Avery hovered in the sky far above his target, unsure as to what he should do. He was floating in the air, looking down upon the first sign of civilization he had found, a strange village set in the mountainside. Surrounded by hundreds of small irregular fields, following the irregular shape of the landscape, tiny hamlets and huts nestled among the bushes and trees, it had a certain rustic charm.
It was quite an odd settlement, strangely orderly and symmetrical despite the primitive building materials and inefficiently spaced out buildings. In the center of the village stood a tower-like structure, striking out with its metal exterior. From it extended suspiciously perfect paths bisecting the fields and circling the whole village in a lattice-like pattern.
From Avery's perspective, it seemed that it was some kind of magic circle, but one that seemed to follow very different principles from his runic formations. He could not easily tell what its purpose was, only that it made the whole town feel off. Then again, Avery could hardly remember how cities and towns were supposed to look. Anything that was not the Sil’piceus great city would probably look odd to him.
In any case, that was not what he was most concerned about. He needed to fly down and finally meet fellow humans, but he did not know how to do it. Should he hide himself and observe first? Should he swoop in and land in the middle of the village, should he land somewhere concealed and walk the rest of the way there as if he was a normal traveler?
Once he was there, what should he say? That he was a lost traveler? A cultivator who just escaped a terrible trap? A lonely interdimensional traveler? Should he lie, should he tell the truth, should he tell only part of the truth, and how much? What if they didn’t like his answers? What should he do?
Avery tortured himself with these questions endlessly, until he realized it was already mid-afternoon, and that he needed to act now before he lost all of his confidence.
Landing right before the wooden gates of the hamlet, he advanced slowly, making sure the nearby villagers spotted him early, trying his best to appear confident.
He heard his observers shout and point at him, gathering around him and calling their friends. Realizing he could not understand a word of what they were saying, he paused to design and draw a rune with the effect of a translation spell.
The spell was a very simple one, as he did not need to design a translation function by himself, but only connect to the one initially present in this world's laws. Seeing how convenient it was, and as it seemed far-fetched to believe that the laws of this world had been born with a translation function that only cultivators could access, he guessed this was a latter addition by some powerhouse to facilitate universal communication.
He sent a silent thank you to that unknown benefactor, and started drawing the rune in the air, so that it would temporarily affect the area, making it so that everyone could understand everyone else.
However, his actions only made the crowd more agitated, and countless villagers flooded the place, holding various tools in a threatening way. Worse, the only thing he heard through the translation rune were hostile exclamations like "kill it, quickly!", "be careful, it's about to attack!" and "try to lure it into the formation!".
Confused as to what was happening, Avery froze, trying to make sense of this situation. Why were they reacting like that? What had he done wrong? Why did they want to kill him? He only wanted to make friends!
He was so lost and confused that he did not even think to dodge the fireball launched at him, letting himself be engulfed by blue flames. It did not do any harm to him, as his body wasn't flammable anymore, but it did make him panic, shocking him out of his indecisive stupor. He tried to wave at them reassuringly, shouting that he came in peace, that he was simply a lost traveler who meant them no harm.
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When no sound came out, Avery remembered his new immortal body had no mouth. Wincing at this embarrassing oversight, he made a move to draw a rune in the air, one that would transmit sound and speak in his place. Watching the crowd grow restless at the sight of this new spell of his, and thinking over what he was doing, Avery suddenly realized what was wrong.
It was painfully obvious in retrospect, but he looked nothing like a human being. From the farmers' perspective, he was a hovering mass of glowing runes, moving around and casting spells, soundlessly approaching their home. Of course they would be frightened, and he was an idiot for not realizing it sooner. In reality, he looked more like a monster than most of the magical beasts he had seen in the mountain range.
Looking at the scared and angry mob surrounding him, arming themselves with farming tools and crude weapons, and seeing a blue robed man standing on the tower balcony, preparing a new fireball, Avery gave up. He had messed up too badly, and things were never going to work like this. Turning back, he ran away at top speed, desperate to get out of this horrible situation.
He flew much farther and higher than necessary, to give himself some peace of mind, and even cast an invisibility spell to make absolutely sure no one would find him before he sorted things out. He tried very hard to resist the impulse to run back into the mountains and simply cultivate in the wilderness, but he had to admit that option was extremely tempting.
He even had second thoughts on rejoining civilization at all. Sure, meeting people sounded good, but did he really have anything to gain? He already had the Tao as a companion, and wasn't feeling that lonely. The idea of having friends was attractive, but that required a lot of effort slowly building close relationships, an idea that filled him with terror. Besides, would they not just distract him from his cultivation? He was an immortal, what did he need friends for?
However, he was a proud immortal, and he really shouldn't give up after a single small setback, no matter how embarrassing it was. Especially since everything had been his fault, and he could easily try again after correcting a few details.
Besides, who really cared about what happened in a small village lost in the middle of nowhere? This was a perfect testing ground to help him learn and gently acclimate to society, without any worry of consequences. This first meeting would only be a failure if he let it get to him and dictate the direction his life should take. Otherwise, it was just a learning experience that no one would ever know about.
Yes, but did he truly want to rejoin society? He was a cultivator, the lives of mortals had nothing to do with him. What if doing so hampered his cultivation? What if he broke his Dao heart? Was it worth it to go through all that pain and effort just to say he was not alone?
Avery was fretting over his next course of actions endlessly, making odd patterns in the sky as he drifted back and forth in accordance with his indecision. It took a long time for him to calm down, and decide that he could not let himself choose exile over a small embarrassing incident nobody would ever hear about.
He yearned for freedom, and that included not letting his instincts and baseless feelings control his life.
His decision made, he got straight to work on making sure his second meeting was a success, trying to drown the mortifying memories of his first meeting with thoughts on how to solve his problem.
The first thing he needed to do was to craft a human form for himself. Wanting to redesign his runic body to conform to human esthetics and include common communication functionality would be a time consuming affair, one that he was not sure he was ready to commit to. As the fireball incident had shown, there were some great conveniences in having a body composed of mana. A much more reasonable way would be to disguise himself, to make himself look human even if he was not.
Picking up dead branch that had fallen under a nearby tree, he used a rune to shape the wood into a spiral shaped pendant. Once satisfied, he got to work on crafting his first ever treasure, and finally taking this first step on a journey to become an accomplished treasure refiner.
It was a relatively simple affair, requiring a dozen runes to form the illusory human body, and another dozen runes to make sure it would follow his movements. Lastly, a voice transmission rune, so that he could talk through it, and a translation rune to make it understandable. That was all it took, and Avery now looked like a young man, with heavily tanned skin and strong musculature, similar to the villagers he was trying to fit in with.
Ding, congratulations on shaping an ordinary rank material. +1 point
Ding, Congratulations, you have completed a Gateway rune. +100 Points (x14)
Ding, congratulations on crafting a pseudo-immortal treasure. +50 Points