had seen since he arrived in this world. All he had seen of the capital
were parts of the inside of the castle and some trees, he saw nothing
of the actual city before he was so rudely dragged out and discarded to
die. Therefore, he had no idea what to expect.
The small towns and
villages looked mostly like basic medieval places, only with
craftsmanship and construction on an entirely different level due to the
aid of the [System].
Luxendorf was wild mix of different styles of architecture.
The farther into the city Sebastian got, the more amazed he was.
Many buildings looked fairly normal, like something you
would see in old European cities with stone or brick walls and detailed
facades, while others were fantastical towers of steel and glass with
gold detailing. Almost no building was less than 5 stories tall whereas
some—especially in the distance toward the city center—were actual
skyscrapers, although with a clear sprinkle of medieval architecture.
They were far taller than the wall surrounding the city, obscured from
view from the outside by the magical fog that was nowhere to be seen
from the inside.
As he ambled through he city, he came across one building
in particular which wasn’t even truly a building, it was the corpse of a
massive monster fashioned by magic into the shape of a building.
Massive scales adorned the exterior wall and what looked like veins
pulsed with magic to give the illusion that the beast was still alive.
Its mouth was open at ground level and an archway of sharp teeth formed
the doorway with about a dozen eyes used as windows. Sebastian found it
to be a tad too macabre for his taste but this was the hub for most of
the country’s monster trade so it was thematically appropriate if
nothing else.
Having had his fill of exploration and sight-seeing, he
looked around for anything that might point him toward the underbelly of
the city. Luxendorf was large, but it was also fairly easy to maneuver.
The only issue was that it didn’t exactly have signs leading the way to
the nearest smuggler.
Deciding that his chances of finding the
unsavory sort he would need to secure passage over the border—given the
illegality of it—would be far greater outside the main streets,
Sebastian actively sought out quiet alleys leading toward the outskirts
of the city.
The number of people wandering around gradually lowered the farther away from the more populated center he got.
Surprisingly soon, after he ventured off the beaten path, his idea paid off.
He was stopped by two men blocking his path forward, and a
third jumped out behind him from some hiding spot that Sebastian hadn’t
even noticed.
“What do we have here, boys, a lost little tourist come
to offer his belongings to us,” said one of them as the others laughed
menacingly.
“How generous of him,” responded another before pulling
out a knife which he pointed at Sebastian. “Fork over your bag.
Otherwise, this might have to get ugly.”
Sebastian had actively been looking for trouble, but he
was still unnerved when faced with the reality of it. He still didn’t
know what level to expect them to be, after all.
He took a deep breath, pushed his nerves down and prepared for a fight.
He activated his [Mind’s Eye] and focused entirely on the
muggers. For the first time, he realized that he could actually
sense—to some extent, at least—the pressure from their essence radiating
from their bodies, much like he did with the cepids.
While he didn’t have much to compare with, the pressure felt so weak that he didn’t feel threatened at all.
“No,” Sebastian answered calmly, now confident that he
could handle them with his current cultivation and the sheer strength
and durability of his body.
“No? You think you get to say no?” said the obvious
leader of the three. “Hand it over, or we take it, and hurt you in the
process, badly.” He had an obviously deliberate wild look in his eyes.
Sebastian’s brows furrowed, genuine confusion displayed
on his face. “Is this really a thing here? I mean, unless you have some
Inspection Skill, anyone you meet might be… well, basically a god.
Someone capable of killing you with the flick of a wrist, right?”
“Oh, alright, tough guy.” The leader of the thugs
scoffed. “Gut him!” he ordered while gesturing with his head to the man
next to him.
The thug did as told and rushed forward, stabbing at
Sebastian. He moved pretty fast, so Sebastian suspected that he was
somewhere around level 15 and was probably using some Skill. It
definitely was not enough.
Sebastian took a small step to the left to evade the
blade and threw a back-handed fist, hitting specifically, and directly,
the tip of his chin from the side. The thug’s head spun to the side
violently and practically bounced back the other way, rocking his brain
like a can of paint in a shaker. He collapsed, like a puppet with its
strings clipped. His two friends froze and stared, their eyes bulging
and mouths wide open. As the man tried to stand back up, he failed
utterly and just tumbled around, dizzy beyond belief, as if he had spun
around at top speed for several minutes.
The leader recovered from the shock quickly. He charged
toward Sebastian, and his raised fist suddenly combusted into a ball of
flames as he shouted, “FIRE FIST!”
Sebastian’s [Mind’s Eye] allowed for a spatial awareness
that let him know exactly where the fiery fist was and where it was
going. He took a step forward, and he ducked under the incoming ball of
flame. In the same motion, he threw a straight punch to the thug’s face.
The hit was strong enough to break bone and make the thug fold over
backward. He flew back and rolled several times over before he finally
stopped.
Sebastian dashed up to the third and last one who was
still standing behind him, in shock over their poor judgment of their
target. The man didn’t even have time to react until Sebastian’s fist
was inches away from his liver. When the punch connected, the man lifted
off his feet. When he came back down, he fell to his knees and emptied
his stomach on the floor.
The leader surprised Sebastian by getting back up, in
spite of the broken jaw and other injuries from the tumble. But as soon
as Sebastian took a single step in his direction he threw his hands up.
“Wow, man. We’re sowy. We didn’t know. We’ll just go, OK!” His voice
trembled and the swelling, the blood, and the new angle of his mouth
made it difficult to articulate, but Sebastian understood him just fine.
Although it was a small encounter, and was resolved
easily, it was quite cathartic for Sebastian to feel his current
strength against actual opponents.
“Why the hurry? I have a few questions for you.”
***
Sebastian followed the instructions of
his three new friends toward a shadier part of the city. They had
actually been surprisingly helpful when he asked about how and where to
find someone he could hire to smuggle him over the border.
He had his suspicions that they might have intended to
bring him somewhere where they could get some help in ganging up on him,
but he hoped that they were just willing to help since the disparity in
their strength was made clear. And that it was clear that he was there
for a purpose. Either way, he felt confident that even if he couldn’t
beat an entire gang single-handedly, at the very least he should be able
to survive and escape. Knowing that he would be able to see it coming
beforehand with his [Mind’s Eye] certainly helped his confidence.
As he walked, he gradually noticed that the buildings
became less and less flashy. He had entered a neighborhood that was
clearly lower class. It was especially obvious based on how they were
almost hidden away. Here, that feeling of physically being in the
uncanny valley that had assaulted Sebastian’s mind closer to the city
center had slowly settled down. Everything here was still
extraordinarily well-made but there was also a layer of imperfection—a
coating of realness—which covered each surface and every person around.
Soon he reached The Greased Knee. It was the bar where
the muggers claimed he could find a smuggler. It seemed like a mix
between a traditional Irish pub combined with your run-of-the-mill
dive-bar.
As he walked in there was a moment where everyone inside
stopped and turned to look at him before completely ignoring him and
continuing on with whatever they were doing.
The bar was dimly lit with the warm, amber glow of
lanterns powered by pulsing magic which provided plenty of shadows which
hid many of the patrons who weren’t up and about. Some were just
drinking their sorrows away while others were playing various games.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Sebastian found himself confused for a fraction of a
second where his mind expected them to be playing pool and darts before
realizing that those games may not exist in this world. Instead they
seemed to be playing some sort of games similar to table shuffleboard,
he made no efforts to try to actually understand how the game worked.
He remained on edge as he approached the bartender since he still wasn’t sure if the muggers had a gang waiting for him or not.
Sebastian leaned against the counter and spoke to the
weathered bartender. “Hi there. I’m in need of certain… services, and I
was told I could find someone here who could help.”
“Sorry sir, we don’t provide those kinds of services
here. I’d suggest you try the brothel a few streets over for that,” the
bartender answered without so much as looking up from the glass he was
wiping clean.
“Wait, what?” Sebastian was caught off guard by the
answer. It took him a few seconds to understand the implication. “No,
no, no, not those kinds of services. I need to cross the border, and
heard I could find someone here who could help.”
“I see,” said the bartender as he fixed his eyes on
Sebastian for a moment, likely using some Skill. He grunted before
returning his eyes to the glass he was cleaning. “Crossing the border is
risky, and risky means expensive.”
“That’s fine, I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
“Well, there are a few in that line of work who I might
be able to reach out to, for a fee of course. 20 Gold, 25 if you’re in a
hurry.”
Sebastian took out 30 gold coins from his bag and slid them across the counter. “The sooner the better.”
“I’ll ask around, come back in few hours.” The bartender casually grabbed the gold.
Having, hopefully, completed his first step toward securing passage over the border, Sebastian left the bar.
For a while he just wandered, and people-watched. This
neighborhood wasn’t quite as outwardly shady as he had expected. Before
he arrived there was a slight concern that he would find himself in the heart of some criminal empire, although that might just have been his
own biases talking. Instead of being surrounded by magical gangsters
looking to hurt him, he found himself surrounded by people drudging
about with looks of resignation and exhaustion in their eyes.
He knew that there were clear social classes here, but
for some reason—probably naivety—he thought that those differences were
focused on those who lived inside the cities and those who wanted to live inside the cities.
It was clear as day, however, that any such notion was just an illusion.
This city, and the kingdom at large, was unbelievably
beautiful. Everything was made by superhumanly skilled craftsmen aided
by divine intervention to a degree where it felt utterly unnatural, but
people… People could be truly ugly on the inside no matter how much
magic was involved.
The more Sebastian learned about the cities, the customs,
the laws, and the Kingdom of Lumeria in general, the more intense his
disdain for this kingdom grew.
After a few hours in the city, he was more than ready to
leave this country and hopefully settle down in Calindor, where he could
train and cultivate in peace.
At this point he felt that maybe he was deluding himself
that the Calindor Federation would be the solution to all his problems,
but he didn’t question it.
He needed to hold on to something and delusion would certainly do the trick.
When he returned to the bar, the bartender noticed him as soon as he walked through the door.
“You’re back.”
“I am, and hoping for good news.”
The bartender leaned his elbows on the counter. “I don’t
know about good—crossing the border rarely is—but yes, I did find
someone willing to help, for a steep price of course.”
“Of course.”
“Go to the old chapel on 121st St. tomorrow at dawn. Tell them Reeve sent you.”
Sebastian stored the information away, grateful and
hopeful that everything would go as smoothly as this part had gone.
“Sounds good. Is there a good inn or some place I could find a room for
the night nearby?”
“Try the Blue Bell, it’s on the way.”
He thanked the helpful bartender and went on his way. The
outskirts of the city were something of a maze, unlike the city center,
so it took him some searching before he found the inn. Regardless, he
got there at a decent time.
The room cost him 5 Gold, more than 100 times as much as
he paid for a room in Blackoak, which hurt his pride quite severely,
but he already knew that prices were much higher here, so he endured.
He settled in to his room—a room that was quite similar
in quality to the one back in Blackoak in spite of the inflated price.
Sebastian lay down on the bed and checked on his current Status.
System status
Name: Sebastian Moore
Level: 26
Skills
- ★Mind's Eye
Cultivation status
Name: Sebastian Moore
Cultivation method
- Earthen Cultivation Art
Cultivation stage
- Essence Consolidation
- → Minor stage: Middle
Physical cultivation stage
- Leather
Titles
- Blessed
- Sole Cultivator
Talent
- Akashic Connection
Techniques
- ★Spirit Union
While a great deal of his time during the past month was
spent learning his new Technique, he had still made sure to cultivate
daily during the journey here. Even with diligent daily cultivation, he
had still only climbed two levels. The manual was right, [Essence
Consolidation] was where the true grind began.
This cultivation business is truly a long endeavor.