Walking down the road as a cultivator was mostly unchanged from when Wen Zixin was a mortal. The mortals couldn’t tell without seeing qi and the most common tells that differentiate mortals and cultivators didn’t apply to him. His clothes were very much mortal and were slightly worn. His face didn’t wasn’t smoother than it should be, he had started cultivating at an age little over a decade past when others started cultivating. The change came from the cultivators that were on the road. First, they would notice the qi emanating from him. Then they would notice how he was within the mortal crowd and not separated from them like other cultivators and his lack of cultivator clothing. At that point the confused looks he got would switch to disdain before they turned away to ignore him. When he got to Shichang’s gates he separated from the masses and headed to the main gate used by cultivators. Standing in the fast-moving line he saw some cultivators flashing something to the cultivator guards and walking through unmolested while other cultivators were stopped and talked to the them. So, he wasn’t surprised when the guards stopped him when he got to the front.
“Hold cultivator, do you have a pass to enter?”
"No sir, I don’t have a pass.”
"Fine, the fee to enter is one silver unless you have someone to vouch for you.”
Wen Zixin handed over a silver and asked the guard.
“Do you know a place where an independent cultivator could find employment?”
“Your best bet would be the Independent Cultivator’s Association. It’s ten blocks down the main street on your left.”
Wen Zixin gave a nod of thanks before heading into the city itself. Shichang very different from Bai City. Shichang didn’t have any sky bridges to separate cultivators from mortals, but the way they segregated themselves made the streets feel more and less crowded at the same time. The mortals clung to the sides of the street leaving the middle for the cultivators to use as a two-lane road. This gave Wen Zixin a nice bit of space to walk in. While the sides of the street had at least double the number of mortals you would see on the streets of Bai City. As he walked down the street he saw although mortals and cultivators shared the same street, they still had different buildings and businesses. All the mortal buildings were wooden and ranged from one to three stories tall and had torches, currently unlit with-it being daytime, attached to either side of the doors leading into the building. The cultivator buildings were made with stone at the least with most made of other exotic materials that emanated qi, ranged from three to nine stories tall, and had glowing crystals instead of torches. Whenever a mortal had to cross the street or pass by the doors of cultivator buildings they would pause and look around before darting to the other side of the street or doorway. Wen Zixin saw a mortal misjudge crossing a doorway and bumping into a cultivator walking into the building. before the woman had a chance to say anything the cultivator slapped her before continuing into the building. With an audible crack the mortal woman’s head twisted to the side and she fell down and was still. FUCKINGPSYCHO! A couple of men he had thought were just hanging out on the street quickly got to the woman, picked her up, and went down one of the narrow alley streets between some mortal shops before disappearing. Wen Zixin paused in shock which caused another mortal to get their timing wrong and wound up in front of him with a deer in the headlights look. When the mortal didn’t look like he was moving Wen Zixin waved him away. The man started and quickly ran to the side of the street where he gave Wen Zixin a confused look before melting into the crowd. Wen Zixin continued on down the street and didn’t think anything more about it. When he got ten blocks down from the gate, he saw a cultivator building with a sign proclaiming it the Independent Cultivator’s Association, it was five stories high with double doors wide enough for four people to walk through. Here the flow of traffic was different. The mortals didn’t bother trying to cross the entrance, it appeared that they just took the long way and walked around the build itself. He saw why they did it easily enough, the cultivators were a constant stream in and out of the place and unlike everywhere else he had seen so far, they didn’t seem to mind bumping shoulders for some reason. He joined the stream entering the building and got inside. It was an open floor plan with the first three stories open in one big room. There were two sets of stairs on either wall to his left and right leading up to balconies with a series of doors on the second and third floor. The first floor was full with activity. In the area immediately surrounding the doors was a bunch of tables big enough for six people if they didn’t mind being squished. There were various individuals and groups at these tables talking, drinking, and eating with waitresses moving around delivering drinks, food, or clearing used dishes up. Between the two sets of stairs further back was a reception desk with half a dozen individuals manning it. A lot of cultivators were there talking to the receptionists or waiting for their turn. Off to the sides at the bottom of the stairs were billboards with a random mess of papers attached. Cultivators would stand in front of it and some would take a paper and either take it to the reception desk or to a group at one of the tables. Behind the reception desk and under the stairs were more doors, a couple of them being used by the waitresses, and what looked like a boxing ring. He saw a couple of individuals going at it in the ring but couldn’t see the details because of a crowd surrounding the ring. He found an empty seat at a mostly empty table and sat down. When a waitress started over to him, he waved her off and started thinking. Despite the lack of memories this place screamed adventure’s guild and that put everything he was seeing into an understandable context. Which means he needs to find another place to work that involves less fighting. As he starts to plan where else he could go, he learns a new fact about cultivators, when mortals aren’t around, they are the worst gossips alive. He was sitting down for ten minutes in a room crowded with cultivators and already had all the information he needed. Shichang had several crafting halls that ranked their members with stars, the more stars the higher up you were, and you could join any of them with an entrance test. If you had some connection in the hall, you could take the test no charge, but if someone like Wen Zixin tried, he would need ten high-grade Qi Stone. Cultivators' currency was split into low, medium, and high-grade Qi Stones. With a conversion rate between the grades at a hundred to one from a lower grade to the next grade Qi Stone. If Wen Zixin wanted to buy a Qi Stone with mortal coin, he would need a thousand gold for one low grade Qi Stone. The Association on the other hand would not only accept him no charge but also give him room and board in exchange for taking on five jobs of the Associations choosing. It wasn’t ideal but chances of them sending him to his death would be low until maybe the last job. From what he was hearing around him they would select jobs based on his skills that were of high priority but unpopular with the other members. It would appear that his best course of action would be to join the Association and save up before going for one of the crafting halls. Looking over his coins he found he had seven copper which would likely to be too little to get a room for later tonight without raising some eyebrows seeing a cultivator sleeping in a mortal establishment. He checked his xp wishing Qi Stones were available in the Menus.
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With nothing left to do he got up and headed to one of the lines at the reception desk. When he got to the front the cultivator receptionist greeted him.
“Hello cultivator, how can I help you today?”
“Yes, I would like to join the Association.”
“Okay, that will be a ten low-grade Qi Stone fee. If you don’t have that you can still join without paying but you must accept a certain number of jobs to pay off the entrance fee.”
“I don’t have the Qi Stones so I will take the jobs.”
“Right, please go through that door and wait. In twenty minutes, an assessor will be along to evaluate you and anyone else waiting and assign your first job.”
The receptionist points towards the first door on Wen Zixin’s left under the stairs before dismissing him and calls for the next in line. Going through the door he finds a conference desk with chairs facing the wall on his right. There are already two people sitting down and he looks them over while taking a random chair. The first is a child, somewhere around the age of twelve at the First Step of Qi Condensation Stage, with threadbare clothes Wen Zixin has seen on the poorest of mortals. The second is almost the opposite, an old woman at the Fifth Step of Qi Condensation Stage looking to be in her seventies in richer looking cultivator clothes. The clothes, while looking expensive are looking worn, hinting at why she’s here. Neither say anything and keep to themselves. Over the course of the next twenty minutes another five people show up and sit down. They all range from young to old with cultivations at First Step to Sixth Step of Qi Condensation Stage, with their clothes speaking of coming from hard places or falling on hard times. At the twenty-minute mark a middle-aged cultivator with liquid wood qi radiating from within him walked in and stood at the head of the table with everyone looking at him.
“I’m Meng Yulong, an Early Level Liquid Stage cultivator. You all have no backing and are nothing but leeches, but the Association is magnanimous and will give you a chance to contribute more than you take. The Association will give you jobs according to what I think you will be good at. After you have completed five jobs you will receive a low-grade Qi Stone and free you to choose your own jobs. While performing your assigned jobs you will have room and board so we can observe you and hold you accountable for messing up. Now, when I point to you come forward.”
With that speech out of the way Yulong pointed to people at random, called them up, and did something with his qi. It flowed into the person surrounded their Core and Spirit Root before glowing so bright everyone but Yulong had to look away. When the light faded, he knew everything about their Spirit Root, cultivation, techniques, and even any martial arts that they practiced. He then would ask them if they had any additional skills or education before having them sit down and moving on to the next person. After he had performed what Wen Zixin thought was a technique on him, Yulong spoke.
“A trash Spirit Root with a trash Cultivation Method, at the First Step of Qi Condensation, no techniques, and a mortal level martial art with no attacks. I hope you have some knowledge to make up for this.”
“Yes, Honored Meng Yulong, I have extensive knowledge on mortal herbs, their uses, and know hundreds of recipes for mortal medicines.”
“What a waste of time, sit down NOW! You will all wait here while I see if there are any jobs low enough to be below everyone but yourselves.”
As Wen Zixin sat down, Yulong addressed the group before leaving. Ten minutes later he came through the door, with a stack of wooden tablets and started tossing two to every person.
“Congratulations, we have a backlog of trash jobs that need to be cleared. One of the tablets lists your jobs, the order in which you will complete them, and who you answer to for each job. The second tablet tells you where you will bunk, meal times, and your temporary badge. After the jobs are complete you will return these to a receptionist and get and actual Association badge along with the low-grade Qi Stone. Get out!”
With that, Wen Zixin and his fellows were all but pushed out the door. From there they dispersed heading to the first of their jobs, and Wen Zixin looked down to the first tablet to see what jobs he had.