I needed to deal with practical matters before I could worry about fixing what was wrong. As Yvonne and I had noticed as we made our way through town, there was so much wrong, so much that needed to be fixed. The town was being held together by spit and baling wire, entire areas had been savaged by storm and left in ruin. Neglect permeated even the more affluent section of town.

"Is there anyone left that actually tries to maintain order?" I asked. Hilda had a certain amount of power as Keep Caretaker, but that power was limited to this building. She might have secondhand information about what had been done and how the people were affected, but I wanted people who knew where the bodies were buried.

"I can gather the other council members," Gwen offered. I hadn't realized until that moment she was part of a town council. I should have, she had stepped forward despite the danger of confronting an angered cultivator. But she had also mentioned that she expected to be dead soon. That hadn't really registered as important at the time, but if she was dying, I hoped I could do something about that.

"You mentioned you didn't have long to live?" I reminded her, waiting for an answer.

"That is no longer an issue," she assured me. "Lord Chon was not pleased with my continued complaints, and today he was so incensed he decided to put a stop to them. He had just ordered his guards to stake me out for the Meganeuropsis permiana, to infect me with their venom and use me to power the formation."

"What exactly is a Meganeuropsis permiana?" Yvonne wondered aloud, asking the question before I could, ignoring the rest of Gwen's statement in the process.

"A large insect, about the size of a clenched fist. It attacks with a stinger that injects the venom and allows the insect to siphon blood. It feeds off of the blood of any type of animal, but it can be easily warded against with certain scents.

"The venom acts as a type of euphoric, the increased ability to produce Qi almost addictive. Lord Chon has an arboretum where he houses a few of them."

It seemed there were no lengths to depravity, cruelty, and evil Lord Chon wouldn't embrace. I had to wonder why he hadn't been assassinated before this. I didn't believe for a moment the town was willing to just accept these atrocities. The only explanation I could think of was that they were more afraid of inciting the wrath of the smugglers than anything Chon might do.

"How many council members are there?" I asked, changing the subject now that I knew she wasn't dying.

"Four in total, each selected by the populace with the exception of one of the councilors who Lord Chon appointed to the Head Council position, giving him veto and tie-breaking authority," she replied.

"Are there people in place to run the treasury, the ports, and the guard? Who is in charge of repairs, building permits, and resource management?" I asked.

"There is a Town Hall that theoretically should function for some of those positions and duties, but Lord Chon was always micro-managing, always rescinding decisions that the people he had installed had made," she explained.

"The dock and port are independently managed, for the most part, Lord Chon leaving them alone as long as they continued to funnel spirit stones and beast cores to his coffers. I have no idea what resources the town can claim, Lord Chon kept the treasury in a personal spatial device."

I didn't like hearing that. It meant I would have to search Chon's corpse to find that device. I probably should have already looted his corpse before I swept it inside the Torc World.

Holding up a finger, motioning for Gwen to wait, I entered the world with my Dharmic body; I wanted to find that device before events became so overwhelming; I forgot. The task would have been nauseating if I'd used my physical form, but my Dharmic body didn't have to deal with the issue of stench and body fluids.

Lord Chon had two spatial devices, one that held herbs, ore, and leathers. The other spatial device held the town's treasury and was shockingly sparse. There were a dozen low-tier spirit stones, perhaps twice that number of level two beast cores, and the rest luxury goods. Rare food, wines, and teas were plentiful. Silks, weapons, defensive armaments, and armor in such number that Chon could probably outfit a guard detail of hundreds.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

His use of beast cores to power the eight trigrams formation explained the dearth of beast cores he had possessed. But where were the spirit stones? What was Chon purchasing with all the spirit stones he collected?

It was only as I was cataloging the herbs he held to determine if there were any, I might find useful, that I came across a seed pod. A pod that resonated with order and purity. A pod that when cracked open would release a plant-based beast core. A seedpod that I thought was exclusive and hidden in the Torc World.

Golden Lodoicea existed near this town. I couldn't be certain where and when it had been discovered, but I now understood why smuggling would be so prolific in this area. Especially if there was a unique requirement for the plant to grow, some rare nutrient that was unique to this area.

Cores of such purity, cores that could be farmed in vast numbers would explain so much. If they could be harvested in large enough numbers, these cores could change the economies across the world. And the person that controlled distribution would gain power and influence that might rival an emperor.

Gwyn and Hilda might have noticed the 'stutter' in movement as I focused more of my attention on the devices I had looted, but they were too inured in fear. To beat down, or too respectful to mention it. Yvonne, on the other hand?

"Problem?" She asked, making plain to everyone that my loss of focus was atypical. I was too new to Qi Gathering Realm to be able to split my mind so that I could control the Dharmic and physical in a seamless manner. I still needed to swap my focus between each body for anything requiring detailed observation or action.

"Maybe," I equivocated, "definitely something I will need to look into."

The sound of fighting and explosions welcomed our exit from the Keep.

I had disabled the eight trigrams formation after killing Lord Chon, I could only think that had triggered the attack that came as our group left the safety of the Keep's walls. The attack would have been laughable if it didn't demonstrate how corrupt and weak the guard that served Lord Chon was.

The weapons used were substandard, especially when compared to the treasure trove that Chon had hoarded. None of the people releasing staggered flights of arrows had reached even the Body Refinement Realm, so their efforts were worthless.

Their attack did speak to how badly educated and trained they were. Either they didn't realize how futile their mortal efforts would have against a Qi Gathering cultivator, or they hoped the element of surprise would see them successful.

The only weapon that had any chance of damaging us was the beast core explosions that destroyed great chunks of turf as the person lobbying them at us tried to refine the range.

Their surprise attack might have killed Gwyn and Hilda, if it was a surprise. But Yvonne and I had been constantly extending our perception Qi field. Even as distracted as I was considering the ramification of the Golden Lodoicea being native to my fief, I had continued monitoring my surroundings.

The arrows were stopped mid-flight as my Tessen appeared in my hands. A quick flutter of both, a thread of air elemental Qi added to call, and I directed the wind, making sure each sortie of arrows were deflected. The guards' attempt to kill negated easily.

That same gust of wind sent the explosion back the way they had come, striking the man who had launched them. The explosion was much greater than it should have been, but the heat had created a chain reaction, destroying the stockpile that had been gathered.

Gwyn and Hilda had not been the only two people following Yvonne and me as we had made our way out of the keep. There had been a bevy of hangars-on, staff, and sycophants. One such woman's response as I effortlessly foiled the ambush had me rethinking how these guards had been informed.

They hadn't been monitoring the trigram formation. This woman had sent runners and messages to the guard captain. Her elevated pulse, her increased respiration, the fight-or-flight endorphins she was producing were all the evidence I needed to understand what had happened.

The advances in my Qi perception made filtering and understanding the stimuli that mortal physiologies produced easily processed. I didn't know why she had sent a runner, if she was the last line of defense Lord Chon had created or if she and the guard captain had an illicit understanding, an understanding where he would activate his people and attack in the event Chon died.

I doubted this attack was in retaliation or an attempt to avenge Lord Chon. It seemed more of an attack of opportunity. Maybe they hoped to take over the town. I would hazard to guess that plans had been made about how to act and react when Lord Chon died. His size and physical condition would have had him passing away soon, naturally, even if I hadn't beheaded him.

I made sure not to hurt any of the people attacking, except that one man who had died from his own weapon. Not yet, anyway. I would have to make an object lesson of the guard captain, and the young woman behind me that had betrayed my movements, but the rest of the people might be useful if trained and equipped properly. And I couldn't fault them for following orders, they were being paid to protect and guard.

Yvonne must have trusted my capabilities and my judgment because she exuded an aura of indifference, demonstrating for everyone watching that these events were doomed to failure and laughable in the face of a cultivator's abilities.

I think it was her indifference that finally made it clear to the archers because the rain of arrows slowly tapered off until finally ceasing completely.