We quickly registered in the leftmost building.

It wasn’t anything significant or interesting in particular, so I’ll be short about the procedure:

We came in, there was a hall and a big reception desk with around ten receptionists deep into the hall. We came up to one receptionist. The trio gave their identities, our names were recorded, the trio filled out a few papers, the papers were checked and we were handed keys and a number.

Because of my young age, we came up with a story that I asked my senior brothers and sisters to take me out to play. A gold coin shut the receptionist’s eyes to the rule violation, so we were given a pass.

The trio was surprised by the coin I gave, the receptionist was doubtful of our story, according to my observations with psychic abilities, but all parties chose to not show it on their faces.

After all was done, the receptionist told us how to get to our assigned residence.

If I had to add a few details: The hall was spacious and somewhat pretty. There were murals and a fountain and a few tables here and there. There were many people.

I didn’t bother to save any other details to my memory.

Then we went to the small village. The village was quite tidy, the houses were evenly spaced in a way that there was just enough space that the visitors would feel comfortable and it didn’t seem too blocky. All the houses were made in a uniform style.

They were small and cozy-looking. Despite being clearly newly-built, there were some decorative vines climbing by the sides of their white walls. The roofs were of dark red color, with small chimneys sticking out of them. The chimneys were decorative too, I reckoned because the city was located in a place where temperature didn’t drop too much and was always warm.

There were small districts with a few stalls that sold food, toys, books and daily necessities every now and again. The stalls looked uniform too and they were sponsored by the people organizing the whatever Gathering the trio was talking they came to visit. How did I know it? I asked, that’s how.

“Did they build the whole place for the upcoming Assembly?”, I couldn't help but wonder. Once the event was over, would I need to seek out a new place of residence? Besides, it wouldn’t be a problem for cultivators to temporarily create a village but for mortals, mortals of a backwater civilization at that, I wasn’t sure.

Maybe it was. I always had the preconception that any civilization that couldn’t colonize at least a small planet within a century all used stones and occasional lightning to light their fires and spears made out of animal bones to hunt for food.

“Uh, no. It was originally property of one of the seven Great sects, it’s just that it was opened for every martial artist who could pay for the duration of the Assembly”

“But we didn’t pay anything”, the trio all rolled their eyes internally after I said it. They also thought about me. Was it about the gold coin? Is a gold coin very expensive or something? Ah, whatever.

“The sects all booked places in advance”

“Is that so? Then, if our residence was booked for you in advance, would there be no place for me to sleep?”, it was an important question. I could do without food, except for an occasional Rimmet fruit or two, I could go without water, but what would I do if I had to sleep on the floor? I couldn’t do without sleeping, what else would I do to pass the time?

“We’ll figure it out when we get there. We could buy a bed or a futon if worst comes to worst”

“Okay”

While exchanging in this kind of small-talk, we arrived to our house. It was the same as any other house in this part of the village – a one-story building with white walls and ivy crawling up one side of it. A red roof and a chimney for decorative purposes. Two big windows on the front side. It had a small loan in front of it and there were flowers growing there.

We went inside. It was clean, the floor was made of yellow-ish wooded planks and there were three bedrooms and one kitchen that also served as a dining room. The lighting was provided by small bulbous things made of glass that were hanging on the walls. There were some kinds of stones inside those bulbous things that emitted soft light.

There was a door to the back side of the building and behind it was a small loan with an area I believed to be some kind of arena and a small rectangular box made of wood I assumed to be a latrine way further back.

I don’t know about lower-lever mortal civilizations because they all aren’t really worth any attention, but I would assume it would be very expensive to rent such a building for three disciples which is why I believe that the trio might hold some kind of importance to their Withering Hill sect or whatever it was called.

I came to this conclusion because I compared the quality of the buildings and that of the buildings outside the area and the quality of clothing and other factors, but then again, these three belonged to a sect of martial artists who, according to Master, would be able to use rudimentary magical powers of early-stage Foundation Building level at their peak, so maybe it was just a class difference.

All in all, it was a productive day. For the time being, I secured a place to live and three information sources.

The trio went to buy their daily necessities after they looked around the house and I went to sleep. Oh, by the way, there weren’t enough beds, but Helq kindly gave up his place to me. I suspect it was because he thought that I was a higher-level martial artist and he maybe was trying to curry favor, but maybe he just did it out of his own goodwill. I didn’t really bother to read his intentions with my psychic powers because I wanted to sleep and would accept the bed regardless anyway.

When the trio came back, they woke me up, which made me a bit upset. They then gave me two Rimmet fruits with other snacks and then my bad feelings were washed away like sands in a river.

I then went back to sleep.