Chapter 94: Bandit Army
“You are a cultivator?” The young man assigned to my carriage as my servant asked. I mentally sighed. Was this how all my tutors felt when being asked questions they didn’t want to answer?
“Yes,” I replied. This place had horses, but they weren’t common. The cost to upkeep a horse wasn’t cheap. In the entire caravan, I was the only one who had a carriage. The young man was named Shao. A minor detail I did not need to know.
I was near the front of the caravan looking out one of the side windows as Shao sat with me. Once we stopped he would handle getting me food, preparing my bed, and anything else that I might want. I was the VIP of the caravan. While I could do that kind of stuff myself, I was not about to object to being assigned a servant. My hat covered my face, and my hands were folded into the sleeves of my robes.
“Everyone is talking about the bandits, but they say you will kill them all with your metal sword,” Shao said. He clearly had some kind of connections to get hired for this job and bothering me.
“Quiet, I wish to think,” I said. Thankfully that was enough to silence him. The carriage shook and jostled with each bit of movement. Since metal was highly limited, there were no springs. Without springs the ride was bumpy. The road was well paved, but it was no asphalt road. It used concrete flagstones.
These people built their infrastructure to last and be quite durable. I guess the Kingdoms or at least Wu didn’t want to have to go back and rebuild the road or a city after a century. It would be too much of an expense. I did note that the buildings outside Port Farsight were made of wood with concrete foundations. Not as durable or as nice as the buildings in the city, but that made sense. Wealth flowed towards cities, not towards farms.
There were fifty wagons that were part of the caravan, a hundred soldiers, a hundred baggage handlers, fifty archers, and one cultivator. Then there were the twenty or so wagons from independent traders who were striking out hoping to start making money and to use our caravan as a shield against bandit attacks.
“You look like you are about to burst. What is it?” I asked Shao.
“Can I see your sword?” he asked. It was resting on the seat next to me. I lifted it up and partially unsheathed it. “Amazing.” I then put my sword away back on the seat. My mind considered how cultivators would actually cultivate in this environment. There had to be some kind of treasure that had energy.