“Kevin?” he responded, thankfully in my mind.

  “Li Kev.” I said out loud. “Traveling cultivator. I came here while guarding a client, and when I discovered my good friend was in town, I knew I had to come speak with him.”

  “Right.” said Mike. He might not know why I looked different, but he knew how to play along. “Well, elder Taylor stayed at the sect this time, but you are welcome to come back with us if you wish. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

  “I’ll take you up on that offer.” I said. “When do you set out?”

  “Well, most days we run out of animals some time in the late afternoon, then pack up, but if you don’t mind traveling at night, we can leave at sunset.”

  “That’s perfect. Just let me tell my employer that I’ll be gone for a few days, and I’ll meet you here then.” Mike nodded and I left to look around at the animals. Few spirit beasts suppressed their qi, especially when frightened, so I was able to detect their levels. While all of them appeared to be at least level one, few were level two, nor did most of them have any interesting features. They looked about like the mother goat from a few days ago. They were likely hybrids between normal animals and spirit beasts that had inherited the automatic qi absorption but little else.

  ‘There are better ones at our base.’ said Mike in my head.

  I nodded and returned a telepathic message. ‘Thanks, I’ll look at those once I arrive. These all seem to be weak blooded hybrids.’

  He nodded. ‘They are. We have many hybrids which we breed to try and strengthen their bloodline, and not all of their offspring inherit the spirit beast traits of their ancestors. So, once they are old enough, the weak bloods get sold off here, where they have value simply by being able to cultivate. They are unlikely to get past level two even if pampered, though. But for the rich people of the city, a loyal pet and guard is worth far more than what we are charging.’

  I nodded and looked them over some more, when I saw a primate of some sort. “Is that a monkey?” I asked out loud, and Mike nodded.

  “Ah, yes, a stone monkey. Descendant of the Legendary Stone Monkey Sung Wugong.”

  ‘Don’t you mean Sun Wukong’ I asked mentally. ‘Like from Journey to the West?’

  ‘No, I’m telling the local version. Now shut up and stop distracting me.’ He then continued out loud. “Yes, Sung Wugong, from the legendary tale. It is said that seven thousand years ago there was a buddhist monk who had a dream. In that dream one of the bodhisattvas came to him and instructed him to head West, to spread the teachings of buddhism across the entire world. When he complained that he wasn’t even a cultivator, and so wouldn’t survive the journey, the bodhisattva told him that it would give him a protector to guard him on his journey. One month later the being returned and showed him a nearby mountain with an exposed dragon vein, and in the center of it sat a large stone egg. He was told to retrieve that egg, for it contained his protector.

  The next day he set off for the mountain along with some of the other monks and retrieved the egg. A few days later the stone egg hatched, revealing a baby monkey. The monkey seemed extremely smart, like a human toddler, so the monk named him Sung Wugong.” This meant ‘stone protector’ in some of the local planetary dialects, but not the one from this region, so the locals most likely didn’t realize why he was named that. Thankfully I had tried to learn the other two languages, just not focusing on it as much as this region’s dialect. “The monkey grew up rapidly, and learned martial arts from the monks at the temple, and when it became level two it started speaking human language. The monk waited a few years for it to become an adult, then set off on the journey. He faced many perils, but with his trusted monkey companion, he was able to survive.

  Once they returned to the temple, having made a trip around the entire world, Sung Wogong set out to start a family. He gathered female monkeys from over a dozen races of spirit monkey and ape, and made them his concubines. And thus the Stone Ape race became part of the legendary bloodline.” The crowd seemed to enjoy the story, and surprised at the monkey’s potential, and several rich people started trying to outbid each other for this monkey, the sale price eventually reaching seven hundred and fifty taels before ending. The man who won brought forward a five year old boy and, after paying the price as well as another hundred for the beast tamer manual and fifty for the ritual, Mike took the baby monkey from the cage and handed it to him. He then chanted a few words, did a few hand signs, and pricked the monkey’s finger with a needle, toughing it to a talisman. He then did the same to the little boy, who cried at the pain, and put his finger on the talisman as well. When it was finished, Mike fed qi into the talisman and it turned into a golden shower of sparks, flowing into both the boy and the monkey.

  The boy and father thanked Mike and they left. The crowd went back to examining the cages, hoping to find another animal they liked. ‘Legendary beast?’ I sent Mike, along with a feeling of incredulity.

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t lying about that. It might only have the potential to reach level three, maybe level four, but it will probably reach human intelligence at level three. Legendary bloodlines are quite good.’

  “So, what can you tell me about that contract ritual?” I asked him out loud, assuming that it would help his business if the people heard.

  “The ritual I just did was for the Servant Contract variation, though I can also do the Partner Contract or the Life Bond contract if you want me to. The Servant contract guarantees that, as long as you don’t abuse them, they will remain loyal to you and obey your commands for the rest of their life.”

  The crowd looked impressed, but one well dressed man spoke up. “And the other two types of contracts?”

  “The Partner contract means that neither one can order the other one around, but it lets you know far more about them, letting the bond grow faster, and therefore letting you borrow each others abilities far faster than with the servant contract. The Life Bond contract entangles the life forces of two beings, letting the bond grow extremely quickly and letting them quickly share in the other’s abilities. It does have a massive downside, though. If one of the bonded parties dies, the other one will suffer massive backlash, and might die from such backlash. This makes it too risky for most beast partners, though such a bond does give them a lifespan almost as long as a human’s, so you won’t die when your dog grows two old in ten or fifteen years, but one or two hundred years.”

  The group began to nod their head, then one of them spoke up. “What do you mean by ‘share abilities’. You aren’t saying that a beast companion can allow me to cultivate, are you?”

  Mike nodded. “I am indeed saying that. A Partner or Life Bond contract can let the bond quickly grow to a point where you can borrow the beast’s spirit root, and thus begin cultivating. In fact, in ancient beast taming clans almost everyone was technically a cultivator for that very reason, as all of them had animal partners, usually spirit beasts. Few ever passed level one, however.” This caused a murmur through the crowd.

  “And what about with the servant contract?” one of the men asked.

  “It is technically possible, but such a bond usually grows so slowly that it is unlikely that the bond with grow strong enough before the beast dies.”

  The people started talking among themselves again and, when no one had said anything else within a few minutes, I sent a message to Mike. ‘Doesn’t the fact that they can’t disobey or betray their masters, but might eventually reach human intelligence mean that the Servant contract can become a slave contract?’

  ‘Technically,’ Mike responded, ‘but there’s a catch. I define abuse to include forced slavery of a sapient spirit beast. So if they force it to stay and it wants to leave, the human is in breach of contract, which will dissolve it. The smart ones will convert intelligent beasts into cultivator servants or at least be nice enough to them that they don’t want to leave and therefore never trigger that breach, but I won’t be surprised if some of them do try to force the beast to stay and therefore lose it.’

  I nodded. ‘You put a bit of thought into this, it seems.’

  ‘Of course. I may be running a pet store now, but when they grow up, some of these will become people, so I had to figure out a way to keep them from becoming a slave race.’

  I stayed for another thirty minutes, watching him do the ritual two more times, then returned to the manor. Once there I found the Ambassador. He was talking to someone about the cost of farming spirit herbs, and how difficult it would be for us to produce them. Of course, the man didn’t know about the existence of tractors and other farm equipment, so he was assuming we would need either large numbers of beast or cultivators or even larger numbers of mortals to plow the far and tend to the crops, but most of his information was useful.

  After a minute the Ambassador acknowledged my presence. “I need to speak with you in private, sir.” I said, not beating around the bush. “I believe I have found a source for spirit beasts that can greatly benefit our people.” The Ambassador looked at me with a confused look. “I assure you, sir, this discovery could allow me to complete our secondary objective.” This time he looked more surprised, as he knew exactly what I meant by that.

  “Spirit animals, huh?” the Ji family member said. “Either you found someone willing to sell part of their herd, which is unlikely due to how profitable they are, or you are dealing with those beast tamers that have recently been trading off their weakbloods to gullible people.”

  The Ambassador looked confused again. “The White Tiger Sect, sir. Their leader came with the beast trader group this time, and is willing to let me visit their sect so that I can look at their stock. I may be able to get some better animals to improve our own breeding programs.” Now the other guy looked surprised. “We diluted the bloodlines of our spirit beasts too much so that all of our livestock would be spirit beasts, but now they rarely get past level one. I was hoping to introduce some new blood into the mix and see if I can improve it. Level two and three spirit beast meat, milk, and eggs are luxury goods, and level four is almost never seen on the market.”

  The man nodded. “That is definitely an issue you should try and fix. Many of our family members use level two and three animal products as cultivation resources, but even we can’t produce enough level three, even with our strongblood stock. And plant based products just aren’t as good.” He bowed to the Ambassador. “I will leave you to your mission, and perhaps talk to you later.”

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  The ambassador bowed as well. “I look forward to it.” he said, and the man left. The Ambassador nodded for me to follow him and we went back to his room. Once there I set up formation flags and put the seal plate on the door, then adjusted it to block sound and light leaving while blocking qi and physical objects from going either way, so that we couldn’t be bugged.

  I then turned to him and spoke English. “I found some of the Earth survivors.”

  “This soon?” he asked. “I thought you might have just gotten a lead, but you actually know where they are?”

  “Better than that, I met them.” I told him the story of how I heard the song, questioned the woman, and then went out this morning and found a guy I recognized that was the sect master.

  “You said he was the only Golden Core you know of in their group?” the Ambassador asked when I was finished.

  “When they left, sure. But my cousin was mostly through Foundation, and he said that they tried to recruit people in Foundation or Core if possible, so it’s possible they have more now.”

  The Ambassador nodded. “They may make a useful military asset, then, depending on how large they are. I want you to figure out their cultivation levels and combat power while you are there. If nothing else, they can help convince other sects to not join against us.”

  “I can certainly talk to Mike about this once we are out of the city, but I’m not sure he’ll want to join the war.”

  “Nonsense. He’s ex military. Why wouldn’t he want to fight for his country once again?”

  I could think of multiple reasons, and he likely left the military because of one of them, but decided to treat the question as if it was rhetorical, which it might have been. “Even if he does, most of the sect founders were civilians, and they might have hundreds of recruits from this world who have no reason one way or the other, so I don’t think it’s likely that they will be willing to be mercenaries.”

  “You can probably convince them, though. Right?” At this point it seems that he only wanted to find Earth people in hopes that they would help in the war by giving the three sects another front to fight on.

  “I’ll have to leave that to you, sir. I can feel them out, but I’m not really the type to negotiate for mercenary assistance.”

  He nodded. “Very well. You said they come once per week to sell spirit beasts?” I nodded. “In that case, you can leave with them, just make sure you return with them next time. I’ll need to talk with them, then hopefully visit one more city before returning, and we only have another two and a half weeks.”

  I nodded, and, as the conversation was over, deactivated the barrier and returned to speaking the native language. “Thank you for your time, sir.” I said, bowing. I then remembered something “This is a guide to the local language.” I said, pulling out the jade slip. “As it could help you in your negotiations, please use it to solidify your language skills. Just return it to me once you are done with it, as I must leave the city before sunset and want to bring it with me.” He nodded, took the slip, and thanked me, then I opened the door and left.

  While I had hoped to do more cultivation today, possibly finishing the construction of my seeds so I could rent a room for the qi absorption portion, that would have to wait. I needed to make sure I was ready to travel.

  First, I went by the book store, as it was near to the manor. After exchanging a few pleasantries with Cha, I purchased three books at the High level, the Shrinking technique, the Layered Writing technique, and the Jade Memory Transfer technique. While I wanted to get as good as I could with the later two so that I could start making even better versions of my own techniques and any future techniques I came up with, the first was simply because the bags from Earth had too little interior space due to the difficulty of making a larger qi stasis field. The manufacturers on Earth simply didn’t have enough practice to make high quality bags. This meant that being able to further shrink items was far more important.

  After finishing my purchase, I asked Cha about the quality of his wares, and why Taking Pulse was so close to Master grade. “That is because I am banned from selling Master and above quality copies of any technique I got from the family library, as the family elders don’t want to risk others getting our techniques. Of course there are other techniques that I was completely banned from selling, but that one was a common enough technique that they didn’t mind. The copy I brought with me to make the copies from was the best of the copies I made for family members that wasn’t master grade, and I made an almost perfect copy of it to sell to you, as I have had a lot of practice copying jade slips.” I nodded and thanked him before saying goodbye and leaving.

  Now I needed to see about my damaged sword. I found a smith nearby whose shop had a sign claiming that he could create level three weapons. After verifying that he had experience working with metal weapons, I pulled my sword out of storage and showed it to him. “Yes, you’ve definitely been abusing it. This is a level one weapon. Why would you treat it like that?”

  “Stood up to my strength in training, though I admit I was cutting wood, not actual weapons.” The smith nodded. “So, can you fix it?”

  “Yes. It’s of decent construction. Properly tempered. Whoever made this knew a thing or two about metal weapons. Most metal weapons I see aren’t tempered, they are just material shaped like other materials are, into weapon shapes.” He slowly moved his hand over the blade and a strange qi came out of it, causing the material to reshape, turning removing all of the nicks. “If you plan to keep using it, though, I’ll need to re-enhance it. Metal is a solid material to begin with, so you can skip a little on the enhancement, but I’ll need to bring it up at least to early level two with your current level.”

  I nodded. “Would it cost too much to make it a level three blade?” I asked. “I’m planning on advancing soon, and don’t want to risk damaging it again.”

  He shrugged. “I can do it, but to enhance it to level three, I’ll need to activate the gathering array and make liquid qi. I can survive it, but I’d have to kick out some of my apprentices, as they are at level one and probably can’t handle the pressure. Furthermore I’ll have to pay for all of the energy, which will be added to the cost of the enhancement.”

  “One percent of the energy used, correct?” I asked. He nodded. “Then how many stones of qi do you need to inject into it?”

  “For a blade of that size? Two or three thousand at least. Maybe even five. That’s why we always use gathering arrays for the qi instead of trying to use our own. Unless I’m making a level one weapon for some reason, I won’t have enough to do it.”

  I nodded. “In that case,” I pulled out fifty stones and put them on the workbench beside him. “There’s a down payment. Do you think I could watch the process? My dao companion is an artifact crafter and I’m curious how she makes them.” She probably didn’t use the same method, but maybe I could learn something from his method that she can use.

  He shrugged and put the stones into his own bag. “I don’t mind. Just make sure you don’t touch the liquid qi. Until you’ve completed your first rebirth it will burn you worse than acid.” I nodded and followed him into his shop.

  Once there he told all of the level one disciples that they needed to leave the back area until he told them they could return, as he was about to do something that was too dangerous for them to be around. Once they left, he made sure the door and windows were closed, activated a few light talismans that were on the walls, and activated the gathering array. The heart of it was in a large tub in the middle of the room and within ten minutes the level of qi in the room had reached its saturation point and liquid qi started to form in the basin.

  Ten minutes after that their was around three centimeters of liquid qi in the tub, and he laid my sword in the tub, the pommel and cross guard barely being covered. “Okay, now I just need to use the Infusion technique.” He said, and started making a few hand signs.

  I recognized them and spoke up. “Is this the same Infusion technique that is used in Talisman making?” I asked. Hand signs weren’t a universal truth like science, but a type of language you learned. Though certain positions could activate certain meridians to alter the flow of qi, for the most part you taught your brain the components of complex spells, associating your hand signs with the components. Once you had conditioned yourself to be like Pavlov’s dog, you could then cast spells by doing the hand signs in a specific order. While I hadn’t learned any myself, preferring to use qi without them, I could see how it could make learning new spells easier.

  “Well, it is a bit more complex than that, as steel and liquid qi aren’t naturally compatible like spirit cloth and herbal mixtures or beast blood and hides, but it’s the same basic idea. I take it you are a talismonger?”

  “Beginner at best. I read the cultivation guide, but haven’t had any practice outside of the infusion technique. Once I leave here I’ll buy some supplies and practice. Maybe in a week or two I can sell you a few.”

  He smiled and nodded, then held his hands towards the sword, and streams of light started flowing into the sword from the liquid qi. It took over an hour before he turned off the array and another five minutes before all of the liquid qi had been absorbed into the blade. “Six thousand one hundred or so stones. This is top quality steel.” he said, then went over to the blade and picked it up before handing it to me. “Mind telling me where you got such a good blade?”

  I shrugged. “My home city has an iron mine near it, owned by a local family. There was a smith in the city, the one my dao companion learned from, though not directly, and I bought it from his shop.” The smith looked confused. “Oh, she would watch as he personally trained his inner and core disciples. Picked up a few things. One of the inner disciples made this sword.” I pulled out the seal plate. “This, on the other hand, was made by her from various types of scrap metal she repurposed.”

  He took the formation from me. “A seal plate? Interesting design, but I can see where she made mistakes. She went with a formation instead of a natural or embedded effect, which is fine, but the metal is only partially conditioned. She likely struggles with that.” He looked it over. “These flags and element tokens aren’t conditioned at all. It seems to be a simple adjustable barrier, with the ability to borrow spirit roots from others to enhance its effect. But, while it can theoretically reach level four, it is too inefficient to do so for long. I’d guess thirty breaths at most.” I nodded and he did as well. “In that case, if you don’t mind, I can properly condition this for you, and will only charge the qi usage fee. The design is so unique, I would like to study it some more.”

  I agreed, and he turned on the gathering array again. An hour later he turned it off, had it absorb the last of the qi in the pool, and wiped the sweat from his head. “That was a pretty challenging job.” he said, walking over to the side to get a glass of water. “Nineteen thousand eight hundred stones of qi were used by the way. If you don’t have the money, though, I’m willing to hold it as collateral. I’d love to study the design some more.”

  “Oh, I have the stones.” I said, pulling out another two hundred and nine stones, the full cost of the qi used when combined with the fifty I’ve already paid. “Not sure what you charge in labor, but this will cover all of the qi usage.”

  “Another one hundred should cover it.” he said, and I pulled out the additional stones. He nodded. “Good. Well, here’s your seal plate.” He motioned and it floated out of the pool and into my hands. “Should last at least an incense stick of time now, possibly more, at low level four. There doesn’t seem to be an option to adjust the strength, which is common on deployable formations, but it doesn’t technically need one. The design was just so interesting, if she happens to come through town I’d love to speak with her. The way she implemented the spirit roots is quite interesting. Without balancing them correctly, though, the qi couldn’t flow properly, lowering her efficiency.” Liza had purchased the raw materials online as far as I could tell. The different metal ingots likely had varied ages and internal qi levels when she forged them, as she was concerned about cost more than matching production dates, and therefore purchased surplus goods. I would have to tell her about this once I returned.

  “I can ask her, but she didn’t seem to have any interest in traveling with me this time, so I doubt she’ll want to come by.” I activated the seal plate to verify that it did, indeed, start at middle Core level and drop to Early Core after a few minutes, but stayed pretty constant after that. This was, of course, at the minimum barrier size, so once it was expanded it would likely decrease in power. While I waited I looked over my sword. The blade seemed to have a kind of shimmer it never did before, and I could feel qi comparable to someone in the early third level leaking from it, though it seemed to be drawing in qi at the same rate at which it shed it, only increasing the pressure. From what I knew, the square root of the level of qi in an object was proportional to its durability, meaning that in order to double its durability it should contain four times the qi, so this blade should be more than a hundred times more durable compared to how it was before the improvement.

  I thanked the man, who had drawn in all of the excess qi to partially recover as I tested the devices, and left. There were still a few hours left before I needed to meet Mike, so I went by a talisman shop to buy some basic talisman paper before heading back to the manor. The late level one paper had cost one stone per ten sheets, so I bought one hundred sheets and some ink made from a black algae.