Once all of the prisoners were loaded into wagons and we had gathered everything of value from the bandits, we set out. Everyone that had joined the attack got one prisoner along with their cut of the bandit’s belongings, and the ones that were part of my group had gotten two. We didn’t quite have enough bandits to cover this, but with five of the people dying those that survived had received their slave. While technically all of the bandits would be sold once we got to the city and the money split, with the people from my group getting two shares and the people from Ji Bo’s group getting one, the men had someone they could boss around for now, in case they didn’t want to do menial tasks. Technically the Bandit Leader belonged to me, but I had let the Ambassador keep him and ordered him to protect the Ambassador with his life, obey everything the Ambassador ordered, and not harm anyone in the caravan. After giving him a proper weapon and letting him wear his old armor, he became a second bodyguard. That took some of the pressure off of me so that I could focus on keeping an eye out for further enemies.
We had taken all of the goods that the bandits had on them, and found enough camping supplies that the bandits could share tents. Jiang also got one of the tents and sleeping skins, though she had carefully used the cleaning technique on them after receiving them, as bandits aren’t known for their cleanliness. The rest of the supplies and weapons were placed in the wagons to be sold, the money split among the fighters, Jiang, and the Ambassador, as they had helped with the medical treatment. I had the level three bow and a quiver with seven level two and three level three earth arrows in it. The bow contained an enchantment to slightly curve the trajectory of the arrows, which increased its accuracy, and the arrows all had flint arrow heads and wrapped themselves in earth qi so that they were harder to deflect, essentially increasing the penetration if they made it through the target’s armor. I would need to have it repaired once we got to the city, but it would make a nice gift for someone once I returned to Earth.
Before setting off I had imbued more energy into the one of the jade slips I brought from Earth, bringing it up to middle level one, the minimum standard for petty techniques. This gave me a petty grade copy of The Early Cultivator’s Guide that I could share with the locals. I then loaned that and my high grade copy of the Manual Laborer’s Path to the prisoners. None of the mortals had been captured, so I didn’t need to teach anyone to cultivate, but I wanted to make sure that they at least had the basic knowledge they would need. The Manual Laborer’s Path had instructions for how to do many physical activities, like lifting heavy objects and mining properly. It also had various body cultivation techniques, including methods for recovering from physical exhaustion faster and methods for refining the parts that were the most exhausted. All of those things would benefit them while making them better miners so that they could more easily make their daily quota.
We set off again and, other than a few mimic ravens, spirit birds that could mimic sounds better than a parrot and use simple illusions to hide themselves, which tried to steal food from us in the afternoon, we didn’t run into any other spirit creatures or bandits before we reached the caves near sunset. After a brief discussion we decided to keep going. The first village was only an hour away, so Ji Bo wanted to stay there for the night.
The cave entrance was an opening three meters high and five wide, with a stream against the right wall. “Everyone.” Ji Bo called out, “Keep your eyes open. There are many animals that live in the cave system, and it’s pretty dark in here.”
“Prepare your stun talismans.” I said. “Collect any spirit beasts you can, but don’t put yourself at risk.”
Ji Bo nodded. “Right. Spirit beasts are worth a bit of money, so collect them if you can, but don’t risk your lives to do it.”
“How much?” asked one man, and the others gave him an annoyed look for asking. Ji Bo looked at me.
“Depends on the level and strength of the bloodline.” I responded. “Half as much as a book? If you think of weak bloods as Petty quality, half bloods as Average, strong bloods as High and pure bloods as Master, and pure bloods with legendary bloodlines as Heavenly, it lines up pretty closely. Of course, you pay at least twice that to buy them, and the price goes up if they are rare and down a bit if they are common or not very useful, but…” I paused for a second to think. “Say you catch a weak blood at level one. On average you’ll get half a stone for it selling it to a vendor. A half blood, though, will be worth two to three stones.”
Ji Bo nodded. “That’s pretty close to what we pay for livestock animals, but we are pretty much getting them for half price because they are so common.” The rest of the men seemed confused while I was talking, but now that he verified it they nodded their heads. “Just remember that part of the reason we got the stun talismans was so that we could capture spirit beasts for mister Li, so all of the ones we capture on this trip belong to him.” They looked a bit disappointed at this.
“Well, I don’t need the weak bloods,” I said, “so how about we sell any of them that we capture and I split the profit for any you catch 50/50? I’ll keep the half and above bloods, and if you want to keep a weak blood for yourself I’ll do the contract for free and not charge for the slight loss.” The men nodded their heads and seemed to like this. They were only weak bloods, worth half a stone each, so I didn’t mind losing them.
Once I was finished we ate a quick meal then returned to the wagons. The walls and ceiling sparkled slightly, reflecting the light of our talismans back to us from the tiny bits of quartz in them. According to Ji Bo, thousands of years ago, when the cave formed, this had been a spirit stone mine. Now, however, all of the stones near this entrance had been mined out, leaving only the ones near the exit which weren’t charged with qi, and therefore of much lower quality. Having qi inside of the quartz reinforced it, after all, as well as made it recharge faster and to a higher level without breaking.
We followed the one to four meter wide river north for almost a li before we heard howling coming from a side passage. “Coyotes.” called Ji Bo, and everyone looked towards the sound, preparing the stun talisman if they had one. The ones on the dead men had been redistributed to the living, so few of them lacked a talisman.
The wagons stopped and a few seconds later a dozen pairs of glowing eyes shined in the darkness, then came running for us. Bolts of lightning flew out as they ran at us and we heard multiple yelps as the glowing eyes fell to the ground and closed. More sets of eyes appeared and more lightning bolts flew out towards them, lighting up the source for a split second each time. A few of them got close enough for the talismans to light them up properly, but within ten seconds from when they revealed themselves all of the coyotes were defeated, with none of the people in the caravan being attacked, much less hurt.
Once we were sure there were no more coyotes incoming we went over to where the group had fallen. Only one of them looked really abnormal, the rest only being a brown and black speckled color that blended in with the walls fairly well. This one had bits of quartz in its fir, coating some of its hairs, making them stiff. Its fangs and claws also had a coating of quartz on them. “One half blood stone coyote.” I said, then pulled out a hemp bag the size of a flour sack. I started using the servant contract on them and shoving them in the bag. The half blood went into my main bag, but the others went into the hemp bag. I ended up collecting thirty three weak bloods. By the end I was getting a headache from all of the contracts. Seventeen of the men wanted to keep one as a pet, so I transferred several of the contracts to other people in the caravan. After that the headache went away.
Fifteen minutes later we ran into a group of bats. They were also knocked out quickly, but because the swarm was so much larger I caught three half bloods and a strong blood, which all went into my main bag. They seemed to have some sort of sonic attack, because seven of the people from our group had been effected. Six of the people had vomited from the attack and one had burst ear drums, requiring a level one Sensory Organ pill to fix them.
Some of the men were interested in the half and strong blood bats, but none of them were interested in the weak bloods. Some of them said they would think about buying the others from me and we started towards the valley again. I used the swarm control contract to gather the sixty seven weak bloods and put them in a separate bag, which went into the back of the main wagon along with the coyote bag.
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By this point the quartz density in the walls had increased to the point where there were stones large enough to hold an entire stone worth of qi or more, but the qi density had dropped to around Earth levels, so there was no point in mining the stones here. I and the Ambassador knew that these stones would hold enough of a charge to be used as currency if they were brought out the other end of the cave and allowed to recharge, but they likely couldn’t hold much more than that. The stones that were brought here from Earth were near their limit in this environment, and some of the smokey quartz that had been dropped off at the base to act as a deposit had already started to crack. While that didn’t lower the amount it could store at the same pressure by much, it made the blocks recharge and discharge rates slow significantly as it disrupted the flow of qi within the block. Something similar would likely happen if these stones were taken out of the cave.
Ten minutes later, with the caravan only seeing a few small spirit mice and not coming under attack again, we reached the end of the cave. There the end had been filled in with rock and a type of mortar similar to roman concrete. There was a large gate, slightly wider than a wagon, made of thick level two wood. The door’s workmanship appeared to be low quality, however, as the boards were roughly hewn and there were thin gaps around the two doors. The surface, however, showed several scratches from claws but no damage more substantial than that. “Not the best craftsmanship.” I commented.
“It was likely made by mortals using level one tools. Even with late or peak level one tools a mortal would find it difficult to properly cut level two wood.” Some of the boards were middle level two and some were late, but all of them were level two.
I nodded. “I assume this door is here to keep the spirit beasts in the cave from exiting.” I pointed to the scratches on the door, then to the crude grating that had been built in the river, where a cement bottom and top had been added and the femurs of various spirit beasts had been set in the roman concrete to block them from exiting.
“Yes.” he answered. “The locals can barely handle level one beasts using daoist magic and level one weapons made from the bones of their former kills. If a level two managed to escape they would have no choice but to call in cultivators from the outside. Maybe they would get lucky and a caravan would be willing to handle the beast for them, but most likely they would need to hire someone from High River or Crystal Summit, which are days away. This would be both expensive and give the beast enough time to kill many people. For that reason they went to the other side of the cave and collected level two trees, risking being attacked by the beasts in the cave while carrying the lumber back to here so that they could build these doors. Judging by the scratches, they have already stopped a few level two beasts from leaving.” As tough as this wood was, it was unlikely that a level one beast could have made those marks.
I slid a bolt that prevented the doors from being pushed open, a twenty centimeter thick pole made from a level three branch, and opened the doors for them, and the wagons started through. The qi pressure in the air dropped significantly when I opened them, feeling more like it did when I was ten or eleven on Earth, far weaker than even the current Earth. I waited until everyone had passed through the gate and left the cave as well, closing the doors behind me and sliding the bolt into place. From the weight I could tell that these doors would take two large muscular mortals or a level one cultivator that was enhancing their strength to move them, weighing several tons each. This was most likely a measure to keep the beasts from being able to push them open.
On the outside I noticed that there was a stone paved road leading to a village about two li away which had a palisade wall. There was a camping area here, but we decided to go to the village. I decided to run behind the carts to stretch a bit. After all, I could run the one and a half kilometers without even breaking a sweat. Running a marathon might make me do so, but I wasn’t going to try that tonight.
This village was similar to the ones on the outside, having a wall around it made of level one trees, but unlike those villages they didn’t have level one or two guards at the gate. Instead they did like the poorer villages and had trained martial artists guard the gates. “Welcome, cultivator travelers.” One of the guards said. “I assume you are a trade caravan heading to Crystal Summit?”
Ji Bo got out of the wagon and walked up to them. “Yes indeed. Is there an entrance fee?”
The guard shook his head. “Only if you cause trouble. Then you’ll have to pay for the damages, or if its bad enough you’ll need to hunt monsters for the mayor. There is a group of dead near the mountains in an old graveyard, and they occasionally attack people living or traveling on the outskirts, and cultivators are a good match for them. Occasionally we have a priest or monk that comes through the area and cleans them up, but not often enough.”
“Dead? Do you mean human spirits?” asked Ji Bo.
The guard shrugged. “Sometimes, though those usually stick to the graveyard or wander the plains around the full moon. The biggest problem are the corpses. They move around during the day and roam further from the cemetery than the spirits. Many of the corpses are even animals that wandered into the area to look for food. There’s a guy in the village that lost a leg to a wolf corpse. Almost bled to death before the doctor could get to him.” Outside of the valley, corpses usually only reanimated if a demonic cultivator was turning them into a corpse puppet. Here, however, it seemed to be a natural phenomenon, much like the formation of human spirits.
“In that case, we’ll behave ourselves.” said Ji Bo.
The Guard nodded and started to open the gate. “Oh, just a reminder.” he said. “Don’t think of us as a mortal village. Think of us more like a low level sect. You might be stronger than us, and the village only has three people at level one, but know that if you cause trouble like the last group of cultivators to come through here even the level threes will have a tough time.”
Ji Bo nodded. “I’ll make sure that my men behave themselves.”
Inside the village we found an open area and parked the wagons. Some of the men took the animals into the barn beside the field and arranged for them to be cared for. Once everyone had stepped far enough away from the area, Ji Bo pulled out a set of flags and stuck them between the stones on the ground. A weak level one barrier appeared around the wagons, then seemed to disappear. “That should warn us if anyone unauthorized gets near the wagons.” he said. “So make sure none of you set it off. Only myself and a few guards are allowed to enter the area without setting it off.”
The men nodded and Ji Bo started walking towards the inn across the street. I stayed long enough to look at the flags. They appeared to be a simple alarm spell judging by the formation on them, and based on the energy drain the flags were level two and had enough qi for the formation to last more than a day. Ji Bo would need to recharge them in the morning, but for now it should allow the guards to protect our belongings.
I followed the group to an inn. Most of us were standing around out front, so I stood with them. Ji Bo was already inside, getting rooms for us, and a minute later came outside and handed me a room key. “This place doesn’t have that many rooms, but I got rooms for myself, you, the Ambassador, Ji Wan, and some of the higher ranked guards.” He then stood on a nearby barrel to address the crowd. “Okay, people, listen up. There are three more places to stay in town besides here. Across the street, beside the barn, is a bunkhouse. That’s where the prisoners will stay. If you go down the road beside this inn, about a fifth of a li down the road is another inn. The rooms aren’t as nice, but they have a lot of them. And if you go down this main road, about half a li from here is a brothel. If you want to hire some companionship for the night, we won’t pay for it, but the women will let you spend the night with them. Ji Wan will be taking the prisoners across the street to the bunk house to get them set up, so you’ll have a few minutes to decide what you want to do. After that, a group of you can head down the street to arrange your own accommodations, and Ji Wan will lead the rest of you to the other inn to get you all rooms.”
The comfort women all quickly found one of the men in the group to spend the night with, the level two talking with Ji Wan before he left and the two level ones talking to late level two guards. Apparently they would prefer to stay here in the nice inn instead of in the lower quality inn down the street. I was also pretty sure that their contracts required them to ‘train’ one man per day, and that they got bonuses for going over that number, so this might just be a way to fulfill their contractual obligations and get a nice room out of it as well.
I was about to go inside when Jiang walked over to me. “Hey, Kev, do you mind if I stay in your room tonight?”
“Want another lesson?” I asked, and she shrugged.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind getting in a bit more training, but mostly I just don’t want to be the only woman in the low end inn. I’m not sure I can trust these men not to try anything.”
I nodded and handed her the key Ji Bo gave me. It was carved from level one bone for durability and had a number seven painted on it. “Sure. I’ll come up in a little bit. I want to talk to a few locals before going to bed.” She nodded and thanked me, then took the key and went inside.
