'Ello Mary, you actually got anything fresh this time 'round?"

"Stop yer complainin' bout me veggies, or ye can walk to the city to get 'em."

"Always a sunny mornin' with you innit, Mary?"

"Oh quit yer yappin' and go bother another if ye ain't buyin'."

"Who says I ain't buyin', I've got some Spiritgrass I wanna trade."

"In tha' case, ye can get 1 o' these boys, or 3 taters." Mary said while slapping a big watermelon. "Next time start with the fact that yer bringin' business."

"If it's another one o' those earthy watermelons, I'll take the taters. I mean it's in the name fer cryin' out loud, watermelons should be water-aligned."

"Well I can't grow 'em at the bottom of the river, now can I? Git goin' 'fore I shove another tater where the sun don't shine, Tim. On the house."

With his bag of potatoes secured around his shoulder, Tim raised his hands as he walked away.

I'll marry that girl one o' these days.

Casually strolling back to his house, Tim waves at his friends around the village. Just a hot summer day with a nice breeze, what could go wrong.

"Get inside! Quickly! An immortal's comin'!"

Fookin' 'eavens, not this again. Every cultivator with an ounce of fookin' talent acts like he owns the place. If I were able to advance past the Mortal stages, I'd give them all a piece of my mind. For now though, better hurry home 'fore the uppity little shit gets offended.

The village quickly became empty, except for a few traders at the market who couldn't just abandon their goods.

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After we found a village, we decided to land before coming close. We don't want to stir up trouble after all. We land quite a distance away, as it still takes quite a bit of effort for me to completely control my qi from leaking out.

...

Why is it so quiet? It's midday already, shouldn't everyone be out and about? It seems like a farming village as well, but where are the farmers?

I feel a lot of Qi signatures, everyone seems to be inside. Maybe they can't take the heat? If I can help them out with that, they'll probably help me out as well, right?

Wait, everyone is a cultivator in this village. Impressive, that's a middle realm world for you.

"Do you know what's going on here, Gerard?"

"The best answer would come from someone in the village, we should ask around. I see a little market square over there, they should be able to provide us with a satisfying answer."

We stroll over to the market square, while looking around at the rest of the village. I was able to read the village's welcome board, which is good news. I am very bad at learning new languages so I'm thrilled that I apparently know theirs.

There aren't that many stalls in the market square, just 5, and i notice 3 of them have no one manning the stall. They must be bored on such a slow day. Gerard and I start walking towards the closest stall to us, which seems to be selling fruits and vegetables.

"Excuse me miss. Mind if we ask you a few questions?"

"An investigator are ya? I can tell you now, no one here be dumb 'nough to steal from the sects." Mary said while cautiously eyeing the approaching duo up and down. The one who just spoke to her was an older gentleman of average height. Gray hair, black suit, white shirt and a classy tie.

He's not dressed like someone from the sects though, more like one o' them mortal nobles, 'ope he's not here fer trouble.

She turned to the other one. He seemed like a strong, young man. He had a casual expression on his face, but knowing the immortals, he probably despised everyone in this village for merely existing. His robes made him look extremely rich. They were made of white silk with flowing golden decorations.

Wait are they.. Yeah, they are. The decorations are movin'! That's one o' the most expensive robes I'll ever see in me damn life. Oh 'eavens please don't be here fer trouble.

Henry saw the woman look at him inquisitively, that look slowly turned to one of horror. Oh shit, did she sense my cultivation? That shouldn't be possible, am I not as good as I thought at hiding it? Gerard said he couldn't feel anything! "I'm sorry miss, please don't be alarmed. We really are only here to ask a few questions. We're travelers on the road, a long way from home."

"S-sure, ask away lord." Mary stammers out. Poor woman seems so afraid of us. Wait, lord?

"Ehm, well, okay. First off, I think we should introduce ourselves. My name is Henry, and this is Gerard. Please don't worry, we aren't here for any trouble. We are here because a teleportation technique misfired and we appeared a short distance from this village, so please tell me of any nearby locations we could use to orient ourselves.

"Yes lord. This 'ere village is called Kira, and if ye run in tha' direction, you'll find Stonne. That road over there leads to Kirome City, which is prob'ly where you'd wanna go. Northeast, is the Flowing Brush Sect, which is the closest sect to us. South is the Fire Lily Sect, but tha's a long way. There ain't much else to see 'ere in these parts."

"Kirome, is it a big city?"

"Ye haven't 'eard of Kirome City? You lords must be a long way from home. It's the 3rd largest city of the Ansi Kingdom."

"Thank you, this really helps us out a lot. Can we do anything for you in return? I noticed a lot of people are indoors. Is something wrong?"

"Oh, don' worry 'bout us, lords. Just a lil' warm today. They'll be out soon enough."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Well I should at least buy something then, but I'm afraid I have no currency. Would you take a homemade cultivation pill?"

Travelling alchemists maybe then? Tha' explains those fancy robes.

"It would be too much, lord. I wouldn't be able to give you the proper change."

"Then consider it a favor. I will trade 1 Golden Core pill for one of your ... Hmm, for one of those."

"1 watermelon, comin' up sir."

Oh, they also call them watermelons, nice.

"Do you have anything I can put it in?"

"Oh I'm sorry lord, I figured ye'd toss it in one of yer storage rings. 'ere's your bag."

A storage ring? I suppose my rings might look like storage rings. She'd probably be surprised if she saw what they do however, hehe. I'm glad I didn't just toss it in my inventory. Would people be able to notice the difference? Whether I toss something in my inventory or into a storage ring?

"Here's your payment. Thank you very much, ma'am!"

"Yer welcome, lor-" Holy shet. This ain't no ordinary pill. My dantian is already beggin' me to just gulp it down. This hasta be the purest pill i've ever seen. And he traded it for a watermelon! A low quality earth-aligned watermelon! What in the 'eavens? This is a free ticket to makin' me a gold core! I never thought I could do it! 'Eavens, a sect might take me in if I use this. I'll have to start cultivating for real again!

"Thank you lords, have a safe trip! Please don't forget about our lil' Kira Village! Yer always welcome here!" Mary shouted as the duo of strange cultivators walked on towards the city.

What a nice lady! I thought as we waved her goodbye.

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I should pick a more appropriate outfit for when we enter the city. How could I not notice that my Luminescent Snowsilk Robes were too gaudy compared to the villagers.

All of my accessories sure aren't helping me blend in.

I get off the road and start rummaging through my inventory.

The villagers wore mostly browns and greens, but that's probably because it's a farmer's village. In the city I expect a wider variety of colors. Too bad we haven't passed anyone coming from the city yet.

How would city folk dress here... I think as I mentally go through my inventory. I won't equip any armor. A regular robe should be fine as long as it isn't too flashy.

This one looks nice.

I took out a set with a light gray under-robe and a forest green robe with light gray contours. Yeah, this seems a lot more appropriate.

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We traveled along cobbled roads, through forests and meadows. Some travelers started appearing on the road between Kira and Kirome, we'd officially found civilization. Judging by their outfits and their indifference towards mine, I didn't look too unusual anymore. Gerard however... Whenever we passed a merchant, they would approach Gerard to boast about their merchandise. It seems his clothing is that of the mortal nobles in this world. I asked him to wear something less eye-catching, but he refused to change.

Well, he didn't really refuse. Apparently the outfit is part of his human form and he actually can't change. Something about demonic servants' terms and conditions.

Gerard and I traveled leisurely at our own pace, giving me some time to think. Using this time wisely, I started planning our arrival at Kirome and I realized we needed money. We needed something to sell so we could afford a night at an inn. So I decided to catch some fresh meat in the hopes that its meat and skin would provide us enough money to get by. In order to sell it fresh, we picked up the pace towards Kirome.

Just like we did when we approached Kira village, we landed once we spotted the city to remain a little more inconspicuous.

Kirome was much, much larger than I'd imagined. There were no outer walls, but a large part of the city center was walled off. The city center was raised up as well, like a small plateau. They probably used earth cultivators to shape it like that. It looks impressive, but it also gives off a strong feeling of "Us inner-city folk are better than you outer-city trash." I shouldn't be judgmental like that without knowing anyone here, but I wonder if their attitudes would match my thoughts.

Walking through Kirome, I'm starting to appreciate its beauty. The streets are comfortable to walk on. No random rocks are jutting out, trying to trip me. The buildings are mainly made out of stone,with a lot of yellow and red colors. I overheard some other travelers talking about this, and apparently the citizens of Kirome dye their homes mainly yellow, as it signifies good health, and their shops mainly red, as it signifies good fortune.

So I need to keep my eyes on the red buildings then to sell our meat.

I want to do a qi scan of the city, to get a better feel of our surroundings, but after what happened in the forest... I might need some practice first.

We quickly find an inn, it's one of the few businesses that use both red and yellow in their color scheme. Maybe I can ask for directions to a butcher shop inside.

Apparently the butcher isn't that far so Gerard and I quickly went back and forth, the wild pig we caught made us enough money to stay at the inn for about 3 days, food included. 1 silver tael for the pig. I need to get a feel for how much 1 tael is truly worth. It seems like they have copper, silver, and then I assume gold taels. I didn't see any gold ones yet, so I'm not sure, but it seems logical. 1 copper tael seems to be about the value of half a meal, and 1 silver is worth 10 copper. I'm not going to worry about money too much yet, we can always go camping and catch our own food when we run out of taels.

Let's just get a room and go to bed, i'm looking forward to some sleep.

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Today's plans: gathering information.

We had a bland breakfast of some kind of porridge, I was hoping for more, but I do realize we picked a cheap inn to stay at. Beggars can't be choosers.

I walk up to the innkeeper to learn a little more of our surroundings.

"Hello again miss, could I ask you about anything noteworthy in this city for travelers?" I ask as politely as possible. She scares me a little, doesn't seem too keen on helping people for free.

"Anything noteworthy?" She looks up with an uncaring look while scooping up another serving of porridge. "The real noteworthy stuff is in Iroh, which is the inner city. There are a few nice bars around here though if that's what you're after. But the auction hall and bigger things like that are up in Iroh I'm afraid."

"Can we just enter Iroh? The walls make me feel a little unwelcome compared to the rest of the city."

"Of course not anyone can enter. Kirome's upper class resides in Iroh. Have you noticed how Iroh is elevated above the rest of the city?"

"Yes, that did catch my attention earlier."

"Well, that happened during a failed attempt at making the inner city fly. It did fly, for about a minute or so. Then it came crashing down! Serves them right if you ask me" She said with a little snicker.

"Any kind of damage the city sustained has long been fixed, but I mentioned it to make this point clear: They think they're so far above us they might as well be flying in the sky. They don't like poor people."

"So I need money to get in is what you're saying?"

"Either that, or a cultivation level of Nascent Soul or up." She said the last part dismissively, as if expecting that I couldn't possibly be that strong.

"Sounds like a dangerous area with such powerful cultivators."

"Not really, the city lord has always maintained good connections with the nearby sects. Their elders are Nascent Soul stage at the minimum, and they have teleportation arrays connecting Iroh to the Fire Lily and Flowing Brush sects. Anyone causing trouble in Iroh is certain to get their asses whooped. Besides, if only the big boys are allowed to enter, it would take a very big boy with very big balls to dare upset anyone."

"That's reassuring at least. But I'll take a look at those bars you mentioned then, maybe at some point I'll be able to save enough money for a trip to Iroh." Little did she know, I would be going straight to Iroh~

We went back to our rooms for a little strategy meeting. "I want to visit Iroh, it sounds like the most useful place for us to learn about this world. I'm not too sure about showing off our cultivation stages to get in however."

"Master Henry, I believe there will be no issue if we simply suppress ourselves to the Nascent Soul stage as long as we're in the city. We could even wear masks if that would make you feel more comfortable."

"Wouldn't they be able to detect our false cultivation stages?"

"I will closely analyse the situation before we enter. I don't believe they will have the tools to pierce a Celestial stage's lies however."

"Let's do that then, but without the masks. I think wearing masks would make us stand out even more."

With that we were ready to leave towards our next destination.