It was after another three weeks of tutelage from Elder Flower that Jin was standing in the mission room of the middle ring. Well, calling it tutelage was probably an overly enthusiastic way of describing it. They rarely met, and Flower simply directed his training, telling him what to focus on and giving him the opportunities to do so.
That was why he had been focusing almost solely on swordsmanship and cultivation. His enthusiasm for delegating more of his cultivation nodes to physical pursuits was even higher now that he knew the actual reason for such an action. Templating, especially with the innovative combat styles he would be creating, would make him a relatively dangerous fighter even if he never spent nearly as much time or effort on it as the cultivators of a warrior sect.
He was pleased with his progress, and his rising understanding of this world he was now trapped in. Elder Flower similarly didn't have anything to complain about.
Even after getting more exposed to him this past month, she still wanted to take him with her on the trip to the Mad Monks Sect. This was why Jin was in the mission centre. A place that he had originally decided not to visit until the end of his one-year grace period allowed by his promotion to inner disciple. For some or other reason, Flower had told Jin that she would pick him up from here before their departure.
Considering her focus on meeting him where they could remain unseen previously, it was weird why she wanted to showcase their relationship like this now. There must have been some internal sect politics involved in the decision, however he had decided not to get involved and to simply go along with the flow. He wasn't qualified to have an opinion on the matter and even if he did, there wasn't much he could do to change Flower's intended actions when one considered what she was doing for him. He would go down in the sect's social context as ungrateful and no one would help him out of their own volition ever again: Essentially, he was being forced to pick a side, without knowing what side he was picking, or knowing if the reward was worth it.
Such was life.
Regardless of the reason why he was here, Jin was here now. This meant that he could look around.
It was a busy place, perhaps the busiest in the whole inner ring other than the library. Several wooden counters stylized with dragon carvings were set up to face the entrance hall and there were multiple boards stacked full of missions and what seemed to be bounty posters.
There was a constant stream of beige-robed disciples going in and out and talking to the clerks, who were disciples themselves, to register a job or to get their reward in the form of sect points or something else.
As expected, it was the bounty board that had the least disciples standing in front of it. The Illusion Room Sect was not necessarily known for its combat prowess and violent pursuits.
It was thus there that Jin walked to, wanting to see who this world considered to be worthy of having a price on their head.
The general currency of cultivation land was spirit stones, which could also in the sect be exchanged at a ratio of either one spirit stone for 96 sect points, one-third of the yearly upkeep of an inner disciple. Or the other way around, 106 sect points for one spirit stone.
Naturally, the highest bounty, all the way on top of the board, gave the person who succeeded in beheading and proving the death of the Black Immortal Chen Ju, 136,000 spirit stones. This would be enough to set up Jin for life if he only ever wanted to be an inner disciple. It was mentioned on the poster of the youthful-looking man with black hair wearing a black kimono that he was presumably at the nascent soul formation stage and that as a demon cultivator, he might have the combat potential of someone well above that.
It was quite obvious to Jin that everyone higher than halfway up the board was too powerful for him to even bother thinking about. He thus turned his attention downwards where he found that the lower a cultivator's cultivation, the stupider the nickname they would get. For example, Chicken-headed Pig God was an experiment gone loose from one of the more experimental sects. A man with the head of a chicken, he was regularly seen riding on the back of a domesticated wild boar to loot vegetables off different farms. The reward for his capture was set at 15 spirit stones.
Next to the picture of the comical chicken-headed man was a more worrying portrayal of an insane-looking young woman with murder in her eyes. Apparently, she was a Mad Monks Sect outer disciple turned bandit after her cultivation had diverged into insanity.
It turned out, that one of the side effects of fucking up one's opening of mental nodes or certain spells could very well result in harming one's sanity in general. Not something that Jin wanted to mess around with. That was why he was very non-experimental with his cultivation and mostly listened to the advice of his elders. The time for innovation would come someday in the future. Very, very far in the future.
"Thinking of taking a bounty?" a voice suddenly said behind him.
Jin jumped in surprise and twirled around to find Elder Flower leaning against a nearby wall and looking at him with a small smirk.
Not wanting to give the wrong impression, Jin quickly raised his palms in the air and shook his head as rapidly as he could. "I've only been training as a combatant for less than a year. I don't think that this is what's best for me," he said hurriedly.
Elder Flower kicked off from the wall, drawing the looks of some of the other disciples milling around the mission centre. "Well, I think you're at least not an embarrassment now," she glanced at the bounty board. "Chicken-headed Pig God shouldn't be that hard to beat, should he?"
It was after the last few weeks of instruction, that Jin had gotten used to the peculiarities of the Elder's humour. Therefore he knew that she was joking and did not actually plan on throwing him against a dangerous criminal.
"Well, if I face someone with even a bit of training as I am now. I think I'm going to be the pig to the slaughter. Not them," Jin murmured as the two of them slowly removed themselves from the building and the centre of the bustling inner disciple town. Elders were not that uncommon, there was always one of the library after all, but Elder Flower was a special Elder. She was beautiful and had the grace of a warrior, not a scholar. The male disciples couldn't help but glance her way.
It symbolised the male desire for women who could easily break them in half, either physically, or emotionally.
Jin, for his part, was not nearly as masochistic and while he knew that marriages and affairs occurred within the sect, he had been too busy on not getting cast out and making sure his career was on track to focus on such activities. In addition to that, he was now in a different culture and he didn't quite know if he found the way that the natives approached relationships to be attractive.
It was all very transactional.
"Will we be going to the harbour?" Jin asked after they'd walked a bit. The harbour was a designated outpost higher up on the mountain that he had only seen from below since it belonged to the core disciple ring. It was the place where other cultivators could land their flying devices to visit their mountain, and pay for entrance into their scenario libraries. He didn't quite know if this was the case, but he presumed that it was also the designated area from which people generally left the sect if they were to do so with flying. He couldn't imagine they wouldn't fly, as the Mad Monks Sect was quite far away. Far enough at least that they would need several weeks of walking to reach it and that was with their improved cultivator physiques.
"No, we will not be going to the harbour. As an Elder of the sect I can lift off from anywhere," Flower responded. "But before we go, there's something I have to give you," she said. Jin looked at her and waited expectantly as she pulled an entire sword, a real one this time from the leather pouch at her hips. She handed it to him, handle first. It was a simple thing, unadorned and made out of pure bone. It didn't have a cross-guard since it was a jian.
Essentially a long sharp stick. A pointy one.
"I don't think you're quite at the point where you merit a sword," Elder Flower said ruining the moment. "But, as we leave the sect I cannot exclude the possibility that you will at some point have to defend yourself. For that occasion, it is better to be prepared."
Jin nodded and took the sword, looking at it awkwardly since he had not received an appropriate scabbard. Seemingly noticing his confusion, Elder Flower handed him the sort of scabbard popular in cultivation land. Made out of cloth and leather it allowed Jin to strap the sword to his back where he could pull it out over either of his shoulders depending on what kind of situation he was in.
"Thank you, Elder Flower. I shall endeavour to become worthy of it soon," Jin said with a serious nod as he adjusted to the new balance of his body. The sword wasn't overly heavy, but it was different and he was much more aware of his body than he had been in his past life.
"Do try to do that," Elder Flower said, stopping on a bare patch of land now that they'd entered a more empty district and pulled out her own bone-white sword from her scabbard. She dropped it onto the ground where it promptly grew several times in size until it was about as big as a canoe. It floated in the air at the level of her knees and she promptly hopped onto the surface, unafraid that a simple slip could have divested her of a leg.
She gave her disciple an expectant look and Jin awkwardly made his way onto the sword after her. He didn't quite know how much he trusted the stability of this thing. The nimbus cloud, sure, but propelling oneself into the air on the flying sword? That just seemed…
Whatever thoughts and doubts he may have had were obliterated as the sword lifted into the air tip first and rocketed from the grounds of the sect as if they were... on a rocket.
Had there not been some sort of protective enhancements, the initial burst would have surely thrown Jin violently off the vehicle, but for some odd reason, he found his feet firmly rooted on the bone and no wind buffeting his face and hair. This was good, as since the transportation method had edges, he did not necessarily have any place where he could really hold on. Unless he wanted to hold on to Elder Flower, which might just be considered offensive enough that it would have been better to just die instead.
"You're very well acclimated to flying," Elder Flower commented as they burst through the clouds and the world suddenly opened before them.
Jinn was too stunned to answer.
If he thought that the view from the mountain had been amazing, or that the view from his aeroplane trips in his previous life had been comparable, then this blew everything out of the water. The air was fresh, the sky stretched out in front of him endlessly, and the sun turned the few clouds that they flew over into pink cotton candy. The horizon stretched out further than his eye could see, and from this angle, it seemed like the world was much larger than Earth. The curvature was significantly smaller. They continued speeding along until Jin almost forgot Flower's comment. However, he remembered just in time to not be rude.
"The only thing to fear is fear itself, I would have had to fly anyway, and it is better to choose to do so without anxiety," he said calmly. Flower nodded in front of him, her long black hair bobbing up and down. He'd never talked to her from this angle. Jin laughed inwardly.
"Some details of the trip," Flower said after a while.
Jin wondered if she sometimes undertook the trips just to enjoy the scenery. It was a magical moment. He nevertheless listened attentively.
"Warrior sects earn currency through hunting monsters and defending the border when a demon incursion is suspected to occur. Their payment and their prestige depend heavily on their martial prowess. In contrast, we are a commercial sect. We sell a product, of which there is no true intrinsic value like the martial prowess used against demons and beasts. This means that we need to upkeep good diplomatic relationships with as many sects as possible," Flower explained.
Jin noted along. It made sense to him. They were essentially going on a public relations tour in a way. Perhaps the Mad Monks were valued customers, or perhaps his sect was trying to turn them into such.
"Obviously the better we can showcase our competency during this visit, the more likely the Mad Monks are to visit our sect with their disciples to give them combat experience, or to commission Rooms outright. In addition to this, the Mad Monks Sect is one of the sects close to ours geographically. Thus in the event of an attack, be it from demonic cultivators, monsters or demon incursions, we are somewhat reliant on the kindness of our neighbours to survive. Despite our templates and our anima, our combat prowess is not sufficient to be self-sufficient."
"Do martial sects not respect those who do not follow the path of the warrior?" Jin asked. "Is that why it is you who is going?" He had gleaned contextually during his tenure in the middle ring, that Elder Flower was one of the few elders in the sect actually capable of fighting against another elder from a martial sect.
Flower nodded. "It definitely helps. Also being a relatively young beautiful woman is always a plus," she said bluntly, making Jin almost choke on his spit. While Elder Flower was indeed beautiful, her outward appearance wasn't necessarily in his focus whenever he thought about her. After all, she was an authority figure first and foremost.
"I understand," Jin said. "I'll be as diplomatic and polite as possible."
He could see from her hair that the Elder nodded. "It's good that you understand. While you might also be challenged to a sparring match by some of their disciples, accept and lose gracefully. If you can win, of course, do so, but you're neither good enough with a lance, nor with a sword to beat someone who's been training their whole life."
Jin clenched his fists at his side. His combat prowess was increasing at a decent pace in his opinion, but six weeks were obviously no replacement for a lifetime. "I'll do my best Elder Flower."
She threw him a backwards glance at that, her green eyes meeting his. "I'm sure you will, you'll get more opportunities in the future," she muttered. "I think they'll be more impressed with your illusion Room rather than your fighting ability. The focus is to get them invested enough in it to help improve Ornstein. A collaborative project like that will surely help the diplomatic connection we have with their sect. Regardless, these are all worries for tomorrow. My sword is fast, but the mountain of the Mad Monks Sect is still too far away to get there in one day. We'll have to stop to rest at some point."
Jin hummed thoughtfully wondering at what sort of rest station they would be sleeping at. There were countless villages in the empire, each one of them smaller than the next. He didn't know much about Flower, but he felt that as an elder cultivator, despite how much she likely thought of herself as an ascetic, she would still hesitate before sleeping on a pile of straw which was likely the best they would be able to get in a village.
Did that mean that he would get to see a bigger town? He'd never actually done so, only hearing about them. Tales from the capital. His body had belonged to a farmer boy, whose first ascension to a higher status had occurred with the sect. There had been no in-between of visiting cities and earning money as a mortal.
"We will be staying in the village Xaingur. It is one of the villages on the outskirts of the border of influence where we still recruit disciples from. We have a small outpost there. It is commandeered by an inner disciple responsible for our efforts in the region and for providing an outpost either for defence or for sleep for those of us who travel."
Jin had never heard of the village, but that was to be expected with his lack of education. He would have been more surprised if he'd known the place.
"Is serving at an outpost like this a job that I will also be able to take at the mission board later on?" he asked. Perhaps it would be nice to take a break from the sect sometime in the future and maybe talk with someone whose entire life wasn't completely controlled by the wish to become immortal. Cultivators were weird, and not really his people. This was showcased by the fact that he hadn't made a single friend after or before his promotion.
Solitary creatures, cultivators mainly stayed amongst themselves, and even amongst themselves, didn't interact much with each other.
"Yes, it's one of the jobs you can take later on. Generally, it is given to someone who has all the resources necessary to create a scenario anyway, which they can just as much do in one of the outposts. It generally pays enough that for a 10-year stay, one can then be back in the sect for 40 years without having to do another job."
Jin nodded assuming that even from the back she could feel the movement.
The two of them descended into silence after that conversation and it was a few hours later that the sword they were flying on tilted downwards and started homing in through the clouds towards what Jin recognized to be a little village consisting of around 200 farmsteads.
It was the average farming village really. Most houses had a large garden in which they grew vegetables. A pig pen, some cows, goats, chickens, and the entire village was surrounded by rolling hills and flatlands full of what he recognized from the top as rice paddies. The landscape looked plaid.
It was still the early afternoon, which made him wonder why Flower didn't want to do the whole journey in one day. If today represented half, then they could have arrived at the Mad Monks Sect in the evening. Maybe she wanted to arrive there at a certain time? Or fresh from the journey? Or was checking up on the village like this one of her responsibilities as an Elder?
Whatever the case, the scene that he was seeing from up above looked quite idyllic so he didn't particularly mind going there and having a look around. After all, he had been working incredibly hard ever since his promotion back at the sect. He deserved a vacation, even if it was only an afternoon.
"Something is wrong," Elder Flower suddenly said with a harsh voice, causing Jin to perk up from his dreams of taking a walk along the rice paddies and petting a cow or two.
"Huh?" he articulated eloquently.
"There should be people around, but I don't see anyone. Even the animals seem to be mostly inside their pens. This isn't how it's supposed to be. People should be running around, farming, doing something," she explained. Jin refocused his gaze and after a second purview noticed the same thing and also came to the conclusion that something was not quite right. The thing about villages back in the day before everyone worked from home was that they were always bustling. If the people weren't on the fields they should be filling up the streets of their little hamlet. The fact that there was no one outside was incredibly suspicious.
The flying sword changed direction, and where before it had been aimed at landing directly in the middle of the village from where they would have probably walked to wherever their sect outpost was, it was not flying directly towards what looked to be a medieval tower made out of stone on the outskirts. Perhaps made like that so that one could purview the domain from above. The thing grew larger as the flying sword grew nearer, and Jin soon made up a brown blur which actually turned out to be a landing platform probably for exactly what they were about to do.
Elder Flower pulled up the sword, finally initiating the landing sequence and the two of them gently tapped down not a second after the sword landed on a wooden platform extending out from underneath the tower's thatched roof from where they could see all around the village to once again ascertain that no one was out.
They turned towards the structure they just landed on, a large door leading to the top floor of the tower. Elder Flower held a hand over the door, and a small flash of light escaped it and the door knob rattled for a second. She then opened the door, just in time for a sword to be thrust directly at her torso.
Seemingly undeterred, Elder Flower grabbed the weapon by the edge and held onto it, kicking the person who had tried to assault her back into the tower where they landed on their back with a groan.
However, rather than some evil assassin, what the Elder and the disciple found writhing on the floor was a young woman of about 20 years wearing the high-quality beige robes that were emblematic of the Illusion Room Sect.
"Report the situation, disciple Ting," Elder Flower barked.
From that Jin concluded that they had in fact not been attacked by an assassin, but simply by a coward trying to defend themselves. Or maybe this was the normal greeting in cultivation land when one met one's sect members outside of the mountain?
Inner disciple Ting was a small woman with short brown hair twisted in elaborate braids, big expressive green eyes and a terrified expression on her face. She promptly kowtowed on the floor and apologised.
"There's a monster on the loose!" she exclaimed hysterically as an explanation for her actions.
-/-
AN: Ok, this might seem like a completely random subplot now, but I swear it makes sense and we will get back to "designing," video games soon. It's just that what bothered me a lot when I read other video game designer stories it was basically; Make game -> reaction of audience -> make game etc. (You essentially got sick of the game design, which meant you got sick of the story)
So, I'm trying to do more like make game -> reaction -> explore world -> make game etc.