“Don’t be impertinent, please,” Alistair smiled, though with a small degree of underlying sharpness. “We really have to be as congenial as we can, if that will save our lives.”
“You sound so old,” Oliver complained. “That was possibly the lamest way to phrase that.”
“Like you’re a normal kid at all,” Alistair shot back. “Aren’t you turning nineteen in a few months, anyway? I’m only three years older than you.”
“3.5, you’re rounding down.”
“Whatever, you understand my point. This is serious. In all honesty, this might be the stickiest situation we’ve ever been in.”
“‘Stickiest situation’? Really?”
Alistair gave him a serious glance. “I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I understand. I won’t do anything weird, I promise. This is life and death we’re talking about.”
“Don’t make me regret bringing you along. Let’s get going.”
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Alistair also tried accessing his items and his status screen. All his items worked that were trapped in his inventory were inaccessible, while the items that were on his person didn’t seem to work. Devilsbane Gauntlets remained inert crimson bracelets, unable to turn into gloves.
His status screen was completely inoperable. It returned an error message, saying “Access Unavailable At This Time,” and flickered uselessly.
Dev’rox didn’t know what to make of it, though he hadn’t encountered a Devonic Elision Field in an area that had the Pathfinder AI. Was it a quirk of the interaction of Mana? A specific Pathfinder limitation for this region? They had no way of knowing.
Alistair silently prayed for the safety of the Northeast Order. There was nothing he could do—it was completely out of his hands. He could only trust in Alexandra, John, and others to protect everyone. And to protect themselves. The looming threat of the George Moulin was like an executioner’s blade.
They trekked down the outward facing hill with no trouble. There appeared to be hundreds of acres of farmland leading to a bustling village in the center, so there weren’t many people in the outlying areas.
In some villages, he noted reptiles as beasts of burden. While he couldn’t use his Skills to say for certain, based on their behavior they were most likely below the threshold of sophonce—for beasts of paltry pedigree, level 30. Then, with the knowledge from Selephita, it appeared that the most decorated species, achieved sophonce early as well. It was funny then that in the middle, the vast majority of the beast species throughout the multiverse gained intelligence much later at Half-Step Immortal, which Alistair thought might have been either Profound, Visionary, or some transitionary special beast Realm. That created an intriguing bell curve with both the lowest and highest reaching intelligence early.
The first people they encountered were a family attending their wheat fields. Alistair and Oliver approached them as harmlessly as possible, waving to them as soon as the two of them reached the edge of their fields.
The man that saw them first was young, though he looked hardened like a farmboy, with a deep tan. He was wearing a practical set of silk robes. Alistair thought it looked somewhat funny for what was ostensibly a peasant to be wearing such a fine fabric, but things weren’t always a one-to-one correlation to Earth norms.
“Who’re ya?” he said, with a thick accent that Alistair couldn’t place.
Alistair bowed his head deeply, forcing Oliver to do the same. “We are two humble travelers from a faraway land. We seek refuge from the turbulent forces outside these lands, and any gratitude shown shall be repaid tenfold.”
“Ah, yar Earthlins, aren’t ya? Always a miracle to hear ya speaking New Moi, ain’t that right? We gots a few Earthlins here. Tha name’s Grag, what’s about you two?” Grag bowed to both of them.
“Alistair Tan, and this is my friend Oliver Cambry.” They returned the gesture.
“Well, nice to meet ya. This har is me family’s farm. Yar welcome to stay here for a while, but I’d reckon yar gonna wanna go to tha town center.” Grag pointed a finger down the beaten path they were on to a location deeper and lower inside of the valley. Because of their elevation, they could make out a cluster of buildings from above.
“Thank you, Grag. If I may ask, where do you people come from?” Alistair questioned.
“Us? Well, we’ve just about been here in tha Holy Ravine since time began, I reckon, though I gots some Moi blood in mah from my mama’s side. If ya mean how’ds we get from over yonder to yar neck of the valley, I haven’t tha faintest idea. A little over a year ago, we woke up to tha Holy Ravine having new neighbors. We didn’t notice much at first cuz we ain’t have tha tendency to leave this har valley oft’n. From what we’ve heard from ya Earthlins, we’re kinda in a similar situation. Our planet ain’t have any of that Mana nonsense either, or any such things as a Pathfinder AI.”
A little over a year… Alistair thought to himself. Time dilation? The initiation had started four months ago, so the timeline didn’t make any sense as presented. Since Alistair had seen the Pathfinder using time dilation before, it didn’t seem outlandish, as they already had the Devonic Elision Field surrounding their valley.
“Well, thank you very much, Grag. Is there anything else we should know?”
Grag stroked his chin. “Be wary of tha Church of the Holy Ones. Most of us ain’t got a problem with outsiders, but they aren’t too keen on ya. But even they wouldn’t dare attack ya without ya attackin' em first. The Holy Ravine hasn’t seen bloodshed in a hundred generations.”
Alistair and Oliver exchanged a look at Grag’s last statement. Even if they weren’t affected by the war against the Devil Kings, he didn’t imagine the Final Frontier Empire to be a very peaceful place.
Before they could leave, Grag invited his entire family to meet the mysterious Earthlings. There was Grag’s pa, his ma, and then his five brothers and four sisters. Alistair didn’t want to be rude, since Grag was so nice, but they kept asking question after question. It was obvious they didn’t get many visitors.
But then it exploded from there. Nearby villagers came over to see what the fuss was about. Then they told their neighbors, and they told their neighbors. Alistair and Oliver kept walking toward the town center, but they gathered a crowd of over a hundred people.
Alistair confirmed his suspicions about the place by asking about the reptiles people were using on the farms. Vritra had, for a brief period, lived with the villagers in the Holy Ravine along with some of his brood, but left several months ago. Apparently, some of the villagers had negotiated with the Reptile Emperor to use some of the cow-sized lizards as farm animals.
Just hearing that Vritra had managed to leave perked Alistair up. He would have to ask some more knowledgeable people about how that had happened.
Talking to Grag gave him information on important aspects of their culture. They were a hardened people, despite what Grag had said about warfare. What he said was literally true—the Holy Ravine proper had not seen warfare within its borders for a hundred generations. But that was only because of their unrivaled martial strength and the nigh impregnable mountain passes. They were under constant siege from enemy forces.
In addition, whatever planet they had come from halfway across the universe had no modern technology. In fact, militarily, they seemed to not have any technology. From what Alistair gathered on the way into the town, they fought all their battles unarmed in hand-to-hand combat.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Alistair supposed he couldn’t dig at them too hard. After all, the difference between the Final Frontier Empire and Earth was dozens of times larger than the difference between Earth and the Holy Ravine.
As he walked, a stray thought occurred to Alistair—what about his debt? If it was impossible to access the system at all, he was screwed in terms of making payments. Not only that, but he already had a late payment. But he dismissed those worries. Right now, he was more concerned about surviving and getting back to everyone.
Their posse continued downward. They continuously lost and gained followers the entire time. It was a twenty kilometer walk from the peak of the valley down to the fertile trough. People had their own lives to live, and they couldn’t stay the whole way.
Without their normal speed, it took several hours to reach the more populated area. Alistair didn’t recall ever walking so far in his life, at least at their current pace. It was especially difficult since all the people of the valley were much more fit than them. Their stamina felt endless. For people without Mana, it was odd, to say the least.
The domiciles began increasing in density a few kilometers out of the true town square. Farmland shrunk and became concentrated on smaller yield crops like berries or ginseng. Smoke rose from chimneys into what felt like the purest air Alistair had ever felt in his life.
The natural beauty of the valley was unparalleled. Interestingly, while there were the enormous guardian mountains of black and white that defended the Holy Ravine from outsiders, the center of the valley was quite hilly.
Acres upon acres of the most fertile farmland Alistair had ever seen led into a hilly, deciduous forest biome. It was thicker on the outskirts of the hills, while deeper in, he could make out tall pagodas and sprawling estates. Paved roads crossed the landscape, intersecting with the hills and forest. Yet even in the deepest part of the valley, there were still trees.
At the very center of it all was a huge building that looked like a hybrid of a Buddhist temple and a church. While it might have been the tallest structure in the town, because of how the valley worked, it was at the exact deepest point. Ten stories tall at the center, there was a cerulean twelve-pointed star at its peak.
With the all the commotion Alistair and Oliver tossed up, an envoy came to meet with them at the start of the hilly zone.
By the time they grew close to the town, the crowd had mostly dispersed. Alistair had the sense that there was some tension between the rural and the less rural villagers. He said less rural because the combined population of the entire valley couldn’t have possibly been over fifty to sixty thousand. For a city kid like himself, that was rural, especially when considering the landscape.
The envoy sent out to the greet them was headed by a short old man in a tattered set of beige robes. He wore a black headband around his forehead and walked with a wooden cane. While he looked like nothing special, Alistair perceived a solidity to his movement that was unusual for a man of his age, or for a man of any age, for that matter. A group of robust young men followed him, all with shaved heads and similar robes that displayed muscular chests. Some of them wore red headbands, while others wore purple.
“Earthlings, welcome to the Holy Ravine! I am Ko Pao, Head Apostle of the Silver Comet Sect. You are the first Earthlings we have had come to our lands in many months. What tidings do you bring from beyond our mountains?”
Alistair immediately noticed that Ko Pao lacked the heavy accent of Grag. Alistair was so grateful that the Pathfinder AI’s translation service was still working or they would have really been screwed.
“I assume that my fellow Earthlings must have told you about the initiation and everything that came along with that. As of right now, we’re in the sixth and final Quest—the Quest that determines the fate of this planet. And since I don’t think that the Pathfinder AI is going to send you back, you’re a part of this planet too. Let me explain everything.”
Alistair took a glance at the dozen men that Ko Pao brought with him. The youngest had to be in his teens, while the oldest was in his thirties or forties. However, they acted in unison, all holding their heads and gaze slightly down with their hands clasped behind their backs respectfully. It was uncanny. While he didn’t have any of his powers, he could tell that they weren’t pushovers.
Alistair took Ko Pao aside, explaining the delicate nature of the situation. He wanted only the Head Apostle to hear his next words, but the old man insisted on bringing one other of the bald-headed men to listen. Then, he gave an abridged version of his post-initiation story, explaining all the Quests and filling in the details that the Earthling stragglers weren’t privy to. Ko Pao nodded and hummed along, not once interrupting him.
At the end, Alistair explained the Devil Kings and the sponsors and Final Frontier Empire, along with a rough idea of how the Pathfinder AI worked. During the course of his explanation, he touched on Selephita, which made him wonder about whether there were other pockets of alien civilization like Selephita’s domain and the Holy Ravine. He hadn’t considered that possibility before, but it made sense—the Pathfinder AI was trying to create novel and divergent situations to test Earth, and if it could also test some other places that needed integration as well, why not?
Alistair got the sense that Oliver was less than thrilled at how much information he was divulging to Ko Pao. And yes, it was a bit risky to reveal how important he was. But Alistair felt like he could trust them, at least to a certain extent. While he lacked his [Eyes of Truth], something deep inside him said that they were trustworthy. Also, it wasn’t like anything he was saying was top secret information.
“You spin an interesting tale, outsider,” said Ko Pao’s presumed disciple. He was one of the largest of the bunch, standing half a head taller than Alistair with even more impressive muscles. He was beardless with a cutting jawline and a distinctive diagonal scar coming down from his forehead over his nose, wearing a red headband. Now that Alistair thought about it, it looked similar to a Muay Thai Mongkhon. “How do we know what you say is true?”
“That is enough, Pike,” Ko Pao said. “Have you forgotten your hospitality? These two poor souls have been through enough. Questioning their integrity is a step too far. I apologize for my student’s rudeness. Please, come back with us to our temple and join us for supper. We can discuss what lies in store for you in the Holy Ravinie.”
“Can we have a moment to discuss?” Alistair asked.
Ko Pao nodded his head.
Alistair pulled Oliver aside. He could tell that Oliver wasn’t as enthusiastic as he was. “What’s your read on things?” he asked.
“That I’ve resigned myself to die. I don’t trust these guys further than I could throw them. But what can we do? We can’t leave and we can’t use our powers. If we tried to get away from them, I’m sure it’d piss them off, and if they wanted to, they could easily throw us in jail or worse.”
Dev’rox couldn’t manifest himself without Mana, but Alistair could relay his mental messages to Oliver as an intermediary. “Do you think the system would let promising candidates like you die so easily? Is what Dev’rox just said.”
“You think the Herald of the Pathfinder is gonna show up and pluck us out of here if we get in trouble?” Oliver asked incredulously.
“Dev’rox says that he didn’t say that, but that it’s an AI vastly more powerful than the human mind and its plans are inscrutable and impossible to see. That doesn’t guarantee our safety by any means—the law of the jungle is king and we might be tested here, but it’s unlikely for random events outside of our control to be fatal without recourse. Is what Dev’rox says.”
“You don’t have to convince me any more imp, I understand,” Oliver said. “I can’t do anything about it, so why resist?”
“We’d be delighted to accept,” Alistair said to Ko Pao. “What kind of sect is the Silver Comet, anyway?”
Ko Pao gave a warm, but slightly impish smile. “I’m glad you asked.”
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The Silver Comet Sect wasn’t located in the town proper, but on a hill on the outskirts. One of the hills so deeply covered in forest, Alistair couldn’t even make out the temple. It was a simple compound of stone bricks partially built into the hill itself. You could tell right away the temple was hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The ancient character was evident in everything, from the worn out metal door handles to the color of the rocks.
But while the temple was ancient, the dwellers inside were full of life. Chatter and laughter could be heard from every wing and corner. The members of the Silver Comet sect appeared to be all men, ranging from adolescents to old men, all wearing a colored headband. Based on the general distribution of the colors, it seemed like there was a hierarchy, with black at the top and white on the bottom.
Wherever Ko Pao walked, the sect members bowed. He obviously commanded respect, despite his lack of physical strength compared to the rest of them, most of whom looked ridiculously proportioned, like a comic book hero.
He led them down a sparsely decorated main hall. The ceiling was so low that it grazed the hair of the tall man who challenged him before, giving it a claustrophobic feeling. However, instead of bringing them to guest quarters or their dining hall for supper, Alistair and Oliver found themselves in a blistering hot room.
It was gigantic, large enough to fit a house, and sparsely decorated. The walls were the same stone as everything else, but the floor was matted with a light spongy material.
The first thing he noticed once he was inside was that the heat was overbearing. Alistair couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it was as hot as a Russian sauna.
There were dozens of men inside of the room, all fiercely sparring with one another. They were blurs of movement, masters of martial arts.
“What’s this?” Oliver asked, clearly not dealing with the heat any better than Alistair was.
“Oh, forgive me,” Ko Pao said. “I forget that outsiders aren’t familiar with our customs. The Holy Ravine’s most sacred art and law is that of the fist. All guests must be challenged first, and then treated with the utmost respect.”