The next day Shen did her ‘restrict’ meditation and went to the bathhouse. This was a special day, as the sect always treated Caravan days as a festival day, giving most people a day off and paying those that chose to work in the most critical a jobs double pay, like the cafeteria and the peacekeepers. Even with the sect teaching against theft and assault, the number of thefts and fights still greatly increased during caravan days. Still, she had made a bit of progress the last two days, and that progress was only speeding up, so she made sure to Restrict her chi before leaving.
The caravan would be here for three days, and she wouldn’t get paid until the second one, as Ponma would find a buyer the first day if he could, so until then she had little money to work with. Though, if she needed money she could always trade a few contribution points for money. She had been told where the point exchange stalls were for that very reason.
After her bath she returned her dirty clothes to her room and went to eat morning meal. There she met Ponma, Danka, and Mae sitting at one of the tables. “So, everyone ready for the caravan?” asked Ponma, and the two older kids shrugged while Mae said yes.
“Are you sure about this business deal of yours?” asked Danka. “It sounds confusing to me.”
“Yeah, I checked the math last night.” Ponma said before going into details. “Each of the small bud jars have around eight hundred, and the large bud jars have around three hundred. Now, we have one hundred and seventeen points in the jars, but you helped as well, Danka, so I figure I owe you one per day, bringing it to one hundred and twenty.” Danka nodded. “Now, we have seventeen and a half large bud jars and twenty seven small bud jars. If I sell each for three gold, we will earn one hundred and thirty two gold, or about three hundred and seventeen points. That will mean that they get the smalls for less than a copper each, and we still make a profit. Even at two per jar we will still make a profit. If they are in demand though, we might earn more. If we do, I will split up the profit proportionally with you, Shen.”
“Proportionally?” asked Shen. That wasn’t a word she had heard before.
“Yeah, it means that your cut compared to your investment will be the same as my cut compared to my investment. My dad was just starting to teach me algebra when the ceremony came, so I’m not the best at it, but I can do this much. For example, if I did get one hundred and thirty two gold, your cut would be forty seven gold, and you would earn a profit of five gold. Well, forty seven point four, but I don’t think you can do fractions of a point and I paid to have Danka help us, and it was my idea, so…”
“Yeah, I get it.” She wasn’t really interested in math. Who would be? Well, she supposed Ponma was, but he was a merchant’s apprentice. “But if you sell it for more, I make more too, right?”
“Yep.” he nodded, and they finished their meal. Apparently no one wanted to risk another math lesson.
They then went up the mountain to Fisher village. The people there might be lending them the carts and bringing the goods with them, but they could help load the carts. When they got there they saw a group of people carrying jars to the back of a man-pulled cart. Shen Released her chi, purging a bit more of the toxins from her minor chi pathways, and went to the storage shed to help carry things. She only had around half of her chi left due to overdoing the Release, but she still had enough strength to carry the large jars. Mae, on the other hand, was struggling, as she hadn’t spent that much time cultivating, so Shen told her to try using Release. Her strength fluctuated from five to seven times her normal level, throwing off her balance, so Shen took the jar and asked her to go help the young children move the smaller things.
“I’m surprised you can pull the cart by yourself.” Shen said to the eleven year old boy Po whose cart was now loaded.
“Why’s that? Even that little girl could carry the jars by herself with a bit of cultivation, and there are only twenty of them on there. Plus, the road is in good repair so the wheels make it much easier than carrying the load by hand.”
“You cultivate?” she asked. “I thought you weren’t sect members. Though, I guess you could always use the Dao of the Militia as a manual.”
“What makes you think we aren’t Sect members?” he asked.
Shen didn’t have an answer. “I guess I just kind of assumed, since you don’t live in town. Don’t all sect members live in town?”
Po laughed. “Not at all. A lot of us Outer members move out into the forest or to one of the villages, like Fisher, one of the farming villages, or maybe the one of mines. Living in the town is too expensive. The way my dad explained it, only about forty percent of children with two Foundation talent parents will be Foundation or above talent themselves. Maybe sixty percent if one is Nascent, and eighty percent if both are, though few Nascent elders have children as they tend to be older. You can’t become an Inner sect member until you reach Foundation, so the rest of the people born in town have little hope of becoming Inner members. So it’s hard for them to work eight out of ten days to pay for their apartment and basic needs like the sect requires of Outer Sect Disciples. Then the pay isn’t big enough to raise a family, so you need to get a better job or work multiple jobs to afford the place.”
Shen looked confused. “You have to pay to live in Town? I thought it was free.”
Po’s fourteen year old brother Ko overheard and entered the conversation. “That’s because you aren’t thirteen yet. On your thirteenth birthday you will have to get a job or move out. Unless you happen to reach Foundation before that.”
“Can’t you just pay with contribution points?”
Ko shook his head. “Not if you are outer sect. You also can’t do any of the good missions, so you’ll struggle to earn enough doing Minor and Low grade missions even if you can find an Inner sect member to ‘donate’ your rent for you for a few extra points.”
“You seem to know a lot about this.” said Shen.
“Well, I’m actually the only one in my family with Foundation potential, since mom and dad are both Gathering potential. I moved to town when I was ten to try and study, but wasn’t able to reach Foundation before turning thirteen, so I had to move back home. Still, I doubt it will take more than a few months before I can break through, so maybe I can move back to town then.”
“Maybe you can take me with you.” said Po. “I might only be early Gathering, but you know I’m good with a spear. I even beat you sometimes when we go boar hunting at the base of the mountain.”
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“Aren’t hunting missions Major?” asked Danka, walking up. All of the carts looked to be loaded, so the others were just finishing up some minor things before leaving. “I thought you couldn’t take Major missions until you are an Inner sect member.”
“Actually, as long as one of the people on your team is an Inner member they can take the mission and you can help them. All of the money just goes through them, so you have to make sure you can trust them.”
Danka nodded. “So is it tough living outside the town? It looks nicer than my hometown out here.”
“It’s not bad.” answered Po. “Mom traveled a bit when she was younger, and says that we have it better than in most villages. There aren’t any dangerous monsters around here, and there’s plenty of food. Good food too, and not the cheap, toxin filled stuff most villagers eat. And because we are sect members we have many low end magic techniques that we can use to make life easier. Worst we had to deal with was two years ago when a young dragon came to town. We played with it for a little while before its mom came to take it back, and she gave us a Blue Pearl as an apology.”
Shen and Danka nodded just as one of the adults said it was time to set out. Everyone lined up, the strongest of them near the carts in case the cart puller couldn’t slow it down enough when going down hill. Usually this only happened when the ground was slippery, but they had many younger people like Po pulling carts this time, so they might not be able to handle it the whole way. Once they were lined up the group set out for the town.
When they arrived, somewhat surprisingly not having to help slow the carts, the carts were taken to a warehouse attached to one of the Apothecaries. Mae went inside with Ponma to talk to them and a minute later a woman in her early twenties came to open the warehouse for them. This woman was Sister Ku, and she ran the counter here. They unloaded all of the village’s goods, as they were mostly magical or alchemical ingredients, and parked the carts.
Just as they were finishing people in strange clothing started entering the town. Some of them wore colorful cloth garments, but the ones that drew Danka’s attention were the men dressed in black leather pants and vests carrying swords. “Soul Blades.” said Po, whispering. “Mercenary cultivators that mostly work security for caravans or towns. Lots of us think about joining them, as they accept Gathering talent people, but few of us do. After all, who wants to leave your family to go train several week’s walk away and protect people you don’t even know. Better to stay here and help out the people you grew up with.”
Danka thought for a little while. “But if they are only Gathering potential, and I assume most of them are, how do they fight against demon sect members and stronger beasts? Most sects only accept Foundation and above, like the Jade Dragons do.”
“Sword chi.” said Ko, leaning in to join the whispered conversation. “It carries the intent of ‘severance’. By cultivating it you can remove the weakness from your own body and do a lot of damage to your enemies. There’s even a rumor that it can help you exceed your talent level. Focusing on one type of chi also lets you make it a lot better, so their sword chi at Gathering stage usually has the purity of a Foundation level master’s elemental chi. This lets them fight above their level.” He looked around to make sure no one was listening except his brother. “I can introduce the two or you to someone I know that works as a guard in this caravan. He can tell you more.” The two boys nodded and left with Ko.
Of course, Shen knew nothing of this. She assumed that Danka was going to go challenge them in the sparring field, as it was still open for friendly sparring sessions, and ignored them. She had more important things to do. She left to get a jar from her room and came back. It contained a few of the Water buds that they had gathered yesterday and some of the left over vinegar. Once she was back, she and Ponma went to find the alchemical ingredient merchant.
They found him by the time of Noon meal and offered him a sample. He verified that the flowers were of good quality and Ponma notified him of how much of each size they had. The man looked impressed and Ponma started negotiations. Shen couldn’t really follow what was being said, but after a few minutes they shook hands.
“We came to an agreement.” said Ponma. “I didn’t get what I wanted, because this is the first time he has dealt with us and he doesn’t know if he can trust us, but we got three each for the large buds and two each for the smalls. That’s…” he mumbled for a bit as he did the math. “Fifty two for the smalls and fifty one for the bigs, so one hundred and three. That is about…” more mumbling, “Two hundred and forty seven points. I’ll lead him over to the warehouse so that he can load them up, then I’ll give you your portion.”
Shen went to noon meal and as she was about to leave Ponma came in, grabbed some food, and sat down. “Ok, I gave Danka two gold, about 4.8 points, since he helped us. The rest of the gold came to thirty two for you, sixty nine for me.” He handed her a bag of coins. “That’s almost seventy seven points if you donate it to the sect. Not a bad profit for a few days of work.”
Shen nodded. “In that case, if you think of another way to make money, let me know. I need more scrolls if I’m going to reach Foundation before I’m thirteen.” Shen took a few breaths to Restrict her chi again and got up. She wanted to do some shopping.
That night she put the robe she had bought in the drawer and put the scrolls on top. The robe was a green cotton one with a few red flowers embroidered on it. It had cost her ten silver, but she hadn’t had anything that nice since her father died, and really wanted it, so she had talked herself into buying it. The other ten silver out of that gold coin had went to buying five scrolls and a small book. This was probably all stuff that the sect would teach her eventually, but with the cost of scrolls and books being what it was in the library she decided to spend a few coins and learn it early.
All of these techniques used neutral chi, as they were meant for common people that didn’t have elemental chi even if they were past Cleansing stage. The first two were self-descriptive, “Enhance Sight” and “Enhance Hearing”. The next two were things that everyone learned eventually, but Shen wanted to learn early, “Telepathy” and “Telekinesis”. They were actually spiritual abilities, not magical abilities, and she didn’t know how strong her spiritual powers would be, but she decided to give it a try. After all, she had a lot of money at the moment. The last scroll was “Light ball”. It was similar to Torch Palm which she had already learned, but could be thrown at a target to make it glow until the chi started to run out. She could probably have figured out how to do it on her own since she already knew Torch Palm and had worked with putting chi into ball form, but she wanted to study it to see if it worked the way she thought.
Finally she got to the book. It appeared to be a weapon enhancement technique. It claimed that it could make weapons stronger, but she didn’t quite understand how it worked. She would have to read the book to figure that out, she supposed.
She was tired from a long day of wandering around the caravan stalls, so she decided not to cultivate heavily tonight. There had been so many exciting things in the caravan. They had dozens of entertainers, games with prizes, and more shops than she can remember seeing before. She would have to go again tomorrow.
She Released her chi once more and cleared out a bit more of her minor pathways, then decided to read over one of the techniques. She grabbed a random scroll. Telepathy. She read it once, but it didn’t seem to make sense. It included terms that she hadn’t heard of, and asked her to cycle chi through her upper dantian and chi pathways she could barely see. Maybe it would be easier to understand once the pathways were clear? Surely she could understand it once she cultivated a bit more. Cultivation can improve your mental abilities as well as your physical abilities, after all. She read it again, but by her third time reading through she was too tired to keep going. The tiredness in her brain made it hard to continue concentrating on Torch Palm and when it went out due to a lack of concentration she didn’t use the technique again, instead dropping the scroll on the ground and pulling a sheet over her so she could sleep.
The next day went much like the previous one. She got up, took a bath, the took her dirty clothes and other toiletries to her room. She Restricted her chi flow once again and grabbed her money before leaving for morning meal. She was wearing her fancy new robe today, so she was careful not to get any food on it. The boys were planning something, and Mae would be playing with the other younger kids, so Shen would be on her own.
She wandered the stalls and, because she had the money, decided to buy something from a food stall instead of going to the cafeteria. After getting something to eat, some sort of fried pastry, she sat down the fountain and started watching the people. Most of them looked pretty normal, being the same kind of humans she saw every day. A few were human but looked a bit different, with skin that was lighter or darker than the norm, or having unusual facial features or hair colors. The most interesting, though, were the beast people. They weren’t actually animals, but some of the people had animal features. Maybe their ears were on top of their head. Maybe they had a tail, or two tails like that one woman. Many had fur or claws. Some had scales.
The most interesting person, however, looked like a normal young human woman, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. She was tall and thin, with blue hair and wearing a light blue robe. She carried a metal fan on her wrist and was ordering some sort of meat dumplings like many other people. What made her stand out, though, was that sometimes, but not always, you could see blue scales beside her eyes. Once, for a few seconds, Shen was sure that the woman’s pupils changed shape into slits. Shen was sure she was some sort of reptile. A lizard? A snake? Shen wasn’t quite sure even though, strangely, there was something strangely attractive about that woman, like she was familiar.
After getting her food the woman ate one of the dumplings. Shen could tell that they were hot by the steam coming off of it, but the woman didn’t seem to notice. She smiled and quickly put another in her mouth. That’s when she noticed Shen watching her. She put the last dumpling in her mouth and, after swallowing, walked over to Shen. “Good day, sister.” she said, bowing slightly. “I must advise you that I believe it to be rude to watch someone else eat. It is like you wish to take my food, which would be a bad idea.”
“Oh.” said Shen. She was surprised that the woman called her Sister, as she was pretty sure the woman wasn’t a Sect member, but for some reason it seemed to fit. “Sorry about that. I was just thinking about buying some of my own.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, perhaps you should.” With a slight bow she turned and left.