Sapphire Tooth City was by far the largest settlement Calvin had ever seen, dwarfing the likes of Seven-Petal City which they’d passed through along the way. Situated on the shore of One-Talon Lake, only a stone's-throw from the mouth of Twin-Pike River, the city was home to more than a million mortals as well as a significant cultivator population, and its markets flowed with goods—mundane and spiritual alike—from all across Vivid Rainbow Cliffs and its neighboring provinces. A stone wall, ten feet thick and fifty tall, ringed the city, and the ancient defensive formations set within were said to be impervious to attacks beneath the Unity realm when fully activated. Calvin wasn’t sure he believed that particular rumor, but they had certainly set his teeth on edge when he’d passed through them and were a much more serious deterrent than the handful of grizzled Gathering realm guards stationed around the city’s enormous main gates.
Though formally beholden to the rule of the Eight Peaks, the sect typically took a relatively hands-off approach towards the vast majority of settlements within its territory. They maintained an outpost within the city, but it was usually lightly staffed and used primarily for recruitment and as a way to contact the sect in an emergency. The city was even ruled by a City Lord who officially answered to the Provincial Governor in the capital, though it was an open secret that the role always seems to go to someone with extremely close ties to the sect.
Still, as long as no one did anything particularly idiotic, the sect did not interfere with the day-to-day rule of the city, nor with the activities of its cultivators. Calvin likened it to the city being just another Outer Sect disciple, if on a slightly grander scale. As long as everyone paid their dues—taxes—to the sect on time and didn’t cause trouble severe enough that an elder would need to deal with, they were free to go about their business in peace.
Thus, Sapphire Tooth was home to a vast array of minor sects, clans, and schools, as well as a plethora of independent cultivators and even minor branches of more significant powers. The vast majority of the city’s cultivators were in the Gathering realm—most older than the Eight Peaks would accept as disciples—but there was a significant number in the Foundation realm as well, and a tiny handful of the city’s most powerful factions were led by Core realm experts or had such cultivators they could call upon as ancestors.
And where there were cultivators, there were of course businesses that catered to them. Alchemists, refiners, talisman makers, beast tamers, and more numbered in the dozens. Fine restaurants served spirit beast meat and spiritual wines, and auction houses sold rare treasures and valuable manuals. There were tutors and trainers for hire, fine inns with qi-gathering formations, and even an arena where aspiring talents and experienced veterans could show their prowess.
Though it had been late into the evening when they finally reached the city, a steady stream of men, wagons, and beasts of burden continued to flow through the city gates. Thankfully they were not forced to wait as the mortals and occasional cultivators scattered throughout the throng. A guard took one look at their robes and Wallis’s sect token and they were welcomed into the city with open arms before Calvin even had a chance to produce his own identification.
Another guard—this one garbed in finely decorated armor of silk fastened with metal plates and with a flared cultivation in the early stages of the Foundation realm—was only too happy to direct them to the main cultivator district of the city, which was located between the City Lord’s palace and the harbor. He also pointed out the specially marked lanes that existed on every major street in the city and were specifically set aside so cultivators could move at their own speed without accidentally trampling over too many mortals—not that he phrased it quite like that.
By silent agreement, they made their way deeper into the city at a leisurely pace, taking in the sights. Calvin did his best not to gawk too openly, but it was hard not to. The city was like nowhere else he’d ever been, utterly incomparable to Seven-Petal and the small handful of other cities he’d passed through in his life.
The road they followed was wide and paved with great blocks of stone much like those from which the wall around the city was built. It was pale orange in color and shot through with white ripples that reminded him of ocean waves spilling across sand—or at least the handful of such illustrations he’d seen within the sect. Each block was perfectly square, and they were fit together with only a tiny quantity of yellow-gray mortar. Most of the blocks were arrayed such that the ripples ran perpendicular to the main street, but the central path set aside for cultivators had the ripples running parallel with the flow of people. A brief touch identified the stone as Talon Sky Onyx (Sunrise), Wretched quality––a common local export Calvin had heard of but never seen with his own two eyes.
The buildings too were made primarily of stone rather than wood like he was used to, though here there was more variety in color than just the same plain orange and white of the paving stones. They ranged from an intense cerulean blue to a vibrant violet and fiery red, the stone glossy and faintly translucent. Colorful wooden doors, window frames, and brightly glazed ceramic roof tiles brought the whole picture together, transforming the city into something altogether welcoming and familiar to anyone who’d grown up in Vivid Rainbow Cliffs yet distinct enough to be noteworthy and memorable.
And then there were the people.
So. Many. People.
Calvin suddenly understood why Outer Village was called just that, a village, rather than the small city he’d always thought of it as. Apparently he’d just been comparing it to the wrong kind of city. It was one thing to read or be told that a single city had a population in the millions, and a whole different story entirely to see it with your own two eyes. He’d always thought that the village’s streets could become unbelievably packed on big days, but that was nothing compared to the veritable flood of humanity that surrounded them on all sides.
Endless thousands of mortals walked the streets, merchants and laborers and craftsmen and scholars and who knew what else talking and laughing as they went about their business. Most were clearly from the region, with the familiar honey blonde hair, pale eyes, and fair skin tone he saw every day, but plenty more clearly came from further afield. Some he recognized, like the green hair from Yellow River Prairie, while others he couldn’t begin to guess at. One middle-aged woman had hair so red Calvin initially assumed it must have been dyed until he saw the first signs of grey hair lurking amidst her crimson braids. Another mortal––this one a young man dressed in an unfamiliar style––had skin tinted a pale cherry-blossom pink and pure white hair gathered in a top-knot that simply had to be the result of some ancestral bloodline.
The three of them drew their own fair share of stares and whispers as they passed, mortals recognizing their distinctive robes for what they were. Calvin couldn’t help but overhear a number of whispered conversations, some of which made it hard not to laugh.
“Now those are real cultivators. Even the weakest disciples of the great Eight Peaks are equal to the elders of any ordinary sect,” an elderly man murmured to his grandson.
“I’ve heard that at the Eight Peaks sect, even the servants and laborers have the opportunity to become powerful cultivators. Maybe we should try to apply. Imagine that, us, cultivators!” two burly men joked.
“Eight Peaks disciples are so rich, most don’t even carry silver! If you can catch one of their eyes, they always tip in spirit stones!” a blushing young woman in a short dress and apron excitedly informed two others.
They met a number of other cultivators along the way, and each time they too took one look at their sect robes and moved aside to let the three of them pass. It was a surreal experience. One of the groups included what was clearly a person of some significance, a blue-haired young mistress adorned in dazzling jewelry and garbed in a vivid green silk qipao imbued with protective formations. She was escorted by no less than ten cultivators in matching yellow robes bearing an emblem of five overlapping leaves and walked with her nose in the air and disdain in her eyes as though all the world was beneath her.
Calvin had been fully prepared to slip aside and bow his head until she was long gone, survival instincts from his youth rising to the forefront of his mind—noble processions did not stop for the poor and broken in their path—but he didn’t even get the chance to do so. Before he could move the whole group stopped and moved to the very edge of the cultivator path, silently waiting for the three of them to go past before continuing along their way. Wallis acknowledged their actions with a sharp nod of his head which the young mistress answered with a shallow bow, but Calvin was much too shocked to do anything more than silently jog past them.
Things only became more bizarre when they reached the cultivator district, separated from the rest of the city by a low wall dotted with chunks of light crystal that lit up the surrounding streets like beacons. A pair of uniformed guards stood by the open gates, checking everyone who wished to enter the district, but when they saw the three of them they simply waved them through.
If Calvin thought they’d drawn a lot of eyes just passing through the rest of the city, he was utterly unprepared for the attention that fell on them as they passed into the bustling cultivator district. He could barely focus on the splendid buildings—a mix of grand local styles interspersed with the many-leveled pagodas that were ubiquitous in imperial architecture—and vast array of goods on display in carts and shop windows past the stifling weight. The qi around him practically hummed with it, intensifying as more of the crowd turned to see what had drawn their neighbor’s attention, and the faint Core realm aura hovering in the background sharpened with keen interest.
It might have been fine if that was the extent of the local’s interest in them, but that was far from the case. As they passed, merchants called out to them, espousing the quality and superiority of their goods. Greeters entreated them with invitations to their restaurants and drinking houses, claiming to serve this splendid wine or that rare delicacy. A pair of young women in red lace, sheer negligee, and little else leaned out from a window drawn with dark curtains, giggling and waving provocatively till they rounded a corner.
The hubbub continued until they neared the city’s Eight Peaks outpost, a towering monolith of pearlescent white marble, glittering crystal, and a protective formation that very well might live up to the standards the city walls claimed they could. The buildings on either side of it looked tiny and quaint in comparison, looking almost like children hiding in their parent’s shadow, and the broad, polished steps leading up to the entrance were conspicuously free of loiterers or mobile merchant stands.
Calvin’s disciple token grew warm as the three of them ascended the steps, and the great doors marked with the symbol of the Eight Peaks swung silently open before them, revealing a grand, austere hall that vaguely reminded him of the inside of Contribution Hall except utterly devoid of people. Their footsteps echoed loudly as they entered, a formation sweeping over them like an icy breeze that made Calvin’s spirit tingle and his token momentarily release a pulse of qi. A moment later, the formation withdrew and the door closed behind them with a boom, cutting off the outside noise and attention like a butcher’s cleaver.
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Calvin took two steps to the side and promptly collapsed against the wall. He exhaled explosively and slumped down into a crouch, head tilted bonelessly forward. The air was a little warmer than he would have preferred, but the rich, smooth qi in the air felt like balm on his spirit. He inhaled deeply, drawing qi into his nodes and channels through his lungs and skin and brushing away the phantom taint that seemed to cling to him like cobwebs. Trying to cultivate in a busy, enclosed location at the sect like Contribution Hall was mostly useless, requiring far too much effort to filter the noise out from the ambient qi. Just the idea of trying to cultivate out there sounded like a recipe for disaster.
“First time in Sapphire Tooth?” a soft, cultured voice asked from practically right on top of him.
Calvin flinched back, qi flaring, and promptly slammed his head into the wall hard enough to shatter bricks into powder. The marble behind him (Silvervein Marble, Very Low quality) didn’t so much as budge, pain flaring at the point of impact like someone had just clubbed him over the head, and he staggered forward, collapsing onto his hands and knees before he could fully gather himself. He looked up in panic and found a young man sheepishly smiling back down at him, green eyes dancing with amusement.
Calvin blinked once, suddenly registering the man’s grey-blue sect robe, and scrambled to his feet, bowing deeply to the Inner disciple who’d startled him. “Junior greets senior,” he blurted out, mind scrambling for the correct words. “This junior begs forgiveness for his unsightly conduct.”
Though outwardly doing his best to act calm, inwardly he was silently freaking out. He hadn’t noticed anything! Not a footstep, not so much as a hint of qi! One moment the hall had been empty but for the three of them, the next this senior was just there, right on top of him!
The inner disciple waved dismissively. “Eh, don’t worry about it. You’re not the first person to be overwhelmed, and you won’t be the last. We’re not at the sect. If I wanted to see people bowing and scraping, I’d just go outside.” Calvin straightened just in time to see the other cultivator awkwardly rub the back of his neck. “Sorry about sneaking up on you by the way. I didn’t mean to startle you like that.”
Calvin’s response was automatic. “Nothing to forgive, senior. If this junior did not wish to be snuck up on, he would have trained harder.”
That Inner disciple laughed, his voice echoing loudly in the otherwise silent hall. “Oh that’s a good one!” he exclaimed, “Is that senior brother Dami?”
Surprised, Calvin nodded. “Indeed, senior.”
The Inner disciple shook his head ruefully. “That’s not a name I’ve thought of in a while. I’m glad he’s still kicking around. He taught me a good number of tricks back in the day.”
Calvin’s curiosity was piqued. Senior Dami was one of the sect trainers he’d hired using the passes that sometimes showed up in his goody bags, an elderly man stuck in the middle stages of the Foundation realm with a talent for teaching and martial arts that had seen him stay on with the sect long after his official time as a disciple had passed. However, as far as Calvin knew, Dami only ever taught Outer disciples.
He wanted to ask if the other cultivator had risen up from the Outer sect like he himself hoped to do in the future, but hesitated. It seemed like an awkward thing to bring up. His eyes flicked to Lulu and Wallis, who were silently watching the two of them from several steps away. They didn’t look particularly surprised, nor overly frazzled from the journey.
“Um,” Calvin began, nervously shifting his weight, “Senior, if you would excuse my impertinence, what did you mean when I said I was not the first person to be overwhelmed?”
“Huh? Oh, I mean it doesn’t happen every time someone new comes by, but probably every…third time? You probably advanced pretty recently, right? Opened up a few new dantian or meridians maybe? That sort of thing leaves you extra sensitive for a few weeks, and even in a little city like this there’s a lot of noise and unfamiliar cultivators with barely any control of their spirits. You’ll be fine in a couple minutes, and you get used to it.”
“I see, thank you for enlightening this junior, senior.”
“Of course, happy to.” He smiled, white teeth flashing in the sunlight streaming through crystal windows set high in the walls. “Not like there’s much else to do while I’m on duty here. It’s nice to have an excuse to step out of my cultivation chamber.”
Wallis cleared his throat and the two of them both turned to look at him. He froze momentarily under their stares, then began, “Ah, senior brother…”
“Yes?”
“The reaction of the locals, I—“
The senior disciple sighed explosively, covering his eyes with one hand. “I know, right? It’s insufferable.”’
“Um, perhaps I might not have gone quite so far, but—“
“No, no, you have the right of it. You can blame my brothers and sisters for that. It’s been like this for centuries.” He sighed again. “This is your guys' first time in Sapphire Tooth, right?”
They all nodded.
“Well, let me put it like this. Core disciples, well, they’ve got spirit beast mounts and flying boats and fancy movement techniques, right? They can head to Rainbow Caldera or the capital or wherever else for lunch and be back at the sect before dinner. Us Inner disciples though? Or Outer disciples with special dispensations to leave the sect? Where do you think they go when they want to get away for a bit?”
Calvin pictured the maps he’d seen and quickly understood what the senior disciple was saying. The city already had enough cultivators to deal with any low level threats in the surrounding countryside, so disciples out on missions rarely had a reason to pass this way. Instead, they typically only saw Eight Peaks robes when someone with more spirit stones than talent had money to burn and wanted to switch things up from the sect’s typical luxuries.
Calvin groaned.
“Yup. You guys don’t really look like the usual crowd, so I’m going to guess you’re coming back from a mission, right?”
Wallis nodded, “Yes, senior. An emergency in Nine-Pine Gulch.”
He tilted his head to the side. “That’s uh…potential demonic beast, updated to demonic cultivator activity in the region?”
Calvin blinked but Wallis didn’t seem phased. “Yes, senior. The situation had been dealt with and we sent a preliminary report back to the sect from Seven-Petal. We decided to stop in Sapphire Tooth to rest for the night.”
“Perfect. Well, if you plan to do more than rest, I’d suggest ditching the robes.” He paused, looking between the three of them. “…There’s a room with stuff people have abandoned here on the seventh floor, big sign on the door, can’t miss it. Nothing super fancy, but feel free to help yourself. There’s an exit downstairs that leads out to the back of a half-decent alchemy pavilion. Just make sure to bring your tokens with you when you leave. I’ll be upset if I have to let one of you in in the middle of the night, understood?” To punctuate the point he flared his qi and Calvin nearly stumbled when the weight of a rock solid Core realm aura crashed over him like an avalanche. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving Wallis hunched over and Lulu pale as a sheet.
“Understood, senior!” she squeaked, speaking up for the first time.
“Understood!” Calvin and Wallis echoed a half-step behind.
“Perfect,” the Core realm senior was all smiles, as though he couldn’t crush all three of them into paste with a single technique. “There are open rooms for Outer disciples on the third floor, pick any one you like. The first night is free, but each night after is five contribution points. That’s whether or not you actually sleep there. Don’t bother with the kitchen, the servants can’t cook for shit and it’s cheaper to go out into the city or have them bring you something from a nearby restaurant. They will try to cheat you, but I don’t take kindly to people threatening my staff.” He began to turn around, then paused and glanced back at them. “Oh and if anyone gives you too much trouble while you’re in the city, touch your token and call for Senior Brother Aris. I’ll hear you.”
There was a faint ripple of qi, so tiny that Calvin almost thought he’d imagined it, and the Inner disciples—Senior Brother Aris—vanished from the hall. Calvin looked around, but couldn’t see a trace of him anywhere. After a moment, Calvin decided he was probably gone and turned to his friends, only to find Lulu bouncing up and down on her toes like an overstimulated child.
“Lulu?” he asked in concern.
She turned to him, eyes shining. “That was Senior Brother Aris!” she exclaimed.
“Yes?” Calvin asked quizzically.
Lulu barely seemed to hear him, repeating, “That was Senior Brother Aris!” in a louder voice, like that explained everything.
It didn’t.
Calvin turned to Wallis who was looking at Lulu with fond exasperation. “He was one of the top ten rated Outer disciples for nine consecutive years, including the first five after Lulu joined, then swept the tournament and joined the Inner sect as a direct disciple of one of the Hall Masters. It’s a good thing he did when he did, because I think Lulu has a bit of a crush.”
Lulu rounded on him angrily. “That was Senior Brother Aris!”
From all around them, rising from the stone beneath their feet and echoing off the walls, came a familiar voice. “It’s nice to be appreciated, but please don’t go getting in trouble just so I have to come bail you out, okay? I have to submit seventeen different jade slips in triplicate whenever I leave the building for any reason while on duty and it’s a total nightmare.” Lulu’s eyes lit up and she opened her mouth. Before she could say anything however he quickly added, “And I may have forgotten to mention the five-hundred point rescue fee involved.”
Lulu’s jaw snapped shut and Calvin relaxed. Things had briefly sounded much too good to be true. Now that was more like the Eight Peaks sect he knew!
“Did you know there was a Core realm disciple stationed here?” he asked curiously. He hadn’t, though it made sense in hindsight. Seven-Petal City had practically no cultivator population to speak of, so the sect could get away with staffing the small outpost there with a handful of servants. A city with its own Core realm cultivators required a firmer hand.
“Nope,” Wallis shrugged. “Not that it sounds like he’d have been able to help us.” And certainly not for free.
Not knowing what else to say, Calvin shrugged back. “Dinner?” he suggested.
Wallis nodded severely. “Dinner,” he agreed. “But perhaps let’s first go take a look at these abandoned clothes? I believe we could all use something clean to wear if we plan to go out without our sect robes.”
He looked pointedly at Calvin and the very much mortal, if at least reasonably well-fitting clothing hidden under his sect robe. His inner robe had been a total write off, but Carrie’s sister was a seamstress and had been more than happy to adjust the clothes he’d claimed from the cultist’s loot to fit him. Unfortunately, moving at cultivator speeds was not kind on regular clothing.
“...that would probably be for the best,” he admitted. Plus, free things! There was always a chance some rich idiot had left something nice behind without realizing it, right?
Lulu leaned up against Wallis like a cat, slipping under his arm as though she hadn’t moments before been squealing about the Inner disciple. “And then we can go shopping! And drink spirit wine! And get massages! And—“
Wallis silenced her with a kiss that she eagerly returned, turning to press up against his chest and cradle his head in her hands, and Calvin took the opportunity to turn away, looking around the room. Seventh floor, third floor, basement. Now then, if he was trying to design a ridiculously over the top entry chamber, where would he hide the stairs?
QuestionableQuesting!
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