Velers was a city very unlike Abastra. From the distance, Amon could already see the luster of the huge granite walls that surrounded it. It was also larger, looking like it was at least twice the size of Hell’s Keeper City. A few spirit vessels could be seen landing and departing the city nonstop, carrying people or goods.
He had no idea where all that granite came from, as so far as he could tell there were no quarries around the rolling hills and plains he passed by on his way east from Abastra. Still, he wouldn’t be surprised if all that rock had been transported with spirit vessels. Velers was, after all, a city majorly built by cultivators.
Velers was one of the ancient Rift Cities, and as such, it had been built around one of the many spatial rifts that plagued the world. Amon wasn’t sure of the inner working involved, but he knew the ones in the Central Continent were managed in a different way than the ones in the other continents. Maybe it had to do with the cities existing before the Abyss Sect, while the other cardinal sects had long taken control of their continent when they were established.
Either way, it was Amon’s first time visiting one such city, and was the first time he visited anything related to cultivators that wasn’t influenced by the Abyss Sect. He took a look at his tattered clothes but didn’t mind them much. He had been running for a couple of days already, and it was only expected his appearance wouldn’t be acceptable at all.
He ran his hand through his shaved head, feeling the short and stiff strands of what remained of his hair. He didn’t have spare clothes, and he didn’t really have any gold coins that he could use for trading common items and looking like that he would for sure draw attention if he took out the wind crystals he had to pay his passage through the rift.
He looked at his left ring finger, adorned by what looked like an old and rusty iron ring. He gave a long sigh, and almost unconsciously his expression hardened. He absolutely didn’t want to, but he found little choice in this matter.
“Are you there?” He asked in a monotone.
“Yes,” she answered lightly.
“I need access to the ring, I need to know what is inside.”
“I’d be glad to tell-”
“No,” he unceremoniously interrupted her. “Give me full control over it, it is way past the time for that.”
What answered him was but a sigh, as he felt something brushing past his divine sense and reaching for his head. A string of runes appeared on his mind, one by one as if someone was writing them directly on his memory.
“Just focus on those runes and send some qi to the ring, you should be able to use it,” her bitter tone didn’t go unnoticed before her voice faded away, but it did go unheeded.
In truth, Amon didn’t know what to do about their situation. He had decided to keep her around because she could be an asset, but even listening to her voice made his stomach churn. He had been doing all he could to avoid her entirely, but he knew it wouldn’t last forever.
Shaking his head and clearing his thoughts, he focused on the runes she hand imprinted on his memory and carefully sent a small stream of qi into the ring on his finger. At that moment, he felt a slight tug on his divine sense, and following the tug, he directed his divine sense to the ring.
He suddenly felt his senses expanding, almost as if his consciousness had been taken to another place entirely. He was surrounded by a dark nothingness that seemed to be boundless, yet he could still feel its boundaries. Amon estimated the space would be around one hundred cubic meters total. He found it strange that he could sense the entirety of the space with his weak divine sense, but it felt like the space itself was voluntarily revealing itself to him, as if it was a feature.
Scattered around the space were many different piles of items, seemingly locked in place as some of them looked like to be floating, standing still at different heights. He could see a pile of colorful clothes, although none seemed to be extravagant, and next to it what looked like a collection of manuscripts, all battered and yellowed.
On the other side of the space, in all colors, shapes, and states, dozens of weapons and battle gear lied thrown in the corner of the space, as if they were worth nothing, having been collected for the sake of it. Most were dented or even completely broken, be it an emerald-green shield split in half, a cracked silver spearhead, connected to a shattered ocean-blue shaft, fragments of what looked like a black sword or many, many sets of damaged armor.
Battle spoils? Amon grew curious, and suddenly the origins of Windhowler became that much more jarring. It was a middle-grade artifact in its nascent stage, which means it hadn’t even been properly used before, with no qi pathways carved in it, much less being tempered by the qi that would flow into it when imbued. Was the sword just a spare Alexei Vine had bought, or was it taken from the fresh corpse of someone that hadn’t even had the opportunity to use it for more than a few weeks at most? Was it a young cultivator? Had Alexei been young and weak when he took it or had he just butchered someone that couldn’t even properly defend themselves facing the might of his later years?
Amon suddenly grew uneasy, but soon enough another wave of apathy hit him. It wasn’t the time for this. He scrounged through the space, sensing every bottle of what looked like varying medicine, jade tablets and various trinkets that he could find, until he finally came to a small pile of glowing crystals, shining with various colors, accompanied by a handful of gold coins with different shapes and sizes, like pocket change that had been forgotten.
He ignored them for the moment, as he believed they could be of use later. Instead, he focused on the pile of clothes, rummaging through them, and trying to find something that fit him and didn’t look too shabby. He eventually set for a blue robe and a new pair of boots, since all the running he had been making almost ruined the ones he was wearing. They looked to be a size larger than what fit him, but he could just stuff the boots and fold the sleeves and the pants.
With his divine sense, however, he could feel it standing there, in the middle of the space. Sheathed in the black and silver sheath he had found it in, the red gem in its guard glowing weakly, almost as if begging for his attention.
Without paying it, and her, any mind, Amon wrapped his divine sense around the clothes of choice and withdrew his divine sense. As he returned to himself, he saw the new clothes he had chosen on his left hand as if they had been there all the time.
He quickly stripped his tattered clothes and threw them to the side after checking if no one was around. He stuck his hands in his bottomless pouch and retrieved a waterskin, which he promptly emptied over his head, cleaning all the dirt and sweat that had stuck to his body.
When he felt his appearance was decent enough, he put on the new clothes. As he donned the loose blue robe, however, it tightened around his body. With Amon’s sharp vision he could see the space between the strands of fabric shrinking as the strands came closer together.
Rich people sure have convenient stuff, he thought, surprised. The robe was still a bit loose, but it didn’t look too big now. The leather boots, however, didn’t shrink one bit, so Amon stuffed them with a few strips of his old clothes.
Finding his appearance now presentable enough to not draw too much attention to himself if he used a few elemental crystals, he resumed his walk to the city. As the granite walls grew in his vision, a small line of people drew his attention in front of the city gates. Very unlike Abastra, the city gates were made with a lustrous black metal, and he could see from the distance the golden runes of an array formation dancing on them. The gates were at least six meters tall and five meters wide, being cracked open just enough to allow passage for one person at a time. He calmly took his place at the end of the line, looking at the sky and the eventual spirit vessel flying above him.
“What is your business in the city, kid?” A guard donning black robes asked him when it was Amon’s turn.
“I’m taking the rift to Erlon.” Amon answered calmly, putting on a polite smile.
“Can you pay for it?” The guard raised a brow, looking at Amon from head to toe.
“Just barely, my master gave me enough. For my way back I’ll have to work, though,” Amon gave a wry smile.
“I see. Well, if you make any kind of trouble we’ll toss you in jail. If you wanna use the rift just follow the main road and enter the golden building, it’s where you can apply to join a group.”
“A group?” Amon was taken aback.
“Didn’t your master tell you? Opening and closing those things are hard. They are only opened when a group of fifteen is formed counting both sides of the rift, so you have to pay up and wait to be called. Could take anywhere from one hour to two days, so be prepared.”
“I see, thanks.” Amon gave the man a small bow and crossed the gates, taking a deep breath.
The view that presented itself to him was a bit surprising. Instead of the somewhat scenic view of Hell’s Keeper City, the outskirts of Velers were made almost entirely of stone buildings, giving the city a very sad grey tone. Its streets, however, were all paved, so Amon doubted he would ever have a problem with mud the same way he had with Abastra.
As he slowly approached the center of the city, however, his opinion changed. The one-storied houses and stores started to get higher and larger as he walked, eventually turning into five-storied behemoths. The material seemed to slowly change too, going from plain grey rock to all sorts of colors. The buildings now had windows and showcases framed in gold and jade, and all of the buildings were inscribed with array formations, although Amon couldn’t tell what exactly they were for.
The people changed too. From hunched beggars and plain-looking mortals, cultivators using donning all sorts of different robes and even what looked like mortal nobles, covered in gold and jewelry from head to toe seemed to pop up from every corner. Though those nobles walked like gods between the common folk, in front of cultivators they acted quite meekly. Most of them were, after all, quite weak themselves.
Kingdoms with nobles that cultivated were very rare, as the more powerful cultivation manual and techniques belonged to the cardinal sects, and entering those meant forfeiting all bloodline rights, and leaking the techniques to outsiders usually meant death. Not only that, but cultivation resources like elemental crystals were also all managed by the respective cardinal sects, making it quite hard for independent organizations to raise powerful cultivators without paying a huge price.
If anything, the mortal kingdoms and smaller sects were just a piece of the puzzle that comprised the influence of the cardinal sects. If there was a cultivation dynasty anywhere, those were the cardinal sects, at least for anywhere but the Central Continent. The Abyss Sect being established only relatively recently, and its initial refusal to manage the Central Continent like the other sects did in order to avoid conflict with established powers showed just how far behind it would be in comparison to the other cardinal sects when put in a tough spot.
Shrugging over his faraway thoughts, Amon arrived in front of a two-storied building lined with gold. It wasn’t as tall or as wide as other buildings he passed by, but the glimmer it gave under the sunlight was more than enough to make it draw attention.
This should be it, he thought as he walked through the open doors. What he saw was not much different from the exchange center in the Northern Junction, it was a wide hall with glossy white tiles, with a wide counter opposite to the entrance and a dozen clerks wearing yellow uniforms attending to a few lines.
“I want to enter the rift.” Amon didn’t waste time when it was his turn.
“Three low-grade elemental crystals of any kind, give us a name and take a token,” the clerk attending him looked bored out of his mind, not even sparing Amon a proper glance.
“Liam Wander,” Amon didn’t bat an eye, reaching for his bottomless pouch and retrieving the wind crystals he had as he gave a made-up name.
“When the token shines, just come back here and show it, they’ll let you in the rift,” the clerk swiped a golden, shield-shaped token over a ball of light behind the counter and passed it over to Amon after checking the elemental crystals.
“Any chance it will be a short wait?”
“Well, you are in luck, we have about seven people here and six on Erlon, so it shouldn’t take too long to form a group.”
Amon kept the token in his robe, thanked the clerk, and promptly left, wondering what to do as he waited.
Why Liam? he asked himself, a bit perplexed. He had thought of many names to use, but Liam had escaped his lips without him realizing it.
Whatever, next time I’ll just go with something different anyway, he decided. He could feel it churning inside him the more he thought about it, he could feel another wave of apathy forming. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself out of that trail of thought. His mood was about to turn sour, but he would rather have it that way than risk being taken over by that apathy and what it meant.
He unconsciously rubbed a finger on his left hand, as it was turning itchy. An itch he promptly threw to the back of his mind. It wasn’t worth thinking about it, it would only bring him pain and sorrow. It was better left alone, ignored for as long as possible.
