Chapter 32 – Adventures of an old dreamer

The sun was rising, signifying the beginning of a new day, and the reawakening of life. Truly, it was an auspicious moment of the day.

At least that was what Lao Chen thought as a band of hardened warriors made their presence in the untouched grassland, the sun slowly rising up from the boundless horizon.

The Sunrise Seekers stood tall, and the other warriors gave them a wide berth. They were nine in total. One wore that black and gold armor, another was a Kawan woman of great physical strength and a man wearing a towel-like clothing wrapped elaborately around his head with a sapphire embedded right in the middle. Those three were at the forefront while the six others behind stood watch.

Before Lao Chen could get a better look at them, the man in the black and gold armor spoke up.

“My name is Yamikaze. My colleague on the left,” he gestured at the Kawan woman. “Is named Neressa. My colleague on the right is called Aboud. We will be presiding over this selection examination.”

Dead silence.

“As for what you shall do,” he gestured towards Aboud who pulled out a pin from his head-wrap, making it extend into a staff. He threw the staff into the air as though it were a spear, and after a moment, it flew down towards the Earth in a vertical plane, embedding itself deeply within. The staff suddenly began to extend, growing taller than the average tree before stopping.

Aboud removed the sapphire and flicked it upwards, hitting the top surface of the staff.

“Collect the gem,” Yamikaze spoke loudly. “The one closest to the person who collected it shall reap the same benefit of joining us.”

A man raised his fist. “May we fight our competitors?”

“It’s the most effective tactic, yes?” Yamikaze replied. “You may fight your competitors. Also, to isolate personal strength, you shall not be allowed to utilize any magical treasure. If we catch you, we will blacklist you from any future recruitment. Do not kill, either. We do not have a permit for lethal events.”

The silence stretched on.

“Begin.”

Contrary to what Lao Chen expected, the burly men around him didn’t jump at the chance to climb the staff. Rather, they started pummeling those around them. Lao Chen and his daughter remained untouched around the pandemonium.

“Unsightly,” Lin-Lin sneered. “Should I make quick work of them?”

“That won’t be fun,” Lao Chen tutted. “Let’s constrain ourselves. No flight.”

“Even with a single leap, we could get up there,” Lin-Lin argued. “Face it, father. This test was simply not meant for people like us.”

“Hey!” A man approached the two of them. “This place is dangerous. Leave before somebody accidentally hurts you.”

Lao Chen’s expression was fearful. “Really, now? Hurt me?”

“Yes! Please lea-” The poor man couldn’t finish his sentence before a fist slammed into his cheek. The man was promptly reabsorbed into the chaos.

Lao Chen faced his daughter. “Let’s pretend we are actually one thousandth of our actual strength.”

“One thousandth?” She asked. “That’s… it sounds challenging.”

“That’s the point, daughter,” Lao Chen winked.

He spotted a man who had just defeated another. Lao Chen rushed towards him, delivering a punch to the gut. The man staggered backwards before trying to land a similar punch to Lao Chen, who dodged easily and got in several more hits before the man gave in and fell.

Lao Chen turned around to see Lin-Lin having adopted a hit-and-run tactic, delivering a series of swift, but ultimately weak hits in order to wear down enemies. Death from a thousand cuts, Lao Chen thought eagerly.

Lao Chen spotted a burly man climbing up the staff, only for him to get dragged down by some other contestant, and then get beaten into submission. The man who defeated the other was spry, covered in sinewy muscle which he showed off quite shamelessly. He would get to the Sapphire at the rate at which he was climbing.

Lao Chen sped past the contestants and ran up the staff vertically for as long as gravity didn’t take over. He reached just high enough to grab onto the man’s leg, yanking him off the staff and throwing him down on the ground.

The man recovered mid-air and pulled Lao Chen with him. Lao Chen, with the strength he was limiting himself to, had no way of getting off the man’s hold.

Lao Chen sighed. He had him beat already.

Lao Chen scaled up some of his strength and flipped the man over just as they landed. Lao Chen’s fall was cushioned by the man, lying broken and battered on the grass.

Getting up, he looked towards his Nascent Soul, directing a need for attention towards her. Her head snapped towards him and they both set out for the staff.

The burlier men who had come, thinking that muscular strength was all that was required to brave the wonders of the world, were mostly defeated, replaced by warriors of true strength. They came in several shapes. Extremely muscular to extremely sinewy. Some were even fat, but they all had the spirit to compete.

Lao Chen and Lin-Lin ran up the staff, twisting and dodging past the other contestants who sought to ruin their chances.

With a final heave in which they pulled themselves up, they both reached the Sapphire before the closest contestant could reach them.

The darkly armored man clapped his hands twice, and all noise ceased.

“This year’s recruitment has concluded. The rest of you may disperse. Take your wounded with you. There shall be none remaining within this field within a hundred breaths. You two,” he pointed at the pair. “Descend and introduce yourselves.”

As Lao Chen and Lin-Lin descended, spinning around the pole, they watched as all the myriad warriors crawled up from the ground and ran.

When they finally touched the ground, the pole shrank in on itself and the turbaned man came to retrieve his sapphire before bowing out. The darkly clad warrior approached them, now.

“Names?”

“Mine is Lao Chen,” he replied. “This is my daughter, Lin-Lin.”

She bowed.

“How old is your daughter?” He asked darkly.

“Eighteen,” Lao Chen lied. “Is that a problem?”

“We do not allow children with us,” he said. “That’s all. Only people that are fifteen and older make the cut. She is safe. How old are you?”

“Eighty-five,” he replied.

He nodded. “Sunrise Seekers assemble. Introduce yourselves.”

Six other people stepped forward, all significant in their own strange way. Aside from the woman named Neressa, there was another Kawan in the group, one much thinner and more wiry. He wore no shirt and had baggy pants and a bald head. The only bright thing about him was his eyes, and even they had spots as dark night in the middle.

And the raised markings on his skin coiled and snaked around his torso in several windings before tapering off at his arms, altogether disappearing by the time they reached his hands.

“My name is Nyoka.”

Another was strange. His skin-color was a pale pink, he wore a strange, black cylindrical hat with a horizontal brim, a black coat with two points at its back, a white shirt with buttons and a pair of black pants.

“John,” he said.

A woman caught Lao Chen’s eye, brimming with fierce passion and determination. She had long, maroon hair flowing to her waist, black, tight and shiny leggings and eyes that told of many years of living.

“Roni.”

Two similar-looking males stood by each other, both wearing a standard white martial arts outfit, but one’s hair was black while the other was white, making it all the more easy to distinguish them.

“I’m Li Du Yi,” said the one with the black hair. “And I’m Li Ren Min.”

The last was a bulky man, taller than anyone else in the group. His head was bald, but he had a large mustache that reached all the way down to his chin. He wore no shirt, either, and had a large sword strapped to his back.

“I’m Viktor.”

Lao Chen nodded. He was going to forget all of their names pretty soon.

“We are happy to be here,” said Lao Chen. “Where do we go from here?”

“Our destination is Fusang,” he said. He gestured towards Aboud, who removed a map from… somewhere. Huh. That was strange. He unfurled the map and laid it flat on the ground. The title read ‘Azure Empire’ in both common notation and in Azurish. There were several dots on it. “We are currently here,” he pointed at the dot closest to the right edge of the map. “Our destination is here,” he pointed to the exact opposite end, at the leftmost edge of the map. “We’re stopping here, here and here for important issues that we need to iron out. We travel during the day, and during the night-time if the need arises. If we run out of money, we will have to do jobs while we travel.”

Lao Chen nodded. “That seems fair.”

“But that’s only the first half of the journey,” Yamikaze said. “Make no mistake, there will be dangers, but none as threatening as those we may find once we enter the threshold of Fusang, especially the threats we may face as we attempt to recover our quarry.”

“And what is that, may I ask?” Lao Chen asked curiously.

“You are a Sunrise Seeker for as long as you may have us, so naturally, we’d have to tell you. We seek the child of a Divine Beast.”

Lao Chen’s heart palpitated in excitement. A divine beast? From legend?

“Which one?” Asked Lin-Lin, equally excited. “The white tiger? The vermillion bird?!”

“Any that we may find,” Yamikaze replied. “The era of gestation is ending, and the gods of the forest are about to give rise to their pups. The Black Tortoise, Vermillion Bird and Azure Dragon lays many eggs, and the White Tiger births many cubs, but most of these beasts do not live far enough to see adulthood due to the harshness of their environment. It is neither unfair nor unlawful if we take these children. Even the runts can carry devastating power, but the Divine Beasts are spiteful creatures. They will not let what is theirs go so easily. It will be dangerous, and you may die.”

“I don’t care!” Lao Chen exclaimed. “Divine Beasts?! Ah, how amazing!”

Yamikaze grinned. “You have an adventurers soul. We can use someone with your strength and ambition. The day is very young, so we shall head out immediately. We pack light. Is that a problem?”

Lao Chen held up his bags of holding. “No problem at all, sir.”

“Great. Let’s move.”