Chapter 48: The Trading City and a Strange Encounter
As he walked to the trading sections located on both sides of the Outer Hall, An noticed that too many overexcited disciples had suddenly appeared around him, loudly discussing something and running somewhere.
"Did you hear? Did you hear! A new inner disciple from Dragon's Breath Peak challenged a disciple who's at tenth place on the Heavenly Talent List?"
"What? When? Where!"
"At the northern arena, near the base of Water Haze Peak! The battle was announced just a few minutes ago! Hurry! It starts in fifty minutes! We need to rush!"
"Wait! Who challenged the Beauty Es Alda all of a sudden?"
"The new rising star of the Heavenly Talent List! Inner disciple Mo Fan!"
"Mo... Mo Fan... Oh! Right! Now I remember! He reached eleventh place in just six months!"
"Yes! Yes! That's him! Let's go! Let's go quickly!"
Standing to the side and listening to the excited disciples heading toward the northern arena, An suddenly decided to follow them, completely forgetting about the trading sections. After spending such a long time locked away, he didn’t mind watching it; besides, there was another reason.
Following the huge crowd, which was gathering more and more people along the way as it headed toward the massive staircase leading to the base of the Peak, An kept thinking. 'Strange, I don't remember anything like this again. In the novel, there was no such thing as Heavenly Talent List...'
The more he tried to recall specific details from the novel, like local events and similar things, the more he was left with nothing but fragmented, disconnected memories that made no sense. It felt simultaneously bizarre yet utterly insignificant, as if something was actively repelling those thoughts with all its might, preventing them from settling and taking root in his mind.
'Hmm, I don't think anything bad will happen if I go and watch like everyone else. Right?' Shaking his head, An activated Qi Clouds and Qi Legs, pushed off the platform with incredible speed, and began running through the air, visually resembling someone pushing off from the air itself.
"W-what was that?"
"Ah! I don't know!"
"Something definitely flew over us!"
The disciples on the ground only saw a shadow pass directly over their heads at such speed that they couldn't even tell what it was.
'Oh, I should probably modify the technique slightly.' Continuing to run through the air, An realized that his Qi Silence didn't completely erase all his Qi, leaving behind small masses of energy.
Slowing down, he modified the technique on the fly, and after making sure everything was in order, he headed toward the Trading City, the settlement anchored by the Coliseum where the festival had taken place, aiming specifically for its northern arena.
Having finally reached the center of the Sect itself, miraculously avoiding several collisions with cultivators on flying artifacts, An stopped and descended to the ground a few hundred meters from the Trading City itself.
He was forced to travel on foot due to the strict rules governing outer disciples within the city limits. Only inner disciples had the privilege of using flight techniques or artifacts to move around the city. During the festival, this rule had been abolished, solely because of the massive flow of people gathered from all around and from the four Sects.
Coming out and walking along the main shopping street, the city possessed only one cross-shaped avenue, in the center of which stood the Coliseum.
An had circumvented the city from the very beginning and approached it from the northern side, near the base of Water Haze Peak.
Standing between the city and the Peak, An looked toward Water Haze. The entire Peak was covered in waterfalls and huge, wide rivers flowing from one of the two floating islands directly above him.
The falling sheets of water landed on Water Haze Peak and flowed into a huge lake that occupied more than seventy percent of the Peak's base territory. From the side, this lake looked like a moat filled with water, surrounding a castle in a circle.
The entire lake was covered with boats, from small one-person vessels to huge ones that could hold several thousand people. The large ships had their own individual emblems: drawings of animals, plants, clan crests, and family coats of arms.
The ships docked at the piers were being unloaded by strong mortals or low-level cultivators at Qi Condensation. Unloading huge crates, they loaded them onto long carts. Once loaded, a cultivator sitting at the base would wave his hand, and the cart, enveloped in Qi, would begin moving along the wide stone road leading to the only main street in the Trading City.
"Oh! Right!" Remembering why he had come down from the mountain, An headed toward the northern arena, walking along the edge of the main street so as not to interfere with the fairly dense traffic.
….
"Don't crowd! Don't crowd! There's enough room for everyone! I said, there's enough room for everyone!"
"Calm down! Everyone! Now!"
The Hall of Justice officers standing at the northern arena tried to calm the chaos that had begun around the entrance. The street hadn't seen such excitement in a long time, let alone the officers.
"Can just a duel really provoke all this?" One of the officers asked himself, not very loudly.
"What did you expect? In just ten minutes, a battle for tenth place will begin!" His colleague standing next to him, hearing his muttering, decided to chime in.
"The last changes in the top ten of the Heavenly Talent List were more than two years ago!" He continued, looking at the first officer with a smirk and shaking his head.
"We're lucky the fight was unexpected and not many people found out about it in time, otherwise we'd have been swept away long ago..." Approaching them in more luxurious red robes, the Warden spoke.
"The Warden is right, we're lucky!" Hearing and seeing the Warden next to him, the second officer nodded several times.
"Hmm, what do you think is happening over there?" Standing on the side of the street, not far from the entrance to the arena, a girl in dark robes with a large hood covering the upper part of her face, stopped and turned toward the seething crowd.
"Miss Mili! We'll be late!" The man walking ahead of her, looking no older than thirty-five, had tanned skin, dark eyes, and black hair styled into several small braids at both temples, his entire appearance reminiscent of a pirate. He was dressed in a long dark leather coat with faded, bleached wave patterns.
"Captain Scar! Can you find out what's happening over there?" The girl with burning eyes pointed at the crowd, and glanced at the man.
"Eh... Stay here, Miss, don't go anywhere! I'll find out. Just stay put!" Captain Scar, with a defeated look, ran across the street and began pushing through the disciples, trying to reach the officers standing at the arena entrance.
While he was there talking to people, Miss Mili suddenly turned her head to the side, toward where a disciple was walking, in slightly torn clothes. Staring at him, she suddenly frowned and began rummaging through her robes, searching for something.
Eventually finding what she was looking for, she took out an artifact resembling a compass and pointed it at the young man.
"Ah! It can't be! Finally, I found one!" Quickly hiding the compass in her pocket, she ran straight toward him without taking her eyes off his figure, driven by a subconscious fear of losing sight of him.
….
Finally reaching the arena, right in front of the surging crowd, An was about to step closer when he suddenly felt someone focus on him and begin approaching rapidly.
Slightly taken aback, not understanding what was happening, he took several sharp, large steps back, toward an alley between two large shops, and disappeared into the small side streets.
Weaving through a few alleys, An jumped up and wedged himself between the walls, where the shadows created a dark spot. He immediately tried to completely extinguish any Qi flows emanating from him using his Qi Silence technique.
'I'm sure of it, someone was following me... Wait! I'm still being followed... And they're already very close.' Frowning, An prepared to activate his Qi at any moment.
Standing in the shadows with his nerves at their limit, he felt that someone was about to round the corner.
"Excuse me! Outer disciple of the Heavenly Soul Sect! Are you there? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you..." As soon as the silhouette appeared from around the corner, he immediately understood from the Qi flows that it was a girl, and hearing her voice confirmed it.
"I'm sorry! I assure you, I mean you no harm, I just wanted to ask you something! To find out something, very important to me!" Removing her hood, An saw before him a girl with beauty he hadn't even seen among the most beautiful girls in the Sect. She possessed a flawless face with features that subconsciously made anyone who looked at her kinder and more forgiving. Just one look into her pink eyes with red borders was enough to become intoxicated by her beauty. Her slightly tousled snow-white curly hair gave her an extra touch of charm that could knock anyone dead.
Lowering her hood, without waiting for an answer, she took out the compass-shaped artifact, looked at where it was pointing, and smiled in the direction where An was hiding.
"You don't need to be afraid, I really mean you no harm!" With a smile on her face, she began walking forward.
"Stop. Not another step forward..." Suddenly, a chilling quiet voice came from the dark corner.
Upon hearing his words, a cold sweat broke out across her back, and her foot stopped dead on its own.
Standing in the shadows, An was just as nervous as she was. This situation was extremely tense, especially when he was essentially playing the role of a cornered beast.
During his entire time in this world, he had already grown unaccustomed to being treated normally, especially by his peers. The last time a peer had been kind to him, or rather, had seemed kind, it had ended with a permanent scar on his soul. This exact type of situation scared and unnerved him now, even though he knew full well that the girl before him was weaker than he was.
'Hmm? What's that?' Turning his head toward the main street, he saw a strong source of energy moving directly toward them. Even though the many formations around him, from the shops, greatly distorted his perception of the surroundings, he could still make out those flows and their source, all because of the big difference in power.
"I-I really mean you no harm! I am Ridegold Mili, daughter of Ridegold the Great! As you can understand now from my family name, my father is the Right Hand of the True Imperial Family! By speaking my name, I have no right to scheme or deceive, such are the laws of our family, my father, and mine!" Gathering herself, Miss Mili raised her head and took out a large white emblem with the image of a lion's head.
Staring into the darkness and understanding that her interlocutor didn't want to respond, she took a step back to ease the tension and straightened her back.
"So that you can trust my words, I'll be direct and honest with you! My family is looking for a special cultivator who can help us, but the problem is so sensitive that I can't tell you about it for now... And there's one catch! The cultivator we're looking for must possess extraordinarily high vitality! So when I saw that my artifact reacted to you, I only wanted to introduce myself, not to chase and scare you!" With a smile and kind, big eyes, Miss Mili looked toward where she knew for sure someone was standing. She had gotten so excited that she realized she had said too much, way too much.
Waiting for an answer, she suddenly wrinkled her nose.
"Um... Disciple?"
"Aah! What happened! Did I say something wrong? I shouldn't have pushed so hard!" After some time, Mili realized she was alone in this alley. Without thinking long, she took out the artifact.
Activating the compass, she realized that the disciple who had been standing in the darkness had indeed disappeared without a trace, even the device couldn't find any residual traces of vitality around her.
"Miss! Miss Mili! Are you alright! Where are you?! Oh! Thank the River Gods!" From around the corner, Captain Scar ran in at full speed.
Running in, he looked around and quickly came up to her.
"Miss, I asked you to wait where you were! Where did you suddenly disappear to?" He asked her with a tired look, one that had been in similar situations many times before.
"I found him! The cultivator with extraordinarily high vitality! My artifact pointed at him without any mistakes... but..." Shaking her head as she rattled the compass in her hands, Mili looked around, throwing several glances at the shadow in the corner and pointing her device directly at it.
"But somehow he disappeared, even though the artifact was active. Strange…" Miss Mili continued, poking at the compass, hoping to fix it somehow.
"What?"
Whooosh!
Captain Scar activated his Qi. A wave of energy scattered everything around them, and the walls of the buildings began to crack under the pressure of his Qi.
His energy curved around Mili, leaving her completely safe.
"Indeed, not a trace around us… As if no one but you was ever here!" Frowning, the Captain stood closer to Miss Mili and partially shielded her with his body.
"We'd better not linger in dark alleys… As my comrade used to say, under every dark archway, sharp teeth glisten… Let's go, Miss Mili, back to the main street..." This situation greatly troubled the man.
After all, even cultivators in Foundation Establishment could not completely erase their traces, except perhaps cultivators on the verge of forming a Golden Core. This alarmed him, and the only thing he wanted now was to be where there were many people around.