“I’m telling you, all of our family members are accounted for.” An elegant young man stated in annoyed voice “Before coming here I specifically checked for the approximate age range you specified.”
He and an elderly man, dressed in a long, white robe, were currently in a middle of a heated discussion. They stood at the entrance of a tall, while building built in the middle of one of the floating islands in the Golden city.
“There is no mistake. The moment the boy arrived he only mentioned your name before passing out and has been in coma ever since.” The elderly man argued, “Even though he basically had no clothing or other distinct marks, to be capable of surviving such ordeal one clearly has to stem from a remarkable background.”
“Sir Osler, I understand, but there has to be a mistake.” The young man said shaking his head, “Just because someone utters my name, doesn’t mean they’re from the Cilin family …”
“Then why would he call for you, huh?” The old man got similarly annoyed, “Obviously one of your many family members was sent on a mission and something went awry. Both I and Frederic spent a whole day trying to bring the kid back to life …”
“Frederic? Sir Banting?” George Cilin exclaimed in surprise.
“Who else? If the kid wasn’t from one of the aristocratic families do you think two immortals of our standing would waste our time with him?” Sir Osler barked back.
‘False immortals!’ George swallowed the retort.
He clearly knew that even though these two old men were false immortals, they were incredible alchemy experts and their time was priceless. In addition, if the kid actually turned out to be from the Cilin clan, they had done the clan a great favor – it would’ve been below Sir Osler’s honor to lie about the terrible condition the kid they were here for arrived in and the work they put in curing him.
“So he had nothing on him at all that could point at his origins? No family tokens, no nothing?” After pondering for a moment George Cilin asked.
“Well, he had a poisoned iron dagger sticking out his shoulder, a primitive spacial treasure in a form of a crown, a huge, impractical weapon and rather rare alchemy ingredient … well … three dozen of them.” Sir Osler said, “Clearly the boy has gone through some test and returned after successfully completing it – from what I understand the objective was to bring back the crown and the weapon. Unfortunately we have no clue where he came from ...”
“Sigh … alright, arguing won’t bring us anywhere. Bring me to him – I know all from the younger generation at that age since I’m teaching the runecraft to our family members for over five years.” George said.
The last part of what the old man said made him certain this incident had nothing to do with the Cilin family after all. They hadn’t had tests of such kind in months and they were a family of runemasters, not alchemists, therefore it was basically impossible for anyone from their family to arrive after gathering alchemy ingredients.
One was false immortal and the other – a Nascent stage cultivator, but according to the etiquette in such places in the Golden city everyone walked at a regular pace and not flew or dashed around. Thus in the rather large building it took a while for the two to arrive at the spacious room the young patient lie in.
George was prepared to see anyone, even his closest cousins who somehow landed in this bizarre situation, but to see Leo all neatly bandaged up was completely out of his expectations.
Even though over two years had passed, he immediately recognized the boy. In fact, in their conversations with Fan Lia they mentioned him now and then and wondered how he was doing in the mortal realm, and hoped one day he would become strong enough to come back for a visit – he was the reason for them finally getting together after all. But the current situation was rather inconvenient.
Gears in George’s head spun at accelerated rate trying to find the best way out while Sir Osler closely observed his reaction. Luckily it resembled that of a person trying to recollect something, therefore it didn’t raise any suspicion.
George really wanted to help Leo out, but he immediately guessed that if the kid arrived in the condition the old man described, he clearly used the method Fan Lia and he taught back in the Oceandesert mortal realm and while the dozen immortal spirit stones used to initiate the emergency teleportation to the immortal realm was a bit expensive for a regular person, it was affordable cost for him to bear for the old time’s sake.
But what if the kid broke the platform in the process? He was obviously badly injured while fighting and no one followed him here … it could get rather expensive even for Cilin family. And if the platform was broken, most likely he would be the one who’ll have to fix it, but there was no way George was willing to leave the Golden city during the upcoming months.
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“No, he’s not one of us.” In the end George sighed and shook his head.
It did feel like he was failing the boy to whom he promised to take care of if he ever returned, but there was no way around it.
“Damn it! Which family then?” Sir Osler asked, more to himself than George.
“If you’re worried about the payment for your services – why don’t you use the rare alchemy ingredients he brought back?” George Cilin suggested, “I am, of course, a runemaster and have no clue how much are they worth, but maybe it can cover your losses?”
“Hmm …” The old man fell in thoughts, “They are not that rare … and the ugly crown holds only a big, dead snake … but that’s probably a part of his test as well. Fine! I’ll take the beetles … so be it! Sight … the sacrifices we make for the younger generation ...”
“Uhmm, Sir Osler!” George suddenly had a thought, “Maybe those ingredients are also a part of test? Could you leave him a couple?”
The old man looked back closely in George’s eyes and then said, “Fine, but only because you asked! And the next time I need something fixed – I’ll come to you!”
George wanted to argue, but in the end bit his tongue – the matter was already settled. Now was the hardest part – he had to explain Fan Lia why he didn’t bring Leo back home for them to take care of him.
When Leo woke up sixteen days later, neither William Osler or Frederic Banting remembered his existence. One of the junior alchemists was tasked to record his testimony and it was immediately ‘proven’ George Cilin or the Cilin family had nothing to do with this incident.
It actually went rather simple – when the apprentice told Leo he was back in the Golden city, the boy immediately asked if there was information on master Shaw – whether he was in his residence. The apprentice, obviously, didn’t know, so Leo sighed and said he’ll probably have to hang around until master Shaw had time to see him.
Needless to say the boy was immediately discharged and teleported away from the floating island. It was unacceptable for a random nobody to throw around their weight pretending to know the true higher-ups of the city, but since Leo had formally payed the medical expenses, he was discharged without delay with the apprentice remarking Leo should ‘watch his mouth the next time’. The interview turned out to be so short, no one even asked where did he come from and what was his full name, thus the fact that the teleportation platform in Dreadlands lacked the immortal spirit stones meant for emergency teleportation didn’t come up.
Leo was still in daze when he found himself in the middle of the Golden city at the buzzing local teleportation station which was full of people below the Nascent soul stage or delivering goods to or from the floating islands above. The person operating the platform he arrived at hurriedly pushed the boy away and few moments later Leo was in the middle of a busy street, feeling completely out of place.
He stood there in worn sandals and dirty pants without both pant legs. In one hand he held the iron crown and a jade jar containing four dark-crimson horned beetles, but in the other was the Cleaver. Back in Mausoleum he didn’t have time to grab the improvised scabbard imperial artisans crafted and now had to awkwardly carry the weapon on his shoulder. Unfortunately its size was too much and judging by the plethora of curses from passersby it clearly got in the way of others on the street.
The only ‘acceptable’ thing about him was the white linen shirt that the alchemy apprentice provided before throwing him out since Leo’s old was completely torn and blooded all over, but it didn’t make him stand out less. In fact, its size was slightly too large and the white color together with the rest of the outfit made the boy rather eye catching.
Obviously Leo knew he didn’t belong here and, trying to get out of everyone’s way, moved over to the side of the street. Truth to be said he couldn’t believe he was back here – this was THE Golden city! The place everyone in mortal realms dreamt about!
Of course, in comparison to the elegant Nascent soul stage cultivators and incredible ranked beasts one could see on every corner, he was a total country bumpkin especially with how he gawked at everything, but no one could’ve guessed he was mostly thrilled by the sight of men and women having a similar social standing to each other.
There were no male-slaves! There was no risk of him getting captured and tortured! Well, there were some perks of being a male-slave like washing the owners, but most of them had those burly, muscular bodies and quite a few were as hairy as men … be as it may – he was finally free!
The problem was – what was he supposed to do with the newfound freedom? Clearly he was more familiar with the pine forests of Dreadlands and the noise of the bustling Golden city made one’s head spin. It was so big and there were so many people, but Leo only knew two, besides master Shaw that is, but the latter apparently had done something bad in the previous years since even mentioning his name got Leo thrown out the hospital.
Sadly both Fan and Cilin families resided on their own floating islands and there was no way of getting to them – Leo was neither at the Nascent soul stage or had a flying beast. In addition, he didn’t have a single spirit stone to his soul to pay the fee for the local teleportation services to not speak about having enough to get back to the Aurora mortal realm.
Currently he was poorer than a pauper and was even too embarrassed to ask anyone for an advice. Theoretically he could try to sell the crown, but who in the world here would want to by such an ugly thing even if it would be considered a priceless treasure in any of the mortal realms.
Suddenly Leo had a revelation. There was another person he knew in the city! And he practically could be considered that person’s apprentice! Jamie! And Leo even knew where the talented cook worked! Well, he knew the name of the place, not the location, but nevertheless! Jamie clearly could help him find either George or Lia!
Thrilled by the idea he turned to the closest passerby and asked, “Sir, could you please tell me where can I find ...”
Unfortunately the man interrupted without listening to the end and pointed behind Leo in annoyance, “Can’t you read?”
Not surprised by the attitude one bit Leo turned around only to become shocked once again. He was currently standing at the entrance to the teleportation station and right there was a tall, at least ten yards high slate with the city map carved on it. And besides the names of the largest streets the most prominent places were marked by numbers. Below the map there were hundreds if not thousands of rows listing the names of those places once again pointing at the grandeur of the Golden city.
“So huge!” Leo whispered while hurriedly running through rows, looking for the famous restaurant, the ‘King’s kitchen’.