"Whew, looks like everything's been handled."
"H-Ha, what were you all acting nervous, for? How unbecoming!"
"You were the one shaking the most!"
The young masters hugging Long Meiling's proverbial thighs all started to relax, the tension they felt before melting away now that the immediate threat was gone.
Long Meiling just looked at them and scoffed. This really was typical behavior for these hangers-on.
More importantly... What was the identity of that mortal who wasn't a mortal? She looked off in the distance where the giant Red Viper had fallen, watching as Ryker gracelessly struggled to pull himself from out of its mouth.
Not to mention his abnormal physical ability, he seemed to have a multitude of strange techniques.
However, he didn't have the bearing of an expert at all. If it weren't for his fighting prowess, she would think he was an ordinary commoner.
But would an ordinary commoner be able to face such danger as carelessly as him?
Lost as she was in her thoughts, she didn't notice Ryker walking up to her with a hand raised in greeting.
"Hey, uh... Long...?" Ryker trailed off, raising his left arm in front of him and checking the screen that popped up, "Long Meiling? Is that whole thing your name, or should I just call you Long?"
She gave him a sideways glance as his uninformed question brought her back to reality. A foreigner, then, if his name didn't make it obvious enough.
"Family name Long, given name Meiling. Is your name just Ryker?" she asked, crossing her arms. It was a strange name she had never heard before; from just how far away had he come?
"Ah, no, it's Ryker Hartavia. I guess Hartavia would be my family name," he said with a grin, "I saw you guys struggling, so just thought I'd help out. You all right?"
"Hm."
She ignored his question, simply pointing to his arm.
"What was that screen of light you were just looking at?"
"Oh, this?"
Ryker held up his arm, his holoscreen flashing to life.
"It's my holoscreen. It, uh, shows me stuff I need to know? Guessing you don't have these here, it's kinda hard to explain what it does..."
At this time, Long Meiling's soldiers had settled enough to begin dismantling all the Red Viper's they killed, including the giant one felled by Ryker. The captain ran up to report, falling to one knee with his hands together in salute.
"Young miss, it's good to see you are unharmed," he said, "The fang of the giant Red Viper should be more than enough for the Marrow Cleansing Pill you need!"
Long Meiling looked to Ryker as the report was made, pondering her next move. Should she start a connection with this mysterious stranger? Eventually, she turned to him and spoke.
"You were the one who felled that beast. Are you willing to give me its fangs?"
"Oh, uh, sure," Ryker said, "Not like I need it, anyways!"
With his admission, Long Meiling nodded at the guard captain, who gave another fist-in-palm salute and hurried back to his fellows to help with the dismantling.
Long Meiling, herself, simply turned and walked away without sparing him a second glance.
"Oh. Okay then. You're welcome."
Ryker just scratched his head awkwardly. His task might be harder to complete than he thought...
As for Long Meiling, she was honestly very curious about this man. But, since he obviously lacked the etiquette and bearing of the upper class, it wouldn't do to be seen as too close to him; her station as a daughter of one of the Five Grand Dukes wouldn't allow it.
But he was still an expert on par with several Foundation Establishment cultivators, and at such a young age; he couldn't have been much older than her.
She would have to find some other way to unravel his mysteries...
"If you're lost, you may follow us back to town when we depart," she called back over her shoulder, as if he was just an afterthought.
Ryker was left to stand there with a blank look on his face.
--
The rest of the cleanup went uneventfully, Long Meiling's guards gathering many useful materials from the slain Red Vipers. Although they didn't do much, the guards begrudgingly gave the young masters one fang each to thank them for acting as body shields, at least.
During this time, Ryker struck it up admirably with the young masters, surprisingly enough. After their initial misunderstanding that he was Luo Shuchang was resolved, the young nobles were much more amiable, especially when they considered that he'd shown such strength and had quite possibly saved their lives.
"Brother Ryker, your staff technique was amazing! I've never seen anything quite like it," one of them espoused, a skinny, square-jawed young man named Xue Chonglin.
"Right, and your strength and speed were extraordinary, even without using any Qi. Are you perhaps a body cultivator?" another asked, this one a burly man with a round baby-face, Gang Fei.
"Idiot, who could do body tempering to such a level? Brother Ryker probably has a secret technique to greatly enhance his physique!" yet another young master, a rotund fatty named Zhong Lei, exclaimed, "You must be considered a great talent where you come from, yes?"
"Haha, well, it was nothing much, you know?" Ryker said with a wide, smug grin. He scratched his head in embarrassment from all the praise; these young masters were really too good at boot-licking!
The guards finished the dismantling while the young masters asked Ryker all sorts of questions, like where he came from and where he learned his mysterious techniques. For his part, Ryker enjoyed all the attention and answered the questions truthfully.
None of them had never heard of a place called 'Greyson Shores', however.
Eventually, a beeping in Ryker's ears signaled that the translation routine was about to shut down. He quickly explained how Mini C was translating everything they were saying for him, much to their curiosity.
They chalked it up to be another of his 'mysterious techniques'. Even after the translation ended, though, they were still able to horse around.
The trek back to town, a place called Yuliang City, Ryker learned, was also uneventful, though he was able to show off his hunting skills by throwing rocks at small demon beasts. The young masters would clap and cheer every time he bagged one, even pointing out ones they spotted to him and trying to emulate his stone-throwing themselves, to little success.
Long Meiling simply glanced back at their antics every now and then, silently formulating a plan to stay in contact with Ryker while still maintaining an appropriate distance.
After a few hours of hiking, hunting, and a quick stop for some lunch, the group finally arrived at the city gates, bypassing the line of people waiting to get in by virtue of Long Meiling's presence. The soldiers guarding the gate bowed respectfully as they went through.
"Wow. This place is very, uh, 'antique'," Ryker commented as they walked into the city proper.
Both mortals and cultivators walked the macadam paved roads, the buildings constructed with elegantly painted wood and glazed roof tiles. Vendors of all kinds lined the streets, hawking their wares to whoever would stop to take a look.
Besides the various foods and trinkets, there were also people selling cultivation tools and artifacts, though he had no way of knowing what those were. He was looking over the stock of one vendor selling weapons and armor at a wooden stand when he felt a tapping on his shoulder, and he turned to see Long Meiling's guard captain saluting him respectfully.
He looked between them and the guard captain going in the opposite direction and shrugged again, waving goodbye to his new acquaintances and continuing to tail the guard captain. Since he had no way of communicating at the moment, he may as well follow obediently.
The two of them eventually arrived at an inn, the colorful paint of the building standing out against the more subdued tones of its neighbors. Ryker followed the captain inside, where an attendant walked up to greet them.
"Hm," Ryker cocked his head to the side, shrugging once more before going inside to make himself comfortable.
"Well, might as well start charging Mini C's compad," Ryker said to himself, once he was settled in.
He took out the Communications Pad, or compad for short, from out of his bag, as well as its charging dock, which was a bulky-looking hunk of metal that had a rectangular indent in which the compad would fit into.
Laying the compad on the dock, he grasped both ends of it and closed his eyes as he exhaled.
Soon enough, faint, swirling tendrils of misty red light were manifested and pulled in from the surrounding air towards his arms, flowing down to his hands and into the charging dock. After a few minutes of this, the compad's screen came back to life, the calming blue backdrop glowing pleasantly in the dimly lit room.
[Mana charge back within operable margin,] Mini C stated, his face popping up on screen, [Good to see you haven't gotten yourself killed while I was sleeping.]
{Bwaaah! I thought I was a goner!!!} the Friend System avatar blurted out, gasping for air(?).
{Why did you limit my energy intake so much?! If I don't get enough I'll really die, you know!?}
[I would rather you cease existing than tap into my emergency reserves.]
{So mean!!!}
Ryker laughed at their exchange, continuing to pour mana into the compad charger.
"Hehe, don't worry, Mini C wouldn't really do that to you," he assured, "Well, not unless you *really* tick him off."
{Eep!}
At this point, the system's avatar popped up onto the compad screen with a pleading look on its face.
{Please, have mercy! I swear, I won't try anything funny, just please don't expunge me!} the little avatat begged, tears streaming down its face.
"Alright, alright," Ryker said to calm her down, stretching out on the bed to find a more comfortable position, "So? What should we call you?"
{Huh? Um, well, I just finished training not too long ago, so I don't really have a name...}
"I see..."
Ryker rubbed his chin in thought, before his eyes lit up with an idea.
"Ah! How about 'Bestie'?"
{Bestie?}
The little avatar tilted its head quizzically. Ryker just nodded, a satisfied smile on his face.
"Yeah, cuz you're the friend system. So you're Bestie, like best friend," he explained.
{Hm... Okay! I like it!}
The newly christened 'Bestie' gleefully bounced around the compad's screen, while Mini C, who had been in the background analyzing, slowly walked forward.
[So, have you put any thought into what your next steps might be?] he asked, ignoring the celebrating Bestie beside him.
"Uh, not really? They set me up with this free room, so we shouldn't be doing too bad, right?" Ryker said, shrugging his shoulders casually.
"We'll just play it cool and see how things go, haha."
[Not to rain on your parade, but we are still in an entirely unknown situation, with no idea on how we might return home.]
"Oh, yeah... I guess there was that."
{Hey now, that's not important!} Bestie suddenly interjected, {We gotta get you started on the path of cultivation!}
Ryker rubbed his chin, tilting his head to the side in confusion.
"Cultivation...? What, like cultivating vegetables?"