With his freshly carved badge hanging off a string wrapped around his left arm, he seemed to become all but invisible to the guards.

A few non-cultivators stared at him, a small child even went as far as to point at him, but aside from that, no one seemed to care too much. Sylver adjusted his robe so it resembled the bathrobe type the cultivators wore, and just to keep things simple, kept his eyes just short of closed so no one would notice that they were pitch black.

With the wrinkles this squinting created, Sylver probably looked like your average, everyday, 7-foot-tall muscular elder. The fact that he purposely aged the skin on his face and hands, helped solidify this image.

He did notice one strange thing during his walk.

Women.

Or rather, a lack of women.

Sylver didn’t even try counting, because the man-to-woman ratio was above 200 to 1, at least when it came to people who were walking outside during the day.

That, and the lack of other races. After the time Sylver spent among “elves” in the Garden, seeing dwarves, humans, actual elves, and everything in between walking around the streets in Arda was a bit of a shock, but he was used to it within a day.

Now that he was surrounded by nothing but humans, he felt like he was back in the Garden, alone, cut off from Lola and the others. He wasn’t, of course, Sylver even planned to send a shade to Lola to give her an update on what he was up to.

The distance the shade would need to cover would be great, but if he was alone and unencumbered, Aleri should hypothetically be able to get to Arda within a week or so.

The bar was mostly empty as Sylver walked in. A few small groups of men were asleep inside the booths on the left, a man with a grey shawl on his head was busy cleaning a table on the right, and a portly man who was almost as wide as he was tall, was standing behind the bar, polishing glasses.

Sylver approached the bar and was careful to have the wooden symbol on his arm turned just enough that the actual symbol on it wasn’t visible, as he sat down behind the stool nearest to the barman.

“Can I help you with anything?” the man asked.

He didn’t stop rubbing the glass in his hand, but he wasn’t looking at it, he was staring at Sylver’s face.

“Yes young man, you can, thank you. I’m looking for work, and I was told you are the man to see,” Sylver offered with as soft and polite of a tone as he could muster.

The expression on the man’s pudgy face was relaxed, and oddly enough, so was his soul. Sylver had a whole thing planned, from telling the barkeep about how he was passing through and got stuck inside, how he bought membership into a sect, and would then complain about his missing friend, Fobur.

Instead, the barkeep put his glass down and retrieved a small booklet from somewhere underneath his bar.

“Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?” the barkeep asked, as he licked his thumb and started looking through the pages.

Sylver’s [Lesser Perception] let him effectively look at what the man was reading without having to crane his head, or unsquint his eyes. Not that there was any point in doing that since the man moved the book up to where Sylver could see it and turned it around so he would have an easier time reading.

Sylver was careful not to overplay his old man voice and was a little upset at how easy it was to speak in such a manner.

“Anything with a powerful beast that mainly uses poison or venom would be marvelous,” Sylver said, as he gradually started bending his outer spine, and decided he might as well take this old man thing all the way.

“Hmm… The Green Moth sect has recently increased the amount of jade offered for 2 pairs of a skunk ape’s glands. Depending on the condition, they promised up to 10 grams of green jade,” the barkeep explained and was nice enough to move his finger along the text he was reading, so Sylver could follow.

Sylver squinted his eyes for real out of habit and had to be reminded by Spring to open them back up a little.

“You’ll have to forgive my ignorance young man, but what exactly is a skunk ape?” Sylver asked.

Even if Sylver could guess, he wasn’t in his comfort zone at the moment. If it were a place where monsters were made using mana, that was one thing, but this was Ki land, and Sylver didn’t want to take any chances.

“They’re about 10 feet tall and are said to be roughly shaped like a large man. They move while surrounded by a noxious cloud of their own making, and are near impossible to deal with without some kind of poison resistance. They are estimated to be anywhere from level 150 to 300. The glands being offered a reward for are hidden 2 hand widths above the base of their tail,” the man explained and went as far as to find a diagram for Sylver.

Sylver nodded along to the man’s description.

“Thank you for the help young man, you wouldn’t happen to know where I might find these creatures?” Sylver asked, and felt Spring silently tap something out to Ria, who tapped back, and shook a bit from giggling.

“If you follow the Makrys river north for half a day, you should find them near the western edge of the blue swamp,” the barkeep explained casually, as Sylver felt Spring and Ria freeze at the words.

Ria froze in worry, Spring froze due to excitement.

“There wouldn’t happen to be any other materials being offered payment for in that area, would there?” Sylver asked, and honestly couldn’t help himself as the smile crept into his gravelly voice, but was surprised to find the barkeep was smiling as much as Sylver was.

“If you would like to have a drink while you wait, sir, I can draw you a list of all the monster parts being sought after,” the barkeep offered, as he placed an empty glass in front of Sylver, and pulled the book down behind the bar.

“Thank you young man, but I don’t drink before a job,” Sylver said and very gently pushed the empty glass away from him.

He would later learn that the reason the barkeep was so polite, was that he mistook Sylver for an old cultivator from a foreign sect. Apparently white hair, and wearing dark colors were the height of old cultivator fashion.

The barkeep didn’t even question why a powerful man would bother trudging through the swamps for what amounted to scraps, he just told him everything the old man wanted to know.

“My friend owns a supplies shop just down the road. If you need anything to traverse through the swamps, he’ll be more than willing to provide you high-quality items, at a very reasonable price,” the barkeep offered, as he handed Sylver the neatly written out list of monsters and their respective parts to look out for.

Sylver took the list and just looked at the man for a while.

“I won’t forget this kindness you’ve shown me today, thank you,” Sylver said to the slightly surprised barkeep.

They just smiled at each other, as Sylver walked out of the bar, and started reading through what amounted to a shopping list for a [Swamp Lord].