Kai was used to being called a barbarian and didn't think anything about it - the nations of the Frontier had to respect Goralia, and Zae Zin Nim meant it affectionately. When the sailors had used the same term, it hadn't really registered. But now, as they finally stood on Rosemount, he actually felt like one.

The port was huge, even larger than Yulthens, but that wasn't what floored him. There were people everywhere and less than half of them were human, instead a vast sea of different species from humanoids with purple skin to intelligent serpents to beings who looked like living flames. Kai had seen a few non-humans, since Goralia had non-human allies to the south, but this was something else. On Deadwaste he knew all the nations along with their cultures and systems of power, but here every one of the thousands upon thousands of people was a mystery.

And apparently Roseport wasn't even the largest shipping center on the continent. Crescilor City was larger up the coast, the other major nations each had a shipping port, and allegedly there was a bay that dwarfed them all.

All the languages around him made him feel twice the barbarian. Sometimes it seemed like every group spoke in a completely different way. Omilaena spoke smoothly with all of them and Zae Zin Nim seemed to have learned a dominant trade language, but he was almost entirely lost. Once he heard two sailors having a boring argument about stacking boxes and he listened carefully just because it was the only thing he could understand.

Unlike on his home continent, everyone was eyeballing everyone all the time. At least his spiritual sight didn't seem to be inadequate, so he found himself staring at a dizzying number of different powers. Some looked similar to Omilaena's, and some he could guess were similar to Classes or cultivation, but others simply baffled him.

The air was alive with levels of energy that felt unnatural to him, everything mixing together. His body automatically absorbed the mana, and it was good enough at drawing qi, so he didn't end up absorbing much chakra. Since it would allegedly take time to adjust, perhaps that was for the best.

At least in terms of his own skill he wasn't a pure barbarian: his shroud was doing an adequate job of avoiding attention. Physically he didn't attract any interest except for his height, which only made him more grateful that he'd figured out how to hide his monstrous side. Everyone here would be accustomed to identifying intelligent species by spiritual sight.

Since all he had to offer was strength, Kai mostly followed the women around and looked muscular. After careful analysis, he was at least able to determine that his strength wasn't worthless here. Of course it would have been insane if literally everyone on Rosemount was more powerful than the strongest on Deadwaste.

However, the difference was clear. Ordinary people who looked completely untrained would have Physiques in the F ranks, which was 30 or more Power on its own, and a dozen or two Power from abilities they seemed to have picked up, like a minor craftsman in Goralia. So there were ordinary people with as much strength as the Goralian veterans who had once been his goal. Average soldiers and guards regularly had 100 or more Power, enough to be a crystallier in Krysal.

It was harder to judge the more powerful warriors because there were obviously fewer of them. During their early business he managed to spot three different people with 500 or more Power, equivalent to an Earth Soul cultivator. At least if the Brightwind sect caught up to them here, they wouldn't be able to just dominate the city like they could Yulthens.

So it seemed like the real threat was getting embroiled in a larger conflict. Fighters who could throw their weight around on Deadwaste were completely average here, so overconfidence or arrogance could easily get them killed. He'd have to be smarter than that until he could climb the scale on this new continent.

"Here, help us with this." Omilaena was speaking to him in a language he understood, which was so startling it took him a second to leave his own thoughts. She was handing him one of their large sacks of Krysali crystals.

Of course any of them had the strength to carry heavy objects, as well as most dock workers, but it was still awkward moving around a bunch of containers. Kai helped out as they unloaded their money and the supplies they didn't need onto some sort of vast scale. A man with scaled skin was using it to judge their goods, one at a time.

In addition to being a normal scale, there were gemstones on the central column and strange shifting symbols on each plate. Kai couldn't figure out exactly how it worked, other than being based on chakra. This was the sort of magical device he hadn't seen often on Deadwaste, maybe the sort of thing they could only create in Irun.

"It's imbued with chakra," Zae Zin Nim said quietly from his side. "They do a lot of that here. I think it's checking that the material is pure, to be sure we're not cheating him."

"How can it do that?" Kai asked.

"Don't ask me about details. Chakra isn't as precise as qi, it works more off emotions and intents. Some specialist must have imbued the scale with elements of purity and fairness."

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"So it lets him know if we're trying to cheat him, but how do we know if it's the other way around?"

Zae Zin Nim shrugged indifferently, uninterested in the practices of merchants. But Omilaena appeared to have finished her haggling and turned back to him, switching to familiar Goralian.

"There are agencies here in Crescilor that set standards," she explained. "In a big port like this, you don't have to worry about it too much. But Rosemount doesn't have any continent-wide organizations, and nothing like your Frontier, so you're right to be skeptical. Elsewhere you'll find all kinds of clever ways to manipulate the systems."

"You'll have to explain more of that to me later," Kai said.

"Eventually. Right now there's too much to do."

"Is it done?" Zae Zin Nim asked. "I want to get back on task."

"We've sold everything except the ship and our functional supplies." Omilaena revealed a sack of golden coins. "This should be enough to get us started."

As they negotiated space for the diamond star and other details, Kai examined the coins and figured out the monetary system. These were the same heavy golden discs with octagonal sides that he'd been given before. According to Omilaena, these were distributed by some place called the Commonwealth. Instead of having arbitrary values, higher value coins were imbued with more "gold essence" and so they were physically worth more.

Still, in the end gold was gold. They had just over 100,000 Commonwealth Crests, which wasn't so different from the value of 100,000 Goralian Eagles. And apparently that was just a start.

Omilaena and Zae Zin Nim had been arguing about something at the docks in another language, but when he moved closer they switched back. Zae Zin Nim cast him a sour glance as she explained. "It's costing us a thousand Crests per month just to store the crystal ship here, even though we're not staying a full month, and it's not even well-protected. That's a waste."

"But what's the alternative?" Omilaena asked. "You've seen they don't allow as much flying here, so we can't just take it with us."

"We need to purchase a proper spatial device. We're on a real continent now, they should be available."

Apparently Zae Zin Nim was willing to argue the point hard enough that Omilaena relented. They left the docks and headed into the city to find a proper market. Away from the docks there were fewer sailors but even more people, cramming the streets with species he'd never seen before. When the merchants got involved he was surrounded by a dazzling array of items and sometimes he wasn't even sure which ones were food.

Eventually they reached a higher class market, filled with items that he could recognize as power-enhancing, even if he had no idea of their origins. They passed through strings of beads to enter a shop and Kai was surprised when the temperature went from sweltering to pleasantly cool. There were fewer people here and the owner immediately approached.

Zae Zin Nim began to barter with him in the trade language and for a while Kai was fascinated. The shop owner showed them what looked like an ordinary satchel, then pulled an entire spear out of it. Kai had seen a few spatial items like that back in Goralia, but they were usually just a few times bigger than the satchel itself.

They moved on to elaborate silver bangles and the merchant pulled jewelry and other items out of the extra-spatial storage, the items appearing as if by magic. That was definitely more than Kai had ever seen before. Yet Zae Zin Nim didn't seem satisfied.

She was still haggling, so Kai's attention waned. He looked around at the other customers in the shop, taking the chance to observe without seeming too strange. At first he thought that most of them were human, then he realized that some of the lithe bronze-skinned people had pointed ears, like the sailor he'd seen in the bay. Up close they weren't nearly as human as he thought, so he'd have to ask about that later.

Eventually Zae Zin Nim returned to them with a renewed scowl. "Proper spatial devices start at a quarter million Crests," she explained. "It's not worth buying garbage. What's our actual plan to escape my father's sect?"

"We have multiple options," Omilaena said. "I've asked around and we're not going to find enough power here in Crescilor. Well, they probably trade it, but we'd pay a premium. It makes more sense to keep moving and get something stronger from the source."

"And what is that?"

"It might make the most sense to head east to the Commonwealth. Let's go talk to some contacts, that will get us on the right track."

Kai couldn't weigh in on such matters, so he only nodded. He wanted to ask Omilaena about some of what he'd seen, but she seemed preoccupied. They left the mercantile quarter of the city and entered more official streets, some of them covered in colorful petals that released pleasant smells when crushed underfoot. It was actually enough to overwhelm the stink of the city.

There were signs here, in multiple different languages that all just looked like squiggles to him. Was he going to have to spend a long time learning new languages or just be ignorant forever? None of them seemed to be what Omilaena wanted until they reached a large gold and white building that made her smile.

"Here we go, Commonwealth embassy. We should find what we need here."

Unlike many of the other buildings on the street, there were no guards on this one. Few people overall, actually, which struck him as strange as they walked inside. It looked as though there were desks that should have handled various kinds of business, but almost all of them were empty. The few workers he saw moved around quietly, as if nervous.

Then Kai saw a man who immediately made a chill run up his spine. Though he looked close to human, there was something distinctly different about his power. Pale skin contrasted sharply with his black uniform, and when he turned around, his eyes burned like hot coals. He saw them and smiled, revealing a mouth filled with pointed teeth.

Kai stopped himself from physically reacting, because he didn't want to start a fight, but his spiritual sense had already passed over the man.

<

Name: ???

Total Power: 833

Crimson Demon: Garnet Rank (137)

Demonic Cultivation: Earth Soul (445)

Physique: D-3 (215)

Soul Level: 6 (36)

>

The man, or perhaps demon, gave them a sinister smile until Omilaena stopped the group. She smiled back, then gestured for them to turn around and kept smiling until they left the building. As soon as they were outside, the smile vanished.

"Well shit," Omilaena said. "So much for the easy path."