I begrudgingly walked out of the crater and took a look around. I had no clue where I was. I didn’t have much time to deliberate on my situation either as I heard the sounds of incoming human forces. Many, many human forces. In a short few minutes of my landing, I was already surrounded from all sides.

Definitely Cultivators from the looks of it, even if they weren’t the best. They all held nice Spirit Weapons though. Still, all of them were in the Golden Core Realm. I scanned them all and realized I had nothing to worry about. Their bodies lacked Essence and their Souls were feeble compared to mine.

“Hey, you! Outsider!” An older man holding a spear shouted at me. Seemed like he was the leader of that particular warrior group.

I pointed at myself with a confused expression.

“Yes, you! Who are you? What are you doing here? What are your intentions?”

[Um… My name is Gerald Fireborn and I just fell from the sky, as you can see. As for what I want…] I grinned and made a threatening face as I pointed at him. [I want you to tell me where I am! Right now! Haha!]

My innocent actions triggered them for some reason and they looked just about ready to attack. Weird. Well, anyway, the leader gripped his spear harder and pointed it at me.

“This is the territory of the Joyous Weed Sect and you just crashed into our sacred grounds! Explain yourself!”

[Um... Sorry?] I scratched my cheek and looked around. The name didn’t tell me anything, and the lackluster swampy forest was considered their sacred grounds? I never would have guessed.

I then noticed most of them were barefoot and some didn’t even wear robes, but instead had short skirts made out of leaves like some kind of uncontacted jungle tribe.

“Simply saying sorry is not good enough. Come with us, we’ll take you to the Elders. Let’s see what they say about this. You made quite a commotion, waking many from their meditation. I’m sure they won't be happy.”

They formed a tight group around me and two guys grabbed my hands, escorting me towards the Sect and I let them. I was excited to see another place where people Cultivated, but I had to say, I was disappointed. The Sect was situated on a small hill not far away and it was littered with small shabby wooden huts and abandoned trash everywhere.

The cobblestone path that once no doubt looked nice, was covered in filth on both sides. Old remains of animal bones, rotting herbs, a weird gray ooze, and discarded wooden sandals were just a few things I managed to recognize as other things were already decayed beyond recognition. Scraps of food especially.

The place had a stench of decay lingering about and I could see many people snoring away in the grass beside the main path. They didn’t even look that old, most of them appeared to be just barely out of puberty.

“Pay no mind to the Outer Disciples. Keep moving!” I was shoved in the back by one of my captors just as I paused to take a better look. I noticed a figure stumbling between the houses in the distance, but we moved away before I could see who it was.

If I didn’t know any better, I would think the Joyous Weed Sect was just a poor Mortal village. But clearly, that wasn’t the case. I even saw a Golden Core Cultivator slouched against one of the wooden shacks with a bottle in his lap.

Let’s be honest, the atmosphere was kind of depressing. Where was the splendor of Cultivation? Magnificent buildings made out of stone, large halls for people to gather, or restaurants for the hungry. There was none of that anywhere. Not in the Outer Sect at least.

Though, the Inner Sect wasn’t much better. It had some partially stone houses, but once again, the construction was crude as there clearly wasn’t much thought put into making it. A stone wall surrounded one of them, though its front doors had long since rotted away with only the metal hinges remaining.

[You guys are having it hard, huh?] I said to nobody in particular.

“What do you mean?” One of the younger guys said with a sharp accusatory tone.

[Nothing much.] I said dismissively. [It’s just that I had seen Mortal villages in a better shape than this place.]

“What do you know! You have no idea how hard it was on us when the Beast Tide came! We barely survived, and for a filthy Rogue Cultivator like yourself to-!”

“Enough!” The leader thundered. “Don’t let your enemy provoke you like that. You need to remain indifferent no matter what happens. Remember that!”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yes, leader.” The guy cupped his fists and bowed.

Not long after we came to a walled-off part of the Sect and we were made to wait there while the man in charge went in to announce our presence to the Elders.

We waited there, under the starry sky, just standing around, twiddling our thumbs, for what must have been an hour. The moon moved across the sky, replaced by its twin on the other side when the old guy finally came back.

“Bad news, outsider! The Elders are busy, you will have to wait till they finish their congregation. They should be done by tomorrow… maybe.”

[Maybe?]

“Enough talk!” The leader ignored my question and turned to the rest of the Cultivators, pointing at the largest one. “Daren, you will be in charge of this guy until the Elders call for him. Feel free to get a helper or two, though I don’t think you’ll need them. You are not going to be trouble, are you?”

He said the last question to me. I just shrugged my shoulders, and he seemed to take that as an affirmative.

“Good! I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up if anything happens. But only if it’s really important.”

With that, he left, and the rest also dispersed, clearly uninterested in keeping me company through the night. I couldn’t blame them, we were all men after all. I’m sure they had better places to be.

“So…” Daren began. He picked another guy to help him guard me, but they didn’t seem capable of holding me back. We were about the same size, yet my flesh had a clear advantage in terms of density and quality.

Also, the power of the Golden Core Seventh Layer in the human body was a joke. The beasts themselves couldn’t stop me, let alone those two jokers. But I kept those thoughts to myself and instead found a clean place to sit down.

I closed my eyes and began to meditate. I took a few Qi Pills and began filling them with my own Qi. I had nothing better to do anyway, so I just offloaded the excess energy into outside storage and ignored everything else.

The density of Base Qi was terrible in the Sect. At least where I sat it was so. The damn hill didn’t even have a Formation hiding the Spirit Veins beneath the earth so I could clearly examine it all.

They weren’t half as impressive as those back at home. What did I even expect, comparing a small hill with a mountain?

That’s how the Spirit Veins worked. Where the geography rose higher than the surrounding ground, the Spirit Veins inside concentrated Qi around it. It was a natural phenomenon that tried to move base Qi higher. The reason why was not exactly understood, but that’s why mountains were full of life and flat plains were almost deserted. You could obviously find exceptions, but those were rare.

I filled about ten Qi Pills by the time it became day again and so I patiently waited, yet there was no call from the supposed Elders. Maybe they liked to sleep in.

[Hey, Daren, right? Is there a market around here somewhere?]

“What do you need a market for?” The man asked.

[I collected too much trash recently and need some place to unload it all.]

Daren smiled and his friend began to snicker. “So you think our Sect is a dumping ground, huh? Sure, I know a guy that buys all kinds of stuff. But you better not waste his time, he has a short temper.”

[Relax, I’ll be fine.] I smiled back.

“Alright then, let’s go.”

I was led along some nicer cobblestone roads and we came to a more presentable part of the Sect. It seemed that the shopping district was in better shape than the rest, which was obviously required if they wanted to attract customers.

And we walked straight past that, and into the back alley until we came to a rundown building that could only be home to a hoarder.

There was so much trash everywhere and old, broken things, I didn’t know where to start. I was honestly rendered speechless as a small, fat, balding man stumbled out of the front door with a giant toad in his hand and faceplanted hard as his foot got caught in a rusty metal net.

“Hey! Watch it! If you break anything you’ll pay for it!” Came a shout from the inside of the house.

The balding man groaned and slowly stood up, grabbed the toad that escaped him, and shouted back.

“Everything is broken in this filthy pig sty! Don’t you dare try to scam me!”

A wooden sandal then came flying at his head, but the balding fatty moved to the side with the speed I did not expect, dodging the footwear completely, and gave the toad a good long lick on the back.

“Piss off you lunatic! That’s the last time I’m doing business with you!”

The baldy just began to laugh and ran away before the second wooden sandal could be thrown. I suspected he was using the toad as a way to get high.

I watched wide-eyed as a middle-aged man wearing an old-school monocle came out of the house and the sandal flew back at him, sticking to his bare foot.

“Oh, hey… customers.” He grumbled quietly and I saw him force an amicable expression. “Who did you bring this time, Daren? An… outsider?”

I was pleasantly surprised. [How did you know?] I asked.

“You stare too much.” The man answered flatly. “And you don’t smell right. People here don’t usually carry the scent of earth and fire. Name’s Merant.”

[Gerald Fireborn.] I cupped my fists in greeting.

“Hah! I knew it. The unmistakable smell of fire.” Merant nodded to himself. “Well, what can I do for you?”

He was back in business mode, and so was I.

[I heard you buy stuff.]

“Hah, I do much more than that. But as long as it has value, I will take anything. What you got for me?”

[Well, there are a few things I collected…]

I extended my hand and things just began appearing on the ground. Tools, weapons, relics, talismans, pills, beast parts, armors, beast cores… Everything I collected from the dead Cultivators and didn’t plan on keeping. It was good stuff, just not good enough.

“By the old bastard’s bones! What is this? Did you rob a Sect?” Merant exclaimed. I could see he was interested.

[Let's just say I had a lucky encounter with a group of corpses. But how about it? Anything you fancy?]

“Yes! That ring, sell it to me!” The merchant shouted in excitement. I was a bit taken aback. He completely ignored my things and went straight for the main prize. But there was no way I was selling the storage ring.

[Absolutelly not.] I answered firmly.

“I’ll give you a thousand Spirit Stones for it.” He offered without missing a beat.

I lifted an eyebrow. [That’s quite a bit of money. Do you even have that much?]

Merant snorted and then made a smug expression. “Of course not, but I got connections. Just give me a few days to get the money.”