- Sky -

"Are you doing alright?" Emily asked him at dinner. "Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, "I'll actually be leaving tonight. I took a mission, and I don't want to waste time."

"Did you go back to the mission hall?"

"Something like that. Did you?"

"No, I thought I'd wait until tomorrow. Ava didn't seem interested in missions, since she has her job with Senior Hall. I'll probably look into one of the part-timer positions, but if you want to join up for a team mission later, let me know."

"Sure thing, Emily. I'll go with you if you want to convince Ava to join us. It would be fun! I'm only doing this one alone because I want to try some things out by myself."

"Yeah, let's do that. And don't worry about it. With your cultivation technique, you're kinda your own team anyway."

"Haha, yeah, I kinda saw it that way too. I'll let you know when I get back. Whatever we pick, I have a little over three months until I have to go on my next Spirit Journey."

"How's that going, by the way?"

The small talk went on, while they finished their dinner. Katrina and Amanda had joined them at some point to ask them about the exam. Eventually they parted ways, and Sky took off for the flight pavilion. Here was where he would test whether he could bypass the mission hall desk in accepting missions. When he was able to register his departure without issue, he knew it had worked. He ran to the departure gate, took out the flying jade disc, and sat down. It was shaped like a coin, in a thin cylindrical shape. The three of him fit comfortably on the flat surface, with room to spare for one more person his sizes, but he wasn't fully grown yet.

He sent some chi into the disc, and immediately felt its chi barrier activate around him. It rose straight into the air, and he guided it forward, encouraging it to accelerate. He arrived at the farms within a few hours. The farmers would likely be asleep by now, so he would have to wait until the morning to check in with the client. He found an area that was out of the way, and pulled his tent out of storage. Once it hit the ground, it unfolded itself into a tent shape, without any need for Sky to set it up. He was impressed, and wondered how it worked. The tent was a khaki canvas, with a zip-up flap for a door, and little window flaps at the sides near the top. There was a metal pipe sticking out of the roof, with smoke already floating out. He noticed that it hadn't secured itself to the ground, so he went around and nailed stakes through the appropriate loops into the ground. While he worked he wondered why these farms were outside the sect's perimeter formation. He made a mental note to ask the client about it in the morning.

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With the tent secured, he could finally see what waited him inside. He passed through the front flap, and was greeted by a large room lit by firelight. The floor was canvas, but off to the left was the stove holding the fire, and it was standing on a stone base, which extended away from it by two feet on each side, likely for fire safety. He noticed that the smoke stack didn't travel straight up, but curved to the side where it met with pipe coming from the back wall, before shooting through the roof. Off to the right was his new bed. It was a normal bed standing on four legs, with a headboard. The thick blanket had clearly made use of his sleeping bags. Based on the bed's large size, he guessed that adding futons had made it bigger, rather than making more beds. He wondered whether it had a maximum size, and whether there was a way to make extra beds for his friends.

There was a flap on the back wall. He went through it, and found himself in the kitchen. To the left was a cookstove, out of which reached the smokestack that weaved out through the wall. To the right was the pantry, which was basically just a box with a lid. He opened it, and it was bigger inside than outside. All of his travel rations were in there. The sink was next to the stove, and it wasn't much more than a bucket with a water tank behind it, and a waste receptacle below it. He wondered if he could purchase water and waste stones like the ones used in the dorm's bathrooms. He made another mental note to look into it when he got back. If he could buy three sets, he might be able to upgrade the sink, and he could probably add a toilet and shower. He wasn't sure what the tent would need for the latter two upgrades though, if they were even an option.

He went back to the other room, and laid on the bed. There was so much room, that all three of them could have fit comfortably, but he made sure to have one body stay up for the first watch. He wouldn't be caught off guard by some creature, or farmer sneaking past his defense. It was during his second watch that he heard a terrible roar, followed by a shadowy winged figure moving quickly overhead toward a barn. Then he heard another roar. Then another, and another. His other two bodies were already outside, all three of them pale.