, several pill bottles and other containers clicking against one another within. “We did find a few things.”
“Boooring things,” Lulu retorted, stretching out the word.
Calvin gave her a sly smile. “I mean, if you don’t want the fan…” he reached for the bag she’d deposited on the floor, only for her to snatch it up and cradle it against her chest like a baby.
“Over my dead body!” she exclaimed angrily. Calvin raised a single eyebrow and she slumped, conceding the point. “Fair enough. Yeah, let’s go. I guess I finally have a reason to go back to Armory Hall.”
Calvin looked down at the bag in his hands, feeling pensive. This mission had not gone as planned. They’d had bad information. He’d made so many mistakes, big and small. But at the end of the day…
He was alright. Lulu and Wallis were fine too. They’d done a great deal of good, saved thousands of lives, and all it had cost them was time, a decent spear, and some pills. He’d learned several important lessons and earned a number of extremely promising rewards. And they certainly weren’t going home empty handed, that was for sure. The Realm Sea Capsule was a heavy weight in one of the inner pockets of his robes, promising a rich bounty of secrets, and the beast core would earn them a hefty number of contribution points even before you considered the rest of their loot and the mission rewards themselves.
There were a lot of things waiting for him back at the sect. Gwen and his upcoming duel weighed heavily on his thoughts, though after the fights he’d engaged in over the past few days it was even harder to feel intimidated by Cao Yunfei. He had rewards to claim from the Scroll and looked forward to truly focusing on refining his cultivation and integrating his new attunement. It was also past time to learn a few more techniques. He also needed to figure out a way to practice using the Nine Gates in combat––a weapon one could only wield under ideal conditions was no weapon at all.
He shrugged off the black and green outer robe he was wearing, carefully setting it down on the bed beside him, and reached for his sect robes. “Back we go.” He sighed heavily. “It feels like it’s been a lot longer than just two weeks.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be waiting around trying to snatch emergency missions as they come in any more,” Wallis confided.
Calvin grimaced. After how this one had gone… “Yeah, that would probably be for the best.”