I woke up as the sun was first starting to rise. The very beginning of the sun’s rays entering my bunk. I groaned and shifted a bit when I realized we weren’t moving. It’s weird how not too long ago waking up to moving would have been about the most concerning thing in the world, and now it was the opposite.

  “Betsy, what’s wrong?” I shouted and got on my knees so I could look over my bench.

  We were off the Royal Road and I could see we were down a well-groomed dirt road. Betsy, still in her yoke, was just grazing on some grass. I blinked and then I squinted. Off in the distance, I could see walls blocking the bottom of a large compound looking building. Mentally, I saw the rolled eyes from my connection with Betsy.

  “Is that it?”

  Betsy nodded her head and gave a soft bellow.

  “Good job, girl,” I praised and got myself situated in my inner robes before I climbed over the bench and then down off the wagon.

  I slipped the outer robe on and stretched a bit, cracking my neck while I fixed the hood of the robe and wandered off into a more secluded spot in the woods. I had a powerful need to empty my bladder and while I’m sure Betsy didn’t care, I didn’t want anyone passing by to spot me.

  As it normally did first thing in the morning, the first piss felt amazing and as one sometimes they do, they groan in pleasure. Maybe I exaggerated it a little, maybe I didn’t. Looking back, I guess it didn’t matter. All I know is that once I turned around, I had three people with blades pointed at me and my arms shot straight up like I was being held up in an old black and white comedy movie.

  “Why are you on the Cove Garden Retreat’s lands?” The one in the front demanded.

  They all wore the same blue-green colored robes that Soga and Hisai wore when I had seen them. The front one that seemed to be the leader had long sideburns, but other than that, none of them seemed exceptionally remarkable or stood out. They looked like stoic cultivators who were ready to gut me if I made the wrong move.

  “Whoa boys, whoa. I was invited. I met Soga and Elder Hisai the other day. I helped Soga out. He’s one of you…” What was his title? “... junior brothers.” I finished the statement weakly with a raised voice, which made it sound like it was a question. I also raised my voice slightly to perhaps hint to Betsy that I could use some backup.

  I heard the wagon roll a little, but the dense green forest was too thick for her to get as deep as I had gotten. That and the ground were soft. Either there had been a lot of rainfall or there was a body of water nearby. It wouldn’t do for the wagon wheels to get stuck in the mud. I sighed when the two men in the back advanced a single step. The leader with sideburns narrowed his eyes at me.

  “How did you meet either of those people?” He didn’t advance like the other two had. In fact, he seemed to go a little at ease when I name dropped them. His grip released just a little on his katana.

  “I told you, I helped them out. I found Soga on the roadside and gave him a lift with the supplies he had brought. “They both said I could come by if I was in the area and they were going to help me out with a little project I had in mind.”

  The leader nodded his head and stood straight before he put the sword in a sleek scabbard at his side. The other two looked at him for a moment before he nodded his head and they did the same thing.

  “My name is Zhong Fen, lead patrolman for the lands the Cove Garden Retreat controls. “If Elder Hisai has invited you, you are welcome,” he said, bowing his head softly.

  I noted the name. It didn’t sound like everyone else’s. In fact, it sounded very much more like the traditional xianxia and wuxia names I was used to hearing.

  “Where are you from, Cultivator Zhong, if I may ask?” I asked him. It was just curiosity. A further attempt to learn a little more of this world.

  His eyes grew a little wide at the question, but he nodded his head. “I’m from the Southeast part of the Empire…” he let the statement looking for my title or name. It took me a moment before I realized what was going on.

  “Oh, just call me Maikeru,” I told him with a soft smile and a bow of my head. He seemed a little put off from the lack of a title, but he rallied.

  “I am from the South Eastern part of the Empire, Maikeru, the Song province,” he said, not hiding a certain amount of pride the man obviously felt for his home.

  I would need to look at the lower sections of my map and see what was going on in the South Eastern part of the continent. I smiled at him and nodded my head. “I’m a simple traveler from a land far away from here. I’m sorry to have interrupted your patrol, but I promise, I mean no harm.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Zhong Fen nodded his head and turned, giving commands to his two underlings. I didn’t really hear what they were saying, but Fen pointed this way and that while he instructed. A moment later, the two rushed off. I assumed they were going to finish their rounds.

  “You don’t need to..” I had started to say until Fen looked at me affronted.

  He shook his head and looked stern. “Impossible. If you are here at the behest of Elder Hisai, it means you should be welcomed and treated with great respect.”

  I blinked. “Why is that again?”

  “You do not know?”

  I stared at him.

  “He’s very young to be an elder,” he explained.

  I nodded my head. “Yeah, he seemed a lot younger than another Elder guy who came. The other one was pretty old.”

  Fen nodded his head. “Yes, he is the pride of the sect. For one to be so far in the spiritual realm of his cultivation. It’s rarely seen,” he explained as he walked back to the wagon.

  Betsy stared at us, and she frowned at me. There might have been a brief glare in her eyes, too. Maybe because I tried to get her to help me and she wasn’t able to? I patted her on the nose and waved her to follow as me and Fen walked and talked. I had to try to get more information from him without like a total idiot.

  “So he’s about…” I paused and thought. “... halfway through?” The ranks? I asked. I asked nonchalantly and put my hands in the pockets of my robe.

  Fen looked at me with a narrowed look. “That’s not for me to say,” he said firmly.

  I nodded my head. “Of course, of course. Sorry. I meant no disrespect,” I said innocently. Well, maybe I won’t get any more information. Maybe there’s some master here or something that will take me in and show me the ropes.

  He gave me a lingering stare and then seemed to relax when I gave him a nervous smile. After that, he led me through the woods towards the hall.

  “We aren’t one of the major sects, but that’s how we like it,” Fen explained as we walked along the dirt road. “Easier that way. We believe in a tranquil life. Quiet, peaceful, so we can meditate and try to find immortality. So we can find our place in the Heavens.”

  I nodded my head and listened to the man. “But you’re out here drawing swords on a passerby?” I cocked my brow and looked over at him.

  He smirked. “Just because we wish to be peaceful doesn’t mean everyone else wishes to be peaceful with us.”

  “True,” I muttered and nodded my head.

  We walked the last bit in silence until we came to a large archway that was the entrance. I was kind of surprised there weren’t any guards or anything. Then again, if they have a roaming band of guards, I guess they don’t need stationary guards defending the entryway? This place was weird.

  We stepped through the archway, and I gasped a little.

  Fen grinned and nodded his head. “Beautiful isn’t it?”

  I nodded dumbly. The place was like I had originally thought, a compound. It wasn’t one of those weirdo compounds full of sovereign citizens. This place was in every sense what I imagined a hippie compound to be. A long, well-built bridge spanned what must have been the Cove—the sect’s namesake—just inside the compound’s gateway.

  The water had little patches of land, only a yard or so wide. I could feel various kinds of power from the few patches of land there were from the small flowers and things that grew on them. Over to our right were a few smaller buildings that had crops going outside of them. Past all of that the forest, except I could see at the edge of the compound there was a cliff and I could see the expanding forest with a huge waterfall off in the distance. I even stopped a moment to watch the birds fly about and the water rushing down.

  To the left of the bridge was a rock wall with an opening that the cove disappeared into. I asked Fen about the cove’s contents, but he shook his head, explaining that we couldn’t enter and that it was not for outsiders to know. He seemed very stern about this, so I didn’t push the question and just continued to cross the bridge.

  “You didn’t notice him though, huh?” Fen asked before we got to the main building.

  I blinked and looked over at him with a raised brow. “Who?”

  Fen had just started to point when I looked back to the rock wall and I watched a person crouch and then jump. He flipped and turned through the air in a great arc, heading towards me and Fen.

  “He’s a uh… bit of a showoff,” Fen muttered with a grin.

  “... yeah,” was all I could say as I wondered if the man was going to do a superhero landing.

  It only took another moment, and then Hisai landed in front of us with a sweeping bow. Much to my dismay, he did not do the superhero landing. He instead landed effortlessly, quietly on his feet. His back was straight and his arm under his stomach, while one extended behind him in the sweeping bow.

  Fen stiffened and cleared his throat. “Elder Hisai, I present to you a visiting cultivator and traveler, Maikeru.”

  I blinked and then stared at the elder when he stood. Oh, I was supposed to do something. I clasped my hands together and bowed low in front of him. “Elder, thank you for the invitation,” I said. When I stood back straight, I gave one look around to really emphasize what I was about to say, “You have a beautiful sect,” and I meant every word of it.

  Hisai extended a hand to me, and I stared at it. He stared at me. I stared at him.

  “Is this not how people greet each other where you come from? Did my contacts tell me wrong? I’ll throw them off the cliff,” Hisai said and furrowed his brow.

  My eyes went wide, and I reached out and shook his head. “Yes, yes, we do Elder.” I squeezed his hand, and he returned with a sort of limp shake.

  “Oh, Elder, it’s important to give a strong handsha–” He squeezed my hand like it was in a death grip and my voice hit octaves I didn’t know were possible.

  He released it as soon as he saw my reaction.

  “Oh my, I’m sorry. Too hard?” He asked with wide eyes.

  I pulled my hand back and massaged it. “A bit, yes,” I said as I stared at my hand.

  Fen watched wide eyed and reached into a pocket. A moment later, he had a small pill in his hand and he handed it to me. “Take this Maikeru, it’ll help.”

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