-Monolith at Midnight-

Setting the scene of this romantic rendezvous, or rather, this prince rescuing the princess moment, the night’s sky was beautiful.

The dual moons were high in the starry heavens, bathing the world beneath them in a calming and harmonious mellow glow. The stars shone in strange and bizarre patterns, like ripples being created by rain drops. Not a cloud could be seen

Apart from James, garbed in his new handsome light blue robe and the little blue ferret sleeping soundly on his shoulder, the courtyard was empty. The glow of the moons reflected off the shiny surface of the monolith and the clear fresh scent of the night’s air pervaded the city.

In contradiction of this romantically inspiring scenery, James looked rather distressed. His distress came from two separate issues that were intuitively linked together.

The first one was Little Blue. He didn’t really want to sacrifice his little buddy to free some creepy stalker from a giant rock. This had nothing to do with having developed any significant emotional bond with Little Blue, but more from his possessive nature and his lack of desire to part with anything that he considered ‘his’.

The second reason stemmed from the ‘creepy stalker’ linked to the first reason. Just the way he referred to the focus of this worry is self-explanatory in his reluctance to create it. On top of that, once he freed her, he had to protect her. Without realising it, he’d already considered her a problem child that would bring him endless headaches.

However, conflicting with these worries was his desire to eliminate or escape any potentially mind reading entities. This was the sole reason for his decision to free the dragon. Well ... that, and if he didn’t, he’d most likely be leaving this city as ashes on the wind.

Although this coincided with his desire to eventually leave Gau City and explore the world, there was a particular part that eliminated this option. The being ashes part.

So here he was, standing in front of a rock, preparing to make a sacrifice of a harmless, cute little animal and summon the spirit of a dragon. If anyone else were to hear about what he was planning to do, he’d surely be burnt at the stake for being a demon craft.

Letting out a final long sigh James approached the rock and placed his palm against it. After a short discussion with Exsue, he returned to his body and started walking around the monolith looking for something on its surface.

As he observed the monolith’s array patterns, he was secretly shocked. He’d only just stepped into the world of arrays, but he thought he’d at least be able to discern the different parts or some of the code.

To his disappointment, he was incapable of even telling which parts were the foundation and which were support. Even the Lore patterns looked foreign to the handful he’d seen in the last 12 hours.

After half an hour of looking over bits of the array, he found what he was looking for. Naturally, it was in the hardest place to reach, nearly right in the centre of the rock, 20 meters up in the air.

James just gave another woebegone sigh then after putting Little Blue on the ground he began to pump as much wind energy as he possibly could into his body. Soon the gentle breeze of the night turned into a gale around James as he began to release spirit energy from his body.

This was how barrier realm practitioners usually manifested spirit power outside of their bodies. Although it could manifest, the moment it left the body all control of it would be lost, so generally they created what they called martial techniques to harness it properly.

Once you reach the True Spirit realm, you usually gain enough control to influence it once it’s left your body, but again, it’s not actual control and more like gentle guidance.

This was the first time James had tried to use a martial technique that wasn’t just injecting his power into something else. The moment the wind picked him up, he flipped over forwards and face planted into the side of the monolith.

As if face planting wasn’t embarrassing enough for James, a vision of it happening to him on repeat accompanied by a girl’s laughter was sent from Exsue. James was a proud man, and face planting it was unacceptable for him. Having someone witness his stuff-up and tease him for it only fuelled his determination further.

He climbed to his feet and this time, very slowly, began to pour wind energy into his body. Instead of allowing it to create the lightening effect it normally had, he started with the upwards gale force. Then he gradually increased his weightlessness until he felt himself barely still putting pressure on the surface of the ground.

Even though only taking a few minutes, just getting to this stage used almost half of his spirit energy. Finally, he began to apply a wind coming from the surface of his feet, and his body gradually rose off the ground.

James made no rush to increase his speed and consciously prevented himself from making any sharp movements or moving his centre of gravity. After another 5 minutes, he was floating in the air in a wobbly unstable manner right next to the middle of the monolith.

Having reached his goal, his hand shot out and touched a particular pattern as he pumped lightning energy into it. After a few moments, the design was lit up like a flare on the side of the monolith. Before the ache of simultaneously using two elements caused him to pass out, James let his body fall back to the ground with the weightless wind energy preventing him from any damage on landing.

Ever since he’d started cultivating he’d never used two different energies to such an extent at the same time. His body felt empty, and his remaining spirit energy was roiling about in a frenzy. It felt like he’d just run a marathon and then been clubbed in the head with a brick.

Before he had the chance to rest his weary body, an impatient vision flashed through his mind, and James gave a miserable groan as he pulled his body up. He then stumbled over to the sleepy, confused-looking little blue ferret and picked him up. Then in much the same manner as Skay had done the first time he met Little Blue, he launched him through the air towards the monolith like a furry little projectile.

Little Blue very quickly realised something was terribly wrong and let out a hissing scream moments before impact. To both the rodent’s and James’ surprise, instead of the ‘thunk’ they’d been expecting, Little Blue was sucked into the rock as if he was landing in a puddle of water. With a simple ‘plop’ the furry little bastard disappeared.

Before James had the chance to grow curious as to what exactly was supposed to happen next, the array patterns on the surface of the monolith lit up and brightened the entire city. He didn’t even consider sticking around to check out what the hell was happening next and made a strategic retreat to a hidden corner of the courtyard.

The last thing he needed was people wanting to lynch him for releasing a dragon into the city. Even if they didn’t know there was a dragon in the big rock now, they would undoubtedly soon find out.

As James hid away, the monolith continued to ramp up its power output then started humming and vibrating. If there were anyone in the city who wasn’t awake yet, they soon would be. Even the air felt like it was vibrating.

As this technicolour show grew more intense, enormous storm clouds began forming in the sky as if they were just materialising out of thin air. Great claps of thunder rang out for tens of kilometres and peels of lightning danced through the storm clouds like playful snakes, lighting up the entire city and all the land within the jurisdiction of Gau City.

Anywhere that was within the range of the Monolith could hear and see the results of this catastrophic level natural disaster. Rain started pouring down like a torrential flood falling from the heavens and the lightning being generated in the clouds cut the sky into ribbons as it struck down like Thor’s Hammer onto the landscape below.

Trees, buildings, livestock ... basically, anything that looked like it would be amusing to obliterate with lightning was engulfed in a plasmery streak of death.

James just watched both amused and horrified. Amused because watching lighting hit stuff is always a fun show. Horrified, because at this rate the city would be ashes once this crazy bitch was done with it. Everything he’d just spent the last ten days building would become pointless.

As these conflicting emotions battled within him, the clouds in the sky seethed and contracted as if taking in a huge breath. James suddenly got a vision of him covering his eyes. Then without any suspense, a lightning bolt nearly 10 metres wide fell onto the monolith, and the resulting light was like staring at a flash grenade going off. Everyone’s vision everywhere turned white.

The moment this flash descended, James sprinted into the now rather populated courtyard and arrived next to the monolith shard, just in time to catch the falling body of Exsue. The moment she was in his arms, James deployed what remaining lightning energy he still had and disappeared into the city like a thief in the night.

Standing in the centre of town and rubbing their eyes and staring dumbfounded at the monolith, was the Gau Clan’s Head and three of the Elders. Along with them were some of the heavy hitters from other families and guilds in town. About 30 people in total just stood there stupefied after rubbing their eyes.

No one was exactly sure what to make of these strange events. Even more confusing was that everything just returned to normal after that last singular strike. Well, almost everything, some houses and trees were still on fire, and several harmless unsuspecting cows and pigs had been replaced by small craters filled with wet ash.

An emergency town meeting was to be called with all the major Clan Heads and Guildmasters, to try and figure out exactly what happened and to make preparations if the monolith was damaged.

Something Exsue never told James, was that the monolith didn’t just alter people’s language. It also had the critical job of protecting the city from hordes of spirit beasts encroaching into it.

Typically, a town with a monolith would be protected to a certain range. For example, the Gau cities monolith protected a radius of about 20 km and altered language to 35 km. Which covered a decent area mostly utilised for grain production.

The only other monolith in the region was in Kantsu City, which the Kantsu Sect had appropriated from elsewhere and placed on their Sect’s mountain. Curiously, the range of that monolith’s protection was significantly greater than Gau’s, sitting at a large 32km radius and influencing language to nearly 50 km. This covered almost a third of the whole region.

The limiting factor on how far a monolith’s range generates to normally has no bearing to the spirit locked inside it, because they’re all abnormally powerful. They can support and operate in a radius moving into the thousands of kilometres, and some frightening spirits can work even further than that.

The real limitation is created by the monoliths array patterns and is generally dependent on how many cultivators reside within close proximity. Now in saying all this, the monolith doesn’t prevent spirit beasts from wandering into its area of operation. Instead, it only prevents large movements or stupidly powerful beasts from entering.

The reason for this is tied with the story of its creator, but regardless of why it doesn’t just stop them all, the fact remains that it only prevents the powerful ones or the hordes from encroaching. This naturally means that should the monolith stop working correctly, all the spirit beasts living out in the wilds can just march straight in and eat everything ... and everyone.

Of course, that means the big wigs of Gau City will need to start employing countermeasures should the monolith have just been damaged.

-The Lab-

James walked into the lab incredibly worn out. His body and mind were tired from the expenditure of spirit energy and the price he had to pay for using wind and lightning simultaneously. The moment he walked out of the elevator with the sleeping Exsue, he dropped to his knees.

Skay and Anvil, who had been down here playing with arrays, remained entirely unaware of the happenings up in the city. When James slumped out of the elevator, they both passed a look then ran over to check him out.

After a quick look over, Skay pronounced him still healthy, then just to be sure he collected a few suspiciously named tonics from a workbench. Starting with ‘Harbinger 2.3’ and moving through to ‘Reserectuleakianus 1.8’ Skay placed them all on the floor in preparation to feed them to James.

The moment he took the stopper out of one of them, James shot up from the floor and rapidly backed up against the wall. He looked like he was still passed out and this was somehow a natural reaction like scratching an itch in your sleep.

The moment he was a good distance from Skay his body slumped to the floor again. Skay just stared wide eyed for a moment then gave a dissatisfied ‘tsk’. “Damnit boy, even in your sleep you’re a massive pussy.”

Skay’s eyes then wandered over to the strange girl that James had carried in. Just as he was preparing to change his test subject the elevator gave another ding.

As the door opened, Harvy came into the lab with Song in tow. Choosing to completely ignore whatever Skay was doing to some unconscious girl on the floor of his lab, Song turned to Anvil. “There’s been some kind of incident in the city. We’re not sure what exactly happened, but the monolith’s array patterns are starting to dim. Clan Head is calling for an emergency town meeting.”

Song then looked around quickly and saw James sitting against the wall with lazy eyes. “Junior Brother James, although your guild isn’t a big one in the city, your members input at this meeting may be helpful. I hope you’ll consider joining us.”

James just gave a very lethargic nod, as if just doing that simple action made him even more tired. His voice then trailed out lazily as if sleep talking. “We’ll be there. I’ve been out doing some training and overdid it so we may be a bit late.”

Song just gave a solemn nod then moved towards the elevator with Anvil. “Very well, we’ll meet you at the Mansion.”

Harvy punched some buttons in the elevator, and the duo of Elders disappeared up to the surface. Skay had an odd look on his face as he looked at James. “Boy, have you been playing around in the city and broken something important?”

James just beckoned him over and weekly said “Arena” then slumped onto his shoulder. Skay shook his head and carried him into the elevator muttering things about young people and breaking everything they touch.

After meditating for about 10 minutes on the first level of the guild, James felt a hundred times better. If he had to describe spirit energy depletion, then he’d probably use the word ‘withdrawal’. He didn’t fully realise just how dependent his body was to spirit energy once he’d adapted to always having it.

Once he was ready, he went downstairs to collect Exsue and moved her to a nice safe location. Namely, the Lightning Chamber. After dumping her on the ground, he assembled the Guild members and went to visit the Gau Clan’s mansion.

-Gau Clan Mansion-

In the main hall of the mansion sat about 36 people from 4 Families and 8 Guilds. 5 People from each household were present, along with two people from each major guild. Standing around the crowded table these people sat at, was a handful of attendants and servants.

As James walked in accompanied by his guild mates they could hear the loud arguing and shouting of some people all competing to see who could out-yell the others. The two largest offenders were a gentleman in teal robes with a cauldron and a phial embroidered on his back, surprisingly the other one was the usually reserved Hao who seemed to be trying to cuss the other man to death.

Said other man looked about the same age as Hao and his most predominate feature was a messy long beard that was the same dark brown as his long hair.

The first thing James noticed on closer inspection was he could barely even see the man’s face. So messy and chaotic was the man’s hair and beard, it all just looked like someone had cut the afro off another man then stuffed it over the guy’s head. Like some kind of hair helmet.

As they trio of the Brotherhood entered the hall, everyone started to quiet down somewhat. To say they’d been expecting someone else would be a lie. Because apart from the 4 families and 8 guilds they didn’t believe anyone else in this city was on equal footing with them.

James, Skay and Jessy acted completely oblivious to the stares and sudden quiet and just strolled up and casually sat on some cushions at the table. After taking a moment to prolong the quiet by making themselves at home and sipping some tea James looked up, and as if only just now realising everyone was looking at them he glanced around with a shocked expression.

“Oh, were you waiting for us? Sorry about that, busy, busy, busy. I’m sure you know how it is. So, what’s all this about a town meeting?”

Hao and the Gau Elders all just had a wry smile on their faces. Generally, for anyone under palace realm they would show some sincerity to seniors in a situation like this. Customarily, at the minimum, they would greet everyone with a bow.

To add fuel to that fire they just walked in here like they owned the place and acted like they hadn’t even noticed all these other influential people.

Making matters even worse, they were late.

The afro faced man looked stunned. He didn’t know how to process this situation and wasn’t sure how to respond. To confuse matters for him further, someone from the Gau Clan should be jumping up and down right now. Especially because of this huge lack of etiquette in their own home. It was like a slap in the face.

As if to entirely oppose that idea, they all just had forced stiff smiles on their faces and seemed completely comfortable with these people acting this way. If they were associated with the clan somehow, then afro man would be the first person to start causing trouble for them.

But if they were against the clan in some way he wanted them to side with him because they seemed to easily be able to apply some sort of pressure to the clan.

Spending almost an entire minute processing this thought he lost the chance to respond to the situation when the Guildmaster of the Builder’s Guild put a huge smile on his face and started to chat with the newcomers.

“Hah! James, you mad little bastard, good to see you coming out and introducing yourself to the rest of the city occasionally. Seems we’re in a bit of a pickle this time.”

James just plastered a friendly smile on and returned the banter. “Hahaha, Toller you perverted old goat, thought you’d be down on your knees at Madam Sue’s about this time. So, what’s going on? Must be pretty big if they could pull you off the Madam’s lap for it.”

Another shock blew everyone away as they sat there trying to process what the hell was going on. ‘Toller? Is that his real name? Who is this guy to call Toller like their old friends?’

Hao’s wry grin just grew more vexing as he chose to take this silent moment to introduce the new people. “Everyone, this is Junior Brother James and his companions from the Dark Brotherhood. I’m sure you’ve heard of them opening their doors recently, and if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ve heard of the group that is providing cultivation techniques that even the commoners can learn instantly.”

Suddenly everyone in the room had a light bulb moment. ‘This was them? The group of researchers who developed a way to teach someone instant meditation?’ Even the Clans and Guilds were envious of this meditation technique.

Amongst the factions present, the highest-level meditation technique was at the common palace class. Which amongst meditation techniques in the world, placed it at third last.

The only ones below that were common mortal, barrier and spirit. If the Brotherhood’s method were to be ranked, it would be a practitioner spirit class, placing it an entire realm above the rest in the city and skipping about 2 other stages of technique.

The only reason it wasn’t higher, was that a meditation technique contained the knowledge of the natural laws and could be taught to others once you gain an understanding of it.

Unlike with other techniques that work through self-hypnosis, theirs works on implant hypnosis.

This meant two things, firstly, you don’t have to chant to enter your spirit realm. Making it instant. Secondly, you can learn it in a comparatively tiny moment. Generally, it could take weeks, months or even years to properly memorise a meditation technique. In addition to everything else, anyone could learn it and use it, even commoners with horrible talent.

To clarify, the known system of technique classification in Atsunari had 3 realms, each with 4 stages. The realms from lowest to highest are the Common, Practitioner and Master realms. The Stages were Mortal, Barrier, Spirit and Palace.

This classification system was used for every technique in the three primary cultivation systems. Meditation, Breathing and Martial. If their meditation techniques were split into the meditation and the natural laws, then that would create a fourth group, Control.

Now that everyone knew who they were, they suddenly realised why these people were acting so cocky. Even they had been sending them disciples to learn this meditation technique, so naturally, these people had the right to be somewhat arrogant, even here.

Finally, Hao decided to get the ball rolling again before everyone got distracted from the most important issue. “Junior James, we’ve gathered everyone together to discuss a coming catastrophe. Tonight, around half an hour ago, a freak lightning storm developed over the city and struck the monolith.”

Once this was said everyone began to fill the trio in on why this was a problem. Sporadically they’d argue about whether or not the monolith had even been damaged but they all unanimously agreed that, if it was damaged, then it could lead to a horrible event in the city’s near future.

James made no great contributions to the discussions, choosing instead to sip tea and make some greetings with the big players in town. Although he made no contribution, Skay was madly throwing out ideas for how to handle the situation.

One thing James did notice during the meeting was that the afro faced man always opposed Hao on everything. Even when Hao suggested they get some fresh tea brought in, afro face rejected the proposal. Everyone else wanted tea and didn’t particularly care about his opinion, but it showed just how childish this man’s opposition to Hao was.

James learnt a few new names and faces. All the Guilds seemed very friendly with him, which was odd because he was already advertising taking ‘any’ jobs. Even if it were a job, another guild would usually take on. He was suspicious of this behaviour, but they made no overt threats of extortion tonight, so he put it to the back of his mind.

On the other hand, the three Clans seemed rather hostile towards the trio from the brotherhood. James just put this down as them disliking someone their competitors were backing.

Of the thirty-six people present, James already knew 7. The first 5 were the members of the Gau Clan, and the other two were the Guildmaster and vice-master of the builder’s guild. These two he’d met previously when they’d been building their Guildhall, and he’d gone drinking with both of them regularly over that ten day period.

Toller, the Guildmaster, was a tall hairy man that looked like a bear and was built like a brick shithouse. He seemed to somehow have hair on every visible part of his body. The vice-master was amusingly his wife and was an equally tall blonde who looked like some Nordic Viking, her name was Vellaris.

During the night, he also got along well with the merchant’s guild, the Master of which was named Haso and was a short, bald gentleman with a huge snoz. His nose seemed to take up almost half his face it was so big.

He also met the Guildmaster of the Shield Maidens and the Sword Masters. It would be more precise to call these two guilds sects because they both focused entirely on cultivation and battle. As opposed to a guild they were a school of thought and didn’t really participate in anything but fighting spirit beasts and bandits.

The Sword Maiden’s leader was Kelsy a tidy brunette with a body so fit and toned it rivalled Jessy’s and then had a bit more. She wasn’t a muscle freak or something, but every muscle and curve were defined as if carved from stone.

As if to contradict the nature of a sword master, the leader of that sect was just called Tiny, and he was a tiny little man who was a foot away from being classified as a midget. He was so short that the sword on his back was almost the same length as his body.

The last four guilds were the tailor guild, farmer guild, storage guild and explorer’s guild. Of them, the last two were the most interesting.

The Storage Guild was more of an Imperial branch placed here to oversee and purchase the massive stockpiles of golden grain that Gau City specialised in. It was their job to pay for any extra grain the city doesn’t need (which is shit tonnes) and organise storage and delivery of it to the capital or any cities in need.

Being a branch of the Imperial family one would think they held some sway in the politics of the city. In truth, they were really only an honorary Imperial Branch. The Imperial Family in the capital sends their branch families to places like this to ‘oversee’ certain duties. It was more a banishment to prevent any usurpers contending with the main bloodline for power.

This also meant that they didn’t particularly care if these people were to disappear one day. Say for example they tried to push their weight around in the city to have things their own way ... if they suddenly vanished, then the head family wouldn’t blink an eye. It was rather common for this to happen.

The Explorer’s Guild was the most interesting guild in the city in James’ opinion. Although they were a guild, they didn’t so much attract jobs from people. Rather they catalogued and mapped unknown regions in the Katsu territory. They then sell and trade this information for money and resources.

The most interesting thing was that there is apparently a lot of unexplored area around the Empire. This was because spirit beasts tend to kill any wayward adventurers that wander too far from the garden path. Explorers tend to have short life spans in comparison to other guild’s cultivators.

More interesting was that the branch here was their smallest branch and was primarily here because the Jetsu Mountain range bordered on the Kantsu region and was the weakest in this province, making it the easiest to investigate.

As the morning suns poked up over the horizon, the group of influentials in the Gau mansion left to return to their own business. In the end, they achieved nothing of significance. Gau Clan wanted everyone to send out a few people to scout the area around the city and keep an eye on any beast sightings.

Unfortunately, the other three clans were generally opposed to anything the Gau Clan suggested, so when the moons set and the day grew bright, the Gau family became responsible for everything.

Some might say that’s only natural, considering they were the most influential in the city. The problem was, they weren’t so much more powerful that they could release those sorts of resources or manpower on a whim.

Everyone was acutely aware that if a beast horde appeared, then every commoner in the city would most likely die, but none cared too much. The other Clans wanted more power in the city and forcing the Gau Clan to expend people and resources on this would make it easier for them to operate.

The guilds were equally disinclined to assist. Mostly because they were tailored to a particular trade and didn’t have any trained personnel spare to send out and scout around. More so than that, the people of any importance could evacuate to Katsu while the horde was busy devouring the mortals.

To complicate this matter, no one even knew if the monolith was actually damaged. They only knew that the array patterns had begun to dim slightly. That wasn’t enough incentive to take any actions.

The only other party to send out people for scouting were the Shield Maidens and Sword Masters. They mostly operated outside the monolith influence anyway so it wouldn’t be too much different than usual for them.

-The Lab-

After the Brotherhood had returned to the Guildhall, they moved to the arena to get some rest. After a few hours of mediation, they were once again moving around just as perky as if they’d slept for a whole day.

Down in the lab, James checked on the still unconscious Exsue, then joined Skay to continue playing with arrays. It was miraculous just how many patterns and full arrays the Gau Clan had been hoarding away. James was curious why they’d never done more research into them and asked Skay.

He was informed by the madman that it was because they were a bunch of cowards, too afraid of an array backlash to play with them.

“How the fuck else do they ever expect to learn about these things?”

The mere thought that someone was afraid of discovering something new and interesting, just because of some little explosions, enraged the old madman to no end.

What he failed to mention to James, was that if they ever made a significant mistake, even a small array could cave their entire lab in like a puddle of mud sliding into a sinkhole. The only reason no such mistakes had been made yet was because they’d mostly been building the arrays on the computer or black-pad then projecting it onto the area they wanted to paint it.

Just having a computer that gave them a means to store, organise and build arrays safely was a tremendous assistance for them in research. Just remembering all the different patterns would require a substantial amount of time.

By feeding information into one of Skay’s, ‘built on the fly’, programs, they’d already managed to extrapolate thousands of different patterns from every stage of array production. They only understood about 30 of them for the moment, but that meant little to someone like Skay.

Not only was he upgrading the program to try and determine the purpose of the patterns it had already discovered, but he’d also managed to teach it to learn how to design simple arrays from the models they’d tested already.

The hope was that, eventually, this program could compile, extrapolate and deconstruct any array pattern you found or needed. The more information you fed into it, the faster it could learn.

James was a little excited by the idea that one day he’d come down here and discover Skay talking to his computer, only to have it talking back to him.

When he had that thought, he suddenly remembered the monolith. Perhaps ... they didn’t have to teach the computer everything. Maybe they could ... put a soul into it and it could learn everything itself!

Before that dream had fully formed a ‘bzzzt’ rang through the lab. Skay stopped in mid-painting after the shock caused him to splash some paint, then walked back to his pad.

After pressing a few buttons, he started yelling at the roof. “Harvy you undead mother fucker! You’d better have a good reason for interrupting me, or so help me god I’ll come up there and start taking things off your lifeless fucking body!”

Harvy’s emotionless grating voice rang out through the laboratory speakers. “Apologies Master. I only wish to inform you; Elder Grace has come for your scheduled training session.”

James quirked an eyebrow then flipped open his pad to check the time. “Harvy, go let Jessy know. Have the staff take care of the commoners for today. Tell them that if anyone stuffs up, they’ll be joining you on team Ghoul.”

With that said James shared a look with Skay and they both moved to the elevator.

-Arena-

When they arrived in the arena, a section was already being used by the staff for processing commoners. That left almost half the arena unused. Standing in that half was 20 odd people. Most wearing standard Gau grey robes with a sword and anvil. There was also about 5 disciples from the Hall of Forging.

Standing at the lead of the group was Elder Grace. The name she gave herself was rather appropriate because even just standing around waiting she carried herself with poise and grace.

As James and Skay approached the group, Skay was complaining about how much this would cut into his research time. James only half listening noticed that Harvy and Jessy were already present. By the time they were in ear range, they could here Grace urging Jessy into something with “you may never get another chance like this” and other such cliché encouragements.

Jessy seemed to be thinking rather hard about whatever it was exactly this chance was and clearly had the look of someone that wanted to take it. When the duo finally reached them, Jessy gave a firm nod and Grace’s face lit up with a dazzling smile.

“How’s it goin?” James greeted the Elder with something that could barely be considered a bow and a slang Aussie greeting. Skay, on the other hand, remained aloof from such affairs and made no move to display any courtesies.

Grace hadn’t interacted with these steppers much, apart from that whole thing with Harvy, so she was pretty surprised at their total lack of etiquette. If she weren’t trying to recruit Jessy as a personal disciple, she’d have slapped them into the ground.

“I see. Is this how you operate your Guild, Junior James? You arrive late for everything and show no respect for your Elders or betters. Jessy is wasted joining your rag-tag team of madmen and ... science projects.” While saying this last part, she threw a strange look towards Harvy, who was now always covered in bandages and smelling like the herbs section of someone’s pantry.

James just gave a harmless broad smile, as if this shot at his ego had just slid off. For now, he had no intention of stirring this lady up into a frenzy. If he did, she might just slap him to death right here. She had the power to do so.

He understood well that so far in the journey here, they’d only survived by luck and as much as he didn’t want to admit, Hao seemed to be looking out for him. Also ... there was Exsue. James wasn’t sure what sort of rules or regulations were imposed on a spirit in a monolith, but he suspected if he’d encountered danger in the city then Exsue would start smiting things irrespective ... she seemed that crazy.

Regardless of Exsue though, James wasn’t about to antagonise this woman. Besides, eventually, he’ll be strong as well, and when that day comes ... well, James ain’t no saint.

That being said. He wasn’t about to start bending over backwards for her, as much as he hated not being able to talk equally with her, he hated bowing to her more. Not just her though ... Everyone!

James would never truly bow down. His little courtesy before would be as far as he’d ever go. If they took objection... ‘Well, they can fuckin’ kill me then. At least I’d die with my pride intact.’