As we allowed the two of them recover we moved the corpses, lining them up on the sides of the road, bandits on the left side of the road as you headed towards High River, and everyone else on the right side, assuming that they all belonged to the caravan. We searched everyone as we moved them, leaving only their clothing, but the bandits seemed to have already taken everything. There were no artifacts left on them, and all we found were bits of simple jewelry, a few stones worth of mortal currency in total, and one small jade slip inside a caravan man’s mouth, which I only found because I could hear it tapping against his teeth every time I took a step while carrying him.
The slip only contained a goodbye message to his wife in a city called Crystal Summit, though I had no idea where that city was. It was most likely one of the cities the caravan stopped at along its journey, though, so I would give the slip to the two survivors once they woke up. That would allow them to deliver it to his wife, fulfilling his dying wish.
Inside the wagons contained a few more valuables, but not by much. Under the seat of one there was a first aid kit, containing bandages, several bone needles, cheap silk thread, and about twenty types of level two pills. There were also several opened bottles of various alcohols, around twenty kilograms of unopened food, another thirty of opened food, and four tools, the only ones I recognized being a shovel and a raw hide mallet.
I took the mallet and went over to one of the wagons that was flipped over but not badly damaged. It only had a broken wheel, and I flipped it back over. It had a dead man under it when we got her, but we had already moved him to the side of the road. Once the wagon was flipped I went to another wagon with a broken axle which was also partially burnt and, using the mallet, carefully removed the wheel. Two minutes later I had replaced the broken wheel with the new one and greased it with a little bit of the lard from an open food container. All of their pack animals were either dead or taken away, but an empty cart should be light enough that a level two cultivator could pull it up all but the steepest hills without using qi.
The Ambassador had lit a small fire beside the road and, as it was around mid day, was heating up some of our travel rations in some water, essentially making soup. I saw the bodies of three Vrooshkin in a pile nearby, one a bit larger than the other two. “Their pack tried to drag off some of the bandit corpses, but once I killed a few of them they ran away. I collected the cores, one level two and two level ones, but left the rest behind. I suppose those two guys can take what they want from them once they wake up.”
“One peak first level, one middle second. They likely used all of their qi trying to stay alive and conscious.” I replied, and the Ambassador nodded. “That said, I’m not sure that they would be safe traveling on their own. I doubt the two of them together can take on a pack like the one you drove away.” I pointed to the dead demon beasts and he nodded again.
“What are you proposing?” he asked.
“We could escort them. Maybe even help them get revenge on the bandits. We should reach High river by sunrise if we take turns pulling the others in the cart.” He gave me a sharp look. “Not that I’d expect you to pull anything, of course. You would work better as a lookout, since your senses are probably far better than ours.”
He shook his head. “While I want to help them, we only have twenty five days left until we need to be back at the sect for our return trip. During that time we need to gain as many resources, and preferably allies, for our people as possible.” He thought for a few seconds. “I’ll agree with traveling with them to High River. Delaying our trip by twelve hours or so is acceptable, plus it will earn us some good will and maybe get them to help us in our mission. But helping them get revenge or rescue their people isn’t. We don’t know how long that will take.”
I nodded. “That makes sense.” I said. I definitely didn’t like leaving bandits out there, but at this point we didn’t have the time to deal with them. Our mission was too important. Once the immediate threat of the sects was over we could see about cleaning up the criminals in the area.
Just as the meat had boiled enough that it was starting to get soft, the nicer dressed of the two injured men started to wake up. I went over and helped him stand up. “Who are you?” he said in a hoarse voice.
“My name is Li Kev. My boss and I were flying over when we saw your caravan. Unfortunately, you two were the only survivors.” I pointed to the guard that was still lying there. “Can you tell me who you are?”
“Ji. Ji Wan. My father is the caravan master. You said this guard and I were the only survivors?”
I nodded. “Unless the bandits took some with them. I assume that includes at least four women, since their weren’t any among the bodies.”
Ji Wan nodded. “Five, actually. I brought one of my concubines with me.” He looked like he was about to cry, then took a deep breath. “Can you tell me where you took the bodies? I want to look them over and see who might have been taken.”
“Sure.” I said, and showed him over to the line of bodies. There were insects buzzing around, but I didn’t have anything to deal with them at the moment. They would need to be buried soon or they would start decaying.
He looked down the line, counting the men, until he got to one man that look much like him, but was a bit older. Ji Wan fell to his knees and started crying.
“Your father?” I asked, and he nodded. “Do you have any funeral rites or special burial instructions?” I asked, and he shook his head, then started drying his eyes on his sleeve.
“My father and I are cultivators. While mother might not understand it, the two of us understood that the body was just a shell. Now that his soul is gone for good, it holds no meaning.” The man stood up. “Dispose of him as you see fit.”
I nodded. “I’ll use the broken wagons as fuel to burn the bodies. If we have any left after they are cremated I’ll use the rest on the bandits. Personally I don’t care if they feed the Vrooshkin in the area, but they could spread disease and we probably shouldn’t encourage them to eat people, even ones that are already dead.”
The man nodded, went over to one of the bandit bosses, then opened his robe and urinated on the corpse. Once he was finished he closed his robe and came over to me again. “It smells like you are cooking something. Mind if I get some?”
I shrugged and lead him over to the fire. “I don’t mind sharing.” I said, “just wash your hands first.” After he did so, using some water and crude soap we had on us, the Ambassador handed him a wooden bowl of soup. We each had several extras in our bags, in case we lost them. “Boss Yu Fei,” I said to the Ambassador, “This is Ji Wan, the son of the caravan master.”
The Ambassador bowed his head slightly and the other man did the same. “I need to thank you for saving me. When the bandits attacked I thought I was going to die. Honestly, I’m surprised I met a level three practitioner.” He quickly looked at me. “Don’t get me wrong. Late level two is quite impressive. You’re stronger than any of the people in our caravan. But you don’t see too many level three people on the road. Most of them stay in cities or sects where it is safe.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“I’m actually on a mission,” the Ambassador said. “Otherwise I would be working as a branch manager for my merchant company.”
“Mission?” the man asked. “Judging by the fact that you are a merchant, I’m assuming that makes you a merchant ambassador?” The Ambassador nodded. “Interesting. I’ve seen a few before. My clan does a fairly large amount of trade, so a few have visited our manor it Crystal Summit. Most don’t send out someone in the third level, though, and even when they do the person is early or initial, not high middle. Your people must really value this trade route.”
“We were hoping to open up a major trade line all of the way to the Jade coast, and maybe even from there to the Coral Sea islands.” The ambassador said. He didn’t mentioned that five days ago he was still initial level three, and I didn’t think it would be appropriate to tell him either.
Ji nodded. “A major expansion, if you can make it happen. I can certainly pull some strings with the Ji family if you want to work with them. In High River we only have a branch family that runs a few local businesses, including an alchemist, smith, talismonger, general goods store, and auction house. But if you’re willing to travel with me all of the way to Crystal Summit, I can let you talk with my uncle. He’s in charge of outside contracts. I might only be the son of the third cousin of the family head, but I am a member of the inner family still.”
The Ambassador nodded. I wasn’t sure where the city was, but I was sure the Ambassador knew. He must have studied the path we were taking. “Oh, speaking of the city, I found something in the caravan the bandits missed.” I removed all of the salvaged goods from my bag and put them on the ground in front of him. “I can loan you a bag until we get to the city, but the bandits took all of the ones from your people.” I picked up the jade slip. “This was in a man’s mouth. I found it when I was moving him. I think he wanted to keep it safe.”
Ji viewed the message and nodded. “His name was Ji Xin. He was an outer family member that worked security for the main branch. I’ll make sure this gets to his wife. As for the rest of the goods, you can have them. Once I get to high river I can get more supplies from the outer branch that lives there, though I might need to borrow a tael from you to get through the city gate.” He grabbed a large emerald from the mortal currency on the ground. “I’ll return it to you once we get to the city and I can get your reward together.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Forget it. Just the pills in this kit are worth all that we did for you.” Rank two pills could cost half a stone to a full stone depending on the type, so what he gave me was worth at least a few dozen stones.
“I’m more interested in these branch family businesses in the city.” the ambassador said. “Our own alchemists have been experiencing a shortage of spirit ingredients over the last year, so maybe I can set up some sort of trade deal.”
Ji Wan nodded. “I’ll definitely introduce you to the manager once we arrive, then.”
As we finished the other man woke up. He was a member of a minor mercenary company, not even able to call itself a sect due to the fact that it lacked a fourth level cultivator. He was simply hired at one of the past cities, and therefore didn’t much care for if the caravan got back its stolen goods. He didn’t show any emotions at seeing the bodies, but after he finished eating he started breaking apart wagons in order to build a large funeral platform, then started transferring the bodies, so I knew he felt their loss.
I helped him build the funeral platform, including cutting down several trees, and he dried them with water qi before we stacked them on the platform. I tried to help him move the bodies, but the two men from the caravan refused to let me, so I went to help the Ambassador. He dug a pit with his Earth qi, exhausting himself despite having far more qi than any of us, and the two of us threw all of the bandits into the pit, then covered the mass grave. When we finished I went to the other side of the road and saw that it was already burning.
“Goodbye, Father.” said the caravan leader. “I hope that we meet again in the next cycle. If you reincarnate before I die, be sure to come and see me, okay?” He wiped a few tears from his eyes and stood there for a few seconds before turning around. “That’s all I wanted to do. We can leave now.” The guard nodded and walked over as well, leaving the platform burning behind them.
“Don’t we need to wait until the fire burns itself out?” I asked. “It will probably burn for hours, and spread.” Just as I finished saying so, the fire started heating up. The two men gave me strange looks, like they didn’t understand why I would ask that. Soon it went from orange to yellow, to blue, then white. The wood burnt away at an almost visible rate, and about a minute later there was nothing left but ashes. “Oh, sorry, we used spirit wood. I forgot.”
The mercenary scratched his head. “I assume you are from a low qi area, then? Around here almost all of the trees are spirit trees.”
I nodded. “Yeah. There is plenty of spirit wood around for our needs, but just burning for heat we mostly use non-spirit wood, as it lasts longer.”
The merchant nodded. “That’s pretty common in low qi areas. Here, we actually have to use coal to heat things slowly if we don’t want to use large amounts of qi, since it’s hard to find non-spirit plants. The qi in the spirit wood just feeds the fire too much to get even heating for something like cooking. The only solution I found was one that had a large stone that was heated up by burning sticks, which would then slowly give its heat to the water, but such a method can barely boil water, and has to be reheated regularly if you want to boil something for very long. I have a tea stove that works that way at home, but didn’t bring it with me. If you want to see one, I’ll see if the branch family has one when we get to town.”
As we didn’t have any goods to haul with us, I threw the three vrooshkin bodies in the wagon, and grabbed the yoke at the front of the wagon. It wasn’t made for a human, and all of the pack animals appeared to be some sort of large goat. None of them were spirit animals and we didn’t need the meat, so we had thrown them into the pit with the bandits. Instead of using it properly, I did a few warm up stretched, then stood behind it and pushed as the three of them rode in the wagon. I slowly built up speed and eventually, I was able to reach a speed of around twenty kilometers per hour.
I knew that maintaining this speed would eventually deplete my qi reserves, but at my current rate of depletion it would take more than six hours to do so. That was mostly due to the soul sea combined with the slightly easier use of qi from the true meridians. Without those two, I would probably only be able to maintain this speed for around two and a half hours.
Sometime around sun set I felt my reserves start to bottom out, so I started slowing down. About two minutes later the wagon had come to a stop, so I dropped the yoke and walked in circles for a few minutes before coming back. By the time I returned the caravan master had started a fire and was getting out some of the food from the caravan supplies. Their food included some form of sausage and some rice, so I knew we would be eating better than we did at lunch.
“So, why did you walk around after you pushed us?” asked the guard. “Weren’t you tired?”
I nodded. “Of course, but I didn’t want to risk a leg cramp.”
He looked at me like he was confused again before seeming to realize something. “Right, you are from a low qi area. You probably didn’t have enough cheap muscle recovery pills in your home town to just use them to recover.”
“Right, I didn’t think about that. I do have some now, though.” I pulled the box from my bag and started searching through it. I saw one pill that didn’t seem to have much qi and was a bit malformed, and pulled it out. “You mean like this one?”
“Petty quality? Yeah, that should be good, though I would probably go with a Lesser one, since your legs have got to be pretty tired and it’s almost nighttime. You don’t want them to be that way if we happen to get attacked.” I showed him the box and he sorted through the dozen or so pills that were there and pulled one out, handing it to me. “The quality is all over the place. Some are barely poor quality, and the best is almost high quality. Did you buy them in bulk from an apprentice?”
I shrugged. “Kind of. My martial brother’s dao companion is learning alchemy and had a few hundred pills of ten different types she was giving away to friends. I grabbed some to make a medical kit, but I probably should have sorted through them to get the best ones. Luckily, the ones we gave you two weren’t bad.”
The two of them looked at each other. “Actually,” said the caravaneer, I wasn’t going to say anything, but neither of us fully recovered. We had already given you all of the medical supplies, though, so we didn’t want to seem ungrateful by asking for some of them.”
I shrugged and pushed over my kit. “Well, these are only level one, so take as many as you want. I’m only lacking the mind tempering pills, so you’ll have to wait if you want to train that.”
The caravaneer shrugged as the two locals reached for the box. “It’s generally not a good idea to train while outside a safe area, like a city. If the bandits showed up again after using them, we would wear ourselves out too quickly.”
