Lin smiled lightly as they entered the clearing outside of town. She’d come with an escort, naturally: her father and the mayor.

Technically, her father was supposed to be training with the other militia ‘recruits’, but he had received special dispensation to accompany her.

Dispensation. A queer word, made all the moreso by the fact that it had come from her own father’s lips. Which meant that he was certainly repeating his instructions exactly as he had been told them. For though she loved her overprotective hardworking father dearly, he was not a learned man.

Still, she was glad for his presence. The world beyond the walls of their new home was a dangerous one. Never mind that the mine where the cultivator had apparently made his home was but a few hundred meters from the town proper, there was still a risk inherent in making the journey.

Though some of us believe that the true danger begins at our destination, Lin thought wryly glancing towards her dad’s tense posture.

She had a feeling that it was less feral beasts of the four-legged variety that her father was concerned about so much as it was those adopting a far more familiar form. Male cultivators held a reputation, after all. And even a man as unconcerned with the greater world as her father would be aware of it.

…Which was part of the reason Lin was just a little nervous herself.

Excited too, she thought.

Not for any base reasoning – though her imagination was running a little wild. Instead, she was curious about the hidden master’s hidden home.

The Apart Ment had been magical enough. Not a word of the mayor’s speech had been a lie. Light, water and even heat were available at the flick of a switch.

Though all of them had been warned that their easy access to these precious amenities did not necessarily mean they were unlimited. If they were abused, they would swiftly run out.

That, more than anything, seemed to have calmed a number of the cynics present, who had been waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop in regards to their mystical new home. Sure, most people were still waiting for that other shoe to drop, but at least now her mother was no longer looking under every piece of furniture for something… nefarious.

Lin had no idea what that would be, and to be frank, she had a feeling her mother didn’t either.

So instead, she’d taken to zealously guarding every light, heat or water switch in their small two room home. A watch that had been taken up by their father upon his return from training. Though, for whatever reason, her dear father seemed particularly particular about the ‘temperature control dial’.

Still, Lin could now see why being able to house one’s family in the Apart Ment would be an incentive for men and boys to join the new militia. And more importantly, stay when things got tough. The work was certainly dangerous, but those risks came with an opportunity to let their loved ones live like kings.

Many would and had risked far more for much less.

She doubted any member of the militia would lose a family member this coming winter just because it happened to be a little harsher. Nor would they have trouble putting food on the table, given the excellent pay they received.

That was the kind of security men fought and died for. Which meant they’d fight all the harder for their new lord. If not out of loyalty, then out of a desire to retain access to the privileges their new vocation provided.

It seemed their new overseer was more partial to the carrot than the stick, which made him something of an anomaly compared to his peers.

It was also why she personally wasn’t worried about responding to the man’s sudden invitation.

…Or at least, not too worried, she thought, biting her lip as they entered the clearing where the town’s old mine used to lie.

After all, she was walking into a powerful man’s home after receiving an unexpected invitation. And she could think of little reason for a man to have an interest in a random village girl beyond the obvious.

The only reason she wasn’t quaking in her boots was the fact that it had been stressed repeatedly by the kindly mayor that she could refuse said invitation. The man had stressed it enough that she actually believed him when he said that it wasn’t just a way of giving face to her father. If she desired, she genuinely could just… ignore the overseer’s summons.

Between that, the actions of the man’s student, and his construction of the Apart Ment, she was choosing to believe that the overseer of Jiangshi was of a benevolent sort.

And as she’d noted earlier, she was curious.

Though some part of her couldn’t help but note that even a benevolent cultivator wasn’t strictly kind. She, like many girls, had made a trip to the city to be tested for cultivation ability, and she’d met – or seen at a distance – plenty of outwardly benevolent cultivators who were… less so when it came to matters of reputation.

Or as they called it in the city, ‘face’.

A concept that cultivators would and did die – or more often kill - to maintain.

Which had made the whole experience very stressful and not fun at all. Constantly walking on eggshells. Being force fed like an animal before being forced to adopt strange poses and perform movements that left her feeling utterly drained. Kowtowing to every cultivator that crossed her path.

The trip had been nearly enough to make her glad she lived out in the boonies.

Nearly, she thought as she eyes the mystical door that heralded the entrance to the overseer’s mysterious home.

“What do we do now?” her father asked warily.

In lieu of responding, the mayor stepped forward and pressed a strange glyph under a strange glass symbol – inadvertently confirming Lin’s suspicion that it functioned as some kind of knocker.

Time passed in nervous silence, before the strange door slid open with an eerie silence, revealing the sullen form of Guo An.

An upset cultivator was never a good thing for a peasant to see, and Lin could feel the very hairs on the back of her neck rising up as she realized the young cat-woman was glaring at her.

Mastering the part of her brain that was begging her to flee from the dangerous beast in front of her, she instead bowed along with her father.

“Young Mistress.” The mayor spoke from his own bowed position. “This Xin Bei has brought young lady Lin as requested.”

The woman’s eyes didn’t deviate from Lin’s form for even a second. “The father may not come. He and the mayor will return to their duties.”

Beside her, Lin’s father stiffened. She could see he wanted to argue – to do something – but he was no fool. Simple, perhaps, but that simplicity concealed a deeper wisdom borne of a hard life. For every farmer knew that no matter how much you might wish to save your crop, there was still no use in fighting the hurricane.

Arguing against a cultivator was much the same, and liable to have similar results for anyone foolish enough to do so.

Instead, he simply stood up, and gave her one final solemn look.

“I will await your return, my daughter.”

“I’ll be fine, dad.” Lin tried to comfort him. “I’ll see you later.”

He smiled sadly, before following after the retreating form of the mayor.

“She won’t be harmed.”

Everyone present was surprised by the sudden words. Empress, even the speaker themselves sounded a little caught off guard. Which was made all the more surreal by the fact that the words had clearly come from the overseer himself.

Though where he spoke from, Lin had no idea, for her eyes could find no purchase on his distinctive form.

“We’re… we’re just going to chat.” Lin finally realized the words were coming from the door itself! “Don’t worry yourself, old timer.”

Once he overcame his surprise, Lin could see the doubt in her father’s eyes as he regarded the mystic door. Still, he seemed at least slightly mollified by the overseer’s words as he bowed his thanks towards the door.

Which made Lin feel a lot better about the near future. For though she was sure the words were a lie – for what other reason could she possibly be here? – at least she could console herself with the knowledge that the hidden master would not be cruel in his indulgences.

For a man who attempted to assuage the fears of a worried father couldn’t be that bad.

“Come.”

Lin nearly jumped at An’s clipped words, but followed swiftly after her as she turned back into the cave. She nearly jumped again when the door slid shut behind her.

She wasn’t plunged into darkness though. Instead she was surprised to see the halls inside the former mine shaft were as brightly lit as the day outside.

Just like the Apart Ment, she noted, regarding the familiar smooth square halls and strange mystic lights.

She couldn’t help but feel some of her earlier excitement coming back to her as she followed the cultivator deeper into the complex. For just a moment, she found herself reliving some of her older childhood fantasies, of great adventures in sprawling tombs.

And while the complex she found herself in wasn’t exactly a tomb – by all accounts it was quite new – she was a little surprised to see a light dusting of dust scattered across the floor. It was marred only by three sets of foot print. Those that clearly belonged to the woman in front of her. Those that mimicked the powerful foot of the hidden master. And a third mystery set.

Tiny dots. Like those created by… well, she could think of no comparison. The stride was tiny. The size of the foot near a pinprick.

…As if it had come from some oversized, yet still quite small, insect.

Almost unbidden, a shiver ran up her spine. While she was more than a familiar with creepy crawlies – she was a village girl after all – she couldn’t help the inkling of fear that ran through her at the thought of insects as big as her fist crawling around.

Subconsciously, she quickened her pace so that she was just a little closer to the woman in front of her.

Guo An either didn’t notice or chose not to comment. Instead she kept striding forward with measured powerful steps. A warrior’s stride. Which encapsulated the second cultivator of Jiangshi perfectly in Lin’s eyes. She was beautiful, as all cultivators seemed to be, but didn’t know how to use it. Her short red hair shined in the light, her jade-like skin was without blemish… but she was scruffy. Even from the back, Lin could see the small streak of dirt across her cheek from where she’d casually brushed a calloused hand against it.

Likely while practicing.

Lin knew that because it had become something of a pastime amongst the town to watch from the walls as the young cat-woman strode to and fro on the ‘training field’ dueling with invisible opponents.

Yet despite all that, Guo An was easily Lin’s equal – or superior! – in looks.

Which burned.

Lin was as grateful to the woman as any of the refugees that she’s rescued on her journey North – but she would admit that she couldn’t help the small tinge of jealousy that crossed her mind at the other’s woman’s easy attractiveness.

Chi really is unfair, she thought.

The village girl nearly bumped into the cultivator when she suddenly stopped.

The cultivator sniffed and without even turning around, pointed down a hallway to the right. “Go down that hall and take the first opening on the right.”

Then she left, turning down another hallway without even a single backwards glance, her glaive gripped in a single white knuckled hand.

Lin was both glad and disappointed to see her gone.

Swallowing her own trepidation, she followed the other woman’s instructions.

She came upon a room. The overseer himself was there. Sitting at a remarkably plain table, performing his mystic arts, light dancing on his fingertips.

Lin held a breath. This was her first time seeing the man out of armor.

While it wasn’t the main cause of her interest in him, she couldn’t deny that his northern looks did things for her. Something she blamed on a book she’d once read as a younger woman. One of a few such pieces of literature that had been shared by girls around the village across generations.

In secret – though she was sure the men of the village held an equivalent practice.

The girls in question referred to them as romance novels, but Lin personally thought of them more as bodice rippers.

Porn by any other name.

Either way, a young Lin had spent more than one evening in her bed imagining some northern savage from one of those stories coming into her room and ravaging her.

Not exactly the most maidenly of desires, but it was little more than an idle fantasy. More to the point, it was a lot less strange than Klan and her obsession with feet. Or Ping’s unhealthy fascination with boys with cat ears...

…By comparison she liked to consider her deviant desires perfectly normal. Big. Gruff. Muscular. Preferably wealthy.

Criteria she found the man across from her fulfilled handily.

She was quite glad to see that he was as large out of his armor as he was in it. The clothing he wore now was also deceptively simple. A white shirt and pants. As her eyes roamed across him, she was surprised to see what appeared to be a number of piercings running down his arms. Circular coin sized shapes that seemed as if they’d been dug into the skin.

Strange scars too, she thought breathily.

They weren’t from battle. Nor an accident. They were too uniform. Too clean. In that regard, they seemed almost ritualistic. Long straight lines that ran across otherwise pale blemishless skin. From piercing to piercing they ran up his arms. Some were even peeking out from below his neck.

“Ah, you’ve made it.”

Lin nearly jumped as she realized she’d been ogling the man. Panicked, she bowed hastily.

“My lord.”

“Nah.” He waved his hand dismissively, the mystic art he’d been practicing disappearing into motes of light. “No need for all that. I called you out here for a chat.”

She couldn’t help but wonder if that was a euphemism. Now that he was before her, trapped in his home, some of the earlier illicit thrill of the situation had fled in favor of very real fear.

Something must have shown on her face, for her host frowned and Lin felt her panic grow further.

“I suppose that’s the downside of being the big man in town,” he muttered in a voice quiet enough that it implied it was meant to be for his ears alone.

Sighing, he put his palms down on the table. “First of all, calm down. I said you wouldn’t be harmed and I meant it. Should you choose to leave, you need only ask and I’ll escort you to the door myself.”

His voice was an almost irritable grumble, but she could hear some sympathy in there. Awkward and well hidden, but there.

Ironically, it reminder her of her father.

That caused some of her panic to dissipate. Sure, It wasn’t quite quite like her fantasies - in those the man took what he wanted until the lady liked it – but now that she was in the real world, she found she much preferred being given an out.

“Good.” The man said as she pulled herself together. Then he surprised her by striding around the table and pulling out a chair for her. “Now how about you have a seat and we can have a chat.”

Despite herself, Lin blushed. She was being treated like a proper sect lady.

“Thank you, Master Cultivator.” She took a seat.

Now feeling a little calmer, she made sure to be graceful as she did so. Flicking her hair just so. She was a beautiful woman and now that she’d calmed down a bit, she’d try to take advantage of that. Men were born bigger and stronger so women had to use every advantage they could eke out – if they didn’t have the opportunity to become cultivators.

And if one can’t be a cultivator, there are a number of advantages in gaining the ear of one, she thought.

Her stomach thrilled as his eyes were drawn to the slight parting of her robes as she leaned back. Cultivator or not, the master was still a man.

Taking a seat himself, he looked at her. “At first I had planned for a slightly more romantic notion for this evening.”

She was surprised by that frank statement.

“Has that plan changed, master cultivator?” she asked, a hint of nervousness in her voice.

“It has.” He nodded. "While you were walking over here, I came to a realisation. I don’t know enough. And that could be lethal. So I need to start implementing rule twelve of the evil overlord list if I’m going to start moving forward.”

Lin tried to keep her face serene as she listened, even as she tried to parse through the hidden meaning in the man’s cryptic statement. He was a hidden master. There were none more learned in the land.

“I fail to see what this lowly one could impart to you,” she said slowly.

More to the point, she was more than a little concerned by his comment about an ‘evil’ list.

He looked at her. In thought.

Then he seemed to come to a decision.

“Alright, first of all, you can stop with the lowly one crap.” He said. “I mean it’s fun, but sometimes I just want to have a normal conversation. To that end I’m Jack.”

Lin’s eyes widened.

“And you’re?” he continued.

“Lin.” Her words came more out of surprise than any real intent to answer.

“Good.” He smiled. “That’s a start. Now, next, anything we talk about here isn’t going to leave this room.”

Lin nodded slowly.

“Good.” He repeated. Then sighed. “Alright, I’m going to feel like an ass for doing this, but I think the point needs to be made.”

Reaching over, he gripped the rim of the table and sqeezed.

Lin watched with wide eyes as metal screamed and deformed under bare fingers.

Releasing the now twisting hunk of metal, he eyed her once more. “I’ll repeat. Nothing we talk about here leaves this room. Is that understood?

Lin nodded. A lot more firmly this time.

Running a hand through his shaggy blonde hair, the man sighed. “Great. Now I’m threatening lone girls in my basement. Ma would be proud.” He leaned back. “I should have just gone for some wining, dining and then a little fun. Not this cloak and dagger shite.”

Lin watched, more perplexed than anything else. She was glad to see he apparently didn’t enjoy threatening her. That was a good sign. Though it begged the question as to why he felt he needed to.

When a cultivator requested something, the threat was implicit. It didn’t need to be stated.

He glanced at her again. “Look, I know this is confusing, but it’ll make sense soon enough. Or it won’t. Doesn’t really matter to me. I just need you to answer my questions.”

“Yes, Great… Jack.”

“Quick learner.” The man grinned, and for the first time since she sat down he seemed genuinely pleased.

Which was why the next words out of his mouth were all the more perplexing.

“First of all, why do you have goat horns? And why does An out there have cat ears?”

-----------

Lin didn’t know how much later it was that she stumbled out of the room, the door sliding shut behind her. Though she was not stumbling for any of the reasons she suspected she might when she had initially walked in.

The cult- No, Jack had not laid a single finger on her, yet she felt like she’d just been mauled by a bear.

The hidden master is a human.

Lin almost laughed.

The Celestial Empire hadn’t held a human within its borders for thousands of years. Once the twelve divinities ascended to human form, they’d interbred with the then human populace. Naturally, the half-beast traits had bred true thereafter.

Half-beasts went from a few scattered individuals, to a minority, to a majority, to the only race on the continent. She didn’t know how long that took, but eventually the humans of the Empire were bred out of existence.

Or so the tale went… personally, she strongly believed that the final transition was less peaceful than the old legends claimed. She doubted Humans went easily into extinction.

Except they aren’t extinct, are they?

Because one was in the room behind her. He was not a half-horse or snake-kin like many suspected, but a human.

One who apparently also wasn’t a cultivator.

“Are you ok?”

The grudging words came from her right.

Lin didn’t jump though. She was too tired for that as she turned to see the only real cultivator of the village.

Guo An was standing there, arms crossed, ears twitching with irritation. There was a little concern there too though. In the eyes and the way they roamed over her.

Lin was tempted to tell her everything. The cultural need to obey cultivators gnawed away at her heart. To tell her that the man she followed was no cultivator, but a user of mystic artifacts who claimed to be from another world. To beg her not to kill them all for being witness to his deceit.

She stopped herself though.

Cultivator or not, the man was powerful. More to the point, who would believe her? Even to her own ears the words sounded mad.

She wasn’t even entirely sure the man himself wasn’t mad.

Another world? Rocks that could think when you put lightning in them? Ships that traveled the stars?

She shook her head.

“I’m fine.”

An nodded, before returning to scowl, eyes continuing to roam over Lin’s form. She seemed a little surprised to see her clothing nor hair were disheveled. Then her nose flared and her eyes widened further.

Lin flushed as she realized with some indignance that the woman was using her superior senses to smell her.

Confusion blossomed on the cat-woman’s face as the scent she expected to smell remained absent. She looked like she was about to ask a question but stopped herself.

“I am to escort you back into town.”

“My thanks, mistress cultivator.” Lin bowed, ignoring just how happy the other woman sounded as she said it.

Just as she ignored the way the mighty warrior across from her practically skipped all the way to the gates.

---------------

Jack slammed his head against a table.

A head that contained a lot more knowledge than it did three hours ago. About the Empire. About cultivators. About lots of things.

Invaluable information for maintaining his cover.

Still… he couldn’t help but feel like he’d lost something.

“I want to get laid!” he groaned into the metal.

Been half tempted to suggest something to that effect after there little Q&A session , but the poor girl had looked so rattled he’d been forced to let her go.

He sighed as he felt his wrist vibrate. Bringing up the display, he saw that a mining drone had run into some kind of problem in tunnel two.

It needed to be looked at.

“Back to the grind,” he muttered as he clambered to his feet.