The last week has been the busiest and most confusing for the residents of Vidford. For a city so far off in the south east of the continent so far from any other cities, nothing newsworthy often occurs. Although it has 10 million residents it feels more like a small village. News and gossip travels fast through word of mouth.
On the first day of the week a powerful aura was felt by everyone in the city causing widespread panic and all high ranked cultivators to assemble on the wall to mount a potential defence. An hour later an unknown black carriage and a butler had survived the onslaught from thousands of cultivators and even killed the most powerful man in the city: King Winston Vidford.
Every cultivator there was prepared for death and the eventual destruction of their beloved city for offending a Celestial realm cultivator. Much to their surprise the cultivator was lenient and spared the rest of them and instead was open to negotiations.
Again, everyone including the temporary leader of Vidford after her father’s death, Emilia was expecting to be ruled over by the cultivator and have their treasuries emptied out by him. Much to her surprise he was very reasonable and simply demanded land and a noble title. Emilia was confused why he did not already have a noble title considering his power but was happy to fulfil his requests.
News spread fast once the cultivators returned home or gossiped with others over a pint of ale about the black carriage. The name Khan had become famous in the city overnight.
It was the next day when things truly got ridiculous, a castle had been reported to have appeared overnight; even in a magical world with cultivators it is still considered impossible to build a castle as majestic as Khan Castle in one night, or even a month.
The general population had not been notified about the mountain being handed over to Khan yet so many people flocked to the grasslands to marvel at the beauty of the castle. Many noticed the name plate being Khan above the gate and could work out the owner of the residence as the infamous cultivator.
The spectators were in for a sight when the Captain of the Royal Guard did not seem to notice the name plate and proceeded to insult the family of the Celestial realm cultivator. Although his death was a little horrific to watch, nobody present felt his death was unjustified.
A few moments later the Princess, soon to be official Queen of the city arrived with maids, running after her was quite the sight to see. She ran up to the gate and demanded to be seen. The Princess wanted an explanation, not about the killing of the Captain that was of no consequence but instead about the construction of the castle in a single night.
Despite her relentless begging for entry through the grand gate, it never opened, and Yuan never appeared back on the wall either. Defeated and humiliated Emilia gave into the begging of her maids and returned to the castle.
The next day Emilia was officially crowned the Queen of Vidford and the Khan family was announced to be a Duke family with Yuan Khan being the head of the family. The Duke made a brief appearance to receive his noble title and greet the other nobles and citizens but quickly disappeared back to his castle.
After the ceremony Yuan Khan was the hottest topic in the entire city. He even has his own fan club of noble ladies wishing to offer themselves as his wife or even a concubine. To be married to such a powerful man in such a remote city was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.
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Not to mention the ladies didn’t even have to be pressured by their seniors into the marriage proposals. Many ladies were of the opinion that Duke Khan is the most handsome man on the continent that they had ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on.
The grasslands surrounding the white marble walls of Khan Castle were filled with people admiring the new landmark while also hoping to get a glimpse of the owner's rumoured divine like figure.
Many merchants set up portable stalls to sell refreshments to the happy crowd for high prices that nobody seemed to mind paying.
On the final day of the week the crowd were rewarded with a sight none of them were prepared for. When the sun was high in the sky the giant gates of Khan Castle were opened for the first time.
Everyone rushed towards the gate to get a look beyond. They all gasped in awe at the sight of a pitch black car known as Phantom rolling unaided by horses over a solid gold looking bridge towards the gate.
The mere presence of Phantom caused the crowd to create a path like Moses did to the Red Sea out of respect and a little fear. Nobody wanted to end up dying a similar death to the unlucky Captain only a few days ago.
- Present Time -
Yuan had spent the last week furbishing his castle with items from his Shop and entertaining Luna’s night time activities, which had grown to be the highlight of his slow days.
But Yuan had gone a little overboard and completely exhausted his supply of spirit stones. When he built the castle and the walls he had actually built it out of simple stone mainly mined from the mountain it was built upon. He then used his ‘Creation’ spell to change the stone's appearance to more exotic materials like white marble. Although thanks to his Celestial realm aura covering the walls he knew they wouldn’t lose out in defensive capabilities to any other walls on the continent.
Another example would be the soon to be famous Golden Bridge which was actually just a wooden bridge but with the help of his creation spell appeared to be made from solid gold.
After discussing with Luna on how to possibly earn spirit stones he had arrived at the decision to join the Guild and complete missions for payment.
Yuan knew of other ways to acquire wealth such as managing actual territory as a noble and collecting taxes or joining a sect and becoming an elder but neither of those appealed to Yuan at the moment.
He considered making a quick buck from selling items from his Shop at auction but he knew he couldn’t explain the origin of the items to anyone especially Luna.
Since his desire for adventure and to explore more of this massive world was still burning in his heart, he decided taking on missions at the Guild would be the most interesting.
So, this led to the current situation. The Guild was located deeper in the city, closer to the walls to allow easier access and faster response times to threats.
Therefore, Yuan decided to take Phantom for a drive through the city as he felt a little bad leaving his spirit beast locked up inside the garage. Although his spirit beast looks like a car it’s still just like any other soul beast, an animal which gets bored being locked away for so long.
Yuan and Luna were currently in the control room of Phantom observing the funny reactions of the city’s residents. As they slowly drove down the street everyone no matter the current situation would stop to observe Phantom in all its glory. The funniest of these scenes was when a noble lady was chasing after her pet dog which had somehow escaped and not only did the noble lady stop to look in awe at Phantom but the dog also stopped suddenly in its tracks to watch with its tail wagging furiously.
A scrapy looking boy wearing rags in the middle of stealing a loaf of bread with his hand literally on the food overcame his hunger and fear of being caught to catch a glance at Phantom's majestic form.
Yuan was not sure what the cause of these strange reactions were and had no idea how famous him and Phantom had become in this city. He saw lots of people camping outside his gates but just simply assumed that is how busy the grasslands always were and paid it no mind.
Anyways the weird reactions of the residents were of no importance as Yuan had arrived in front of the Guild branch located in this city. It dwarfed all the buildings around it easily being five stories high and 10 houses wide. It was made of mainly grey stone which was in contrast to the mostly wooden buildings surrounding it.
This world is still in the medieval stages of construction techniques. The slow progress is mainly due to most people who could afford to advance the building techniques of this world instead focusing on raising their cultivation realm.
Noble houses closer to the mountain and government managed buildings are usually made of stone but the buildings closer to the walls inhabited by low level cultivators and mortals are constructed using wood.
Yuan and Luna emerged from Phantom elegantly and walked towards the front doors of the Guild only to have a frantic man run out towards them with many cultivators in pursuit.