Somehow, her table, chair, and tea set had followed her all the way from that porch to this inn room.

She took a sip of her tea before gesturing to Rein at the opposite chair. “Sit.”

Rein hesitated for a moment, and eventually complied. The white-robed lady’s tone was amiable and not domineering in any way, but Rein knew that he had no choice but to do so in his current situation.

Baejenh clapped her hands together, and a silvery sphere expanded to surround Rein and the lady within, completely isolating any sound from outside.

“So. You went to the Bleak Mountains, and six months later, here you are… and the demonic aura around you, gone.” Her icy matter-of-fact tone made it rather difficult for Rein to discern the woman’s stance.

However, Rein offered an easy explanation. The Bleak Mountains was, after all, a place that advancers had previously tried to explore, only to find their energies extinguished should they enter too deeply. Thus, why couldn’t the demonic aura be removed? He was not given the chance to respond.

“And,” she continued. “The Bleak Mountains would supposedly clean up the residual demonic aura left on your body… that would be your excuse. Very well. I will let this go on two conditions.”

The source of the demonic aura was Rein’s bodily transformation from the draconic metamorphose bead. It was only thanks to Master Yirn’s magical necklace that this aura could no longer be sensed.

“First, take a drink of this tea. Oh please, it isn’t poisoned… I wouldn’t need to use poison to deal with you if I wished to.”

Once again, Rein complied, and the sweet savory taste of the tea lingered in his throat. That was not all-- it had an additional effect of causing Rein’s aurae to pulsate with warmth. If he did not drink the tea, Baejenh might have taken that as a rejection of her conditions.

“Now, my name is Baejenh. With that, we've established a peaceful cooperation between us. The second condition should be simple for you. You are entering the Hall of Heroes, yes?”

“Yes. I am from the Golden Desert Town, and as you--”

“Your explanation is unnecessary.” Baejenh had no desire to listen to bullshit. “The deal is straightforward. I wish to know of any out-of-place events in the Hall of Heroes. You surely are aware that the Hall of Heroes are extrajudicial in nature. Not closely monitored by this nation, and not even us, the Fusion Sect.”

She narrowed her eyes threateningly, and her silvery aurae dome around the two lowered the temperature until Rein could feel himself shivering in the cold. “All you need to do is feed me some of the information. Simple, is it not?”

Rein knew that this was no negotiation. Hanging in the air was the unsaid threat.

Thus, Rein nodded in agreement, once again fulfilling the lady’s demands. He could only comfort himself in his heart that providing the lady with some record of daily events in the Hall of Heroes-- if he successfully enters the organization, did not interfere with his goals.

“Now, I can’t have the Hall of Heroes knowing about our cooperation. As such, your point of contact with me will be through this store.” Baejenh slid a map under Rein’s eyes, giving him a few heartbeats to memorize it before burning it to crisps with a snap of her fingers.

“Tell the shopkeeper that you need to speak to the bird in the cage.”

She then clapped her hands together once more, and a force threw Rein backwards as he was expelled out of the silvery sphere onto the wooden floorboards.

When he sat back up and looked around the room, he saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary. It was as if Baejenh was never here. Her figure along with her leisurely tea set-up had vanished in the blink of an eye.

With a shrug, he threw his main travel sack into a corner and sat down onto the soft bed before scoffing. He had seen the true extent of expert illusion magics from Master Yirn. Baejenh must have used some lesser magic to trick a lowly inner advancer such as himself.

He further comforted his own heart, remembering that Master Yirn and Chenhr had expressed no concern when he described his first encounter with Baejenh.

He organized his belongings for the few days he would be using this room at the inn, and soon enough, he found himself out exploring the city with a paper bag of pan-fried meat pies in his hand.

Originally, he didn’t plan on getting this many, but he had to, after having to face that intimidating Baejenh that was supposedly an elder of the Fusion Sect-- the Sect that held the heart of this very realm!

With his belly full, Rein’s mind compiled all the information he had-- this was something that Chenhr made him perform during his accelerated training. That half-senior of his called this laying out the ingredients and stirring the pot.

First, there was the Hall of Heroes, who frankly operated through many different methods in order to combat devils and demons. In the Zoh Empire, the Hall of Heroes was essentially a supporter behind the seven ruling sects. Not so in the Minhr Nation.

The Minhr nation’s ruling clans had exiled ‘problematic’ elements to the western wilderness centuries ago, only to find out later that these exiles had built sects that quite literally protected the western flank of the Minhr nation.

These sects became incredibly powerful in the Evergreen Mountains, and they enforced a clear, positively tyrannical policy of no-clan influence within their ranks. Every single sect leader and elder needed to have a history of non-cooperation with the clans of the Minhr nation.

The clans obviously do not trust these exiles, who should by all rights hold a grudge against the nation. Certainly not when these powerful sects formed by ancient exiles could one day simply open the floodgates and allow the demons and devils in the western wilderness to attack the Minhr nation.

This was why the Hall of Heroes positioned themselves in the Green Trout City. Their ranks were made of Minhr’s clan members and the advancers rejected by the great sects of the Evergreen Mountains. The agreement was that they would serve as a bulwark against the west.

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After all, most advancers of any talent would prefer joining the independent sects out west. The alternative to this first attractive choice was to be loyal to a clan or join a sect within the nation that was more or less controlled by a clan. Point being, any who wished to climb to the top would find themselves blocked by members of influential clans within the Minhr nation.

Thus, the Hall of Heroes in Green Trout City consisted of nobles, rejects and desperate fools. The rules it adopted also primarily sought to make use of this pot of discordant elements in an attempt to reach whatever desired outcome of the organization.

Rein turned his mind to Baejenh. With his knowledge of the Fusion Sect, which treated this realm as a recruitment center for some higher power, as of right now, his best guess was that Baejenh wished to keep an eye on the Hall of Heroes such that the Fusion Sect could control the degree of any potential future conflict.

Talents needed conflict to develop, but too much of it and a talent might get his or her flame snuffed out before the flower bloomed.

It had to be noted that the Hall of Heroes had power bases in multiple realms, and was not an organization that the Fusion Sect could suppress. Rein figured that him being an unknown and lone figure made him an attractive piece for Baejenh to plant in the Hall of Heroes.

His line of thought further settled Rein’s heart regarding Baejenh’s forceful conditions.

“Rein! So you did come to the city after all!” Out of nowhere, a hand clamped down on Rein’s shoulder. He turned around in surprise, finding himself face-to-face with… a face he wasn’t sure he knew.

“It’s Chirh! Damn it!” The young man appeared frustrated at the confused Rein.

A look of realization dawned on Rein. This was the young man slightly older than himself that he had met when he traveled past the east gate of the Green Trout City six months ago!

“Forgive me, Chirh,” Rein immediately apologized. Yet, the fault did not entirely lay with him. “It’s just that…you seem a bit skinnier and,” his eyes scanned across Chirh’s face and clothing, which was covered with dashes of dirt. “You just don’t seem like the same guy I met.”

During their first encounter, Chirh had looked to be a disciplined martial artist, robust and looking neat in a leather armor covered by a clean red cloak.

For a blink of the eye, a sort of despondence flashed across Chirh’s face, but it lasted no longer than a moment.

“Geez, this is quite natural. I’ve had to join many missions issued by the Hall of Heroes. Some of them were life-threatening, you know? I’ve just recently returned from one, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy surviving!” He then had a lightbulb moment and his eyes widened. “Wait… are you here to join the Hall of Heroes this time? The assessment is in a few days!”

Rein silently nodded to the joy of Chirh, who laughed out loud in relief. “Come! Let me show you around then! We’ll be brothers-in-arms soon enough!”

They ambled down a few cobblestoned streets with Chirh leading the way. Chirh was more than happy to ramble about the many things he had heard and encountered while in the city to fill in the lack of talk coming out of Rein’s mouth.

Chirh clasped his hands behind his back in a proud and wise expression, happy to make use of his knowledge of the city.

“Rein, my dear brother,” Chirh had already started thinking of Rein as a brother-in-arms. “Those aurae buns are easily purchasable from the stores owned by advancers. They are mostly positioned in the vicinity of the Hall of Heroes. It is the worst type of advancer food but the only type we, entry level advancers, can afford. It is supposedly made from a kind of unique wheat that is capable of absorbing some aurae from the ground.”

Shaking his head, Chirh lamented, “I had to survive on this kind of hard and crunchy bun during my missions everyday!”

At least he did not have to swallow crystal sand created from crushed beastkin cores… Rein obviously understood Chirh’s pain, but he had to keep his agonizing consumption of beastkin cores a secret.

Rein felt somewhat surprised at how much Chirh was spewing out. He surmised that perhaps Chirh was normally overly talkative, and had learned to hold back especially with others in order to avoid over imposing on friends and strangers. At least, that must have been why Chirh seemed restrained six months ago when they met outside the east gate.

Rein did not mind this-- growing up in a merchant family, he had to tolerate all kinds of personalities and do business with even unsavory types that would make one’s hair curl.

Chirh continued relentlessly. He seemed to be complaining now though.

“...stupid that sects don’t even consider anyone below shell advancers at our age. Don’t you think it’s unfair? How do we, as rogue advancers, even get enough resources to develop like those that were born in a rich mortal house or established advancer clan? Or recruited at the age of ten and below by the sects? By Xune’s spear…”

Thanks to Jirn Chirh’s incessant rambling, Rein began filling in the gaps of his advancer knowledge. Although he had studied much from Master Yirn’s collections, much of this common knowledge wasn’t obvious from books and scrolls.

It seemed that the affinity tests conducted to find potential advancers in different towns were done to only identify the most talented ones for personal disciples for highly ranked advancers.

As for the rest, most had to reach peak inner realm before adulthood, before sects were willing to recruit these as disciples. Rein and Chirh was past adulthood. They needed to be shell and above advancer level.

But, Rein did not care for this. He knew he was very much a unique case, and was only interested in using the Hall of Heroes for his own purposes.

As Rein followed Chirh through the streets towards the Hall of Heroes, the two soon reached the main path-- a wide road where over four bulky merchant caravans could travel forward side-by-side.

Many robed advancers with different emblems holding banners had stalls on the side of the road, and they were clearly attempting to recruit advancers.

Chirh was still complaining about the advantage of those born in advancer clans.

“...they have more meditative arts, arcane arts, body arts, movement arts, consciousness arts to learn from. The difference is heaven and hell. We rogue advancers have to try to buy some of these instead, or earn the favor of a master to take us as potential personal disciples.”

Indeed. Any magic so complex and well-designed such that they could be considered an ‘art’... No one was going to hand out such unique skills without a price.

Rein could only nod in agreement. It did sound as if those born in advancer clans had a huge advantage. Then again, it was inevitable that some are born into luckier circumstances or with lucky traits. That has always been true since time immemorial…

In reflection, Rein thought of his own circumstances, which could be considered both lucky and unlucky.

The two soon arrived in front of a grand and imposing gateway into a plaza. The gate was made of a pure white type of stone, its surface carved with images of fierce depictions of war between humans, beastkin and devil.

At the very top of the gateway stood out one central male figure that towered above all, and in that figure’s hand grasped a spear with intricate inscriptions worming and twisting around the shaft and tip. Rein even felt his vision swimming due to these mesmerizing inscriptions.

“Don’t look at the spear! And that’s the progenitor of heroes.” Chirh informed Rein when he noticed Rein’s gaze lingering on that stone carving on the top of the gate. “The first hero. Supposedly the creator of inscriptions, and the one who created the Hall of Heroes. Xune and his ‘Spear of Heaven’!”

The two strode through the huge archway below that awe-inspiring stone carving on top of the stone-gate.

“Oh, it’s Chirh! Did you bring us a new friend?” Chirh, who was slightly in front of Rein, was suddenly grabbed by a well-dressed youth with slick, combed-backwards hair.

The youth looked at the somewhat travel-worn Rein. “I am a scion of House Larne. Soon, we will rise above mortals and become an advancer clan-- the Larne Clan! Naturally, if you join us and pay a small fee, you will be part of our rising group!”