I was dropped off in a desert. With no water, no food, a single set of clothes to my name and a hand-sized leather bag of inferior-grade cast metal that was shaped into flat round pellet-like things with some sorts of engravings on them (the metal seems to be a mix of gold and some other metals). That was all I had on my person. Well, there’s also the Solomon’s ke- I mean the sword Master gave me.

Oh, there’s also a communicator flag that I can make a call to Master in case things go wrong(a terrible quality of the formation I must say, it is so disgusting that I don’t even want to touch it, I might catch the idiocy of whoever dared to consider themselves good enough for even entertaining the idea to even try making formations. It’s gross. Let’s just forget about it)

I will revise this… flag… later. No, let’s just make a new one from scratch.

Before I could ask anything (I couldn’t speak while Master flew with me as I risked biting my tongue), I was left here. I can’t call Master now for obvious reasons so I guess I’ll just head in the general direction of where I feel it’s right to go?

The city should be… there. My intuition is very sharp, so I can trust it on this.

…

…

…

It’s been three hours of walking in this desert under the scorching Sun and no city, or any other sort of human habitat for that matter, has been found. I am feeling tired.

As a Qi-Refinement Disciple I am way above mortal humans in terms of survivability and general physical qualities, so I am not afraid of getting hurt, but I am getting a bit thirsty.

It’s a good thing I have this wonderful sword on me.

*Shinn*

Just listen to the crisp sound of it coming out of the sheath! Music to the ears. Hilda would probably call it trash though. Whatever, I say it’s good enough.

Hm… How should I call you? How about...

“Serve me well, Rettferdighetens!”

Rettferdighetens means Sun God’s Rapier in Terpeno. I just felt like calling it like this. Ret for short. “Ret” means “Kettle” and it’s the first syllable of “Rettferd” which stands for “God”.

Why did I take out Ret, you may ask. The answer is simple. I shall use it to the full ability as a Solomon’s key. Since I am thirsty, I will take 20 of the weird pellets (what are these anyway? Do mortals use them? I can’t remember) and arrange them in a sacrificial formation called “Multiprism”.

Multiprism is the most reliable formation among the simpler ones when it comes to converting the five elements and it requires only “the sacrifice” in the form of an object primarily made of the element I want to sacrifice and the caster to operate it.

Obviously, the purer the element in the objects, the better the efficiency of the formation. The pellets have lots of impurities, I don’t even have to use the Solomon’s key to confirm it. Still, they should be enough to make a liter of water for me, which will last me for about 4 days.

Now, I have arranged the pellets in the necessary shape, all I have to do is tilt the balance of the 5 elements with my mental power slightly. This is where the Solomon’s key comes in. On my own, I would not be able to control my mental power so accurately and I’d be able to only maybe slightly control chemical reactions in the cells of living organisms at the very best.

I held out my Sun God’s Rapier in front of me and began chanting.

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”, if you are wondering what I am saying, it’s a small trick for focusing mental energy. You come up with a mantra and repeat it over and over while holding the Solomon’s key is in your hand and guiding your mental energy through imaginary cycled lines in the air. Those lines are the actual “body” of the formation, while I’m “the eye” of the formation, but more of it can come later.

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”, there wasn’t any wind before, but a few gusts began to gather around me, raising the sand up. It’s a sign of my mental power affecting the balance of the elements.

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”, the pellets began jumping up and down while glowing red. The gusts have turned into a strong wind already. For a rookie formation master, it would cause a problem with concentration, but I am no rookie.

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”, The pellets were stably floating in front of me. They were glowing red and beginning slowly fade away.

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”, the winds started calming down. The pellets were blinking in and out of existence, switching between illusory and corporeal states.

“Rettferdighetens’ist’terf’Iageri’mopper”, I slashed the air in front of me with Rettferdighetens and then-

*Boom*

With the last chant, lightning hit in front of me and the smell of ozone permeated the air. Did I succeed?

“cough cough”, a lot of dust rose in the air. I took my time to adjust to the sudden change of the environment.

“It worked, I guess”, I touched the sand in front of me and it was wet. It worked indeed.

If you are wondering why that lightning didn’t evaporate the water or why the sand wasn’t burned and melted, well, it is because the lightning that hit me before was nothing more than a weak (comparably to the real thing) spark that appeared because of the upset balance of the elements.

It is basically harmless. It is loud though.

Now you may want to ask how I am going to drink the water if it was absorbed by the sand or evaporated into the air. But if you think about it, I was able to turn the metal pellets into water, would it be hard for me to extract said water from the environment?

I just raised Rettferdighetens and…

“Rettferdighetens’ti’qaster”, the water was telekinetically gathered from the ground into the shape of a ball. It’s not even dirty, though I am pretty much immune to whatever diseases mortals may suffer.

It’s not even a spell, it’s just me using my psychic abilities and amplifying them with the Solomon’s key. Moving things telekinetically is something any Qi-Gathering disciple can do, it’s just hard because at this stage the mental energy is too weak and it’s hard to control.

“Gulp, gulp, gulp”, drinking it like this is a bit annoying though.

…

…

Another three hours later and I finally saw a caravan going through the desert. It was getting dark though, so they didn’t see me though.

I went towards them as they moved slowly and it would be no problem for me to catch up to them. They were probably thinking of stopping to camp soon.

It took me ten minutes to get close enough to them for somebody to notice me.

“Halt! Who are you?”, a tall tanned man who had his upper body exposed pointed a sabre at me as he yelled.

“What?” “What is going on?” “Somebody is here...” “It’s a child?”

All kinds of murmurs filled the air. I was finally noticed. I raised my arms in the air and tried to smile, which of course didn’t work that well…

“Who are you?!”, the half-naked man yelled at me even madder than before. How rude. He even began to shake that giant sabre.

“I am nobody of any consequence”, I hope I didn’t butcher the language. Master gave me a dictionary a day before he sent me to the mortal country, so I didn’t have that much time to learn it. I did try my best though.

“Are you messing with us?!”, is this man, perchance, mentally challenged? I am clearly a frail-looking ten-year-old boy. You don’t yell at ten-year-old boys. See? The people in the caravan were whispering.

“Calm down, Randolf”, a lean and tall man who was dressed in black robes stepped in to help me. He was also tanned and his hair was greyish, so I suppose he was the senior, at least in age.

“Okay”, Randolf, as it seemed his name was, took a deep breath and gave way. Nice. I don’t like to talk to people not willing to make a conversation.

“Excuse me, senior”, the middle-aged man bowed, “May I ask what has brought you to our humble caravan?”, another round of whispers, this time with people looking at the middle-aged man and then at me and then looking away.

Senior? What? Hmm…

“Would you be, by any chance, a martial practitioner?”

“Yes, senior. This one belongs to the Iron Fighter sect. Please, feel free to call this one Alec”

So, Alec was a martial artist, huh.

“I see, Alec. Would you then enlighten me as for how you determined that I was someone worthy of being called a senior?”

“Yes, this one will be glad to be of help. While this one is incompetent, this one has been able to survive this far by being able to tell how powerful those he met on the road were”

As I thought. Then Randalf wasn’t rude, he was afraid, huh. He also seemed to sense the danger that I was to them.

While there’s a difference between Qi-Refinement disciples and Foundation Establishment ones, anyone of them could easily destroy a mortal settlement of around a thousand humans alone, of course, if you don’t account for martial artists intervening.

Even without using qi, I am confident to stand my ground against most martial artists and, if things go south, I can always escape.

I guess these people have a certain degree of intuition too.

“I see. It was very insightful. Then the next question is, where is the next city?”

Alec visibly sweated, and it wasn’t because he was in the desert.

“The closest city… senior… is the destination of our humble caravan”

“And that destination is where?”

“It’s in that direction, senior. If you go-”

“I see. This is plenty of enough information for me. Oh. I have another question, actually. What is this?”, I took out a pellet from the bag Master gave me.

“It’s a golden coin, senior”, what’s a coin?

“A coin?”

“Yes, senior”, he seems to speak as if it’s obvious what a coin is. What could it be…

“Is it used for trading?”

“Yes, senior”, bingo! I knew it. Underdeveloped mortal nations seemed to value gold a lot, I remembered.

“And how much is this golden coin?”

“It’s enough to let a large family live for a season if spent frugally”, Alec was visibly disturbed by my questions. I didn’t care. Why would I care for what a mortal thought of me? I am here for just a year, not a decade. And since a full bag of these coins...

“Does your caravan accept trading requests on the road? I want to buy some things”

“I am sorry, senior, I can’t answer you, My men are guarding the caravan, please let us call the merchant in charge of these requests”, he was so afraid he replaced his “this one” to a less humble “I”.

“Sure. I want to buy two flasks of water and, if you have them, ten kilograms of Rimmet fruits”

“Yes, sir”, he bowed and scattered away as if his life depended on it. I have been fairly reasonable so far, why be so irritably afraid of me? That Randolf fella was much more courageous than Alec. Or maybe his senses were worse and Alec can sense the extent of my ability better?

It took half a minute for Alec to bring a fat old man(in mortal perspective at least) towards me. The old fatty looked afraid, but not as much as Alec. He didn’t seem scared for his life.

“Good day, senior”, the old fatty bowed towards me. He seemed calmer than Alec indeed.

“I want to buy two flasks of water and ten kilograms of Rimmet fruits”

“Yes, senior. We will be more than happy to provide you with the goods”

“How much?”

“It would be 16 silver coins, senior”

“I only have gold ones. How many in gold coins?”

“It would be 1 coin, sir. And the change would be 14 silver coins”

“Got it. Here’s the coin”, I decided to take the change. I probably won’t need the money too much as I was given a lot already and didn’t need as much as mortals in terms of necessities but I decided to take the smaller denomination coins just in case.

“Here’s your change, senior. How would you like to receive the Rimmets? You could give us an address and-”

“Just give them to me in a bag. I will carry them”

“Are you sure, senior?”

“Yes, now get my things”

Two people then brought the bag and two flasks. The old fatty and Alec looked worried but it was easy for me to carry the stuff.

“Bye”, without listening to the answers, I went on my way.

I could stay with the caravan, but did I have to? They were slower than me and getting across this desert wasn’t that hard.

Being a centre of unwanted attention would, however, so I planned to get to the city before the caravan, find a place to lay low and spent the year while laying low. This way, I wouldn’t get tangled in annoying things.

Another idea I had was maybe settling in an isolated place but I decided to spend the time leisurely and using mortal civilization to enjoy a certain degree of comfort.

I wasn’t like those old monks who practised asceticism, why would I suffer any measure of hardship if I could avoid it? Besides, Master asked me to look at mortal humans once again, not that it will change anything. I don’t hate mortals nor do I have any traumas associated with them. I even used to read their books.

I am acting like this towards them because I am too old and they aren’t that interesting to me anymore. But it’s not a big deal to give looking at them again a try.