“The vultures can’t get too close because of a hawk-like spirit beast guarding the old man, but we haven’t seen anything too concerning. The aura he gives off is very weak. So much so that if it weren’t for the spirit beast I’d assume he was mortal. In fact… maybe he is mortal and just has that bird trained to protect him, rather than being bonded to it? He looks afraid. Frail. My vote is to kill him and take his supplies.” the scout reported.
“What about you?” Cain asked his other scout.
“I’m in agreement. It looks like he brought up a couple of full bags with him as well. Even if the contents aren’t all valuable, we could likely replenish some of our food and water at least.” the second scout shrugged.
It certainly wasn’t the haul he had originally been hoping for, but a win was a win. He glanced over to Uttu to see if the man had any reservations, but his second-in-command gave no signal that he disagreed.
“Very well. Let’s give our newest ascendant a warm welcome, shall we?”
Forgoing stealth for intimidation, Cain directed the entire group to close in on the man’s location as quickly as possible. Leveraging Uttu’s bond ability [Hasten Pack] to ride even faster than usual, they surrounded the elder in short order. Seeing his prey up close, he had to agree with both of the scouts. He looked pathetic.
The haggard man had thin, wispy hair, ill-fitting clothes that practically hung off of his frame, and looked around at his men with wide, terrified eyes. He scrambled away from them on hands and knees, cowering whenever they drew closer.
“Oh–oh! Mercy! I beg you, mercy!” he pleaded, pressing his hands together as if in prayer.
Cain felt a sadistic smile creep across his face. This was how it was supposed to be. That run-in with the other ascendant had just been a fluke.
He dismounted his sand spider and approached with a slow, confident saunter. The elder scrambled up unsteadily and bowed to Cain. He was trembling like a leaf.
“Hey there, old timer. Sorry to say, but you’ve run into a bit of bad luck.” he drawled, savoring the sense of superiority he had been sorely missing.
“You can take whatever you want. Please just spare my life!” the stranger begged.
Cain continued to slowly close in on his prey, “I don’t think so. You see, I’ve had a bad week. It’s nothing personal, but the only thing that’s going to brighten my mood is killing someone.”
The man turned in a frantic circle, looking to his crew for any form of assistance, “Are you all really so callous?”
One of his men laughed, “The Shattered Lands are not soft like the first floor is. If you aren’t useful, there’s no reason to keep you alive.”
The man’s shoulders sagged in despair. Cain was nearly close enough to reach out and touch him now.
“I see. Thanks for the information.” Everything about the man from his tone of voice to his demeanor seemed to change in an instant. The hair on the back of Cain’s neck stood up as he was suddenly overcome with a sense of danger. Before he had time to fully process this change, the man turned towards him in a blur and whipped his fist outwards in a strong, straight punch. A devastating blast of explosive force flung Cain’s broken body through the air before he even registered the pain.
You have died! Cause of death: Blunt force trauma.
As a disembodied soul, you now have full access to all previous memories. Reflect upon your past and decide your future.
Do you wish to return to the Wheel of Reincarnation? Y/N
----------------------------------------
Lord Braxand was mildly impressed with the Resilience of the Peak Bronze bandit. The man’s corpse was mangled and misshapen, but relatively intact. Most others would have been turned to mist from such a blow. He had decided to err on the side of caution and used 60 qi–nearly his entire pool–to fuel a single use of [Focused Blast]. Normally such an expenditure would be intolerably risky, however, this was a unique case. He had lured the arrogant man in close enough to guarantee the strike would land, and he had many allies he could rely on to defend him in the aftermath as he recovered from the backlash of the art.
He smiled at the three remaining bandits as the rest of his entourage emerged from their hiding spots below the sands and behind well-crafted illusions. The area was flooded with the presence of cultivators as every member retracted their stealthing or deactivated suppression arts. While his people quickly surrounded the riders and their mounts he downed a powerful healing potion to repair the damage he had sustained. As the fractured bones in his hand and arm mended he observed the raiders’ reactions to the situation. The two Copper cultivators were in a state of confusion and panic, while the Mid Bronze had already thrown up both of his hands in a sign of surrender.
“My Lord, would you like to sit?”
He looked over to Liam and his two younger brothers with thinly veiled contempt. These three were not only the weakest of the cultivators he’d brought along, but were arguably the catalyst for his downfall and forced ascension. If not for their reckless greed and pointless feud with that girl, his Ol’ Man Whisper alias would have never been compromised. The only reason he hadn’t had them executed already was because cultivators made for more useful servants than mortals.
He sat in the chair Liam had carefully positioned behind him while Anthony and Darryl took up positions on either side of him. One fanned his face to cool him, and the other procured a tray of chilled beverages for him to choose from.
“Let the Mid Bronze through to speak with me. Fetch him a seat.” he commanded, and Liam rushed to place another chair in front of him.
Once a small gap formed to let the bandit through, the man dismounted and slowly approached the empty chair. Stopping beside it, he kneeled and placed his hands and forehead to the sand in a full kowtow.
“My name is Uttu. How may I be of service to my new Lord?”
Lord Braxand grinned warmly, carefully controlling the expression to mask his immediate distrust of the man. He disliked those that so easily shifted their loyalties. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about this floor.”
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“Unbelievable!” Harold groaned, “As if random raiders weren’t bad enough, now we have the head of one of the Big Three hunting us because you couldn’t mind your own business?”
After Harold and his mount had caught up to her Samantha had explained why she was in such a hurry to leave the butte. She was careful to leave out details that would reveal her involvement with the warehouse explosion, but otherwise filled him in on what happened while he was sequestered in the Ascension Obelisk waiting for her to arrive.
“Ex-head!” she corrected , “And he’s not exactly hunting us. I think if I presented myself as an easily accessible target then he would most certainly strike, but that’s a less appealing prospect now that he’d have to go out of his way to chase us down. His first priority will probably be ensuring his group’s immediate survival, followed by learning more about the floor. With the amount of people and supplies he brought with him he’s probably looking to establish a foothold here.”
“Are you certain you counted correctly?”
Samantha grimaced. She wished she had miscounted, however her cleared Mind Meridian made mis-remembering something so recent impossible. “I’m sure. 30 cultivators from Low Copper to Mid Bronze… and all of them were bonded to spirit beasts. Even Lord Braxand was bonded with something, but I didn’t see what.”
“And you knew he was coming?” he accused, “Why wouldn’t you bring that up earlier?”
“He wasn’t supposed to ascend for another week and a half, and we had more pressing issues to worry about!” she said defensively. She didn’t understand why the Ruler had gone back on his word and sent Lord Braxand up early. Something must’ve happened that changed his mind. “Besides, he’s coming after me, not you. I’ll drop you off at the first town we find and then you’ll be safe.”
An inscrutable expression crossed Harold’s face as he responded with a grunt.
She was a bit confused by his response, thinking that he’d be more excited to get back to some form of civilization. Then again, Harold was odd and she didn’t know him well. Perhaps that was just him agreeing with her.
They continued racing towards the canyon in relative silence. The combination of heat, unstable footing, and heavy bag she carried made the minutes feel excruciatingly long. Silas eventually came down from his long glide to land on her shoulders and gave her a bit of shade with his wings, but it didn’t help much. Thankfully, the terrain gradually transformed from sandy to rocky once they got within a couple miles of the valley. Apart from the ground’s steepening incline the closer they got to the canyon lip, Samantha found this portion of the journey much more tolerable.
She and Harold briefly discussed whether it was better to run along the canyon edge and only descend once they were near the hamlet she had discovered, or if they should descend immediately and travel through the gorge itself. It didn’t take long to come to a decision. Harold’s 5 Resilience wasn’t sufficiently protecting him from the heat and sun, and if he spent much longer exposed to this environment he would likely develop heatstroke and a crippling sunburn. As it stood, he was drenched in sweat and all of his exposed skin had taken on a pinkish hue. Furthermore, while traveling the open terrain would be faster, it would also make them too easy to find and they had no shelter against biters. If they had to resort to using the False Dawn they would be announcing their presence to everyone nearby–including the Braxands.
Cresting the final rise of the slope, the group found themselves faced with a sheer dropoff that marked the border of the ravine. Though she had explored the landmark in spectral form, looking down into the mile-deep chasm felt weightier in person.
“Oh.” was all Harold said as he peered over the edge.
She took a second to catch her breath before responding, “You should be grateful your sand spider offered a bond! Before, the best idea I had for getting you down there was climbing with you on my back or something.”
He gave her a disapproving stare and she shrugged, “Hey, at least I was willing to try something instead of leaving you behind!”
The corner of his mouth quirked up the smallest amount, “I don’t give people credit for terrible ideas. Also, if anything she should be thanking me, don’t you think? She’d be dead if I didn’t administer a cure.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
As far as she knew Harold still hadn’t given the spirit beast a name, but she wasn’t going to tell him that a ‘naming ceremony’ for Silas had awarded her a bond ability point. In her experience, these points were a result of an event that deepened the relationship between cultivator and bonded beast. If Harold just named his spider because he was trying to get a reward from it, she doubted it would yield the same results. It was probably best to let them find connection in their own time and way.
She checked her qi pool and saw she had 123.6/177.6 remaining, which was more than enough to descend into the valley if she climbed carefully. Although the walls were relatively smooth, she could pick out suitable handholds most anywhere she looked. Given her superhuman Strength and Endurance, even a small lip in the rock would be enough for her to get a firm grip on.
While she eyed the cliff face, she noticed Harold making ample use of his [Secretion] ability. He dripped the sticky substance across his legs and around the saddle, gluing himself into the seat. Then, he proceeded to adhere the saddle itself to the spider. The sand spider fidgeted uncomfortably from side to side as the [Secretion] dried and locked both the rider and saddle firmly in place.
“Uh…” Samantha started, “I don’t think she likes that very much.”
Harold huffed, “And? You know what I don’t like? Falling to my death. Who knows what shape this saddle is really in after being used by raiders and surviving a snapper swarm! I’m not taking any chances. Besides–” he pulled the caster from his holster and held it at the ready, “--I want my hands free.”
“Fair enough. I guess I’ll see you at the bottom then.” Inwardly she shook her head. She didn’t see many bond ability points in his future.
Silas continued to shade her head as she began the long, arduous descent into the valley. Given how much climbing she had been doing lately, the process of locating a suitable handhold and making her way over to it was familiar. She frequently found herself losing track of time as the motions became almost automatic, and she allowed her thoughts to wander since she knew that Silas or Harold–who’s mount was keeping pace alongside her–would warn her if anything dangerous was nearby. She only came out of her reverie when a notification interrupted her routine.
Your efforts to improve yourself have borne fruit! Training to master your body movements in combination with pushing your body beyond its current limits has granted +1 to Endurance.
She checked her qi pool and saw that she now had nearly 173 qi points, which meant that she had been climbing for a full hour. Wondering how far she had made it in this time, she looked down to gauge how much distance remained to the bottom of the canyon. To her surprise, she was only halfway finished with the climb. With how steadily she’d been progressing, she thought she made it much further. Since her qi pool was close to full, she allowed herself to pursue riskier routes and handholds to save time going forward.
Once she neared the top of the tree canopy about 40 minutes later, she paused her descent and fetched her spear from where it was strapped to her bag. Then, activating [Cloud Step], she quickly dropped down the final 100 or so feet until she landed on solid ground once more.
She held her spear at the ready and intently scanned her immediate surroundings, straining her senses to try and pick out any unusual activity. She slowly walked forward and away from the cliff wall guarding her back, cringing at the unavoidable noise her steps made. Before she had even made it 20 feet, Harold and his mount came barreling through behind her.
“Pah! Bleh!” he spat, brushing something away from his face with a hand.
Samantha whipped around and stared at the man incredulously, “Could you be any louder?” Her words came out as a harsh whisper.
“What was that?” He called out, oblivious. He reached down and began peeling off the [Secretion]s he’d made to free himself and his bond from the saddle. The substance seemed to transform in his hands and became malleable like dough. Once he balled it all up, he stuck the putty-like wad into a saddlebag and dismounted.
She resisted the urge to pull at her hair in frustration. Moving closer so he could hear her whisper, she said, “You’re too loud! You’re going to get us killed.”
Harold raised an eyebrow at her. Continuing to speak at a normal volume, he stated, “My bond told me she didn’t sense anything around. So, we’re safe here.”
There were so many things wrong with that assumption that Samantha didn’t know where to start at first. However, she supposed she couldn’t be too surprised by his ignorance. He had planned to live in the city as a mortal and be an alchemist up until a couple weeks ago. He probably never felt the need to learn about survival strategies or spirit beasts like many cultivators did.
She took a deep breath and tried to explain her reasoning as calmly (and quietly) as she could, “Spirit beasts are usually specialized to thrive in certain environments. Yours is best suited to live in the desert. Its senses may not work as well here, or there may be unfamiliar beasts around that it’s unable to detect. Not to mention that the System itself warned us that these rifts have more predators than the desert does.”
Harold’s eyes widened slightly as she spoke and his posture became much more timid and nervous. He looked around in every direction suspiciously, scanning the trees as he inched closer to his bonded.
She continued, “Though this forest isn’t quite the same as the one around Yivesh, my bond is better suited to scout the area and gauge the dangers. Please try not to draw attention to us until we get a better idea of what we’re getting into.”
Harold gave her a somewhat sheepish expression and nodded silently.
After turning translucent and exploring in each direction for 100 yards, Silas returned to the group carrying a short, berry-laden vine in his mouth.
“No dangerous beasts nearby. Some mundane ones though. Birds… deer… those sorts. I also found a tasty berry patch! See?” Silas happily reported.
Samantha bent down to get a closer look at the vine and pulled a single berry from the bunch. As soon as she did, the rest of the plant disappeared into Silas’s mouth. She noticed with mild amusement that more than one patch of fur on his body was stained light purple.
She turned the spherical, fingernail-sized fruit over in her hand, but couldn’t recall ever seeing a similar plant near Yivesh. Just because Silas was eating it didn’t mean that it was safe for her or Harold to eat. After all, Silas’s [Iron Gut] and [Poison Connoisseur] allowed him to eat pretty much anything without ill effect. To be double safe, she focused on the berry and put a point into [Inspect].
Riftberry (Rare)
An edible plant that often grows near rifts.
Samantha scrunched her eyebrows together at the short description, confused. Recalling one of the notifications she had received upon first arriving on the floor, it replaced the Riftberry description in her mind’s eye.
Core Quest: Answer the Call (Part 1 of 10) [COMPLETE]
You have entered the Shattered Lands, a sprawling desert broken by deep gulfs and canyons. On the surface of the sands lies rocky plateaus, mesas, buttes, and unrelenting heat with few resources, but relative safety from prowling beasts. Within the rifts both predators and resources abound.
This canyon is huge… so that means these berries must grow everywhere, right? Why are they Rare quality, then?
She handed the fruit to Harold, “Silas says he didn’t find any dangerous beasts nearby, but we should still take care not to be too loud. Also, can you make anything of this? [Inspect] tells me it’s a Rare plant, but doesn’t list any uses other than being edible.”
Harold nodded, “Sure, but it could take a while. Is it okay to possibly spend a couple hours here, or…?”
“It should be fine now that we’re hidden somewhat by the forest. We could use a break anyway.”
He proceeded to retrieve various alchemy tools and set them out on the ground, and Samantha made her way to a nice tree a short distance away. She set down her bag with a sigh of relief and rolled her sore shoulders to try and get some of the stiffness out of them. Even with her passive regeneration quickly repairing any injuries or strained muscles that climb had been brutal. She sat down and leaned against the tree, closing her eyes and appreciating the significantly cooler climate.
The further she had descended the canyon walls, the lower the temperature dipped. In comparison to Yivesh it was still warm here, but compared to the desert above it was practically comfortable. The shade from the canopy overhead was also quite pleasant. She looked up at the unfamiliar wooden giants and a twinge of nostalgia caused her heart to ache. The sounds and vegetation were different, but it still reminded her of home. She hoped she could figure out how to use [Spectral Projection] to go back and check in on her family, soon.
Blinking her eyes a few times to clear the mistiness from them, she sent a short message to Silas, “I’d like to check on something in spectral form. Will you protect my body while I’m away?”
Instead of responding directly, Silas bound over to where she sat and snuggled up into her lap. She pet his head a few times while he shifted around to get comfortable, then left her physical form behind.
Samantha started flying directly back to where she had spotted Lord Braxand a few hours ago. She needed to assure herself that she’d guessed his priorities correctly and he wasn’t currently pursuing them. Additionally, she was curious about what the raiders had decided to do upon seeing the massive group. She couldn’t imagine them trying to take on so many cultivators when they struggled so badly against her small party. It was more likely they’d finally given up on fighting newly ascended for the moment and were retreating. She would be interested to see if they traveled back to some sort of base nearby, if only to know where to avoid if she explored the desert in the future.
It didn’t take long for her to find the Braxands, and she couldn’t help but be somewhat impressed at their efficiency in setting up camp. Five large, enchanted tents had been erected and were fully furnished based on their intended function. One served as a stable, one as a cooking and dining area, one was filled with crafting stations, one contained beds, and one contained chairs and a table with a piece of paper spread across it. She had no idea how they’d managed to transport so many things up with them.
The camp generally bustled with activity, but there seemed to be three areas with a slightly higher concentration of people. Flying in closer to investigate, she quickly discovered why.
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“--Beyond that I don’t know. We rarely traveled out that way.” Uttu explained, filling in the final details on the crudely drawn map. “The clan leader didn’t want to risk overextending our reach.”
Lord Braxand transmitted the image to his other interrogators to confirm its accuracy. In short order he received the mental images of the other maps which had been drawn by the Copper-ranked raiders. All three appeared to contain roughly the same information, but he still didn’t fully trust that they were accurate. Just as he was using [Liaison] to silently coordinate and communicate, the raiders could be doing the same.
Even forcing them to take various cultivator’s oaths and submit to geasa hadn’t completely settled his doubts. Both methods shared the exact same weakness due to the fact that [Geas] was an art literally inspired by the oath system: they were open to interpretation. Promises open to interpretation were hardly more reliable than just taking someone at their word, and given that each raider already possessed multiple Oathbreaker marks, their word was essentially worthless. He resisted the urge to sigh. What he wouldn’t give for an art that would let him definitively sense truth or lies.
He let his friendly facade slip as he looked over the Mid Bronze with a calculated gaze. He was about ready to end these simultaneous investigations.
All three men were about as ‘helpful’ as he had expected, which was far less than he had hoped. Living on the outskirts of the desert and preying primarily on disoriented ascendants left most of their group complacent. They lacked ambition beyond comfortably surviving and feeling powerful, resulting in near total ignorance of things outside of their small area of influence. They couldn’t even give him accurate descriptions of spirit beasts because they claimed none of them had any inspection arts!
Arguably, the most useful thing he got from the raiders was general information about the surrounding landscapes and rifts, though little of it would be immediately helpful. The maps would serve as a nice reference point, but the lack of consistency in scale meant they couldn’t actually be used to navigate anywhere. The only other tidbit that intrigued him was the knowledge that Samantha Cray might be close by. He couldn’t be certain with only the descriptions he’d gotten, of course, but there were too many similarities to completely discount the possibility. He resolved to look into it further once he stabilized his family’s situation. If the bandits were being honest about the location of their base and the clan’s strength, that could be much sooner than he originally thought.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” Uttu asked nervously.
He stood and brushed some dust off of his lap, “I think I’ve heard everything I needed to, actually.” As he signaled to his Mid Bronzes to take Uttu outside, he sent a message to the other interrogators to wrap things up.
“What are you–wait!” Uttu protested, fighting against the hands that suddenly grasped him, “There’s no need to do this. I am loyal to you now!”
The distant sound of the raiders’ screams being abruptly cut off wafted into the tent, and Uttu’s eyes widened in terror. Lord Braxand received mental confirmations that there were no injuries and that all sand spiders remained suitably restrained.
“Please, wait! Wait, I can help you! I can be your guide!” Uttu shouted as he was dragged out of the tent and into the open.
“I don’t trust I can prevent you from betraying me, which makes you useless. And… what was it you lot said, again? ‘If you aren’t useful, there’s no reason to keep you alive’? I think that was it.”
“I’ll do anything to prove I’m trustworthy! Just give me a command.” Uttu pleaded.
A straight sword skewered Uttu from behind, slicing through his chest. As the weapon was torn free and the sands were dyed scarlet, he looked between the mortal wound and Lord Braxand with disbelief.
“Die quickly, then.” Lord Braxand commanded.