Aurelia sighed at the confused look Red gave her. “The disguising treasure you are using is not like make-up or a Spiritual Art. You control it with your will - your mind - hence why it could work even masterless as it was before.”
Red frowned, understanding dawning on him. “You mean to say that because I can’t visualize my face as anyone else’s, I won’t be able to change it?”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “You can easily hide your hair and your demonification since those are things you don’t want in your body, but your face is another matter.”
The youth fell silent. He had never been one to care too much about appearances, but he was attached to his body and what it allowed him to be and do. This was doubly so after he learned the consequences of demonification.
A will was formed within himself then to never want to see his image twisted by outside influences. He never imagined, however, that this innate desire of his would create an attachment to his own image and make it impossible for him to use a disguising treasure.
“Is there anything I can do?” Red asked.
Aurelia shrugged. “Your issue is not all that uncommon with cultivators. Some just opt for a more arcane disguising technique that they can control like a spell. Alternatively, you can train your mind to be unattached to your figure, or at least to the degree where it won’t interfere with that treasure.”
“How hard is it to do that?”
Since Red couldn’t really use any other disguising techniques yet, he could only try the second option.
She smirked. “How hard? Let’s just say it’s easier to ascend to the heavens than it is to change a cultivator’s mind, even your own!”
“… So it’s not possible?”
“You can certainly try, but it will be difficult! Your mind created this attachment to your image for a reason, and it’s not necessarily a good thing to change it.”
Red sighed. Aurelia might have a point, but whatever benefit this gave him would be useless if it meant he could be recognized and killed.
‘I guess I will have to try a mask.’
While this solution sounded obvious, there was a reason he wouldn’t like to rely on it. Whoever used a mask did it because they didn’t want to be recognized by certain people, and this would obviously draw some suspicion from those keen on finding someone. Of course, in the capital there were probably plenty of cultivators who used masks to hide their identities, but that didn’t mean Red would be safe disguising amidst them.
The youth would have preferred instead to present himself with a foreign appearance, but with nothing to hide or fear. That would have drawn less attention, but since he didn’t have a choice, he could only opt for the shadowy masked figure with something to hide and fear.
‘I suppose in a way that suits me more.’
At the very least, it would give him an excuse to be recluse and avoid talking with too many people.
He got up from his sitting position and looked around.
Aurelia squinted at him. “What are you planning now?”
“I’m going to carve a mask.”
…
A half an hour later.
“That is your mask?!”
Aurelia stared at the item in Red’s hands. It was a plain wooden mask, with two holes for his eyes. The youth didn’t even bother removing all the bark from its surface, so it still looked like something a shaman or a barbarian would wear.
“What’s the problem with it?” He asked.
“It looks ugly!”
“It’s not supposed to be pretty.”
“Being this ugly isn’t good either! It’s going to draw attention!”
Red frowned. “What would you have me do?”
“I don’t know!” Aurelia threw her hands up. “At least draw some symbols on its surface!”
“What symbols?”
“Any symbol! Anything to make sure that this is not something you spent ten minutes doing in a hurry!”
Red was about to say he did spend ten minutes on it, but he decided against it. Instead, he picked up his knife and stared at the rough bark mask in his hand.
Then, with careful movements, he carved something into the wood.
“How about this?” He showed the mask to Aurelia.
There was now a rough third eye where the mask’s forehead was. It wasn’t pretty, but Red wasn’t a woodcarver in the first place.
Aurelia stared at the mask in silence. A few seconds later, she snorted and her figure disappeared back into his crystal core.
Red wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but since she said nothing else, he could only take it as her approval. He tore a piece of cloth from his shirt and used it to wrap the mask around his face before looking at his new appearance in the water.
‘I look like a savage.’
His clothes were all torn up and smeared with grime and mud. The youth didn’t really bring a change of clothing with himself either, so there was not much he could do to remedy the situation. His skin and the rest of his equipment weren’t in much better condition, either.
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It looked as if the youth was a forest-dweller who hadn’t seen civilization for years on end.
‘Maybe this will work to my advantage.’
Red wasn’t too sure about it, but it wasn’t like he could clean himself properly in the middle of a forest.
He had disguised himself as best as he could, though there were still other concerns. There was his voice and manner of acting that could attract the attention of those who knew about him, but that was much harder to disguise than his appearance. Red was never the best actor, so he could only be careful and observant of his interactions in that place.
‘Now, everything is set.’
His disguise, his cultivation, his techniques, Red had prepared everything he could in the short time he dared spend in the wilds. Now, the only thing he needed to do was to reach the capital.
A new environment, full of unknown dangers and opportunity in equal measure.
Who knew what awaited him there?
For the first time in a while, Red felt the fire of anticipation burning in his mind.
…
The distance between the capital and Red was still rather far. The town he lived in for the past seven years was located in the southern region of the kingdom, while his destination was in the north, through a few regions ruled by other barons and dukes. There were almost a thousand kilometers between them of wild forest and hills.
It wasn’t all wilderness, though, as the youth knew there were plenty of settlements and towns in between, but he saw no point in visiting any of them. They weren’t good places to hide or procure cultivation resources, and his presence as a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator would instead attract more attention than he wanted.
As such, he travelled with rare stops for the better part of a week. Now that he was no longer worried about cultivation, he didn’t need to rest or meditate.
As he moved further north, he noticed changes in the environment. The forest and vegetation he was familiar with became more sparse, giving way to vast open plains broken off now and then by a chain of hills. Creeks and ponds were also more common, branching off of the river from the east, and though Red lost the cover of trees, he felt refreshed and excited about taking in this new environment. However, he was quick to notice something odd.
‘There are far fewer monsters here.’
Those he did come across were rarely above the Lesser Ring Realm, and they were derived from more mellow-natured creatures such as rabbits and deers. Red assumed this was because the further north he went, the greater the density of humans and their settlements, and the stronger and more dangerous beasts were either wise enough to stay away or were all killed by cultivators.
Red all but confirmed his thoughts as he spotted a group of people travelling through the plains some kilometers away. Hunters, he assumed.
They didn’t seem to have noticed him, and Red wasn’t eager to make his presence known either. He avoided roads for most of this trip to remain unnoticed, but he did scout them from afar to confirm he was heading in the right direction.
This was his first time coming across anyone, though, and this told him he was getting closer to his destination.
‘Maybe I should start walking down the road.’
Red considered trying to sneak into the capital, but it was a silly idea. That was the center of the kingdom, and the city probably had plenty of formations and other measures in place exactly so that cultivators like him wouldn’t be able to barge in there without their knowledge. Not to mention, this was a time of war, so they were probably even more careful in that front.
In the end, it was probably better to just head straight in under the scrutiny of the city’s keepers. If they decided to give him trouble for his mask and getup, then Red could consider trying to sneak in there.
Over the next few days, the youth came across even more people. On the roads and in the wilds, there were farmers, hunters, and even cultivators walking about. He came across more buildings too, and even a few villages along the way. Inns, farmlands, it all became commonplace as the capital neared.
“Hm, the Spiritual Energy around here is more dense.” Aurelia’s voice reached his ears.
This was something Red noticed, too. Even kingdoms took care to choose places rich in Spiritual Energy to build their cities, so it was no wonder that the capital would have a denser amount of energy than he was used to.
Even as human density increased, Red still kept to the shadows. It was getting harder to avoid detection, much more so through these vast plains, but he decided he wouldn’t risk revealing his presence to any travellers until he had no choice.
It just so happened, however, that something caught his attention the next day.
It was bright outside, and Red stood on top of a hill near a road scouting as far as he could see. This section of the highway sneaked in between a chain of mounts, and as such, the youth found himself unable to see what awaited further ahead without high ground. It was exactly why he didn’t see the horses galloping down the road until they were far too close for comfort.
Red immediately crouched down, keeping close to the ground as he examined the approaching figures.
There were eight of them, all mounted on horses. They looked like mercenaries, though they were far better equipped than the sellswords Red was used to seeing back home. The men had their swords drawn, and they seemed to be chasing someone who was likewise on horseback.
An old man, wearing merchant’s clothing and with a frightened look on his face. He was driving his horse as hard as he could, and for the moment, it seemed as if that afforded him enough of a lead over the men chasing him.
Red observed this situation with a frown. He didn’t know what was going on, but the mercenaries clearly didn’t look like bandits, and he couldn’t imagine they would be so bold as to rob someone on the highway as close to the capital as they were. Not to mention, this merchant didn’t seem to be carrying any merchandise, either. There was probably a deeper reason for this conflict that wasn’t apparent at first glance, and as such, the youth wasn’t too keen on getting involved, so he tried to stay hidden.
To his surprise, though, as he examined the merchant from afar, he saw the man look in his exact direction.
‘He saw me?’
Red had little cover, but there was more than a kilometer of distance between them and plenty of nearby hills to obfuscate the vision of the merchant. Yet, sure enough, the man seemed to be looking in his exact direction. It left him baffled.
Before the youth could do anything, the merchant drove his horse off the road and started to ride it in his direction.
“Please, good fellow, help me!”
He screamed in a desperate voice at the top of his lungs.
Red frowned, noticing the mercenaries also deviating from the road to chase the merchant. They didn’t seem to have spotted him, but it was just a matter of time if the man kept heading in this direction.
The youth was prepared to turn around and run before he heard the merchant’s desperate voice again.
“Please, I can pay you! I can get you into the city!”
As Red heard that, he hesitated.
‘Get me into the city?’
The merchant’s words seemed to imply at a complication Red was not aware of. This moment of hesitation made the youth stop in his tracks and allowed the merchant to ride up the hill to his side.
“Please, protect me from them!”
The merchant rode his horse behind Red. The mercenaries were soon to catch up, though as they spotted Red in their way, the man at the front of the group raised his hand, causing the others to rein in their horses. They formed a semi-circle around the youth, their gazes shifting between wariness at this peculiar armed stranger and hatred at the merchant behind him.
None of them charged at Red, though, who remained standing there examining these men without any concern. None of them were at the Lesser Ring Realm, as it turned out.
The mercenary leader looked at Red with a frown. “Step aside, stranger! That man has to pay for his crimes!”
The man spoke with a stern and authoritative voice, but he didn’t take one step ahead, examining Red with vigilance. The youth’s strange appearance and posture were enough to make the mercenary not take any rash actions.
‘A professional.’
Red was surprised. This man seemed capable of sensing some of the youth’s strength at a glance, or at least he was cautious enough to not provoke someone with such a strange and savage-look as Red before assessing the situation. Most people would have run if they saw eight armed horsemen charging in their direction, after all.
The youth was about to say something, but the merchant’s voice interrupted him again.
“Liars! They are trying to steal from me!”