Greg walked into the room where the two men were practicing. “Hey, Mike.” he said. “I need you to go with me to meet someone.”
“Found a woman with a bit of a temper?” asked Randy.
Greg stared at him with a bit of annoyance. “It’s for a business meeting.” he said. “Client needs to know about our combat potential. Can’t say why.”
“Maybe they just need a strong bodyguard to protect the goods.” Randy replied.
Greg nodded. “Maybe. But Mike’s the strongest we have, so I figured I would bring him to talk to the man and see what the job is going to be.”
Mike nodded, got up, and grabbed his weapons. Once he was finished, Greg lead him outside and down the street. After five minutes they ended up in a tavern. It was surprisingly well lit, with every table having what looked like a candle but not using a flame. They reminded Mike of those decorative electric candles one sees around Christmas. It was also oddly quiet.
Greg lead him to a table in a corner where a man in nice robes sat drinking something. His skin was a slightly darker shade that the other people they had seen in town. They sat down and Greg introduced them. “Mike, this is Li Fan, a level one cultivator and merchant from the Island nation of Blue Waves. Li Fan, this is Mike Lakowsky, the level four cultivator I hired to protect my caravan.”
The two men bowed to each other. “It is quite an honor to meet someone at the fourth level.” said Fan. “For certain, meeting your employer who is at level three was a bit of a shock, but I have done business with level three cultivators in the past. You are the first level four cultivator I have ever met, though.”
Mike looked at Greg. “Are you sure someone isn’t going to hear him saying our levels and report us?”
Greg shook his head. “You know how you can’t hear the other tables?” He pointed to a circle drawn on the floor under the table. “Privacy circle. If you don’t want to be overheard, any cultivator at the table can inject qi to raise a gathering level barrier which absorbs all sound. Or, if you have no cultivators, you can place a spirit stone at a specific location on it to do the same. It’s why Li Fan chose this place.”
Mike nodded and turned back to the client, who looked confused. “Oh, I apologize.” said Mike. “I asked a question in our native language and he answered in it. You were about to tell us about the job?”
“Ah, yes indeed.” Fan said, then pulled out a map. “This is a map to the camp of the Red Vrooshkin Bandit Sect. They only have level one and two members, with their boss being a level three, but they call themselves a sect. From what I heard, not long ago they were mortals who somehow came into possession of demonic cultivation texts, and overnight all of them learned to cultivate.
“Last night, less than ten li from the city, they attacked my caravan, killed most of the cultivators I hired for protection, and kidnapped all of the women. While four of them were merely comfort women I hired for my men in the port town when my ship docked, my daughter is only sixteen. I tried to hire a group of mercenaries when I got to the city, knowing what they will do to any women they capture, but once they heard who I wanted them to fight, they all turned me down. Your employer heard that I sold many relics in town and came to ask me about the manufacturing techniques, and when he heard I was looking to hire mercenaries, he thought of you.”
Mike thought for a few seconds. One level three and maybe a hundred level twos and ones? He had done more in the military, and that was before he reached Core. “Sure, I can do it. Of course, I can’t do it on my own.” He looked at Greg. “Mind if I borrow Randy? I’ve worked with him before.” No use saying it was when the two of them teamed up at mil sim events.
Greg nodded. “Of course. It’s about time he did some real work.”
Mike stood up and Fan held up a hand. “While I’m willing to pay ten stones each for the other woman from my caravan, as I would have to pay that much as a penalty if I don’t return with them, I will only give your employer the information he wants if you return my daughter.” Mike nodded, took the map, and left for the Inn.
---
Once Mike left, leaving the book behind, Randy stopped his cultivation. He could level up his spirit roots later. For now he wanted to make sure he had a copy of this book so that he could use it later, or even give Kevin a copy, since his cousin loved techniques so much.
He went over to a table and started flipping through the book one page at a time. With each flip he photographed both pages on his phone, modified the image to be straight and properly cropped, then ran them through the translation app and saved the new picture into an “English translation” folder. Once he had finished with every page he put all of the translated pages together in a PDF file named “The Early Cultivator’s Guide ENG”.
He then went into the messaging app and posted it under the shared file section. While the internet on Earth was highly reliable, and one could therefore rely on it to send messages, that wasn’t true on this side of the gate. So, the group had installed the Local Group App, which allowed them to transmit messages directly to each other. Of course, Randy already had the app on his original phone, which was left on Earth because there was no way he was going to give the military access to it. The app would be necessary if the arrival of qi turned out to be some sort of apocalypse and the internet went down, but he could just use a different login with this group and no one would know. Of course, he might post the PDF to the other group once he was back on Earth, but not while the US military had a camera watching his every move. He might be a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but he wasn’t stupid.
Once he was done he got one of the other books that they had gotten in trade, the Alchemy Guide, and started doing the same to it.
Mike walked into the Inn and suddenly got an alert that a new file had been added to the group chat. He walked over to the table where Randy was sitting and opened it. “You made a PDF of the book I showed you?” he asked, surprised. “Never took you for a techie.”
“I’m not really. I just learned to do this so that I could get decent bootlegs of military manuals from the other nations. China, Russia and Egypt have some nice ones for Core. You want a copy?” I don’t have them on my phone but I can get them once we return.” Sure, him saying that was just recorded for the US Military to hear, but he wasn’t violating their security, so he doubted they would care.
“I’m just going to assume you meant that you were making English translations of commercially available Core techniques and declassified training manuals and move on.” said Mike, rubbing his eyes. “I just got a mission to go deal with some bandits, and need a backup man, so, since you’ve done the least this trip and I have worked with you before, I need you to come with me.”
Randy nodded and went to get his equipment from his room, as he was only carrying his pistol. Once he got back downstairs they went out the door and lifted off the ground, then flew towards the base. Ten minutes later, less than a third of the way there, Mike flew over to Randy. “Is this really the fastest you can go?” he asked.
“Well, excuse me for not being able to Slipstream myself everywhere at supersonic speed.” Randy replied. He wasn’t really mad, but he pretended to be just to mess with Mike.
“I know you can’t use Slipstream yet, but you can at least use Anti-grav to push off the ground so you can go faster.”
Randy shook his head. “Never learned it. The best I’ve got to fly with is the Accelerated Flight technique for Foundation.”
Mike sighed. “Fine, when we get back I can teach you.” They flew in silence for the next twenty minutes when Randy noticed a palisade fort ahead with a few fires burning inside it, probably cooking fires or lanterns. “Ok, so here’s the plan.” Mike said after they stopped above it, far enough up that those below wouldn’t see them in this darkness. “I’ll go in and secure the prisoners, so they don’t have the opportunity to use them as hostages or kill them out of spite. I want you to lure them out of the fort, or at least away from the prison cages back there.” He pointed to the back of the fort where dozens of cages could be seen.
“Sure. I can do that.” Randy said, then flew in front of the Gate.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Once he saw the front gate guards confront Randy only to die instantly, Mike made his move. He unslung his sniper rifle, loaded the lowest quality bullets he brought for it, Foundation rounds, activated the silencer formation, essentially the same thing the tavern used as privacy screens, and took aim at the bandits near the cages. Five shots were fired and five men died.
---
Randy landed about fifty meters from the bandit camp’s front gate and loaded Condensation rounds into all of his guns. “Time to practice my CQC drills.” he said to himself, then started forward, not yet shouldering the AR15. He put in his ear bud, set the program to auto translate, closed all other programs so that it could work as quickly as possible, then made his way to the front gate.
As soon as the guards saw him they started yelling, but before the translator was finished they pulled their spears out and pointed them at him. Randy snapped the gun to his shoulder and squeezed off one round into each man’s chest, causing them to collapse. “Stop immediately or we will…” the translator said. Yeah, he really needed to learn the language if he was going to get into situations like this.
The gunfire drew several more enemies, but he was able to shoot each of them as they left the gate, killing six more. These new guys must either not be using defensive techniques or devices, or be level one, as, unlike the gate guards, they had a hole the size of a fist blown through their chest, the Condensation level ammunition being overkill. Still, if he had used normal rounds, it wouldn’t have affected the guards, so everything was a trade-off.
One of the men yelled something and the rest of the ones running for him dove for cover. Randy managed to shoot one as he dove, and he was now bleeding out from a missing leg, but the others managed to get to cover, usually behind the wall. A second later the earpiece spoke. “Ranged relic weapon, second level.” So, apparently they weren’t complete idiots.
Randy didn’t have a grenade with him, as he hadn’t brought any with him through the gate, and the wall was too thick to shoot through, also being made of those meter-thick spirit trees like the first village, so he couldn’t shoot through it quickly. So he decided to try something different. He flew straight over the wall and flipped himself upside down while flipping the selector to ‘full auto’, and as soon as he saw them, he sprayed the twenty two rounds he had left into as many of them as possible.
He wasn’t able to hit five of them, but another eight died and he was out of ammunition. The ones who survived started throwing attacks at him, but as he had a Foundation level defensive vest on, they only hit the barrier it produced. He dropped the rifle, it being strapped to him so he couldn’t lose it, and he drew his pistol. Eleven rounds of 9mm flew from the barrel of the Glock as he ended the Flight technique, and six more of them died, most being hit twice.
Randy landed and noticed several dozen more men running at him. He dove behind one to the enemy’s barriers, chastising himself for letting himself get hit, then reloaded both guns. As soon as he was done he flipped the rifle back to single fire and jumped out from cover, firing one round at each of the charging melee fighters. Twelve rounds were fired, and eleven hit, as one of the men managed to dodge behind one of the other men. A ball of brown energy left the man’s hand, hitting the ground in front of Randy, and a cloud of dirt was thrown up, obscuring his sight. ‘Good, someone is using their brain.’ he thought. “Tell me where you keep your treasures and I will let you escape.” Randy yelled, and the phone repeated it at maximum speaker volume two seconds later.
The man yelled something and Randy waited for the translation. “I will never betray my brothers to mercenary trash like you.”
“Yeah, well, this trash just killed over thirty of your men.” he called, then started to watch for the man. He obviously had an Earth root, as he used an Earth attack, likely at Average or High rank judging by the attack, though he may have simply used more qi to make it appear so. Randy wasn’t sure how to use that, as he didn’t have a Wood root to suppress the man. Earth overcame Water, so even with his level advantage, he wouldn’t necessarily win such a confrontation. Randy’s metal root was Low grade at best, so he wasn’t confident in a direct confrontation using that element either. While he could likely win, assuming the guy didn’t also have a Fire root, he knew it could take several seconds and would expend a good bit of qi. Maybe he should try anyway? “You’re bandits.” he tried again. “You had to know that all of the merchants you attacked weren’t just going to bend over and let you have your way with them.”
Randy was unable to tell where the response came from, as it seemed to come from all around him. “Why not? Their women did last night, for several men each. Especially that young one. Now she was a fun time.”
Hearing this, Randy knew that he couldn’t let this man live. Then he had an idea. What if the man was using a technique to hide? Randy sent qi into his eyes to activate qi sight and looked around the dust cloud. He saw a brown glowing figure in the rough shape of a humans sneaking towards him.
Randy didn’t even bother with his gun as he lifted his hand and aimed at the guys knees, then fired a qi blast. The man screamed in pain and most of his legs exploded into several pieces which continued to fly backwards. Randy walked forward and saw the man laying on the ground, having let the stealth technique fail due to the pain. “You know, I was going to let you live if you cooperated, but now that I know you are a rapist, I can’t let you live here alive.”
Randy waited a few seconds for the translation to speak, then, before the man could respond, he fired another blast into the man’s face, turning his head into something that would turn any movie into a horror film.
“The same goes for anyone listening!” he called out. “If you tell us where the treasure is and the women vouch that you didn’t force yourself onto any of them, then you can leave here alive. Or you can choose to fight, and receive a quick death.” Three seconds later the translation started speaking, and five seconds after that it ended.
The dust cloud finished dissipating and Randy noticed that he was surrounded by dozens of men. One of them smiled, then said something, and suddenly a rain of qi blasts started flying at Randy. “Then when we’re done with you, we’ll have so much fun that we will send the women to meet you.” The ear bud said.
Randy lost all sympathy for them. He had thought that they were just people down on their luck who were raiding caravans to survive, but that kind of criminal wouldn’t say something like that or do something like what they had done to the women. “Then you will all die, so that doesn’t happen!” yelled Randy, then released his qi. A wave of Water qi swept over the area, covering everything within 50 meters of him, and suddenly the number of attacks fell by 80% as they found that they could no longer use their qi.
As none of the blasts could penetrate his barrier, he gave up on dodging in favor of maximum DPS. He shouldered his rifle and fired one round into each of the men, then reloaded and kept doing so. Some of them tried to run, only to get shot in the back. All of them ended up with a hole at least as big as a fist in them. Eventually he was the only one that was still standing.
He counted the bodies. Fifty seven. Add to that the thirty or so from before, and he had killed over half of them. He reached for another magazine, only to find that he didn’t have another that was loaded. He sighed. Next trip he would have to bring more.
He slung the rifle on his back and drew his pistol before making his way towards the prisoner cages. Just as he got there a large man surrounded in Fire qi stepped in front of him and started monologuing. “You think you can just come in here and kill my men, and I’ll let you live? When I’m done with you you will beg for death, but I will make you watch as I slowly tear apart the women one piece at a time. I will keep you alive long enough to…” There was a gunshot and suddenly the man’s upper body ceased existing, a spray of blood and gore flying into the nearby wall as more than half of the log disappeared as well. “Hear their dying screams following you into the next life. Then…” The translator finished, and Mike appeared holding his rifle.
“I thought the leader of the bandits was supposed to be Foundation. Why did a Foundation round do that to him?”
“Core bullet.” said Mike. “Didn’t want to risk him having a barrier or other way to survive the first shot. Still, I should probably bring some lower level rounds next time. The lowest I had was Foundation and this pretty much happened to all of the goons I shot as well.”
Randy pulled two Condensation level magazines for his pistols off of his vest, and tossed them to Mike. Because they had similar models of pistols, their magazines were interchangeable. “Condensation. Pay me back in Foundation ammo later.”
“You want one round?” Mike asked.
“Right, forgot how expensive those are. In that case, tell me where you get your ammo when we get back to Earth. It looks like I’m going to need to bring a lot more next time. The ones in this pistol, those two, and the one on my vest are all of the Condensing rounds I have left.”
Mike nodded. “Sure, I can do that.” he said, loading one of them into his pistol. “So, should we finish the rest of them?”
Ten minutes later seventeen bandits were tied up to be brought to the city as prisoners and two hundred and nineteen corpses were scattered around. They had released all of the prisoners, and all of the women had verified that these seventeen men hadn’t laid a hand on them, so they would be sold as criminal slaves in town, likely indentured to a nearby spirit stone mine, as the high levels of qi in the tunnels down there could kill anyone that didn’t have a way to resist it, essentially naturally suppressing anyone that came into contact with it.
Interestingly, they may have already had some experience with such a life, as the cave in which they stored most of their treasures had higher than normal background levels of qi. One would expect that the levels in the spirit stones would be the same as the background level in the air, but both the bandits and the merchant’s daughter confirmed that it was normal when breaking into ancient spirit stone veins, which were the primary form of spirit stone vein in this area. Wouldn’t that meant that qi densities were much higher in the past, then?
After letting the prisoners take any of the mundane things, including local money, which they wanted, Mike and Randy grabbed all of the magic bags that were in the bandit base. After learning the shrinking technique from a copy of the book the bandit’s had, as they hadn’t read Greg’s copy, they loaded all of the books and relics they could into the bags. They then had all of the ex prisoners, nine women and an eight year old boy that was being held for ransom, climb into a wagon. Randy tied the rope that the prisoners were attached to to the back of the wagon, at which point Mike lifted the tongue of the cart and started pulling them back to High River.
