The rain wore a plastered on smile the entire way back to the village. creating flickering balls of light all around him as he walked forward. It had taken days of torture and study but finally he had achieved the power that all of his friends failed to harness those poor bastards if they'd toughed it out or choose a different word they may have been able to gain a dao to!
"why do you have a family name?"
looking behind him he saw that his master had been following him back, have I been so distracted that I couldn't even notice his footsteps? The creatu- cultivator that had chosen to train him was an oddball. Rain was no stranger to cultivators and was all to well aware that anyone who manges to cultivate past the foundation stage was at the very least completely insane if not entirely inhuman. But master shine somehow seemed even less human then that, his qi doesn't even flow normally outside of his body it just emits outward like a spirit beasts qi does. And after we gave him the metal he requested it just stopped flowing out entirely as if he was a walking corpse.
"If you don't want to answer you don't have to."
Right master was asking me a question rain snaps back to reality and turns off the lights flickering around him "no its not that....I used to be an outer discipline of a pretty big sect, they were on a recruiting drive basically taking anyone who'd sign up. Once that was over though they ended up with a lot of useless guys like me who'd never make it past qi gathering stage under most circumstances so rather then send them home or keep us on they had use take jobs at frontier villages like this live in guards."
"I see, so I assume this village was recently constructed?"
I nod "This will be the 3rd winter since we've come here they gave us a generous supply of animals and materials to get started and re-directed a local river to run nearby so that we don't need to go very far for water and can always fish if we need more meat during a rough winter" a brief silence fills the air "....now that we've all learned a dao whats next?"
shine is silent for a moment placing his bone hand on my shoulder "whatever you'd like for now, I plan to spend the next few days developing my martial arts which means all of you get a br-" shine stops suddenly forcing me to stop as well "cultivators are at the village."
I look up at him confused "sir, Is that a problem?"
why would he be concerned about cultivators being present? Their likely just here to check if we've been wiped out yet. Did miss moon never tell him about the request for help we sent out when he first showed up?.
shine takes his hand from my chest. "it shouldn't be.... listen I need to go retrieve something you head back without me, should anything make sure to inform that of my arrival and that i've already taken shin,tasi, you and mai as my students." Oh maybe he's just worried we'll get scouted by a sect and stolen from hi, cultivators are pretty protective about their direct pupils I guess hes normal in that regard. I nod and start running to the village as master shine takes off in the other direction.
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I had hopped to avoid running into a cultivator until I was ready, at the very least i wanted a complete martial art, a village full of dao users, and some spirit beast repairs. perhaps this situation could prove to be a boon. Its unlikely the cultivators came here to kill me If they see me as below them they may kill me just for impersonating one of them. Or any number of other stupid reasons, according to my research cultivators are know to have a hair trigger even the best of them willing to kill over the slightest disrespect.
I finally reach my destination a 900 meter patch of dead ground. Marching to the center I stab by hand into the ground and pull up a lead case. despite the circumstances it feels good to be reunited again.
Alright now I'm ready to greet them, I take off back towards the village. I can't even use my heat shielding, while most of my body including the scavenged parts can withstand the heat it gives off with no issues the lead i've used to seal up my woulds and forge the sheath for my spear cannot. Even at the lowest setting that has an impact on air resistance the lead would still melt running the spears edge and re opening my wounds. Meaning i'm stuck running at subsonic speeds like a peasant.
The village enters in range in a few moments, the cultivators are heading into miss muuns house with dissatisfied looks on their faces, not a good sign but they could just be annoyed at being sent here. I can make out the qi coming off them even from this distance, its not as much as the mammoth or even the hooved panther but its still more then the entire village put together, if the villagers are horse drawn carriages and the guards are civilian cars then these two are are pre artificial lifeform era military planes.
Both are pretty tall for humans in this world writing white robes and carrying a single token between them written in the local writing system (I haven't had a chance to learn it yet). The man has tanned skin and sharp hawk line eyes he isn't carrying any weapons and is on the skinnier side of dainty but he seems to be the leader of the two given how the woman only moves after he does. The female has blond hair blue eyes massive and carries a rapier at her hip that she's been constantly gripping on and off since a little while ago.
I come to a stop in front of the village and walk the rest of the way to muuns house, initially Id plan to just run the entire way but apparently they've already spotted me and I don't want them to mistake my approach for hostility.
heading through the village a few people try to tell me wants going on, that more cultivators have arrived, asking questions like are we in the same sect or Ive chosen a disciple to return with but I ignore them and stay the course. A slight smile entertains the mans face at this point as he sits down for tea with miss muun he still hasn't spared me a glance despite his subordinate making it obvious that they've detected me.
Finally I open the door to miss muuns place and enter speaking in a boisterous voice, "MISS MUUN I HAVE RETURNED!"