Kaden left the arena behind. For a moment he thought of running away, but he was kind of where he wanted to be. Slightly too soon, but still the right place. Sidon would also likely be able to find him in the city. Surely there were shadier places where he could hide, but he lacked knowledge of them.

There also lingered the question why Sidon truly kept him around. Was it just greed? Yet, for the time being the arena could be his home. It was a relatively good place.

It was evening and the city was getting dark. Main roads were kept lit, but anywhere outside one had to provide light by themselves. Darkness was a problem only for common people anyway. People who had reached Channel Opening had already relatively good senses. As for Kaden, darkness meant nothing.

He was not sure what he should have expected of a city. Back in Dashire he had always wanted to go see what Celadon looked like. That was much smaller city than Corand, but just how much different would it be?

On the darker side paths Kaden found things. There were the obvious, such as drunk people staggering about as they were trying to find their way home or perhaps even a place to doze off. There were also homeless people and Kaden wondered for a moment why they had not been dumped to the slums outside yet. Eventually he even found himself at curious streets with red lights. It didn’t take long for him to understand the purpose of that area. Kaden wasn’t much interested in that activity, though.

It seemed that outside of the lit areas, you could find anything that wasn’t exactly something that should be on the plain sight for everyone to see. He figured that even Sidon’s arena could be counted as such thing. He assumed that even illegal stuff was around there somewhere.

As the night progressed he did find some of these shadier areas. There appeared to be a few people belonging to some group. Some gang perhaps? Most of the people he saw were weaklings not even at Channel Opening. Perhaps they were expendable lookout or just common thugs?

He noticed a few things happening that were clearly illegal and heard a lot more of things going on he could not really say what it was.

As Kaden was stealthily moving across the rooftops, he gave a look towards inner parts ot the city. There was a wall blocking most of his sight. The area he was at was still the first layer. It looked like the more powerful and the richer you were, the deeper you would live. Still, the second layer was probably well accessible to normal people too. From distance he was able to see temples to the gods so everyone should be able to go there. As for any further, he could not say yet.

There was a gate leading inside, but Kaden did not want to go that far yet. He was not even sure, if he could with the way he looked. Perhaps once he had some clothes that were not rags.

Since the entire city was layered in such a way, Kaden realized he would have to either gain access to all the deeper parts or find a way to bypass the gates, which was probably difficult.

He did find a sewer access. Without being noticed he made his way in. There was some stink, yes, but Kaden ignored such minor matters.

He noticed immediately that the sewer tunnels were extensive. There were also formations layered across it, some simple and some more complex. Kaden was not sure what their purpose was, but from their location it seemed to have something do with water flow. It seemed that many houses actually had proper plumbing and running water.

Through the sewer Kaden expected to get pretty much everywhere, but he did run into some significant problems. There were barriers along the way and they seemed to concentrate around where the wall was supposed to be. It was obvious that such paths were going to be blocked. Still, he wondered if he could open a path through where he could fit, if needed.

Not only that, just like most things in the city, there were formations around the barriers too. Those would have to be bypassed too.

Breaking through was a future endeavor. If the way was blocked, it was that way for a purpose. Someone would notice. Perhaps it could serve as an escape route rather than long term entrance. The barrier was made of metal and Kaden could only inspect it to be some kind of alloy which made it difficult to say what exactly it was made out of. There was no rust on it and seemed pretty tough. He would have to determine its durability, if he was ever going to do anything to it.

While Kaden searched through the sewers, he ran into some beasts. Just rats, though. While their size was relatively large, they were not even nearly dire beast level. Such rats would likely be exterminated quickly so all of them were almost harmless.

Such pests were not only things living in the sewer. Kaden found some humans living there too. With his clothing, Kaden fit right in.

“Whatchu lookin’ for?” Said guy, a bum, sitting in the corner. He was dirty, had only one arm and half of his teeth missing.

“Exploring the area”, Kaden replied. “Do you know of anything interesting here?”

“Interestin’? Gehehe” The man laughed. “There be only shit ‘ere. If ya wanna hide, this be the place! Get aroun’ unseen be good too.”

“Can you get deeper into the city somehow?” Kaden kept questioning.

“If ya be strong enough”, the bum said and flexed his nonexistent muscles. “But then ya need no skulk through ‘ere. Sewer is fer the shite to flow out. Not fer shite covered people wander in. That the way things be.”

Kaden though for a moment. While the bum was probably relatively right, he didn’t say it was impossible to get in. He probably meant that one would need to break through somewhere, just as Kaden himself had thought.

After that he kept exploring the sewer tunnels, but found nothing new. Just more rats and bums. He figured, if he had something he needed to hide he could put it in the sewer.

Kaden decided it was time to return to the arena. He had spent quite a bit of time exploring the city. It was rather quick look over the first city layer, but he had general idea. Only time would give him better understanding.

Sun was going to come up in a few hours by the time Kaden climbed up from the sewer. He looked around and got a pretty good idea where he was. It was area he had passed by earlier.

As people who woke early were starting to move around, Kaden passed by them as unnoticeably as he could.

Eventually he reached the arena and went in.

The fights had obviously ended a long time ago already. It was relatively quiet even if some people were already moving about. Sidon himself seemed to be awake. Its not like he needed to sleep all that often at his level. Kaden thought it was about time to go get his pay.

“Sidon”, Kaden started as he walked calmly behind Sidon. “Give my money.”

“Shit!” Sidon cursed as he turned around and waved his hand due to stench Kaden was emiting. “What have you been doing, kid? You smell horrible.”

“I explored the city”, Kaden answered. “Sewers might smell a bit.”

“A bit, you say?” Sidon said. “I’ll have your money ready, but only if you go wash yourself. Right now.”

Kaden complained for some time until Sidon himself dragged him along and threw him into a barrel of cold water. Begrudgingly Kaden agreed to wash himself.

“If it was a problem, why complain about it only now!” Kaden shouted at Sidon angrily. “Its not like I have taken a bath in a long time!”

“The more reason to do so now”, Sidon replied.

“Why do you even really want me here?” Kaden asked. “For real.”

“I thought I was pretty clear?” Sidon said. “You work me and you get paid.”

“There are better people to hire than the kid who will pull out your entrails once he grows stronger”, Kaden pointed out.

Sidon was silent for a moment. “You are clearly special. This is beneficial for me. There are already people who want to fight you. Even if whoever experimented on you comes here, I can probably strike some deal.”

It was good that Sidon still thought he was someones experiment.

“Fine”, Kaden said and jumped out of the barrel. “I don’t care anymore. Now give me my pay.”

Sidon grinned and pulled out a pouch of money. He then counted a few coins and gave them to Kaden.

“I thought people used some crystals as money?” Kaden said and looked at the few coins. “I have picked those from corpses.”

“I would perhaps use them, but at your level coins are still good”, Sidon pointed out. “These coins are enough for you to go buy new clothes. Stores you will be going to wont be able to take your crystals. Very few people will exchange crystals for coins. Coins are for normal stuff and crystals for magic.”

“Why are people wasting their money to write notes on?” Kaden asked now that the matter had come up.

“It allows precision. You can even embed your feelings and emotions along along your understanding as you make notes”, Sidon said. “Unless you are writing a large book or something, you can easily do with low grade mana crystal. No need to waste mid or high grades. Speaking of your mana crystals. I doubt you used them in the forest.”

“I hid them”, Kaden immediately answered. He wasn’t going to let Sidon know of his pouch. He still had not seen another anywhere. It was surely extremely valuable! “I can go pick them up later. You aren’t getting any.”

Sidon shrugged. “So how was your exploration?”

“Sewers are good”, Kaden answered after thinking for a moment. “You can hide stuff there easily.”

“And then stink afterwards”, Sidon pointed out.

“Outside is filled with drunks, criminals and trash once you go out of the main roads”, Kaden replied in turn. “You want to get something done out of sight, you can do it in the sewers. You can even dump corpses in the water and they will float out on their own.”

“You didn’t kill anyone?” Sidon asked suddenly.

Kaden shook his head.

“Truly, you got a really bad one track mind, Kaden”, Sidon pointed out. “Why is it that you must always kill people?”

“Lot of people should just die. They have no right to live”, Kaden said as if he was stating an universal fact.

Sidon tried to question more, but Kaden refused to make any further comments about it.