Smiling, Sky said, “So, Lisa and Liam’s are super nice people. For safely getting the two here they gave everyone 15 mid jade, except you, who received 35 mid jade. Kara has your mid jade,” she seemed a bit jealous towards the end of the sentence. Continuing she said, “Three second level cities are connected to this trade fair and each of them cost five mid jade per person to teleport. Natesh is obviously one of the three while the other two are a city on the continent with a large population of earth-type cultivators, who built the trade fairs buildings, and a volcanic island with a massive cave system that houses metal-type qi beasts.”
Once Sky finished speaking, Kara passed 35 mid jade to Aria before saying, “Sky and I would like to go to the third city she mentioned, Cavesh, so as the two of us focus on cultivating she can learn more about crafting. The city mainly consists of metal-type and fire-type cultivators who focus on crafting so there’s an abundance of resources for those elements, however, you and I have never really needed any resources to cultivate.”
Nodding, Aria agreed, “Alright. Why don’t we stay here for a few more days and relax before heading to Cavesh. We could use some relaxation time to de-stress.”
After that conversation, the trio went back to their hotel room. Then Aria used his qi to send eleven of the twelve slimes into his world seed. Although the dirt patch wasn’t large, there are plenty of elements in that world and it’s larger than a hotel room so the slimes were content. Aria kept Aeon out and kept Aeon with him. Aeon apparently liked the deagle shape so it transformed into that shape with a holster attached to Aria’s right thigh.
So, the beginning of Aria’s few days of bliss had begun. During the day the trio would wander the market checking out anything they found interesting and eating new foods each day. At night Aria got to sleep with a beautiful woman as another beauty was clutching his hand, although it is just for cultivation… As he walked around, Aria used his radar to buy low-cost items with interesting descriptions.
However, on the second day, he made an interesting discovery. Possibly because they are connected through their souls, Aeon could put things into the world seed and remove things from it. Naturally this led to some awkward misunderstandings where as they walked Aeon sucked some seeds or something into the seed and the shopkeeper thought he was stealing. Naturally Aria explained that his beast companion likes collecting things and paid, plus a bit extra for the misunderstanding. Then he made it clear to Aeon that stealing is wrong, but, if Aeon wants something, to tell Aria so he could buy it. Once that was cleared up, he looked in the world seed and was pleasantly surprised. It seems that by manipulating the elements the slimes could both cultivate and make the world more pleasant for themselves. So, the slimes of the five elements were expanding the ground while the life slime was nurturing any seeds Aeon sent to him.
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On the afternoon of the third day, the trio checked out of the hotel and made their way to the Cavesh teleportation portal. While they were all excited to go to a new place, Sky was by far the most excited. However, before she left, she left a note with the other two girls explaining to her
father that she’s on a journey with her friends and has a chance to learn about crafting, although it may take a while, she’ll come back to visit her dad someday. Taking a deep breath, Sky pulled the other two into the portal.
Cavesh has a unique appearance. The island itself is oval shaped and just absolutely massive, about 100 miles in length and 45 miles in width. The perimeter of the island has a large mountain range instead of a beach The center of the island has a volcano and in between the mountains and the volcano is a ginormous gorge. The city is built into the gorge with the houses towards the top, shops towards the middle, and workshops at the bottom of the gorge. The bottom of the gorge has tunnels that spread outwards into the seabed for an unknown distance. Low ranking, practically zero intelligence, metal-type qi beasts are constantly being formed inside the tunnels and, while less common, higher ranking qi beasts of rare metals can also be found. So, instead of mining, the population fights qi beasts for metal.
Upon exiting the teleportation portal, the trio felt a wave of heat blast onto their face as they appeared on a platform near the top of the volcano. Looking around, Aria noticed what looked like a dozen floating swords with a muscle and tendon realm realm cultivator next to each one. Interestingly enough, the cultivators all wore light gray robes with an image of a sword being hammered sewed on the back of it.
Walking over towards the cultivators, Aria asked, “Hey friends. Us three would like to head down the volcano to find a place to stay for the night. Do you all have any recommendations for ways down the volcano or hotels to stay in?”
Smiling, one of the cultivators bowed and said, “Hi Senior Brother. Our Sword Smith Sect has a hotel conveniently located in the middle areas of the gorge, where the shops are. We can take you all to the hotel for 25 shattered jade per person. We can take one person per sword.”
“Wow,” exclaimed Sky. “Metal element cultivators with floating runes on their swords? Aria! Aria! We have to ride the swords! This will be so cool!”
Faintly smiling at Sky’s excitement, Aria paid the fee for the three of them and moved towards a sword only to feel tugging on his arm. “Sigh, Sky… If you want to ride the swords then you have to let go of my arm… These friends can only take one person per sword.”
Pouting, Sky let go of his arm before jumping onto a sword. Although he was in a cultivation world with fantasy-like cities, Aria hadn’t really had a taste of ‘true cultivation fantasy’. He had yet to see special weapons with runes, formations, or have a battle lasting more than one or two shots from his deagle so he hadn’t even seen any mystical techniques… But he had a feeling that after today, everything would change. I mean, he’s in a crafting city and met a sect, an actual cultivation sect! Not only that, but it’s a sword crafting sect with special swords, sword techniques, cultivation techniques resulting in elementary cores AND ‘sword hearts’. The whole nine yards of fantasy cultivation!
Oozing excitement, Aria glanced at his traveling companions and asked, “Hey, so, Sky wants to learn more about crafting and we really should reach the late Elementary Core Realm before we go to the Tower’s third level so why don’t we go house shopping tomorrow and stay here for a while?” After speaking, Aria could literally see sparkles shooting out of Sky’s eyes from excitement.
However, Kara ruined the moment with one comment. “Hey, now I see why your class was ‘weeb cultivator’. The moment you see some flying swords you start dying of excitement…”
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Aria’s face was twitching as Sky had a look of genuine curiosity and asked, “Aria, what’s a ‘weeb’?”
Dying of embarrassment, Aria gave the Sword Sect disciple an extra three low jade and asked him to speed up, leaving Kara laughing in the background as she explained what a weeb. After an hour the group reached the edge of the gorge where they realized how big of a sec the Sword Smith sect is in Cavesh. The upper layer (housing) has small bridges leading from the homes to transport platforms where Sword Smith Sect disciples can be seen shuttling the citizens to and from the upper layer. The middle layer (shops) also has some bridges between shops and platforms, along with disciples at the platforms. On the other hand, the lower layer (workshops) doesn’t have disciples waiting for someone to shuttle as those on the bottom layer spend most of their time either crafting or ‘mining’ for qi beasts. The Sword Smith Sect teaches smithing and sword techniques. Their sword users act as shuttles to train their sword control techniques.
After thinking for a bit, Aira said to their disciples, “Could you actually direct us to the workshop layer? Specifically a place to buy a plot of land for a workshop.”
“Sure,” said one of the disciples. “But it’ll cost an extra low jade rather than shattered jade since it increases our time before we can go back to the portal for another customer.”
Nodding in understanding, Aria gave an extra low jade to each disciple. The three disciples slowly descended downwards towards the lower layer which took about another hour before reaching ground level. Afterwards, they flew their swords in a direction towards a building, built into the gorge wall, that surprisingly had the image of a curved leaf on it. This was a bit surprising because Aria heard that the city focuses on fire and metal-type cultivation, however, things became clear when he entered.
On the inside, there was a single counter on the left with an old man sitting and multiple desks on the right with doorways behind them. The right side had a lot of injured people walking over. One of the guides explained that this was the weakest of the three sects ruling over the city. The Sword Smith Sect handled transportation and some sword crafting/smithing (The words essentially mean the same thing but depends on the person speaking), the Hidden Leaf Sect handles healing and sales of plus tracking of all buildings in the gorge, and the Fire Fist Sect’s elders keep the volcano from erupting while their disciples go ‘mining’ for combat experience and profit.
After thanking the three disciples for the trip and information, the trio headed to the counter on the left. As they approached, the old man glanced up and said, “Sigh, what kind of house do you want to buy? Keep in mind, we don’t negotiate pricing…”
Politely bowing, Aria said, “Hi sir, we are actually looking for an empty workshop space. We don’t need all of the tools or anything, just a room at least 50 feet by 50 feet. Preferably near the mines.”
The old man was a bit confused why they wanted a workshop without the tools needed to craft but the sooner they leave, the sooner he can sleep so, he said, “30 mid jade for a 10 year rental. No more, no less.”
Aria paid the old man who then provided three memory jade ‘keys’ which show the location of the workshop, allow entrance into it, and show how to insert low jades to power the door locking mechanism. After getting the memory jade ‘keys’, Aria led the trio on a long trip to their new workshop space. Luckily, the workshop is only about a three hour walk from the Hidden Leaf Sect building as some of them could be a multi-day trip which firmed his resolve to get the smaller leaf boat form for traveling.
After they entered their new workshop, Sky had an odd look on her face as she said, “So, Aria… Now don’t misunderstand, I appreciate you buying a workshop for me but there aren’t any tools, materials, or spots to sleep.”
Giving an exciting smile, Aria said, “Hey Kara, I unlocked the system shop at level three and can finally use the shop points.” As Kara’s eyes widened in excitement, Aria continued, “There’s only one item in my shop for now but it’s very useful for us. Give me a few moments to get it.”
After saying that, Aria opened the shop and selected the Leaf Boat form to purchase. All of the sudden, a 10 foot by 10 foot green leaf-shaped floating boat appeared in front of him. The boat was in the shape of a light green leaf with the edges curled up and a beautiful wooden pavilion that covered most of the leaf. The pavilion had two comfortable three-person couches and two chairs forming a circle under it with a large black rock in the center. Once the pavilion appeared, Aria’s tablet shone white as a new app appeared called MIC. Upon opening it he saw it’s stats, which was simply what was described in the shop, plus one extra detail of it’s capable of flying as fast as an average cultivator one full realm above the user. The app also had a section to authorize specific people on his Message System (People he came across in the past) and a section to furnish the rooms. Naturally Aria gave Sky and Kara full permission to access all rooms and bring someone else into the rooms. He also selected a smelting space and a cultivation space while assigning the lobby space to look like a relaxing living room, full of comfortable furniture and collecting the five elemental energies.
Looking at Sky and Kara, Aria placed his hand on the large black rock in the center of the pavilion and said, “Place your hands on here and inject qi. Only us three can enter here, anyone else either needs to be two realms above myself to force themself in or to be let in by us surrounding them in our qi as we enter.” Once he finished speaking, Aria injected his qi into the black rock and disappeared from the girl's sight.
The two were pretty shocked for a while as a beautiful boat just appeared in front of them and then Aria disappeared after touching a black rock. However, a few minutes later, they came back to their senses and, full of excitement, injected qi into the rock before disappearing and reappearing in the lobby space. Opening their eyes, the two saw what looked like the living room of a luxury house with comfortable chairs and beautiful tables and walls. The room was about 20 feet by 20 feet large and had three large, ornate doors on one of the walls. The leftmost door had a hammer carved onto it, the center door had a meditating person carved on the door, and the last door was blank.
Lightly chuckling, Aria said, “Hey Sky and Kara. Let’s go into the center room first,” as he pulled the two through the door and continued, “I may have bought these beds from the hotel since they were comfortable. This room constantly gathers the five elements to make cultivation easier, so does the lobby room we were just in.” After speaking, he pulled two comfortable beds out of his spatial pouch and placed them in the 20 feet by 20 feet room.
Excited, Kara said, “Those beds were more comfortable than mine from Earth. Thanks Aria!”
However, Sky seemed focused on something else as she said, “Aria, don’t tell me…”
“Yep!” Interrupted Aria, “The other room is your very own workshop. Let’s go check it out”.
The ‘smelting space’, although it had smelting in the name, it wasn’t limited to smelting. The room itself was about 50 feet by 50 feet large. The room was gathering metal elemental energy, however, three of the corners had water, wood, and earth elemental energy, the center had fire elemental energy, and the last corner had all five elements. Each elemental area had tools for using materials of that specific element while the fourth corner had a wooden chest with a massive space inside for storing materials. Aria had never seen sky as excited as she was right now.
Looking at the pleased expressions on Sky and Kara’s faces, Aria said, “This can also be flown around like those flying swords by injecting qi into it.” Laughing, he continued, “Welcome to our new, mobile home.”