After leaving Vermilion City, Liu Zhu started making his way north. Even by horseback it took two weeks to reach Border City from Vermilion City, so Liu Zhu was destined to spend quite a while on the road. For the first few days it could be considered calming, but after that the calmness quickly transitioned to boredom. At a couple points during his journey Liu Zhu ran into small groups of bandits, but since none of them were made up of cultivators, he just beat them up and left them on the side of the road. He would have brought them to the authorities, but given that he only ran into them in extremely rural areas, it would've been far more trouble than it was worth. The fact that there were this few bandits was already an admirable accomplishment on the government's part. It was hard to keep a place as large as Yutian Country completely safe, especially when it had so many rural areas.
Liu Zhu's time on the road passed quickly, and besides a bit of idle tourism he just spent his time riding his horse and cultivating. As he went further north the roads grew better maintained, and the land a bit more steep and rocky. In the distance Liu Zhu could see the Junao Mountains, the natural barrier which separated the Northern Wastes from Yutian Country proper. This indicated that he was close to his destination, and a few days after seeing them he caught sight of Border City, the entrance to the Northern Wastes.
Border City was situated in the only large, navigable mountain pass between the Northern Wastes and the rest of Yutian Country. The rest of the paths between the two were small and extremely hard to reach, so almost all the trade going between the two regions had to pass through Border City. That's why while the capital may have been, in most regards, the best developed city in the country, it couldn't compare to Border City in terms of volume of trade. In fact, some rare plants and animal byproducts only found within the Northern Wastes never got out of Border City, their supply completely bought up long before they reached the capital.
As Liu Zhu drew closer to Border City, he was amazed. It was built like a fortress. A massive, menacing wall bridged the length of the pass, and the path up the mountain wound back and forth over and over, meaning that if anyone attacked they'd have to suffer through endless rounds of fire from archers. At the moment the path was simply full of merchants and travelers, but the intent of its design was clear. Liu Zhu went up the path, blending in with everyone else, and once he reached the top he was greeted with another surprise. An extremely deep, artificially made moat was dug through the rock in front of the city, bridged by a single metal drawbridge. Guards were swarming across the drawbridge and the gate to the city, checking goods and waving travelers in.
When Liu Zhu approached the city he was stopped for a moment, as a guard looked over what he was carrying. The check was over in under a minute, and he was let in without any trouble after paying a small amount as an entry fee. Upon entering the city the oppressive atmosphere immediately transformed, as he was greeted by bustling, cramped streets. Merchants hawking their wares wandered to and fro, and a dense set of stalls impeded his way further into the city. Liu Zhu squeezed his way past them, looking around, and saw that the city looked nothing like Vermilion City or Blue Ridge City. The buildings were cramped together due to the limited space the mountain pass provided, and they looked like they were made out of whatever was on hand at the time. The mish-mash of materials extended to the road, as some areas had well-paved roads made of stone, while other roads right next to them were only made of dirt. It was a disorganized, messy place, but it was full of life.
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The most pressing things to do after entering the city were to find somewhere to stay and figure out what to do from here on, so Liu Zhu killed two birds with one stone and stopped at a massive tavern called 'Stick Of Incense' located near the edge of Border City. Upon entering Liu Zhu froze, surprised once again. A massive amount of cultivators were wandering about the seemingly normal looking tavern. Most of them had a low level of cultivation, but the sheer quantity of them was amazing. Whether or not the Northern Wastes lived up to their reputation as a land of opportunity for itinerant cultivators, that reputation was clearly successful in drawing more of them here.
On the inn's wall was a giant map of the Northern Wastes, but it was incredibly vague. Plastered over it were a few ads advertising where to buy a better one. Next to it was a wooden notice board, filled with ads and job postings. The job postings were all things like going out to hunt vicious beasts, escorting caravans, or protecting cartographers trying to map out certain areas - there was definitely no lack of work for cultivators in the area.
Liu Zhu looked at the job postings, but nothing in particular caught his eye. The work was relatively generic, and while he wouldn't turn it down if he couldn't find anything else, he wasn't sure if he'd gain much from doing it. He was here to gain experience after all, not earn money. After examining the job postings Liu Zhu bought a meal and spoke to the bartender, trying to figure out if there was any interesting gossip. The bartender shrugged. "People die or get eaten, caravans get lost, but it's not unusual." "Well, fair enough. Is there anywhere decent to look for work?" The bartender walked away as he responded, too busy to hold a conversation for more than a few sentences. "There's a board over there with job postings, or you can swing by the place on 3rd Street."
Liu Zhu asked a few of the other cultivators about "the place on 3rd Street" before he left, and discovered that it was some sort of job agency for wandering cultivators. They were paid by employers to evaluate job postings and find suitable cultivators to take care of them in a reasonable amount of time. In exchange for their effort they got a small portion of the payment. Despite the slightly reduced income, almost no one was greedy enough to just ignore them and look for work on their own. The agency helped employers find work easily, but it was also a great help to cultivators. They gave freedom to the cultivator to choose what work to do, and as long as you finished what you were hired for, you were allowed to take breaks as long as you liked. Most importantly, they vetted employers as well as cultivators. If they refused to pay someone or did something similarly bad, they ended up blacklisted. This made cultivators less fearful in taking jobs from unknown groups, and it was the main reason they were so popular among the cultivators throughout the city.
Now that he had a decent idea of where to go next, Liu Zhu headed towards the center of the city in a bid to find worthwhile work.