By noon the next day, we were in sight of one of the villages we had passed on our way to Ouhl; I could not tell if it was actually the closest and we had missed one or more, or whether we had been right on the money, but whichever it was, I was glad to see it. I had not yet received a mission from Xiournal, and I guessed it was as I had been given it directly. But the lack of even vague direction was making me itch; up to that point, I had always had a solid direction to go in, even if the nature of my destination was clouded.

It was ironic; I had bargained for my freedom, and there I was with a taste of what that meant and I was already wishing for less. I assumed I would get past it eventually, but from what the dragon had said, my brain had been created without habits, so all of my reactions were based on the time I had been on my new home. For all of that time I had been following her instructions, it was all I was used to.

The village sat low on the horizon, barely rising above the hollow in the earth it sat in; there was no wall that I could see, which likely meant there was no wall at all. In order for any wall to be useful on that world, it needed to be pretty huge, I had learned.

It did not take long to approach the settlement and we were greeted by a man in a long brown robe and a spear in his hand, as well as a larger, completely hairless man holding what looked like a giant flanged mace over one shoulder.

The five of us slowed to a halt a dozen feet from the two of them; we were still a short distance away from the village, but it was more of a symbolic distance; nobody at the Core stage or above would take more than a bare moment to close the distance.

“Hail, strangers. What brings you to our village?”

“With polite deference, we are looking for direction to the nearest city.. that is not Ouhl. If you can provide us with such, we will be on our way.”

Reff offered a bow to the speaker in the brown robe, hands held palms outwards to show he was not armed; again, this was a symbolic gesture, but I guessed he was doing everything he could to reassure the villagers.

“Or if you happen to have some kind of access to extremely fast global transport, that would also be great.”

Reff and Riffa completely ignored my interjection, but Darina and Toria gave pointed looks that told me not to ask stupid questions; I did not actually expect the villagers to have any sort of hyper-rapid transport, of course, but I had learned not to make assumptions. It was a world of boundless magic and possibility, and after all, I was pretty lucky. Not that lucky though, it seemed.

The villager with the spear and robe spared me a short glance before turning back to Reff, his neck craned slightly.

“It is good that you avoid Ouhl, stranger. The people there are strange, aggressive. I sense that you already know something of this?”

“With careful confirmation, that is correct. Though I should let you know, that it seems like the source of the aggression has been... depleted.”

“Even with it gone, I’d still rather burn my foot off than visit, eh, Mayor?”

When the mace-wielder spoke, his voice was gravely and gruff as if he had spent a lifetime drinking and smoking, but that was unlikely to be the case; it would take some pretty aggressive products to affect the throat of even a Focus stage cultivator.

“Perhaps a little extreme, Castian, but not far off. Populated by the insane and the reckless.”

“Seems weird to live so close if they suck that much, don’t you think?”

Darina swung a suddenly clawed hand at my head, but I dodged easily with a grin. The mayor was looking at us like Ouhl had come calling, but otherwise ignored my comment.

“The next nearest city is Crescent Bay.” The major paused and glanced between us again, examining us with narrowed eyes. “It’s about a month East for a Core stage. You need to pass over the mountains and head towards the sunrise. There’s only one pass within a year of here, you shouldn’t be able to miss it.”

“Excuse me, Honoured Mayor, but how do you know our stages?”

It was Darina that had spoken, and I nearly swiped a hand at her head, but I did not think she would take it in the manner in which it was meant. The question made no sense to me, since none of us were Core stages, but I did not want to say anything in case she was up to something.

“Simple deduction; you are all too young for more. Too young to be away from your masters, or your sect, even with the smell of battle Experience wafting off you.”

The man – who looked to be middle-aged – wrinkled his nose as if catching a noxious scent, though it was a relatively subtle movement. I glanced at his companion - the one with the giant-mace – with my eyebrow raised. The man looked plenty capable of battle himself, but maybe his Focus was all on looking tough.

“I see. Thank you for answering my question, Honoured Mayor.”

“You are most welcome, young lady. Now, if you will be on your way, I’m afraid you’re making Castian here nervous.”

“I’m not nervous, Mayor. They can stay all week for al-”

“As I said, it’s that way. East.”

The mayor spoke over his companion, voice raised to drown out his words. Castian looked a little irritated, but seemed to shed the feeling with a shrug. I did not really blame the mayor for not wanting us to stay – we were strangers – but it was kind of a dick-move to blame his friend.

“Well, I guess we better get going then. East you said, over the mountains?”

“That’s right.”

“With calming gratitude, thank you, Mayor. We will depart.”

With an awkward wave that earned me a frown, I set off around the village along with my friends; we tried our best to stay away from the village so as to not make them more nervous, before heading East, the eyes of the mayor on our backs until we passed over the horizon.

*

***

*

Two weeks into our trip to Crescent Bay we found the mountains the mayor had told us about; they were hard to miss, rising out of the horizon like the spine of the world. They towered high above us, and even the foothills in which we soon found ourselves were larger than any mountains back on Earth.

It was in those foothills that we camped as we looked for the pass that had been mentioned; I was in a fairly bad mood due to the delays it was causing, and starting to wish we had just waited. There were even odds between somebody showing up to pick us up and not, but out there in the wilderness between settlements, it was unlikely that we would be found by anybody looking. Even an Apex, traveling at top speed, using their Domains could take years to find us. I had Walker’s dagger, of course, which I had taken to wearing through the sash at my waist, but even if the tall Apex found us, he’d probably could not take us all back. Unless we wanted to sit on swords... Either way, I had it out in case he could give directions, but I was not holding out a great deal of hope.

In my bad mood, I sat a short distance from the softly glowing heat bottle, staring up at the stars. There seemed to be more than there had been on Earth, the sort of vista you’d see in sci-fi art, countless dots of light in every colour. I found them endlessly fascinating, though even they could not remove the quiet irritation brewing inside of me.

About half-way through the night, as I sat my watch, gazing out over the plains behind us, I heard a gasp of indrawn breath in a voice that was obviously Riffa. I leapt to my feet, head swivveling to look around us again as I wondered furiously why my danger sense had given no warning. Seeing nobody, I turned to the risi, along with her brother, Darina and Toria, all of whom had been woken up by the sharp noise.

“Riffa, what’s the matter? Did something bite you? Do insects even get that small here? Are you okay?”

“With contained elation, I have completed the integration of my Exemplar, Hunter.”

“Awesome news, congrats, Riffa!”

Reff leaned in and simply hugged his sister sedately in what I had come to think of as an out-of-control celebration for the giants. I was amazed that she had made the breakthrough, and so soon after her older brother. As I had learned, the Core stage was the average for the general population, with each stage above that increasingly rare.

“That’s amazing, Walking Sand. I’m close, but you beat me to it.”

“I am close too, but it seems you have bested the both of us, Riffa. And Hunter, of course.”

I was even more astonished that the other apprentices were close to the Foundation stage; they were both significantly younger than either of the risi, and Darina in particular had already completely discarded and re-established her cultivation once. Despite my recent gains – which were pretty much cheating, in the context of cultivation – I still felt envy; I was at eighty percent, as I had discovered on the journey. It really was a massive jump, and I assumed some of it came from my massive hump in dilation due to the introduction of Veritas and Sapience. I had, however, been completely unable to shift it higher since I had made the discovery.

“You’re both close? I guess I’m being left behind. How close are you?”

“You’re hardly being left behind, Hunter. You have so many unfair advantages that you might as well have multiple Cores. And don’t think you won’t be showing me that channel pattern once we get back to my Master, I intend to take that unfair advantage for myself.”

There was general agreement from the others that they would like to try their hands at re-drawing their energy systems – with the help of the Apex of the Mending Flesh. I had tried to explain how truly horrifying the agony was, but there were simply no sufficiently descriptive words and they all seemed to think they’d be fine. As long as I was assured of their survival, I was happy to show them the pattern; it was nice to be strong, but I was not looking to take over the world or anything, so I dd not think sharing with my friends and their closest masters would be a big deal. Hopefully...

“Yeah, I said I’d help, once I know you’re not going to explode yourself. You said I died like a dozen times just doing an arm, I don’t want you trying it without your master around.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Sure.”

“I woul-”

“Ever Flowing... Hunter. Please, not again. To answer your question, I will likely complete my Exemplar within a few months. Perhaps less, if events continue to happen as they have.”

“Sorry, Toria. That’s great. At least you all seem to know what makes your integration go up. You’ll all hit Pinnacle and I’ll still be sat here glaring at my inner frog.”

I did not think I would be getting any other bumps due to stealing energy, I would need to make another break through on the use of my powers if I wanted to finish up. But what could you actually do with time?