Lao Ren

  The cultivator, named Jin Long as Lao Ren had learned, moved like a drifting cloud—silent, weightless, yet with an undeniable presence, as though the world itself shifted around him rather than the other way around. Jin Long stepped forward, brushing past him with quiet ease, the cultivator’s gaze settling upon the damaged caravan.

  Jin Long crouched beside the splintered wheel, his fingers tracing the jagged cracks with a deliberation that suggested more than simple curiosity.

  "You have a spare?"

  Lao Ren nodded quickly, motioning toward one of the crates nestled atop the caravan. "Yes, but it’s heavy, and we have to remove the old wheel somehow. I can—"

  Before Lao Ren could complete his sentence, Jin Long had effortlessly, though carefully, pried off the broken wheel like tearing a piece of hot bread. There was little sign of strain, no bracing of his body to accommodate its bulk. He simply carried it aside, letting it settle against the ground.

  Lao Ren suppressed a shudder that crawled up his spine. He knew cultivators were strong. He had seen them slice through steel, crush stone, shatter bones with a flick of their fingers, but it never got old seeing such casual display of power. At one point in his youth, Lao Ren had aspired to become a cultivator, but alas, the heavens were cruel. On his twelfth winter, Lao Ren had been tested by a local sect and had discovered he did not possess the requisite base root needed to absorb qi. The road of cultivation had been denied to him, so he turned to trade.

  While Lao Ren was reminiscing, the cultivator had moved on, fitting the new wheel into place with the precision of a seasoned craftsman. Not requiring tools, his hands worked with certainty, fingers adjusting, pressing, securing—movements that indicated experience.

  "You’re a cultivator," Lao Ren murmured, watching as the wheel clicked into its housing with an audible snap. "But you’ve done a laborer’s work before?"

  Jin Long didn’t answer at first. Then—a slight smile, a knowing curve of the lips, as if he alone understood the joke the heavens played.

  "I've had to do a lot of things before."

  Lao Ren nodded slightly, considering pressing further but then thought better of it. The cultivator had asked for privacy, and Lao Ren would oblige.

  Above them, the sky had deepened into twilight, the air crisp, scented with night jasmine and damp loam. The caravan groaned as the two-headed ox settled down, its earlier panic fading into uneasy restlessness now that the caravan had been made upright.

  At last, after what had felt like a lifetime, they were ready to move.

  ___

  Lao Ren

  The road stretched before them, wide and endless, bathed in the pale glow of the rising moon. Shadows danced across the dirt path, caused by the rhythmic flickering of everfire lanterns, their ethereal flames swaying gently with the caravan’s slow march.

  Lao Ren walked a step behind Jin Long, the cultivator’s presence an enigma, silent yet unshakable. The cultivator had rejected his offer to rest inside the caravan. Behind them, his wife and son were situated safely in the driver’s seat.

  For a time, silence ruled—not the awkward quiet of strangers, but the kind that settled naturally between those lost in thought. Lao Ren noticed that Jin Long seemed to have a strange fascination with their two-headed ox, as if the cultivator had never seen such a creature before.

  Then, like a pebble breaking the stillness of a pond, a child’s voice rang out.

  “Mister Cultivator, are you really strong?”

  Lao Ren winced, turning sharply toward his son. “Renjun—!” His wife’s hand was faster, tugging the boy back with a quiet hiss of warning.

  Jin Long, who had been absentmindedly feeding the ox with long blades of grass, blinked, then turned to regard the child with mild amusement.

  Renjun, most likely no more than ten, sat perched at the caravan’s edge, his legs swinging idly, his eyes curious and unguarded now that the danger had passed. The boy had the kind of eyes that had not yet learned to fear cultivators.

  Jin Long smirked faintly. “I suppose.”

  The boy squinted.

  “Are you stronger than the city lord?”

  Lao Ren nearly choked. Heavens help me, this boy will be my undoing.

  Jin Long raised a brow, though not seemingly offended. "I don’t know. Why do you ask?"

  Despite his mother’s disapproval, Renjun hopped off the caravan with practiced ease, kicking at the dirt as he walked beside them. “All the kids in Bei’An talk about the city lord. Some say he’s strong, some say he’s weak and afraid. The older boys—” he glanced up at Jin Long, lowering his voice, “say a war is coming and that he needs strong cultivators to help us.”

  Lao Ren sighed, casting his son a look that could quell an ox. “Renjun. Enough. Let the Honorable Cultivator be.”

  But Jin Long did not discourage Renjun. If anything, there was a flicker of intrigue in his golden gaze, though he masked it well beneath his composed expression. He simply asked the boy for clarification, “What war?”

  Renjun blinked, then scrunched his face in mild exasperation. “The war...” His mouth opened, but he hesitated, glancing at his father.

  Lao Ren smoothed the folds of his robe, his tone carefully measured. “Esteemed One, I take it you are not from Bei’Ping province? You must be unaware of the storm brewing in these lands.”

  Jin Long tilted his head slightly. "No, I’m not. Is it that obvious?"

  Lao Ren offered a knowing smile. "I am a merchant. Discernment is my trade. Your accent leans too standard Empyrean, refined yet lacking the cadence of regional dialects. It is rare to hear the standard Empyrean accent in this province."

  Jin Long said nothing, but his gaze sharpened.

  Lao Ren continued, his tone now solemn. "Regional tensions have been rising. Two great sects—the Hidden Grove Sect from the north and the Thunder Phoenix Sect from the south—stand at the brink of war. The problem is that Bei’An is geographically situated in the middle, so we’re lodged between two great beasts hungry to devour each other. If it comes to war, we will not be spared.”

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  "I see. What does your city lord think about the situation?"

  Lao Ren exhaled. "Now that’s the million stone question. I don’t presume to know what the city lord is thinking, though there are plenty of speculations.”

  ”What do you personally think?”

  His voice lowered. “I think the city lord is no fool. He does not wish to be a pawn, nor does he desire the city to fall under the shadow of a greater power. He is not weak, but neither is he strong enough to remain neutral if war erupts. And so, his best option is to wait—to wait for an opportunity."

  Jin Long said nothing, but Lao Ren felt a shift in his presence.

  The road stretched ahead, winding toward the towering gates of Bei’An, where the city's lanterns flickered like distant stars, oblivious to the impending turmoil.

  Seeing Bei’An in the distance was a sight for sore eyes, and while Lao Ren was happy to have safely returned home, he couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that the fate of his city would somehow be tied to this enigmatic cultivator.

  ___

  Jin Long

  Jin Long noticed that the dirt path gave way to smooth stone as they approached the city. They passed through fields of golden wheat, swaying in a dreamlike trance beneath the moon’s serene gaze.

  As the land stretched closer towards Bei’An, it became a living scroll of ink and poetry—small villages nestled between hills, the warm glow of lanterns flickering from bamboo-thatched homes. There were a plethora of small shrines scattered about, standing in quiet reverence to the local gods. Some were neglected, dust accumulating on their stone altars, while others contained freshly brought burnt offerings and fruit.

  Occasionally, they passed travelers moving in the opposite direction—farmers carrying goods, solemn monks in simple robes, and errand boys rushing to deliver messages. Each paused at the sight of the caravan, bowing respectfully to them before hurrying along.

  The merchant, Lao Ren, proved to be a pleasant companion. He spoke with the ease of a man accustomed to cultivators, his words measured but never insincere. He spoke of market shifts, trade disputes, the dwindling caravans that once lined the roads like veins feeding the city’s lifeblood.

  For his part, Jin Long listened. Information was a priceless commodity, and what better way to understand the political and cultural currents of the land than to hear them from the lips of one who had spent a lifetime navigating its currents.

  Bei’An was a city with bustling markets in Nine Mystical Realms Online. In the game, it had been a hub of player-to-player trade, a meeting ground where players exchanged rare artifacts, bartered for crafting material, and made fleeting alliances before vanishing into their own quests.

  Yet, for all the hours he had spent in Bei’An in the game, he could neither recall the city’s fate nor whether the storyline even mentioned anything about a war. Unfortunately, this is where his in-game knowledge failed him. Jin Long had never bothered paying attention to the details of the storyline, preferring only to grind—the endless, mind-numbing cycle of leveling, of battling dungeons for loot, of optimizing statistics.

  “You must have noticed,” Lao Ren remarked, his voice quieter now, “that the roads have grown less safe these past months. Fewer travelers, fewer merchants. A slow suffocation. Bad for business.”

  Jin Long glanced at him. "You mentioned earlier that the patrols have abandoned the city outskirts. What’s going on there?"

  The merchant sighed, his expression shadowed. “Rumors are the city lord is reluctant to dispatch his cultivators for anything other than the most important tasks. There have been incidents in the recent past where Bei’An cultivators have been ambushed in the wilderness beyond the city walls. The city lord is making a play to preserve his strength.”

  "These ambushes seem a bit suspicious. Do you think the sects have anything to do with them?"

  Lao Ren hesitated. "That is an astute observation. I have no evidence, but I’m inclined to agree. After all, if the city lord will not make a choice to ally with one of the sects, the sects will gladly force his hand one way or another."

  Jin Long considered this, his mind turning over the quiet, relentless logic of power in this world.

  Cities were not simply places of residence or commerce. They were pieces on a board, leverage in the grand game of sects, clans, and dynasties. From the moment a cultivator stepped on the path of immortality, they were forced into a war that had neither beginning nor end—an unceasing struggle that stretched from the mortal realm to the very heavens themselves.

  And at the pinnacle of it all, far beyond mortal eyes, was the Celestial Sky Emperor, ruler of Heaven’s Court.

  He had never considered the weight of this world’s politics before. In the game, conflict had been nothing more than a backdrop, a setting for players to rise in strength. Now, it felt real, and the consequences could mean more suffering and death.

  The wind shifted, carrying the scent of distant rain.

  Ahead, Bei’An finally came into view. Its great stone walls, infused with layers of protective qi, rose like an unshakeable bastion against the darkening sky. The sheer magnitude of its fortifications spoke of wealth, history, and the silent vigilance of those who ruled it.

  From within, the hum of life drifted toward them, carried on the evening wind—the distant echoes of barter, the rhythmic cadence of merchants hawking their wares, the warmth of laughter spilling from taverns, and the delicate strains of a guqin being plucked in practiced precision, its melody floating like a whispered poem upon the air.

  Above the rooftops, lanterns flickered like scattered stars, swaying with the night breeze, uncaring of the war looming beyond the horizon.

  And then, in the heavens above, they came into sight—flying cultivators.

  Like spirits untethered by mortal limitations, streams of cultivators flew effortlessly to and from the city by the western gate. Some soared in quiet solitude, their silhouettes barely visible against the tapestry of twilight, while others traveled in small groups, their low murmurs lost to the distance, and still others flew with the aid of flying swords and fans and air-borne beasts. Jin Long noticed that very few cultivators flew directly over the city. The vast majority of cultivators promptly descended as they approached the city wall.

  So this is a city of cultivation.

  Jin Long had an itch to try out flying himself. He knew he could probably stumble his way into it, but it was a matter of technique and efficiency. Perhaps the cultivation manual he picked up could point him in the right direction.

  Higher still, a select few hovered motionless, suspended like celestial sentinels above the city—watching, waiting. Guardians, enforcers, perhaps even spies, lingering between the boundaries of mortal strife and divine detachment. Occasionally, a streak of colored qi flashed across the night as one of the sentinels surged forward with breakneck speed, vanishing beyond the walls in pursuit of some unspoken duty.

  Jin Long observed them with quiet excitement.

  It was one thing to see flying cultivators in the game—mere animations, pixels coded into existence. But here, in a world where qi was not a resource bar but a force flowing through all things, it felt different.

  The cultivators’ very presence exuded an aura of power, of quiet confidence, of beings who had long shed mortal burdens. The sky was not just an expanse above—it was a battlefield, a domain, a privilege afforded to those who had surpassed mortal limitations.

  The powerful soared freely, while the weak remained below, bound to the dust of the earth.

  And somewhere in between, between the untouchable and the forgotten, was Bei’An. A city of merchants, of hidden power, of fragile neutrality teetering on the edge of the unknown.

  Jin Long’s gaze continued to linger on the celestial figures above, their robes shifting in the night wind, so regal, so above.

  For the first time since awakening in this world, a quiet certainty took root within him, steady and unshaken—not a momentary instinct, nor the fleeting resolve of a man caught in the throes of survival, but something deeper, more absolute, like the first unfurling of an unbreakable path.

  Whether Bei’An would soon become a battlefield was not his concern—nor was it his responsibility.

  The tides of war, the ambitions of sects, the hidden schemes that lurked in the shadows of power—these were currents that sought to drag all beneath their weight, but Jin Long had no intention of being swept away.

  Fate? Destiny? Karma?

  He rejected them all.

  He was master of his own will, unshackled by prophecy, untethered by the invisible threads that sought to weave him into a grander design. Whatever celestial game the heavens played, whatever cycle of cause and effect dictated the fates of cultivators and men—he refused to be another name written in the records of inevitability.

  He was Jin Long, and he was John Wilson. An outworlder.

  And that meant he would walk his own path, one step at a time, not dictated by prophecy or divine will, but by his own choices, his own convictions.

  Whatever came next, whatever struggle awaited, he would face it as he always had.

  On his own terms.

  For the first time in years, Jin Long felt something that had been long buried beneath exhaustion, beneath the monotony of endless grinding and meaningless repetition.

  An adventure unfolding before his eyes.

  A world waiting to be understood.

  Bei’An was waiting.

  And something told him this was only the beginning.