Sun awoke suddenly as the truck lurched to the side, narrowly avoiding a pothole. He snapped his head around at the unfamiliar surroundings until it all came back to him and he started to relax.

“Shit, they were supposed to have filled that in by now.” Mick sighed beside him. “Sorry about that, kid. I keep forgetting about that one.”

“I’m fine. Sun replied, stretching as best he could in the confined space. “How long was I out for?”

“Five, maybe six hours.” He shrugged. “But you woke up at the right time. We should be seein’ the city soon.”

Sun looked out the window, seeing that the sun had lowered close to the horizon and was casting the sky in hues of deep red and orange. The passing landscape had changed too, still dusty and dry, but flatter and with the occasional spot of greenery like a clump of shrubs or a lone cactus.

He also saw that the long and lonely highway was no more and that the road had expanded to four lanes. They were not alone either, as Sun saw another truck just ahead of them, as large and imposing as the one they rode in now. And a glint in the side view mirror let Sun notice a handful of smaller vehicles, closer to the size of wagons, were trailing behind them.

Sun wanted to be surprised and shocked and flabbergasted at these new developments, that such fast and powerful vehicles were not rare, but he had somewhat expected it. They wouldn’t give such vehicles to just anyone if they were incredibly rare or difficult to produce, nor would they let it travel the wilds unattended save for the driver.

Sun relaxed back into his seat, clenching and unclenching his hands to work out the last of the stiffness in his body. He had vastly underestimated how tired he had been, his paranoia and qi fueled body barely keeping him moving until he got too tired to notice how tired he was. He smirked at the irony, but he had managed to get as far as he did because of it and was now traveling quite leisurely with his new companion.

Sun paused.

His new companion, whose very clean and nice truck now had stains on the seat and door from where he had fallen asleep after being offered safe travel.

Sun suddenly felt very awkward as he realized how rude his actions might seem. The silence in the cab was suddenly deafening and he needed to break it.

“Er, um, so, t-thank you very much for, um, letting m-me ride with you, by the way.” He winced internally at his stuttering. He was usually much more composed.

Mick looked a little surprised by the sudden conversation but didn’t seem to mind it. “It’s no problem, man. Consider it my good deed for the week.”

Sun relaxed a bit at that, but realized that Mick wasn’t going to continue speaking and scrambled to find a response.

“Right but, still, thank you. Um, so, I was wondering if you could tell me a little about the city, if that’s okay.”

Mick nodded in understanding while keeping his eyes on the road. “Yeah, of course. Well, I don’t know if I’m the best person to ask about this. Arcadia is a city like any other, I guess. Big, lots of people, some looking to help you, most just looking to screw you over.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Sun nodded along as he listened, recognizing a lot of what Mick was saying from stories about big cities. But there was one thing he didn’t recognize.

Arcadia, he called it. It was a strange name and he wondered if they had changed it from something or it had always been called that. Sun mentally shrugged and decided there were weirder things around him than the name of the city.

Mick continued. “It’s a real melting pot, y’know? People from all over come here for one reason or another, like trying to get into the Academy, or getting a job as a fuckin’ corpo. Most of them end up in the gutter either way, so try not to end up like them, alright kid?” Mick turned in his seat to partially face Sun, pointing a finger towards him with a stern yet compassionate expression on his face.

Sun nodded vigorously, still not sure how to feel that a complete stranger had shown him more kindness than his family had in the last decade. But, what Mick was saying made him think back on his plan for when they reached the city. That plan had been to find a small, out of the way village, buy some land if possible, and hide away as a farmer. Now though, he wasn’t sure how viable that plan actually was.

Sun knew so little about the world outside the sect and what he did “know” he was beginning to question. It was clear that he didn’t have enough information to make a good plan, so first things first: survival. Finding a place to stay, preferably not on the streets, was step number one.

He lightly tapped at his satchel, miraculously still fully intact after the hard journey, and heard the soft jingle of the silver coins inside. He didn’t know what they would be worth, but hopefully he could get a room at some tavern or inn for a few nights to catch his footing.

After that, he needed to find out whatever he could about the world at large. The city may be big and easy to get lost in, but it was also still too close to the sect for his liking. If it took him two weeks to get here, it would only take the outriders a couple of days, and even less time for the elders if they got off their asses and out of their shady meeting room. Not that Sun thought they would do that, especially not for him.

But thinking about the elders brought a question to mind: did they know? Did the elders know that the world had changed around them and were just lying to the disciples telling them how they lived was how it was everywhere?

As much as Sun hated the elders and wanted to blame them for every perceived slight, he didn’t think they knew. The sect had been cut off from the world for centuries, and the last time any sect members had left the north was…he couldn’t remember.

Thinking about it made Sun realize just how closed off the sect had been, like its own pocket world, completely disconnected from reality. He decided to stop thinking about it. He wasn’t going to come rushing back to the sect to tell everyone who’d bullied him and criticized his cultivation about the amazing trucks and roads, or anything else he’d see in the city. He wasn’t going back and, thinking about it, they weren’t going to break hundreds of years of isolation just for him.

The relief that thought brought him almost made him want to go back to sleep. But instead something on the horizon caught his eye and made him sit up straight.

The road they were driving on was no longer alone as a number of others had begun to converge. Each road extended out across the desert in a different direction, mostly to the south and east as far as Sun could tell. He could see the distant lights of the vehicles on those roads, almost all of them driving in the same direction as Mick’s truck.

Sun’s eyes followed the roads to where they would converge, and could make out what almost looked like a small mountain silhouetted against the setting sun. The mountain had many peaks and glittered like a jewel amongst the arid emptiness of the desert.

“Uh, Mick?” Sun asked, pointing out the approaching mountain. “What is that?”

Mick glanced at him questioningly before looking out and squinting into the distance, the light of the sun making it hard for him to see. Sun had almost forgotten the limitations of sight unaided by qi reinforcement.

Mick used his hand to block out some of the light but seemed confused as to what Sun could be pointing out. He turned and was about to say something before his eyes widened and looked out again, a look of understanding crossing his face.

“Oooh, you mean the city?”

“City?! That’s not a city, that’s a mountain!”

“I mean yeah, it’s pretty big.” He shrugged “Something, like, twenty million people live here? So yeah, it’s gotta be at least that big.”

Sun’s jaw dropped.

‘Twenty million?!’

He looked back to the mountainous shape, standing alone and proud in the middle of the flat and empty landscape. As the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky darkened, the peaks of the mountain, now revealed to be titanic towers, ignited with artificial lights in every imaginable color. Some of these lights began to dance and animate or spell out words as the city seemed to ignore the passing of the day and shine its own light into the world.

“Yup. Hah, welcome to Arcadia.”