Reodan opened the door and Aarick entered.

The room was wide, but not particularly deep, and it was filled with a collection of comfortable furniture interspersed with plants. Flowers perfumed the air with delicate fragrances, and their blossoms were a profusion of bright colors and patterns.

All this, however, was noted is passing, because he was fixated on the view for which the room had been aptly named.

The entire far wall was made of panes of glass, each one sandwiched between thin strips of snowy white stone. Delicate lines of light glowed like filigree, performing some task unknown to him.

And beyond that… the view.

Aarick moved closer to the wall of windows, almost unconsciously.

Below, a vast green valley extended to each side as far as he could see. An impossibly far distance ahead, mountains rose up, and up, and up. Miles upon miles they rose steeply into the sky. The mountains were as verdant as the valley, though cast in blue by the distance. The only exception was the bare stone exposed by the sheer cliffs. Even there, however, faint dots of greenery speckled the stone, though they were too far away for him to tell more.

As he drew closer to the wall, he could see upwards.

High above, clouds were segregated into different layers. Each layer carried its own bevy of flat bottomed and puffy clouds. The layers continued upwards until the clouds were nothing but tiny dots in the sky.

Nothing like that on Earth.

The distant clouds and the far away mountains both gave him a similar and strange sensation. He could sense their distance. He could… understand the gap that separated them. It was similar to his new qi sense, a new form of extrasensory perception. Still, other things caught his attention.

The mountains were too far away. He could see too much of the valley; it appeared almost unnaturally flat. Something about the view was registering as wrong, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it meant.

The valley was not just an endless carpet of green, either.

The first thing that stood out was the towers. Dark grey towers of stone rose high, each apart from the others, with many miles between them. The dark grey stone was inscribed with the now familiar lines of light. It was hard to tell exactly how tall the towers were from here, but he guessed that they were each at least ten stories. The towers were quite wide, as well.

Though the towers were isolated from each other, they were not alone. At the base of each communities were arranged in concentric circles. At the base of the tower was a green park, broken up with roads radiating out like the spokes of a wheel. Various kinds of buildings surrounded the edge of the park, most quite large in their own right, and with their own glowing inscriptions. The farther away the buildings got from the tower, the smaller they became, and less and less had inscriptions. The outer edge was a more ramshackle affair of tiny mismatched buildings, less precisely arranged than the interior.

Tiny people bustled about, performing unknown tasks.

Beyond the buildings were vast fields, orchards, vineyards, and rice paddies. Barely visible people worked among them.

Roads extended between each community, and there…

Wait… is that?

Lines of metal, perfectly parallel, extended out from the nearest city and followed by the road to the next one. And there, on the rails, was a train of cars moving between them.

It wasn’t exactly a classic train design. The front “locomotive” was covered in glowing white lines, but there was no smokestack, or smoke for that matter, visible anywhere.

He laughed softly to himself.

Didn’t I remind myself earlier not to treat them as primitives just because they are using magic? Now I go and get surprised by a train and surprisingly well laid out cities.

I wonder why they are not using tractors though? Some kind of personal magic, or does cultivation make them strong enough not to need them? Or maybe they haven’t been invented yet. Their technology might be more suited for a large objects like a train car. Do they use gears, or is it just a direct translation of magic into force?

For a little while he lost himself in the potential engineering of the trains, and how he might use magic to make different designs.

A faint cough interrupted his thoughts.

“Hmm, oh!” Aarick startled slightly.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You, sir,” his attendant began, “are an interesting contradiction.”

“I,” he paused.

What exactly am I supposed to say to that?

He tried again.

“I am not exactly sure what you mean.”

Reodan sighed.

“Lady Lurona told me you appeared to have no memories of the empire, not even the ability to speak properly. However, as best she could ascertain, you had some level of noble status.”

She probably actually said something along the lines of me having status equal to a noble, but yeah...

“You had lost whatever social niceties I might have expected you to possess, and so I should make allowances. I will be helping you with that, sir, though your etiquette instructor will handle most of it. Still, as your attendant, I will need to speak to you with unusual frankness.

“You slip between the poise of a noble and an uneducated child. You were curious of, but not particularly surprised by, the wealth of the suite. You were critical of the comfort of the formal furniture, and I noticed disappointment at the scale of the martial facility. You loved the library and were initially disappointed by the number of texts available. You were utterly horrified at the lace outfit.

“And then the viewing room enraptured you. Not for the glass or plants, which you barely noticed, but for the view itself.”

Aarick struggled to keep his face passive, not interrupting.

He noticed all of that?

“I am inclined to agree with Lurona’s estimation, not that I would have gainsaid it even if you had been utterly crass and gaped at the suite.

“It appears that most of your social training was lost, but you are still instinctively familiar and comfortable with the trappings of power. And it is good that some of your good taste remains as well. Don’t fear, I will have the lace outfits removed.

“Now, you were immediately unhappy with the martial suite. Why?”

“It didn’t have the proper range for a bow,” Aarick said.

“Ah,” Reodan replied, “perhaps that was your primary weapon. Never fear, there are more extensive martial facilities available on the premises. You will be seeing them with an appropriate tutor.

“You seemed happy to see the books, what did you feel?”

Aarick didn’t need to think about this much.

“I felt a strong desire to read them. Partially just to read them, but also to learn everything I don’t know.”

Reodan's eyebrows rose and he had a slight smile.

“When faced with a lack of knowledge, your first instinct was to read books to remedy the situation? That is actually a good sign. You were likely not merely well educated, but actually enjoyed learning in its own right. Combined with your desire for better martial facilities, you were likely well rounded. Hopefully, a large portion of that knowledge is merely below the surface of your mind and will make relearning easier.

“I would have recommended a dream specialist to help, but Lurona said you were brought here via the Eldritch.”

Reodan shuddered with the briefest motion.

“Any dream specialist who is also resistant would be prohibitively expensive. Their services are in high demand doing mental repairs from attacks. Though, that is one thing in your favor. Should you ever face someone who specializes in mental attacks, bring up your memories of the Eldritch. They will find it a nasty surprise.

“Do you have any questions for me at the moment?”

Aarick paused for a moment before replying, still working through everything he had been told.

Looks like the Eldritch is a form of cognitohazard to most people. I would worry about that more, but there is nothing I can do about it. Plus, it is literally helping protect my mind.

“Yes,” he eventually replied. “When I was looking out there,” for a moment his gaze went back out the windows, “I felt something. I felt a sense of distance, or depth, from the mountains and some of the really high clouds. It doesn’t feel exactly like my qi sense though.”

“No,” Reodan replied. “That is the opposite. It is ziu familiarity. Normally, having that sense is viewed very negatively without official authorization, and you would be investigated by the Empire, but I understand that you were exposed to large amounts of both ziu and qi. It is not something you will want to mention to anyone, except perhaps people who train you directly in cultivation.

“I will make sure Lurona knows, so she can add an official exemption to your file. She will give you a document you can show to any trainers if you want to get advice about dealing with it or refine that sense.

“Seeking out ziu familiarity on your own is illegal, as that typically requires behavior that might cause risks to others. There are official ways to obtain it, since it can be used for preventing some disasters, so it is not unknown. Such experts are well respected, but your cultivation hasn’t even begun, and you having it would merely be suspicious.”

“Why?” Aarick replied. “I get that it would be unusual to have been exposed to so much ziu, but what exactly is wrong with it? I was told it is a source of corruption, but I don’t actually know what that means.”

Reodan stared at him for a moment, his own calm demeanor lost for a moment, before he recovered and answered.

“Sorry for my loss of decorum, sir. Lurona mentioned that you didn’t know anything, and I thought I understood, but you mostly acted normal enough, even with the knowledge gaps…”

He trailed off before resuming.

“Well, I let myself forget.

“Regardless, to answer your question:

“Long ago, demons came and almost destroyed the entire world. There used to be more immortals, once upon a time, but they died in the conflict. The five greatest immortals worked together to kill the demons, but there was no way to return their demonic energy to where they came from. So, they sealed the energies into the core of the world.

“The demons were slain, and their energy sealed, but there was a cost. The demonic energy poisoned the earthly energy. Beasts, which relied upon it to cultivate, grew mad as they took the energy in. Some took in so much their bodies became foul and twisted. Gradually, much of the world grew uninhabitable for mankind. Spirits were mostly untouched by the energy itself, but their forms and thoughts are a reflection of what they are tied to. Those in corrupted lands became feral and hostile.

“Ziu is inherently tied to the earth, and its concentration is greater the deeper you go. Qi does the opposite, tied to the heavens, its concentration greater the higher you go. Now, the lowlands of the world are home to darkness and corruption. All mankind lives in the elevated lands, where the ziu is diminished.”

Reodan gestured outside.

“A low-lying mountain valley, like this, is as far down as we will dwell. And we only come down this far for the creches.

“For a person to gain ziu familiarity, like you, involves large exposure to that demonic energy. They either cultivate ziu directly, which will immediately begin to corrupt them, or they gather large amounts of ziu together so they can practice. The concentrations needed run the risk of corrupting nearby wildlife, plants, or themselves. Any nearby humans are at risk, as well. When humans are corrupted by demonic energy, they become erratic and dangerous. And if it gets bad enough, they can become demons themselves.

“When that happens, their souls are torn open. The floodgates inside them are opened wide and they become a fountain of qi and ziu. They corrupt everything near them, and are far stronger than whatever their level of cultivation would normally allow.

“Even the facilities where people properly train to gain this sense lose some of their students to corruption every year. They are culled without mercy so they don’t pose a risk to anyone else.”

Of course I came to a world where eldritch beings and demons are real. Not to mention corrupted beasts and spirits.