Yung was currently in a library slash bookshop of sorts controlled by the Youjin clan. He would meet Youjin Chao later to visit this appointed fiendhunting team.

And he stumbled upon a goldmine of information, specifically about the Su Fox clan.

It turned out they were a big deal. A hugely big deal.

The Su fox clan, also known as the Revival fox clan. They made their base on a giant sword wider than Tokyo metropolitan area and taller than Burj Khalifa called the Revival sword tower. It was located at the far south of the Void connecting land bridge, a landmass larger than Earth (from what Yung understood reading the scrolls), connecting the Gilded radiance continent to the north and the Continent of madness to the south.

This Continent of madness was supposed to be the ancestral home of the madlanders, hence the name. It was apparently infested by an apocalyptic horde of voidfiends nearly a million years ago, with all civilization ruined. The voidfiends constantly tried to mount an assault on the rest of the Last ascension mortal plane from there, but the only way out was either through the ocean, which in turn was infested by chaosfiends; or through the Void connecting land bridge.

Really? This world is called the Last Ascension?

The Revival sword tower blocked the latter. In the process, the owners of said tower, the Su fox clan, got rich as hell. Voidfiends and chaosfiends were goldmines and every part was a potential treasure, and the Su fox clan had a near monopoly on the largest fiend spawner in the mortal plane.

Are there other mortal planes? Who am I kidding? Of course there are… haven’t read any mention of them though. Can they not communicate?

According to the scroll, the Void connecting land bridge was tiny compared to the rest of the mortal plane; not even covering one-thousandth of the land area.

But it was the wealthiest morsel of land. It had endured invasions from both ren and yao powers of the Gilded radiance continent, the voidfiends, and the world at large.

Hence, the scroll ranked the Su fox clan as the plane's richest, strongest, most badass clan. The scroll was written by a person surnamed Su. But even if half of what was written was true, Yung had hugged the jackpot.

He floofed Su Xiya to show his appreciation. “Yeah, who’s a good fox! Who’s a good foxy woxy vixen. You are. Yes, you are! You have to praise me when talking to Nyanya, okay? Here, take a fruit.”

“… What are you doing?” Youjin Chao asked. He had entered the store and was greeted with the sight of Yung cuddling a disinterested but actually somewhat interested grey fox.

“The Su fox clan rocks!”

“It’s almost lunchtime. Let us get going. The guy we are meeting hates to be kept waiting.” Youjin Chao sighed, then dragged Yung out.

***

The madlander slums were southwest of the market square. The more Yung walked, the more he noticed the buildings, roads, and ren population, in general, becoming more destitute.

They travelled past an area known as the lower town, housing the less affluent people of Dim Gold City. But it wasn’t the poorest area.

Yung covered his nose. A horrible stench assaulted his senses, a putrid mixture of garbage, sewage, and rot with a heavy, oppressive scent that lingered in the air. It was a heartless reminder of the poor living conditions of the area, with an underlying hint of sulphur that wafted at something malevolent lurking beneath.

Glaring at the source did not make it go away.

“The Dirt stream.” Youjin Chao pointed west. “It comes from the fiend butchery. It’s the place where the fiendhunters process their daily catch. They dump the waste into the stream. Easy cleaning.”

“The Youjin clan says nothing?” This world direly needed environmental protection groups.

“Why would they?” Youjin Chao pointed east. “The only thing downstream are the slums. The Dirt stream ends in the Red hole, a large lake with a hole that leads to the ocean at the bottom. The madlanders make their homes around it. The waste water disappears, and the real folks of Dim Gold City don’t need to smell this stench.”

Yung’s mood soured. He tied a soft napkin around Su Xiya’s nose and followed Youjin Chao.

The houses soon turned from stone to wood, then scrap and bamboo.

From what Yung observed, most families lived in hovels made from mud and straw huts, crowded together like tiny islands on a beach. A few children stared at them from dusty doorways which opened onto darker rooms without windows. These 'houses' were built make-shift from whatever materials could be found or traded. It reminded him of the enormous slums in the poorer parts of India he had seen the first time he'd visited his maternal great-grandmother.

The skin colour of the residents was another horrible reminder of the tragedy he had witnessed. His was a Mediterranean bronze, like a smooth mix of sunlight brown, darker than olive but lighter than clay. Most madlanders here had more melanin to their skin, deep black for some with barely brown undertones. Others were like chocolate pastels, and the rest the colour of brownish wood. Yet this was not the tragedy. The faces mired in mud and soot and infections were.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

They had a mix of Indian skin tones, Caucasian frames, and Chinese faces. And they threw Yung varied glances if their eyes were to meet.

Some were curious, wondering where these ‘rich’ people came from. Some were hostile, glaring. Some indifferent, trying their best to survive. Yet none were afraid.

Strange…

Yung also noticed a lack of beggars. Everyone wore beaten-down clothes, but they all worked diligently.

He’d seen beggars at the market square.

He asked Youjin Chao, who waved at a passing madlander. The older boy was popular here. A little girl mustered her courage to gift Youjin Chao a wreath of flowers and leaves.

“The situation improved greatly after the Free sparrow gang took over.” Youjin Chao said, “The Free Sparrow, Ziyou Maque ensures everyone has work to do, clothes to wear, and food to eat. Last winter, less than a hundred died.”

If that was considered a low death toll, Yung was horrified to imagine what happened during previous winters.

Youjin Chao gestured towards a two-story wooden house by the road. It was not with a mud base. Wood and stone, and a written placard at the gates. A tall man carrying a bronze sword was slowly going through the motions of a martial art stance. In front of him, about twenty children, both boys and girls, imitated the man with wooden alternatives.

“Only with repetition can you find the dao. The insights you gain will help you awaken your spirit root.” The man said.

““Yes teacher!”” The children shouted in chorus.

“A dojo run by the gang,” Youjin Chao explained. As they walked, Yung saw more of these dojos. “If a child can awaken, they join a fiendhunting team under the gang. The Free sparrow gang is the city's second-largest operator of fiendhunters after the Youjin clan. The Free sparrow fiendhunting guild, they call them.

“Thousands strong, they head into the Warring twilight forest and hunt numerous fiends. Enough to sustain most of this slum of a hundred thousand madlanders.”

Yung had known that these people lived in absolute poverty, but to see it with his own eyes shocked him more than he expected.

Yet, Yung thought. Their eyes. They haven’t lost hope.

“What happens to those who don’t awaken.”

“They mostly take up mundane jobs. Straw weavers, mud masons, fishermen. Look, over there.”

As they rounded a bend in the road, the scenery in front of them expanded, and Yung laid his eyes on the Red hole.

A large lake, perhaps half a kilometre across. Countless boats dotted the lake like twinkling stars. A large weir-like dam was built to filter out the bigger garbage pieces where the Dirt stream met the lake. The water and dark mud on either side roiled with life and death. Strange fish leapt from the water, and birds dived into it, yet there were also other food sources. Critters and predators alike feasted on any dead creatures that had washed up during the night.

“Not all the parts discarded by the fiendhunters are useless. Many madlanders make their living by sifting through other people’s trash.”

"…. At least it keeps the water clean," Yung said, not liking at all when he saw a trio of madlander kids hoisting carrion away from the lake shores.

The stench here was considerably lesser.

They walked a bit more. Yung gaped at how popular Youjin Chao was. Many people came to greet him, from old ladies to young men, little girls to madlander cultivators.

“Thanks, lad, for the ointment you gave me last week. My knees have never been better.” Said an old grandma, showing a toothless grin.

“Brother Chao! Brother Chao! I finally beat my friend in a duel. Teach me some more punching moves later, okay?” Said a little boy no older than nine. He had a triumphant smile while his friend yelled, “No fair! Big Chao is gonna teach me this time.”

More came and went.

Yung took in all this, contemplating his plans. Maybe I can trust him. All these people obviously think he’s a good guy.

Was it the halo effect again? Attributing an individual’s success in one area to another completely unrelated one.

“We’re here, Brother Yung.” Youjin Chao patted his shoulder and led him to one of the dojos right at the shore of the Red hole.

This area was cleared of houses, with only a large yard with many training dummies. Yung spotted little kids, teens, and several young adults hard at work. Cultivators supervised them, teaching and correcting their forms where they went wrong.

Youjin Chao eyed one of the female instructors with a smile on his face. They waved at each other; then the older boy entered the dojo. Yung followed him past a large gate, up the stairs, and in front of an old door. Youjin Chao knocked.

“Come in.” A gruff voice answered.

Youjin Chao pushed the door open, and before Yung could step in, Su Xiya scurried inside with a swish of a tail.

“A fox?” The voice said, surprised.

It was a middle-aged man. He had dark, weathered skin and calloused hands from years of struggle. His greying hair was tied back into a shoulder-length ponytail with unique braids woven into it. Wrinkles surrounded his sharp black eyes, giving him a wise and experienced appearance. Yet, one large scar mired his face with a hint of viciousness. His bare torso revealed a broad hairy chest and large-shouldered muscular arms covered in crisscrossing white scars, and he had a muddy-yellow shirt wrapped around his waist like a sarong. Below his waist, he wore traditional madlander pants made of fiend leather with a bark-like texture.

Overall, the man excluded the air of a heavy thundercloud.

Forty? No, fifty maybe. Yung tried to guess the man’s age. Hard to tell with all these cultivators.

The man intently stared at Su Xiya as the grey fox sniffed a squid-looking flower thing on a desk in the middle of the room.

She belched, then picked the flower up before hiding it… somewhere?

Where’d it go?

Su Xiya brought out a shiny stone radiating with qi. It was a spirit stone, shaped like the perfect four-cornered diamond on playing cards. This one glowed a soft grey, like light reflected from coarse iron.

An ironcast spirit stone!

Yung had seen one just like it when his grandfather had bought his rune carving toolset. Ironcast spirit stones were worth a thousand lesser spirit stones each, with equivalent amounts of qi compressed into them. But that was the market price. No one followed the market price when demand was far higher than supply.

That collar. It’s a storage artefact.

Su Xiya threw the ironcast spirit stone at the man, who snatched it from the air with a giant grin—a payment.

“Now we’re talking.” He turned towards Youjin Chao. “Interesting guests you brought, Young Chao.”

“Fairy Su Xiya is with Brother Yung.” Youjin Chao said.

"The lad taken up by the fox clan? No wonder." The man went quiet, a slight wince when he realized Su Xiya was a fox yao. He then evaluated Yung with sparkling eyes. His Empathic link read curiosity, amusement, and… anticipation?

“Sit, sit. A friend of Young Chao is a friend of mine. Is this about the excursion we talked ‘bout the other day?”

Youjin Chao nodded, then turned to Yung. “Let me introduce you.” He opened his palm towards the grinning man, “This is Ziyou Maque. The leader of the Free sparrow gang and a Origin qi cultivator at the peak meridian building realm.”

Yung froze.

“Pardon?”

Om in om out om in om out Oooom— I can’t trust Youjin Chao at all!