“What happens if I fall?” Griffin asked as he reached for the next rung of the precariously thin ladder.

“Do not worry, Daoist Thorne. I will catch you before you hit the ground,” Jun-Ra reassured.

“You keep calling me that— Daoist. What does it mean?” Griffin asked as he tried to not marvel at his own grip strength. It seemed like an odd thing to be amazed by when he had punched a literal fish-alligator right in the face, but if he had to assess his own newly acquired abilities, Griffin wouldn’t be shy to place himself amongst experienced free climbers when it came to his grip strength alone.

“It is a means of address, an honorific to be exact, used for those attributed callings related to the broad umbrella that is cultivation,” Jun-Ra patiently explained.

“Cultivation?” Griffin blurted out, the curiosity in his tone strong enough to let Jun-Ra catch on to the unasked question.

“You mentioned Magic earlier. Are you familiar with it, then?” It was Shen-Ya that inquired this time, her tone noticeably way more polite.

“Vaguely,” Griffin answered. “You hold a staff, chant some magical mumbo-jumbo and a ball of flames rains down on your enemy.”

Whatever follow-up question Shen-Ya had in mind sputtered out— it seemed like she was too flabbergasted by his response to continue.

Jun-Ra gracefully took over the explanation, “Like the wide variety of classes and skills offered under the umbrella of mage and magic callings, cultivation is a similar classification. What we call Qi, the mages call mana—- it is what empowers our skills, however there are many differences in how we utilize the same energy. The same is true for the Oath-Paladins of the Theocracy and the Beast Tamers of the Wildlands. It is the Sin-Alignment classes where things get…. different.”

Griffin thought about inquiring more about the Sin-Alignment classes, but ultimately decided against it. He had seen the menacing classes the Elf and the Half-Dwarf had and it wasn’t hard to tell that they were likely a cut above the common offerings, whatever that meant. Asking the wrong question would highlight inconsistencies in his ruse and Griffin was pretty sure that the only reason he was being helped instead of being thrown in a jail cell was because they had reached a misunderstanding on their own.

“I see,” Griffin muttered. “Can I do this cultivation as well, then?”

Shen-Ya, having recovered from her earlier gaffe, answered, “That depends on your calling. But you’ve already refused to disclose that, so….”

“Wait, you won’t force me to tell you once we reach this Sect of yours, right?” Griffin warily asked, even though he knew that he really had no way of escaping the two ‘cultivators’.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Another thing you should know about cultivators, Daoist Thorne,” It was Jun-Ra that responded. “Is that we do not give our word easily. Once we have, though, we do not go back on it unless it becomes impossible to fulfill.”

“My bad,” Griffin sheepishly replied, even though he didn’t believe that a moral code would stop them if they discovered his ‘calling’.

“As long as you understand,” Shen-Ya added, clearly not happy with his brazenness.

From then on, Griffin focused on the climb. He was already at the three-storey mark and he was only half-way to the top.

‘Don’t look down,’ He told his brain, as he fought the urge to do exactly that. Sweat beaded his forehead as he pressed forward, requiring another fifteen long minutes to reach the last rung.

At this point, Griffin would have traded his grip on the ladder for a chance to get rid of that pesky itch under his right ear. Well, almost.

His right hand pressed against a stone slab that ostensibly led to his freedom. Initially, it refused to budge. Then, Griffin exerted his newly acquired strength and just barely managed to push it outward.

Light flooded in.

----------------------------------------

“Holy shit,” Griffin whispered under his breath as he stood in what seemed like a service alleyway flanked by two walled enclosures.

It wasn’t the bustling marketplace that spilled out before him, packed with people dressed in ornate robes that came in so many different colours and hues that he lost track after a moment, that had taken his breath away.

A few people gave him cursory glances, mostly directing their gazes to his lack of footwear, but no one commented as they continued walking.

Neither was it the giant twenty storey pagoda nestled in what Griffin suspected to be the city’s centre, the gold and silver structure imposing enough that he could spot it from over a dozen miles away, truly what blew him away.

No, it was the city’s means of transport that fascinated him so. Initially, the sky seemed dotted by what looked like large crows, but as Griffin focused on them intently, that it was people that had taken to the skies.

Not people. Cultivators, entering and leaving the city on their flying swords. And this was supposed to be a city at the outskirts of the Yushan Sect, the starting point of civilization. What would lie at the center?

“You know, maybe there is something cooler than wizards out there,” He mumbled under his breath as Shen-Ya gracefully landed to his right, followed by Jun-Ra, who had chosen to leap out of the sewer entrance and land to his left.

“Mmm, this won’t do,” Jun-Ra noted after giving his appearance a cursory sweep. “We need to buy you some footwear, light armor to stuff under your robes and a cheap sword.”

“Why?” Griffin asked.

“Because if anyone asks, you are Gen-Ra, my cousin brother hailing from the Verdant Valleys. A cultivator brave enough to make the journey to the Martial Law Sect penniless and with nothing but a single sword to your name.”

“Is that… er, necessary?” Griffin asked with trepidation, clearly not having anticipated this turn of events.

“It’s the only way for you to live in Zenari-Shu without disclosing your calling. I can pull strings for my family, but it would be too odd, not to mention suspicious, if I was to do it for a new disciple seeking admission into the sect. The sect is very wary of Sin-Alignment users trying to sneak in.”

“I accept, then,” Griffin raised his hands in defeat, even as his instincts told him that it was going to be…. troublesome, at best.