“Vale!” Micro shouted back at the flustered second cousin of Kel. “I’m glad you made it! We didn’t see you at the meeting last night.”

  “Guards!” Vale ran through the crowd of cultivators, his aura kicking up a storm of dust around him, while pointing his finger at Micro. “This is the one! You found him! Excellent!”

  “You’re the one who made the report?” Lena asked as she instinctively took a step back from the noisy young man. “The report which claimed a hero was terrorizing the Jade Fire Mountain Turtle Sect, stealing Core Cards, bewitching its disciples… That was your report?”

  “That’s right!” Vale proclaimed. “I heard it after the fact, but he’s a hero! He must have used his magic to steal my Core Card!”

  “I’m just going to kill you now, before you bring any more shame to yourself or your sect.” Azar sighed as he raised a glowing sword above his head and began to swing it. However, Micro suddenly blocked the swords path with an arm coated with glowing green armour. Several among the crowd that was forming around them gasped, but no blood was drawn.

  “Thanks again, Vale!” Micro shouted, grabbing the stunned young master’s shoulder with a friendly nod. “I already mastered it. See?”

  “You wha—” Vale muttered as Micro summoned a small hammer in his hand and swung it around in front of Vale for a moment, then released the skill and continued.

  “I’d rather have a wrench, but I guess I don’t have any bolts to tighten anyway…” Micro said with a chuckle, but his joke elicited no laughter. “Anyways—”

  “But you—You’re—And you just,” Vale stuttered as the glowing sword in Azar’s hand continued to shine behind Micro. The crowd around them began to dissipate, some shaking their heads in disgust or confusion while others laughed and mocked the motionless Vale.

  “I wish you were allowed to join us at the tournament, but only the four of us were allowed to go this time,” Micro said with a slightly sad look. “Oh well. I’m sure you’ll get the turtle card soon. Hey, we should all eat together later!”

  “Eat…” Vale stuttered as Micro walked past him in the direction Lena had pointed.

  “I hope we may one day forget the events of today…” Azar withdrew his sword and continued past the dumbfounded young master.

  “A matter of honour we agree upon, at last,” Lena said to Azar, glancing back at Vale with a look of disgust.

  “Forget…” Vale repeated in a daze as the crowd laughed, but a dark expression fell over him as Micro waved goodbye one final time. “No… I won’t…”

  ~

  Lena, Micro, and Azar continued down the busy streets of the Imperial City in a hurry. Micro was anxious about being surrounded by so many people, but he was grateful that the dense population obscured his view of the dirt roads they walked on. Some of the people he passed wore robes similar to those of the Jade Fire Mountain Turtle sect, but none of them bore the exact same green and brown colours. There were robes of every colour he could imagine filling the dusty streets like a swirling rainbow. Even more diverse than the colours on their robes were the faces of the men and women wearing them.

  “I thought eyes only came in brown and blue…” Micro mumbled as a girl with bright red eyes met his own. However, as his eyes adjusted to the sea of colourful garments, he also began to notice many people in less colourful robes. Their hair was less finely styled and their clothing had no sect markings or vibrant patterns. Lena noticed Micro’s gaze following a man in such clothing and scoffed.

  “The mundane grow in number day by day. Pay them no mind,” she said with a voice that cleared the way ahead. The mundane man in question seemed to feel her words, and he bowed deeply as he silently made way for them.

  “I thought normal people couldn’t be around cultivators,” Micro said in surprise. “Kel had to teach me to make a coat of paint so everyone’s aura wouldn’t make me sick.”

  “If only a bit of aura was all it took to keep them out, the pests that they are,” Lena grumbled. “Many of the mundane who grow up near cultivator settlements grow immune to aura sickness in time. Though they lack a core, their internal energy can’t be compared to the rest of their lowly kind.”

  “They build up an immunity to energy, even without cultivating?” Micro asked.

  “Exposure of the undisciplined to excess energy can result in much less convenient mutations,” Lena replied with a serious tone. “Though enough of them survive the process to be able to fill these streets with their mundane affairs, it’s a shame they are not simply removed to a more suitable location.”

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  “Why remove them?” Micro asked.

  “Because there are too many of them,” Lena replied curtly. “What is the point to having so many of them around?”

  “And they’re greedy little animals,” Azar added. “They’ll charge you a silver piece for a bowl of rice today, and a gold piece for an empty bowl tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like gas prices,” Micro said, understanding the sentiment. However, his bittersweet memory of the old man’s face at the gas station faded as he looked a little harder at the mundane men and women tending to shops and business here and there. “They don’t look like they earn much money though…”

  “Well, it’s not like they have much to sell. Here, this way.” Lena shrugged as she led them around a corner.

  “Why not?” Micro asked as he inspected another mundane business on the corner. “Seems like a good enough place for business—”

  “What would they sell? They can only grow so much in their little fields,” Lena explained. “Cultivators do enough business to justify the town’s existence. The mundane are lucky to be allowed to live like parasites at our mercy despite having nothing to offer but rotten vegetables and…”

  “Why not import products?” Micro asked.

  “The mundane? Import products…?” Lena turned around with a disappointed look on her face. “Is your mind already deteriorating? Your vessel seemed stable before.”

  “It’s fine—” Micro reassured her, but he suddenly sensed the familiar gaze of a pair of glowing, green eyes. “Tae?!”

  Though he couldn’t see her among the countless cultivators and mundane workers, for a moment he could clearly sense the unique feeling of her eyes following him from a distance.

  “We’ve arrived.” Lena stated as they came to a large stone building on the outskirts of the city. The air was filled with excitement and noise, and he felt more and more eyes on him as he continued to walk, as if a hundred people with eyes like Tae’s were constantly scanning the area around him. The next thing Micro sensed was a violent shaking. Micro looked up at the sunny sky to confirm that it couldn’t have been thunder, then recalled the various noises a fight could make on this world.

  “Stand guard at the entrance, Azar,” Lena ordered her companion with a serious expression.

  “And leave the hero unattended? I would rather—” Azar argued, but his voice trailed off as Lena drove his head into the ground without warning. Several loud cracks were audible at the moment of impact, though it was unclear which belonged to Azar’s bones and which came from the stones he landed on.

  “What were you saying?” Lena asked while wiping some dust off of her hands.

  “Under—” Azar coughed as he struggled to his knees. “Understood.”

  “I’ll get an earful for that…” Lena rolled her eyes. “The sect is so full of politics now…”

  “I don’t know much about politics,” Micro replied.

  “I wish I had learned it earlier on in my career…” Lena nodded as Azar crawled out of the way of the entrance. “That’s a lesson for another time.”

  Lena then led Micro through the large gate. Once inside, the first thing Micro noticed was the lack of a roof over head. He looked up at the sky for a moment, but his attention was soon captured by a loud sound. Looking back down, he saw a large, unevenly paved patio at the centre of the arena. There were staircase-like seats that held at least a thousand interested spectators, all of whom were staring intensely at the two women fighting on the elevated stone surface.

  “Tae!” Micro called out when he realized she was one of the women fighting on the stone structure, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of the crowd as her opponent landed a heavy blow with a longbow like a club. Tae managed to block it by summoning her turtle armour, but she was pushed back nearly to the edge of the arena.

  “Not bad,” Lena mumbled with less enthusiasm than the other spectators. “A good pairing, weak as they both are…”

  “Hello, Thea!” Micro called out to the other woman on the stage. He was a little disappointed that they hadn’t noticed him at first, but he saw that they were busy, so he looked around until he spotted a few familiar faces among a small group of cultivators nearby.

  “Those are your acquaintances?” Lena asked, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “Yes, they’re—” Micro began to answer, but the hand on his shoulder gripped him so tightly that he winced in pain before continuing. “I’ll be fighting some of them… to make friends…?”

  “You’ll participate in this tournament as a representative of that Fire Mountain Turtle Sect, correct?” Lena asked again, her tone heavy.

  “Yes…” Micro answered through the pain. “After the tournament, I’ll tell you about Feng. You can join us for lunch back at the sect too! They have delicious mountain fried—”

  “I’ll be watching you at all times,” Lena interrupted Micro with a cold look. “Azar is just outside, and there are more guards of amber level or higher in the city than you could count. Not to mention the thousands of cultivators who would gladly kill any hero they happened to meet. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “You’re saying cultivators like fighting?” Micro guessed. “Fight is—”

  “I’m saying that as long as you do only what you came to do, I will guarantee your life until your trial takes place,” Lena answered. “But should you choose to run, or do anything remotely suspicious, you won’t live to regret it.”

  “Oh, okay then,” Micro replied as her grip loosened. “See you later, Lena!”

  Lena’s face was coated with worry as she looked around the arena at the multitude of people watching the fight. Micro ran straight to the competitors’ waiting area as she’d hoped he would, and nobody seemed to notice the presence of a summoned hero.

  “At least he’s unlikely to draw too much attention among the lower sects…” she whispered to herself with a sigh and disappeared into the crowd.