“I don’t think you understand the purpose of a sect’s name…” Lena explained.

  “The sect’s name has to do with the way the sect leader lives, right?” Micro asked. “There’s no reason why it has to be long and hard to remember, right?”

  “But there is no Core Card called the Truck Art,” Lena argued, confused by the conviction with which Micro had decided on such a name.

  “Do you have to base your sect’s theme on Core Cards?” Micro asked.

  “Of course, well, not exactly—” Lena stuttered. “I suppose it isn’t a rule as much as common sense. Core Cards offer far more advanced cultivation techniques than any mortal could design. There is a reason we rely on them, instead of our meagre mortal potential.”

  “But what if you master more than two arts?” Micro asked. “What if you want to master hundreds of arts?”

  “That would normally be considered impossible, though in your case…” Lena replied slowly. “So your sect would encompass a broader philosophy of cultivation… Interesting…”

  “The road a truck travels may be paved, but it’s a long road with many intersections,” Micro explained with a confidence that made him sound much older than he looked. “I appreciate the help I’ve received from Kel, Feng, and other cultivators, but I realized something just now.”

  “What’s that?” Lena asked.

  “No matter how many things I learn how to do on this world, and no matter what I’m carrying, I’ll still be a truck,” Micro replied as a steady aura began to fill the air around him. “The guardian of the Amber Fire Serpent Art Dungeon also helped me realize that.”

  “The guardian of a dungeon…?” Lena mumbled. “It assisted you?”

  “After I finally started trusting my new body the way I relied on my old one, I felt a lot better about things,” Micro continued. “I’m not my body, but my body is me!”

  “The more you speak, the more I question my sanity…” Lena looked increasingly confused at his proclamation, but Blue’s laughter caught her attention after a moment.

  “He’s saying he’s a tool, through and through.” Blue chuckled. “And whatever poor fool joins his sect is going to learn exactly what that means to him.”

  “Don’t presume to lecture me on matters of a sect, Blue,” Lena snapped, though she was ashamed to have been rattled by the pixie’s insight. “The Truck Sect… I see…”

  “So, it’s settled then?” Micro asked.

  “If you are certain of your choice, then there is nothing I can do but honour it,” Lena said with a reluctant nod. “The Sapphire Water Tiger Moon Sect will recognize the formation of the… Truck Sect…”

  “Thanks, Lena!” Micro said with a wide smile. “And these are my passengers!”

  “Disciples—” Lena began to correct him, but she stopped herself.

  “Trucks don’t have disciples,” Micro replied with a tone more like a sect leader than Lena expected. “We have passengers.”

  ~

  When morning came, Lena insisted that Kolt and Kira stay close to Micro, as a matter courtesy. Micro was a little bit disappointed that nobody else among the non-cultivators seemed interested in joining his sect, but he was content with the two new friends he had made. Kolt remained rude and impatient towards Micro, though Kira seemed excited to follow her new sect leader.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to walk with your friends?” Micro asked as they carried on through the forest.

  “We don’t know anyone over there,” Kolt replied curtly.

  “We were taken more recently than most of them,” Kira added. “I don’t think anybody in our village survived. It’s just us now.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Micro replied. “The old man said losing a family member was always tough, but he could keep working his hardest for the family he still had.”

  “Is that your first lesson as leader of the Truck Sect?” Blue asked with a sarcastic tone while Kolt and Kira looked at each other awkwardly.

  “I guess so,” Micro answered. “You have each other, so do your best. I’ll try to be a good sect leader.”

  “What do sect leaders do?” Kira asked curiously.

  “Well, they sit in temples, way up high on a mountain.” Micro chuckled as he recalled his first impression of Kel’s grandfather. “They train younger cultivators until someone stronger replaces them.”

  “Wait, so I can be sect leader if I get stronger than you?” Kolt gasped.

  “Sure,” Micro replied. “Good luck!”

  “Don’t get comfortable then!” Kolt laughed.

  “You’ll have to defeat me first, greenhorn!” Blue shouted down at Kolt from Micro’s shoulder.

  “Aren’t you stronger than me?” Micro asked.

  “Ah, true,” Blue mumbled, clearing her throat. “I got a little caught up in the moment there.”

  “What about your mountain?” Kira asked.

  “Oh, I don’t have one of those,” Micro answered while scratching his chin. “Maybe I should get one, though I prefer roads…”

  “Why not a mountain with roads?” Blue asked.

  Lena looked behind her with a worried expression at Micro, still dressed in his tattered Fire Turtle Mountain garments, followed by two small children with dark, matted hair and dirty leather clothes meant for adult bandits. They almost looked like malnourished bears chasing after a beggar.

  “Plenty of sects don’t have a temple at their heart,” Lena interjected. “The tradition of building a temple to honour the dungeon at the heart of your sect’s teachings is very old, but it not the only tradition still practiced.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “You make a good point, for once,” Blue replied. “Nomadic sects are rare around here, but I don’t think you’d enjoy hiding in a boring old temple for ages and ages. More importantly, neither would I.”

  “I guess we’ll be a nomadic sect then,” Micro smiled. “It’s nice to have a warm garage to park in sometimes too though.”

  “Where will we go?” Kira asked, her eyes lighting up more as the conversation went on.

  “We’re going to the Water Serpent Moon Sect first. I was going to ask them to help me make an amber core, but I made one by accident the other day,” Micro explained. Kolt and Kira listened intently to his story. “Now I just need their help finding a basilisk named Lo. He’s a friend of a friend, and I think I’ll die soon if I don’t find him, then fight him.”

  “Woah…” Kolt mumbled. He stopped walking for a moment as Micro explained his situation, but snapped out of his trance as Micro’s voice grew distant. After catching up with Micro and Kira again, he cleared his throat. “I could probably beat a dumb old snake up for you.”

  “I think it’s called a basilisk,” Micro replied. “And thanks, but I need to do it myself. I promised a dragon I would, so that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Woah…” Kolt gasped at the word dragon, but kept up his pace this time. “You really met one…?”

  “I thought he looked more like a school bus at first, but he was a nice dragon,” Micro replied, and the two children’s eyes began to shine.

  ~

  Micro and his young friends fell behind the rest of the group as Kira and Kolt listened excitedly to the stories Micro told them of his recent adventures. He found it hard to describe much of what had happened, but he enjoyed their enthusiasm and did his best to tell his story. While snacking on old rations they had recovered from their deceased captors’ camp, the mood brightened with each strange tale.

  Blue filled in some of the gaps where Micro’s stories fell short, though the children were doubtful of some of her claims. Tales of dungeons and honour were difficult for them to understand, but they laughed and screamed along with stories of his encounters with various creatures and powerful cultivators.

  Kolt quickly decided he wanted to become more powerful than the immortal who created dungeons and rule the world. Kira was most interested in the story of Ura, who could transform into whatever form she wished. By the time Micro finally began to run out of stories, evening had already begun to fall, and they wondered if they would be sleeping among the trees again. However, just as he was looking for a comfortable tree to sleep under, Blue flew high up into the air and looked ahead into the distance.

  “Looks like we’ve found the edge of the forest,” Blue announced after landing on Micro’s head. “I think I remember seeing a few sects in the area, not far north of here, but most of the kingdom from this point is just dust and starving farmers.”

  “That’s how I remember it,” Kolt added. “The forest is always so wet. But the village was always dusty. Sometimes it doesn’t rain for a whole year.”

  “I wonder if there’s a Rain Art…” Micro wondered aloud.

  “There is,” Blue casually replied. “It’s super annoying too. Rain already comes at the worst times, never mind when a cultivator is the one calling for it!”

  “Huh…” Micro nodded.

  “Alright, attention please!” Lena shouted from the front of the group. “We’ve nearly arrived at the edge of the forest. You’re free to find your own way forward into the plains, or to accompany us to the Water Serpent Moon Sect.”

  There was a commotion among the group for a while as people discussed the given choices, and Micro noticed several people speaking of the Water Serpent Moon Sect with voices full of fear. Before long, several people spoke up and voiced the unanimous decision of the group to part ways with Lena at the forest’s edge and carry on alone.

  “Will they be alright?” Micro wondered, looking back at Kira and Kolt.

  “I think most of them are actually from villages not far from here,” Kira replied. “Some may be gone, like ours, but they should be safe from bandits at least.”

  “The healthy ones will find a lifetime’s worth of work in this land, whether by their own will or the will of another,” Lena remarked.

  “That’s good, I think…” Micro sighed with some relief. “But they survived a lot so far, so I’m sure they’ll be fine. No children where I’m from ever went through something like this.”

  “Is your hometown very peaceful?” Kira asked.

  “It’s been a quiet place for as long as I can remember. There were wars in the past, but those were generations ago,” Micro replied.

  “I’d like to live somewhere like that…” Kira said with glittering eyes.

  “That sounds boring,” Kolt scoffed. “I’m going to win a hundred wars!”

  Micro smiled at Kolt, who had picked up a stick to swing around like a sword. Micro could see the difference between the innocent way Kolt wielded his makeshift weapon and the graceful but deadly techniques of the cultivators he’d seen, but he didn’t dwell on it for long.

  “Finally,” Lena said with a deep breath. She appeared next to Micro as the liberated non-cultivators in dirty bandits’ clothes made their way to the forests’ edge, most of them enthusiastic to be out of the woods at last. “It already smells better.”

  “It was nice of you to guide them all the way here,” Micro said to Lena.

  “Given my circumstances, it would have been most dishonourable to let them wander to their deaths in this place,” Lena said with a deep breath, looking sincerely refreshed. “And Master Feng insisted. It was a humbling experience.”

  “I thought they were pretty nice,” Micro said. “And we made some friends.”

  “You’ll come to understand the displeasure of associating with lower beings for prolonged periods,” Lena explained with disgust in her voice. “One’s obligation to the preservation of life in extenuating circumstances does nothing to quell the stench of those who crawl on the ground so far beneath us.”

  “You’re literally standing on the same ground…” Micro replied with a blank expression. “Well, thanks anyways, Lena.”

  “You will see, in time…” Lena commented coldly.

  “Let’s move on, shall we?” Micro smiled back.

  “Indeed,” Lena agreed, then glanced at Kira and Kolt, who had begun fighting nearby. She smiled awkwardly, and shook her head. “The Truck Sect has a quest yet unfinished.”

  ~

  Lena guided Micro and his friends along the forest’s edge for several hours. To the west, Micro saw none of the familiar signs of agricultural activity he knew. Some fields of recently disturbed soil were evident alongside empty old huts of wood and mud, but there was no life in the fields.

  “Is this really a kingdom?” Micro asked.

  “The mundane gather in cities near the western lakes,” Lena replied. “Not many venture this far east, though some crops were grown in this region in the past. I am old enough to remember seeing it with my own eyes, not that it was anything special.”

  “No roads…” Micro mumbled as he looked out at the dusty plains. He did appreciate that the barren plains were a much flatter surface to walk on than the forest floor, but the dust quickly accumulated in his holey leather boots. “Not a single one—”

  “You would expect roads in such a place?” Lena asked. “Ridiculous.”

  “I see…” Micro sighed, but an odd sensation suddenly rose from his feet.

  “Wait, what is—”

  “You only just felt that?” Lena asked. “We are nearing the last reported location of a rather dangerous dungeon’s entrance.”

  “It feels… angry,” Micro whispered, feeling hesitant to raise his voice in the presence of the intimidating energy.

  “It is a dungeon few would consider entering in this era,” Lena explained, seemingly unaffected by the aura. “Even you would hesitate to jump into such a dungeon, if you had any sense at all…”

  “Is it an amber level dungeon?” Micro asked.

  “It is not,” Lena replied. “It is the Ruby Dark Sparrow Art Dungeon.”

  “I wonder if Thea and her friends would like to come here,” Micro said, recalling his new friends among the Sparrow Sect. “I hope they’re doing well.”

  “They are unlikely to ascend to such a level, at least not for many generations. I know of no sect of the ruby level which practices the Sparrow Art in this kingdom. The dungeon will likely find a new home before it finds a worthy challenger in this region,” Lena explained. “And your friends should all be safe and sound. After the city emptied, most cultivators immediately returned to their temples. The magicians seemed to vanish as well. Such a strange evening…”

  “That’s good. I hope I can see them again soon,” Micro said with a nostalgic smile. “So how hard is a ruby level dungeon? Do you think you could clear it?”

  “Your genuine lack of awareness of the simple truths of this world stir a youthful curiosity in me,” Lena chuckled. “I would be honoured to inform you.”