“I guess this is it.” Alex said when they stood at the city gate – beyond it lie the center of Marounad.

The entrance was busy with merchants and travelers going in and out. Even the sides of the dusty road were full with food stalls and street vendors, making the poor part of the city look more prosperous than it actually was.

“Aren’t you coming with me?” Caden asked.

Alex definitely did not intend to continue his service in the navy, thus he shook his head and said, “Recruit Jack Sparrow drowned along with ‘Aisha’ and the rest of the crew. From what it looks like, you’re the only survivor.”

“What about Alex Brooks?” Caden grinned.

“Never heard of a person by that name.” Alex nonchalantly shrugged.

“You can still come with me to the city headquarters. Even though the ship sank, you have a great merit of alarming everyone during the attack and I bet you’ll be handsomely rewarded.” Caden became serious again.

“Nah. I’m pretty sure it was Uwe who raised the alarm. I bet his folks back in Haldenburg would appreciate to hear that the blabbermouth’s skill turned out to be useful at least once.” Alex said waving him off.

Caden looked deeply in his eyes, then sighed and said, “Fine. But what are you going to do? Both of us look like beggars and we might not even be allowed into the city. You can’t survive eating fruits all your life, you know?”

“Mhm.” Alex nodded, “I’ll try to think of a way how to get to the capital. Shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Tabulan?” Caden was surprised, “What the hell do you want to do there?”

“I heard there is a couple of good schools there.” Alex smiled back.

“A couple? There is only one noteworthy … you, Troublemaker!” Caden immediately realized what Alex was implying, but then laughed and said, “Alright, just be careful. The nobles in Haldenburg are harmless lambs compared to the aristocratic folks in Tabulan, especially the families with saints. Hmm … let me think … after our parents died, we sold our business in Marounad and my brother, Fadel, moved to the capital with his family. I’ll write you a letter – he’ll help you to settle down.”

Alex gladly welcomed the offer. He was not clear what the fat man said to the guards at the gate, but they were allowed in the city without delay. When they got to the imperial navy’s headquarters in the port, Alex said farewells to the fat cook after getting the sealed letter and another warning ‘to not cause trouble’.

The next thing he needed to do was to change into a more appropriate attire. Along with the letter Caden gave Alex a few coins that he borrowed from one of the officers, but in order to not feel indebted, Alex gave the cook a couple of white, shiny pearls return. Although in Marounad they were not particularly expensive, one could exchange a pearl for more than a simple shirt and trousers.

Alex, of course, didn’t care. After searching the first mate’s body in his possession were a dozen more pearls – six small white, five bigger in a purple color and a black one, particularly large. Alex was not sure how much they were worth, but one thing was clear – in this world a technology to create artificial pearls didn’t exist and from how the first made hid them in his clothing it was clear the pearls were quite valuable.

After getting to the market and buying simple, clean clothes and a plain straw hat, Alex changed and finally the city guards stopped to suspiciously stare at him – earlier he looked so poor he was afraid they would directly throw him out.

Even though he was hungry, he decided to settle the travel arrangements first. According to Caden, frequent merchant caravans departed from the west gate and they were always looking for help. While the cook suggested he would take a guard role in one of those, Alex immediately refused the idea.

First of all he had no intention to risk his life for people he didn’t know by fighting bandits and beasts. It was not because Alex lacked confidence in his abilities, but objectively looking he was still a child even if he claimed otherwise and accidents could always happen. He had seen enough crippled people in his lives – no one could regrow the cut off limbs, at least not as far as he knew.

The second reason was – he really missed the cultivation. While on the ship, it was limited from the convenience standpoint, but even if he worked for caravan and spent the days walking long distances, he could meditate through the night without anyone getting suspicious while comfortably sitting on a solid ground.

“A groom?” A middle aged man named Ramil looked back at Alex with furrowed brows after he asked for a work.

Ramil was the supervisor of a medium sized caravan consisting of around thirty carriages. When Alex approached, he was discussing something with few armed men, most likely the caravan guards, and Alex thanked his common sense for not trying to become one – people would just laugh at him. Because of his attire and the fact that there were other young recruits on the ship he managed, at least in the beginning, pretend to be a sixteen year old despite his small stature, but here, in comparison to the burly men around, there was no chance for him to play an adult role.

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“Ye, I can take care of horses.” Alex seriously nodded towards the man dressed in a loose linen shirt and trousers. On the head he wore a simple straw hat similar to Alex’s, but every item on him was neat and tidy.

Truth to be said, Alex had no clue how to deal with horses. The most experience he had was in his last life when he traveled to Zamora together with Jacobo. But even then the horses were used like rental cars – they were given enough food and water to be able to travel, but what happened afterwards was not of Alex’s concern. But his idea was – it shouldn’t be that difficult and he’ll just copy other grooms and somehow ‘wing it’.

“You don’t look like you can much, in fact – you look more like a runaway. Especially with that accent of yours.” Ramil said.

“I worked on my father’s farm since I was born and the fact I ran away doesn’t concern you.” Alex shrugged.

“Boy, you can’t talk to master Ramil like that if you want to work for him.” One of the guards said in a serious voice.

“I … I … I’m sorry … master Ramil!” Alex pretended to stutter in shame, “My name is Alex and I came on a ship from north. I … I am very good with horses you know …”

“Hahaha! Turns out our Nasser has a special skill – he can instantly tame northerners!” Another guard began to laugh and the rest joined, “Emperor should’ve sent you alone to the north back then.”

Ramil grinned as well in amusement and said, “Alright, I’ll give you a chance. You’ll get ten silver coins when we arrive in Tabulan.”

“I want good meals. I can’t work on an empty stomach.” Alex squeezed out as if inwardly battling himself.

He didn’t care much for the money – the guy was obviously robbing him, but in the capital he’ll easily find a way to earn. Honestly or not, it was a completely different question and an unimportant one at that.

“Two meals. And if I catch you slacking, you won’t get any!” Ramil strictly said sealing the deal.

Alex nodded with a sigh and one of the guards showed him the way to the horses.

There were already two other grooms employed – one elderly man and a youth. The old man, named Rafam, turned out to be almost as chatty as Uwe and Alex immediately understood he’ll have no problem learning anything he needed about the new duties. The youth was the complete opposite – he didn’t talk at all and only hung out around the horses all day. Alex had no clue what kind of issues he had, but didn’t really care much about it.

The caravan departed three days later and in these three days Alex already learned everything what there was to know about his new profession. The work turned out to be more tedious than he initially imagined, but contrary to the guards who had to take shifts at nights, he could meditate in peace and was satisfied with the decision.

The only downside was his inability to run anywhere from the old man Rafam, just like it was on ‘Aisha’ with Uwe, but at least during the first days Alex managed to direct the old man’s unending stream of words to somewhat educational subjects. While he mostly spoke about horses and travel, most of the information was new to Alex. In addition, he did his best to become fluent in the southern dialect so in the future it wouldn’t be this obvious he came from north.

Including the stops at the towns on the way, the whole trip was supposed to take around a month. Weather was relatively hot, but contrary to the horses Alex enjoyed the change. The scenery also was pleasant to the eye – jungle, hills and savanna interchanging continuously brought new picturesque sights.

There was not a single bandit attack and as it turned out, the guards were hired to keep the beasts away. Luckily, apart from few packs of hyenas, they never saw any predators, to not speak about ferocious beasts. According to Rafam, specially designated groups of Qi warriors periodically patrolled the main routes of the empire, making sure no danger was lurking around the roads.

On the one hand it made Alex a little disappointed – he did want to check out if the ‘ferocious beasts’ were similar to the ‘ranked beasts’ he was familiar with, but on the other – it was better to stay safe and satisfy his curiosity when he became stronger.

The best thing about the traveling on a solid ground was that Alex’s cultivation improved at accelerated rate, almost as if trying to catch up to what was lost during the time he spent on the ship. When the caravan was around half way to the destination, during his regular meditation Alex even ‘found’ his ‘missing’ soul particle!

This time he was so surprised by the discovery, he startled awake only to realize the sun was coming up and Rafam had finished all the morning chores in his stead.

For some reason, even if it happened only twice, every time Alex found the soul particle, he immediately lost the track of time. After apologizing to the old man and promising to make it up to him, Alex analyzed the situation and decided to not ‘play’ with the soul particles until he was in a safe environment in the capital.

Unfortunately the next evening he closed his eyes, the particle ‘popped up’ in front of him on its own. Alex immediately forced himself to awaken and saw the camp slowly waking up. The feeling was surreal – closing the eyes for only a split second only to realize that the night had passed.

Even if it was a bit scary, he couldn’t wait for the caravan to move out so it would settle down in the evening sooner. Battling his own impatience Alex spent the day listening to Rafam bragging about his adventures ‘back in the day’ and finally in the evening sat down in the meditative posture and covered himself with a linen cloth as a blanket in order to not draw any unnecessary attention.

This time, instead of performing the Qi technique captain Tarazi taught him, Alex began with the oldest techniques he knew – the ones that the headmaster in the Beastmaster academy taught him. Focusing to not loose his connection with the reality, he slowly performed one technique after another, then switched to the ones he learned while being a chosen and continued to go through all techniques, only stopping before trying out the last one.

Alex didn’t loose the track of time, but didn’t sense the soul particle as well. While it didn’t surprise him, he felt like somewhere deep in his consciousness something was calling him – something familiar and close. With a sober mind Alex understood that it was only the euphoric illusion of ‘feeling’ the soul particle, but it was so strong it felt real. Luckily for now he had enough self control to not cause any unwanted attention.