"One of the masters is at the door waiting for you; hurry up; I want to go back to sleep," his roommate said irritably.
Tristan got up and went to his door.
He saw a woman around 40 years old, with brown hair and eyes, wearing a brown sash wrapped around her body.
"Master Sheng." Tristan made a respectful bow.
"Why did you call for me?"
"The sect leader wants to speak with you!" she replied in her usual severe tone.
He frowned, wondering what someone as busy as the sect leader wanted with him.
"Oh, alright." He headed to the third floor of the sect, where the leader resided.
He knocked on the door and said, "Disciple Dusk reporting, I heard the sect leader was calling for me."
"You may enter," a voice said from the other side of the door.
When Tristan entered, he saw several familiar faces.
'Ning, Mei, Ximu, and Jaeng, this again?'
"I don't know what they said about me this time, but I didn't do anything, I didn't break any rules this week."
Tristan thought this was yet another attempt by his peers to get him expelled from the sect.
Sitting behind a desk was an old man with long gray hair and beard. He coughed a little and said:
"That's not why I called you here; no one reported you this time. I called you to discuss a matter. Please, have a seat," the old man said in a gentle tone.
"We received a request from the city lord. A group of magical beasts was spotted nearby, and it seems they may be planning an attack, so we're assembling a group to assist the guards of Zaguhan."
"We'll be sending the disciples of the Third Dao, and you of the Second will be sent as a support group."
"What kind of beasts are these?" Xiao Mei asked.
"The information we received mentioned some kind of bear, but it seems to be a rare type of beast, so we don't have much information."
Ximu, a young man who appeared to be in his mid-teens, asked:
"Are the other sects participating in this too?"
"Yes, but each sect is being sent to a different region, so you may not encounter them."
Jaeng, the third boy in the group, asked the sect leader worriedly:
"Are we only being sent to the walls? What about the people outside the city center? Will they be left unprotected?"
The sect leader's expression turned serious, and he sighed: "The letter we received only said to protect the walls."
Jaeng clenched his knee, and an irritated expression appeared on his face.
Tristan looked at his group. It seemed the sect leader had gathered the best disciples of the Second Dao who were available.
"Those three must still be incapacitated."
A memory came to Tristan's mind. He was in the sect's dining hall, his left eye swollen, and he had a terrible headache from a blow he had received. He was completely exhausted, and only his anger and determination kept him standing. His hands were stained with blood; fortunately, it wasn't his.
In front of him, three disciples lay on the ground with multiple cuts on their bodies. They wore red sashes and were slightly older than the other disciples present.
Several tables, chairs, and cups were broken, their pieces scattered everywhere. Even one of the chopsticks they used to eat could be seen lodged in one of the youths' ears.
The other disciples looked at him in horror.
"It can't be."
"He managed to defeat the seniors alone!"
"That can't be human! He must be a beast in disguise."
Several youths began to whisper around him.
But they backed away when the adults arrived.
Feng, Sheng, and other masters came to the dining hall to see what was going on.
'Damn!' Tristan thought.
Most of the masters were furious with him.
"What did you do?" Master Feng Ling shouted at him.
'That was very dangerous. If it weren't for Master Sheng, I probably would have been killed right there.' He thought at the end of the memory.
'Now, I'm going to meet the disciples of the Third Flying Dao; I hope I don't have problems again.'
After the explanations, the sect leader took the young disciples to meet the members of the Third Dao. They wore blue sashes, and most of them were in their early twenties.
Leaving the mountain where the Flying Sword Sect was located, Tristan, along with the group of Second and Third Flying Dao disciples, headed toward the walls.
The journey was relatively quiet for Tristan; the older disciples ignored the younger group, and the others in the Second Dao didn't seem to be close to each other.
As they passed through the center of Zaguhan, Tristan looked around again.
He saw the large, elegant houses in the ancient oriental style, mostly made of reddish wood, but the largest houses were made of darker wood. Most residences had two or three floors, but some had as many as seven, indicating that the families living there had a higher level of nobility.
The city's streets were made of round yellow stones.
Tristan observed a group of six people carrying a small cloth cabin supported by two wooden poles. He decided to call them "the carriers." They were usually people from outside the city center who had the luck to get this job of transporting nobles who didn't want to tire themselves walking through this hilly region. The center of Zaguhan was extremely clean and bright; the nobles didn't want animals dirtying the place, so they preferred to use people.
He remembered when he first entered the city center; he was surprised not to find any dogs, cats, rats, or horses here. Only flying animals and insects, which were very difficult to kill, could be seen in this place.
After two hours, they reached the end of the city center. Tristan saw a tall red wooden wall over 50 meters high and a gate nearly 3 meters tall being guarded by soldiers.