CHAPTER 13: SINCERITY
Dan was more than just surprised. It was like he’d been punched deep in the gut, and he saw stars form at the border of his suddenly flimsy vision.
Had the sights confused him that much? Was the impression he had of the world so unreasonable? Wasn’t his perspective a little bit skewed?
A stunned Dan followed the guard down unmarked passages into the depths of the walls and into the earth, where the guard left him to wait outside a pair of thick metal doors as the middle-aged man entered alone. It was just about the first piece of construction he’d seen in Ice Demon Cliffs that wasn’t made of blue brick or the mysterious metal of the portcullis.
Perhaps a minute later, the guard opened the door from within and gestured that Dan enter.
He did so with a heavy heart, walking past the guard and taking stock of the inside. In the back of his mind, he was somewhat worried about being pulled into the depths where nobody could hear him scream, but then, what would be the point?
Still, he hadn’t hesitated. His father would have been happy if he did. Instead, his gaze swept up the sights of a relatively plain space, decorated with dark carpet, torches burning with a surprisingly blue glare, and a carved stone desk in the center of the space.
Behind it sat a man that, while looking in their thirties, projected an aura that told of a much greater story. Dan woodenly sat on a comfortable chair at the figure’s gesture, and he didn’t speak a word.
The figure didn’t mind, steepling their fingers and gazing back at him.
Instead of the comparatively plain blue jackets and trousers of the guard uniforms and the sheathed swords they wore on their hips, the man behind the desk wore an exquisitely decorated navy robe. Over the figure’s throat lay a triangular teal gem, inlaid in a dark metal, strung with similarly dark weaving that sat around their neck.
“Dan, from Bluecorn. You told Captain Rayne that you were a cultivator, correct?”
The figure’s bearing and tone woke Dan from his observation, and he subconsciously straightened in his seat.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have reached the tenth level of Channel Building?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are ten, correct?”
“…Yes, sir.”
The figure nodded, and then a moment later, squinted and shook their head. Dan merely watched with no minor an amount of worry and confusion.
The entire process of entering Ice Demon Cliffs had gone completely over his head. Why couldn’t he just walk in like everyone else?
The young man stood and reached out over the desk. At a gesture, Dan hesitantly reached forward his own arm, and their hands met.
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A spurt of green lightning split the air, and the two of them recoiled in an instant.
A thin trail of smoke followed, and Dan found his eyes drawn to a small scorch mark on the otherwise polished desk.
“Tssssss!” The man danced and waved his hand with a nasty expression on his face, “that gets worse every time!”
Suddenly, as if a switch was flipped, the man’s countenance suffered an abrupt changed.
“I’m sorry about putting on airs,” the man said simply, bowing his head. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lucas Thyrl, first Lieutenant to the Major of the eastern wall.”
“And to you, Dan, I would like to make an offer that I would like you to accept.”
An aimless orphan, Dan cocked his head. He would take anything he could get, truth be told… If he was lucky, he might even be able to get a job? Wait, did immortals really need jobs? He was rather new to this…
With a little time to study his father’s books, he could probably draw some simple inscription runes. That should pay well. He discretely nodded to himself and felt determined to study them tonight.
Still, he was obliged to ask. “What offer?”
“As you might have noticed, Dan, the populace of our Ice Demon Cliffs stretches far and wide. What might not have struck your mind, is that the sheer size of the area, combined with an ordinary ratio of cultivators to mortals… Well, let’s just say that there’s a lot of land to cover. The militia has the numbers to keep civil peace but struggles in maintaining the strength to protect the walls.”
Dan squinted. “What are you protecting the walls from?”
Lieutenant Thyrl smiled wryly. “Beasts. To them, our county-sized city is like an all-eat buffet.”
Dan nodded in understanding, but on second thought, shook his head. “Uh-huh. But what offer? If you can’t beat the beasts, what am I supposed to do?” He held no illusions as to his strength. Again, he remembered his father’s words very clearly.
“An immortal in the channel building stage is worth absolutely nothing.”
Yes, he’d really said that once. In fact, he recalled something similar about Qi Refining stage immortals too…
Thus, Dan’s guard raised imperceptibly. Even if there were only a thousand cultivators across the Ice Demon Cliffs area, then that was still an absolute minimum of one thousand channel building stage immortals…
Lieutenant Thyrl tapped the table with an absent expression.
“Let me describe it this way,” he spoke, evidently sensing a lack of understanding. “There’s three hundred cultivators attached to the border protection force. The walls stretch fifteen hundred kilometres – that’s five for every cultivator and about one mortal guard for every fifty meters. Beast tides occur, perhaps, two or three times a decade.
“I remember, I think it was twenty years ago now, when the aftermath of a tide left nearly every inch of the walls damaged. There were numerous points of breakthrough, and tens of thousands of casualties amongst the civilians. That’s not to mention the loss of innumerable cultivators and the brave mortals of the militia…
“So tell me if you think it’s a stretch that I would want to recruit you. Even if you were still a mortal, with just the potential to cultivate… We’d be having this same conversation, don’t you think?”
Lieutenant Thyrl hit the nail on the head without any effort at all. Dan even felt embarrassed, but it didn’t mean that he was rearing to ride into battle.
“It’s just…” Dan hesitated, but the lieutenant gently goaded him onward. “My father… I don’t know if he’s alive. My whole family, I…”
He had to collect himself. Thyrl didn’t say a word. Dan appreciated it.
“Can you help me look for him?”
“What’s your father’s name?”
“Immortal Valyon.”
“I can do that for you.”
Dan smiled weakly. “Thank you. Also…” He vaguely gestured with his hands, and vibrant green energy rose from his skin in a smoky haze. It floated slowly through the air, but it inevitably drifted to the carpet. It was heavy.
Clearly, his energy was at its peak. It was ready to condense. But for that…
“I could make an exception and grant you the refining-stage manual for Nature cultivators. As a sign-on bonus, of course.”
Like that, Dan would enlist help looking for his father, attain a place to stay, and even pave his way forward.
Naturally, though with no small amount of consideration, he agreed.