I attempt to calm myself down, even though the situations are starting to get worse.

This whole time, I’ve been moving in the direction of the market and staying on a predetermined safe path.

My goal is to get to the equivalent to of a wealthy book store café in this part of the outer city.

If I can get to the café there, I can buy a book and a drink, allowing me to appear to be busy. It’ll also give me more practice concentrating on different things.

While I am nowhere near the idea of using parallel processing, I am able to do a form of calculation transference. The scan and automated healing will do the work based on the parameters I’ve set, while I’ll be free to work on other things.

Of course, I still have to take care of any issues that pop up out of those parameters. That doesn’t even include the fact that I will need to buy the books first.

I currently have 2 Big Silver, 10 Silver, 10 Big Coppers, and 20 Copper Coins. This should allow me to handle most situations. Especially with the 2 Big Silver Coins. Since those can buy a spirit stone each, it should be worth even a cultivator’s attention in an emergency.

Unfortunately, it likely won’t mean anything to a young master… but at that point, I’m pretty sure that I’d be in enough trouble that it wouldn’t matter.

As I continued to move, the abusers have now begun telling any victims to attack the rats as well. Luckily, most are exceptionally weak. Which means almost nothing happens, since the rats are able to get away and heal from any attacks. Of course, since I newly tamed the rats, they aren’t able to resist direct hits, so I lost some to this level of attacks.

However, there are quite a few that are actually stronger than their abusers and are still forced to attack. Some are disgraced body cultivators that have been put into poverty or a bad situation for a variety of reasons. There’s even a low tier Qi Condensation cultivator, who was hooked on drugs.

The cultivator who was on drugs seemed to immediately found out that the cravings had stopped and was immediately feeling stronger than ever, but had still attacked according to instructions, nonetheless. Each of these cultivations appeared regretful for their actions and slightly held back on their attacks.

Even with holding back, they did a lot of damage, going through large swathes of the rats at a time.

They soon realized one thing about rats, especially ones under the taming ability.

They breed.

A significant number of the rats I had tamed were already pregnant and generally produce between 6-14 babies. Typically, many of the babies will die, get eaten, or starve. With the taming ability, though, they no longer have to eat and they are in great condition at birth.

So, all the babies are alive and well, while I’m free to replace any killed rats with more from the streets. Overall, even if they killed millions of rats over the course of the next few months, there would still be a net positive number of rats.

In the short term, there won’t be a shortage of tamed ones either.

They never had a chance.

So even as they attack, I have them ignore the victims and attack the abusers and blackmailers directly. Even as they sent low tiered cultivators, there were just too many rats and they were literally overrun and crawled upon.

By the time I reached the bookstore, things had finally calmed down on that front. There were still other situations occurring, but not related to higher leveled people. They seem to be regrouping and gathering information for a response.

On my side, I entered a wealthy branch road. The road is covered in polished stone. The walls made of something resembling painted concrete, with various designs that my intuition tells me represent wealth and security. Various signs reveal a wealth of businesses in this area, each having their own specialty.

To add to it, a large number of people of middle to upper levels of status and wealth are roaming around leisurely. Small teams of bodyguards accompany many of them. A pulse in this area reveals many more shadowing from the rooftops and alleyways.

My shadowy attire and skin color once again draw attention to me. Particularly, because I have neither have someone I’m shadowing nor am I wearing the “proper” level of attire for higher wealth status individual. Thus, I can feel spiritual senses wash over me regularly as I walk down this street. After a few times of this, the spiritual senses come to a sudden end as I breathe out a sigh. Many of the users of said spiritual senses have a bead of sweat on them.

Once again, though, many individuals and groups appear to come to a conclusion. This time, however, I can see people’s eyes widen and they look away quickly before whispering between themselves.

Instead of ignoring this obviously suspicious behavior, I lower the strength of my healing scan activities to figure out what’s going on.

From what I can gather, they believe me to be an undercover noble from the Plains of Akir. Funnily enough, that is what Lin had told me people might assume when they see my skin color.

What she neglected to say is the context of what they would think.

Someone coming from those lands would either be a trader, a bodyguard… or a type of hunter noble called a Maw.

The reason they are called Maws is that the Plains of Akir are a series of open plains with hills that ebb and flow like the water in the middle of the ocean, called the Rolling Hills. It seems to be some kind of natural Qi phenomenon, somewhat similar to earthquakes, but localized in a vastly different way.

There is an intelligent spirit beast called a Fathomless Maw that mimics some of these hills. When it comes across potential prey, the ‘hill’s’ reveals a circular creature that is covered with mouths and teeth.

They hunt down any creature that fits a certain set of characteristics unknown to all but them.

Similarly, to the spirit beast, the noble hunter Maws hide their Qi signature appearing like a normal person. All until they find the person they are looking for, revealing strength and ferocity that could barely be imagined.

As I walk up to the bookstore, people ahead of me seem to have already gotten the memo.

As I attempt to walk as inconspicuously as possible down the street, many nobles and high-status people, who I believe would normally raise a fuss at even the thought of someone moving them out of their path, moves to the far edges of the street.

Huh, this seems familiar… I wonder why?

This continues all the way until I reach the bookstore itself, where two guards stand watch at the door. Strangely, they seem to have been expecting me.

They bowed to me and open the door to invite me in.

… Does every situation I go into have to be dramatic?

Sigh.

At least this will be a great cover for what I'm actually doing. Let’s get this over with.