Samantha picked a nearby spot against a tree to sit down and faced away from the corpse. She hissed in pain as she let go of the now-bloody knife. Every shallowly closed wound had reopened after using so much speed to kill her enemy.
She could feel fresh warmth on her chest and back from the trickles of blood seeping through the scabs where she had been skewered, but her right hand was in the worst shape since she had used it to strike. She was in no condition for battle, and would need to recover some of her strength before continuing on. Silas hopped tiredly over to her and laid down beside her, leaning against her left thigh and sharing his warmth.
“You’re really dirty.” he said matter of factly.
Samantha couldn’t help but chuckle weakly, “To be fair, I did die. It would be more surprising if I looked my best, no?”
He tilted his head so he could properly look at her, “What was dying like?”
Samantha shivered remembering the cold chill of death right before her vision went black, “I didn’t like it. It was scary, cold, and I don’t plan to do it again if I can help it. After I died though, something interesting happened…”
She proceeded to tell Silas about her experience in her dantian, doing her best to describe the concept of a library since he had never seen one before. She didn’t think that he fully understood everything she talked about, but he listened attentively anyway.
“Is that where I’ll go if I die, too?” he asked.
“I think so. The new bloodline skill we unlocked said your spirit will reside in my dantian if you’re killed. I don’t know if you’ll experience it the same way I did though.”
Silas gave a short huff of acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything more. They enjoyed each other's company in relative silence for several minutes as Samantha healed and Silas consumed more healing herbs to speed the process. When she felt strong enough to get moving again, she stood up with a pained groan.
Silas stretched once before following after her, “Where are we going next?”
Samantha pulled up a notification she had specifically been avoiding looking at, but couldn’t justify ignoring any longer.
Congratulations, you have slain a cultivator of equal or greater rank!
Spire qi collection has been suspended. You have been granted first access to cultivate their refined energy as a reward for your victory. Temporary neutrally attuned nexus will dissipate in one week if not absorbed, if you go further than 15 feet from the source after beginning cultivation, or once all qi has been processed.
This was not the first time she had seen this message–it was the same one she received after killing the Rat King. As much as she would like to pack as much power into her new core as she could before ascending, now wasn’t the right time to do it. She couldn’t risk her family being attacked while she stayed out here for who knew how long. In the short term she could use the neutrally attuned energy to quickly replenish her qi pool, but the rest of the nexus’s energy would dissipate once she left the area and that seemed like a waste. She would have considered it if she still had access to [Flawless Regeneration], but since that skill was absorbed into her core there was no way she could use the replenished qi to heal herself now. She opted to leave the nexus alone and come back later if she had time.
Samantha started making her way back to the safehouse and finally responded to Silas’s question, “I’m a mess, and I still need more time for my Rebirth Core to heal me. I’m thinking we might as well search the safehouse to see if I can get cleaned up and if there are any supplies that could help us.”
Silas squeaked once before hopping in the direction of the safehouse, “Since you’re hurt, I’ll help you search.”
Samantha smiled at this small act of consideration, and went to pick up Alex’s straight sword before following after him. The good quality sword was very heavy by mortal standards, and was clearly built to be wielded by someone with Bronze ranked strength. The hilt and blade were slightly thicker than standard mortal weapons, and though the metal the sword was made of was devoid of obvious defects, it was also nothing special–perhaps a high quality steel. Although she was not terribly familiar with straight sword forms, she knew enough basics from her fundamental martial training to wield it effectively. It was better than walking around with the torture chamber knife or unarmed, in any case.
The only other small detour she allowed herself was fetching the spirit pearl from within Torak. She used the straight sword to cut it out of his body, and was pleased to find that it was a Rank 2-High core. After wiping it down, she handed the beast core to Silas to consume. He was the one who had defeated the Dire Wolf, after all. It was only fair that he took the spoils. He took the pearl of energy into his mouth and began absorbing its contents without complaint.
When they reached the safehouse, Silas immediately went off to explore some of the rooms she had previously opened. To give him more options on where to search, she opened every other room in the building before trying to find a suitable change of clothes and a bathroom to clean up. If she wanted to return to town without much fuss, she couldn’t look like she had just taken a bath in her own blood before rolling around in the mud.
Fortunately, there were several bedrooms with changes of clothes in them that she could pick through, and it didn’t take long for her to find a set of mundane casual clothes that were about her size. Then, blessedly, she found a room with a well pump that she could use to bathe with. After washing the filth off of her body, she changed into the fresh set of clothes and felt like a new woman.
“Samantha! I found something!” Silas chirped excitedly.
She followed the binding thread to Silas’s location, and was unsurprised to see that he was in the study. If anything of value was hidden here, it would be in Lord Braxand’s personal office space.
“Here! This book smells really nice.” Silas said, his nub tail wagging as he pointed his nose at a thick tome on the bottom of a bookshelf.
She kneeled down and pulled the book titled ‘Anatomical Study of Beasts in the Southern Plains’ from the shelf. The book was unusually heavy, even considering the amount of pages it had. She opened to the first page and quickly began to thumb through the contents. She passed by the impressively detailed illustrations without reading further, only pausing briefly when a spirit beast she didn’t recognize was described. She turned hundreds of pages until she reached the last quarter of the book and she found that the pages would no longer fully turn. It was like the first half of the page closest to the spine was glued to the page beneath it, all the way through the last inch of the book.
Samantha carefully tore the pages apart, trying to see what the stuck together portions held. It was when she saw her first glimmer of gold that she knew for certain that something was hidden here. With slightly more gusto, she tore the pages apart and found a solid gold bar set into a perfectly carved out section of the page block. The rectangular bar was about 6 inches long, and about an inch thick, with a ‘50’ stamped into it. She recognized it to be a trading currency valued at 50 gold pieces, typically used when merchants made deals with each other for easier transport of large amounts of wealth. That wasn’t the only treasure she found within the book though. Silas’s nose had been spot on.
Samantha pried a glass vial from the pages and looked at the shining white pill with disbelief. How much wealth did Lord Braxand possess where he could just leave 50 gold and a sublime healing pill underground in the forest? She bet that this wasn’t even his only safehouse.
Samantha put the trade bar in an inner pocket of her robe before placing the bottle in one of Silas’s most secure vest pouches, “Here Silas, you hold onto this. This one is for dire emergencies only, understand?”
“Like when you’re about to die again? Or maybe turn into a raisin?”
The concept that Silas sent did not exactly translate to ‘raisin’. He had actually sent her the image of the cultivator desiccating during his failed attempt to saturate his body with qi–but ‘raisin’ was a much more palatable interpretation.
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“Yes, exactly.” she confirmed. “Did you check through the other rooms already?”
“Yes. This was the only one with a good smell.”
Samantha began a quick visual scan of each room on her way out of the complex, since Silas probably wouldn’t have recognized high quality weapons or armor as valuable. When she confirmed that there was nothing else she could use, she and Silas exited the safehouse and began to return to the city. Luckily, Silas’s sense of direction was impeccable, and he easily recalled the path Alex had taken to reach this area. With his expert guidance, the city walls were in sight within the hour. This was just enough time for her passive healing and Silas’s consumption of healing items to close her reopened wounds and return her to fighting shape.
Given that it was still the very early hours of the morning and coming back at this time was unusual, Samantha was prepared to submit herself to the questioning of the city guards before being let in. As she approached the gate, however, she could hear the alarm that signified a spirit beast incursion blaring into the night. She increased her pace, worried that her family could be in danger.
When she reached the foot of the wall, she noticed that there were no visible enforcers patrolling the area as they normally would be.
“Hello! I need to be let inside!” she called up loudly.
A stressed-looking woman poked her head over the side of the wall and stared down at her, “No entry tonight! Can’t you hear the alarms? There are spirit beasts rampaging through the streets!”
“I’m a cultivator! I can help!” Samantha urgently explained.
The woman looked at Samantha, then to Silas, then back to the city, before returning her gaze to Samantha. She seemed to be debating something in her mind.
Samantha was already preparing a plan to sneak in if she wasn’t allowed inside, but was relieved when the woman finally shouted, “I’m forbidden from opening this gate for anyone. Can you get over the wall yourself?”
Samantha scooped up Silas in her arms and activated [Swift] and [Cloud Step] to help her vault over the side of the 20 foot tall barrier. Compared to when she last did this after returning from her cultivation quest, it felt almost too easy. Once she gracefully landed next to the wall guard, she realized with some surprise that the woman was mortal. The situation in the city must truly be serious if they were staffing the wall with mortals instead of cultivators.
“Where is the breach at?” Samantha questioned.
“That’s the thing–we can’t find a breach! They appeared out of nowhere and they won’t stop coming. It’s not like other times either where a herd of them wander close to the city and attack together. These are beasts that would not normally be found together in the same environment.”
“Is there a particular area of the city that’s affected?”
The woman pointed towards the center of Yivesh, “Follow the fires. Last I heard there was a group of Firestorm Bears burning entire blocks to the ground. Your best bet would be to group up with a squad of Enforcers and follow the orders of their Unit Commander.”
Samantha nodded in thanks then jumped down from the wall, smoothly absorbing the impact with her legs and running in the direction of the Southern Business District. Before she did anything else, she needed to check on her parents.
----------------------------------------
She made it to Cray’s Creations in record time. On the way to the shop she had seen several injured mortals and cultivators being transported by healthy individuals, but did not encounter any raging beasts. In addition, while the alarm still loudly rang and the smell of smoke was on the wind, she did not see any fires.
She knocked loudly on the locked door of the shop until one of her parents rushed down to open it and usher her inside.
“Where have you been?” her mother scolded her as her father re-locked the front door, “We’ve been worried sick after you didn’t come home from training!”
“I don’t have much time to explain, but this beast incursion isn’t natural. I need to find the City Lord and inform him of what’s really going on. I’m sorry but that’s all I can tell you–any more will be too dangerous.” Samantha said, setting Silas down on the ground. She then began climbing the stairs to get to her room so she could change into her Laminar armor and fetch her spear.
Her parents ran up after her as fast as they could, her father calling up, “Well, what can we do to help? Just because you’re a cultivator now, doesn’t mean that we can’t help, right?”
“Can you help me with this armor? I need to get out there as quickly as I can.” she offered, struggling to latch some of the harder to reach straps. She decided against wearing either of the other two armor pieces that Lord Braxand had given her, fearing that she would be associated with his house and attacked on sight once word got out about what he had done.
As her parents helped her don the various armor pieces, Martha asked, “What else can we do?”
Once the last piece was fitted, Samantha fetched her personal coin purse which still contained about 20 gold even after her training, expenses, and other purchases over the last week. She put the bag into her mother’s outstretched hands, “Take this money and buy out the alchemy shop’s entire stock of low grade healing items. Pills, elixirs, poultices, tinctures, whatever they have. Make your way to one of the emergency shelters, but don’t let any cultivators know that you have healing items or else they’ll take them from you. Pass them out discreetly to any mortals who are injured and stay safe. Oh–and if Reynold tries to raise his prices because of the beast incursion, you tell him that I will be back to deal with him personally after the situation is resolved.”
Martha opened the bag to count the coins and raised her eyebrow at the amount of wealth she had just been given, “If we’re gone, who’s going to man the shop? Looters might take everything if we leave it undefended.”
Samantha pulled out the gold trade bar and handed it to her father, “I’d rather the shop be looted and you be safe, then either of you getting hurt. You can rebuild the business with this if it really comes down to it.”
Aldon and Martha’s eyes widened in astonishment, and they asked in complete unison, “Where did you get this?”
Her father tried to give the bar back, “We can’t possibly accept this, Samantha. It’s too much. This represents… 10… 15 years of successful business for us! This would be enough money to not only restock the shop, but open a second location in a nice area.”
Samantha refused to take the bar back, “Hopefully you won’t have to use it. This is just a precaution if, as you fear, looters raid the shop in the chaos. Now please, can you do this for me?”
Her parents acquiesced, bowing their heads low to her in a show of gratitude, “It will be done.”
When they raised their heads, both of them had tears in their eyes.
“When did my little girl grow up? I’m proud of you.” Aldon praised.
They both embraced her, and Samantha felt her own eyes getting misty in the emotion of the moment.
“You be safe too Sam–as safe as a cultivator can be, anyway. I won’t forgive you if you get yourself killed, you hear?” Martha said, wiping her eyes as she pulled away from the hug.
Samantha inwardly cringed at this declaration. She hoped that they didn’t ever find out that she had already technically died.
As she was heading out the door with her family and Silas in tow, she realized that Silas’s stock of medicinals was probably low now. It wouldn’t hurt to get some extra healing items for other cultivators who may be injured either.
“On second thought…” Samantha started, and her parents paused in the street, “...let me go with you to the alchemy shop. I should get some things for myself as well, and things will go faster if I’m actually there when you’re making this big of a purchase.”
Her parents agreed, and the four of them made their way down the street to the local alchemist Reynold’s shop. Similarly to Cray’s Creations, the door was firmly bolted shut.
Samantha banged on the door loudly and repetitively, “Reynold, It’s the Crays! Open the door!”
She caught a glimpse of the man peeking out at them from around a corner before hiding again, “I can see you, Reynold! Open this door or I’m opening it myself!”
The portly mustached man waddled around the counter with sudden urgency, “No! No, I’m coming.”
The door opened and the four of them stepped inside, Reynold locking the door behind him as soon as they stepped over the threshold, “I only have enough food for myself and my family. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
Samantha was about to say something, but her father stepped in before she had the chance, “That’s not why we’re here Reynold. We’re here to buy healing items from you.”
The alchemist took a moment to process the words before a glint of greed sparked in his eyes. Wanting to nip that in the bud immediately, Samantha took control of the conversation again.
“I know how much these items cost, and I will be buying out your entire stock. The cost of production, plus a 10% profit. There will be no price gouging and no negotiation. Get your inventory out here right now–people are dying every moment that we stand here.”
Reynold looked as if he were about to protest, but Martha stepped forward with a fire in her eye that could strike fear in the heart of any warrior, “Move, Reynold! You heard our daughter!”
That admonishment seemed to kick him into gear, and he proceeded to gather every healing item in the shop. Samantha took the higher ranked concoctions for herself, stuffing each of Silas’s pockets full to bursting. Her parents stocked a bag with the rest of the items.
Samantha spent more than she expected, as the alchemist had a shockingly vast selection of items for purchase and his stated production costs were slightly bloated. Still, neither party could complain too much about this transaction. Samantha saved precious time since the shop owner cooperated promptly and kept his prices reasonable, and despite his initial protests the alchemist ended up bringing in around 30 gold in one fell swoop. It was a happy compromise.
Samantha left as soon as she loaded up Silas’s stock, trusting her parents to finalize the details and make it to a shelter on their own.