Normal as it all seemed, even a cursory glance was enough for Sage to know he was in a very different place than he was used to. While everything was used in a familiar way, the things that were being used were all far from what he was used to. The circular tables were not made of wood, instead they were giant Scallop shells, filled with sand and supported by stone legs. The platter was a disc of coral, into which tall spiral shells were placed, with their point down into holes in the coral. Then these tall cones or horn-like mugs were stabbed into the sand of the tables to hold them upright. Just as the wall control had been, the rest of the decor took on a very shell friendly theme here.

Even more unusual than the furniture and decor was the people. Half of the customers looked to be human, but contrary to what he’d gotten used to so far in this life, most of them didn’t have asian features. Since he’d been reborn on this world he had only seen ‘foreigner’ features a few times. In the city that Guan Zhenyan took him to, which he believed to be the Tianxia Capital, everyone was very much the same ethnicity he’d grown used to. He had also visited the Shou Empire, which was run by beasts, but their human forms were also ‘easterners’.

It was suddenly shocking to see so many shades of black, brown, and white skin in front of him. Other than Wanqian Lei, he hadn’t seen any ‘western’ faces in many thousands of years. Some of the other customers were what he recognized as demi-humans that had things like fluffy animal ears on their heads, tails on their backs, claws on their fingers, and even vertically slitted eyes. There were even a few that looked like anthropomorphic animals, animals that looked like cartoons come to life, with full animal features yet with humanoid body shapes. Yet, they weren’t even the most surprising thing as the Bartender and servers were not even humanoid at all.

The ones running the place were actually what looked to be a race of octopus or squid. They supported themselves on their tentacles, and their round bulbous heads were very balloon-like. They seemed to be holding them up in the air, so their limbs didn’t spend much effort moving them around. Weird as their bodies looked, they all had a clearly recognizable face with eyes, lips, and a highly expressive brow ridge. Their noses seemed to be just a thicker fold of their slimy flesh and not a sensory organ, but it moved around enough to make their faces very expressive.

Due to the Inner World, he was able to walk around without showing even the slightest sign of surprise. He seemed completely at ease with this eclectic mix of races. When he stepped out of the doorway, one of the floating squid-like servers came over to him with a pleasant smile on its face. He was something at a loss for how to address this creature, so he defaulted to acting as politely as possible. He gave the creature a short salute, enough to show respect, but not any indication of superiority or inferiority. With just a gesture of greeting he allowed the server to speak first.

“Greetings, human. How can I assist you?”

Sage wasn’t surprised that he could understand the creature, since he had a Heart’s Tongue again. What he was surprised by was that he didn’t need it. This being spoke the same language that he was used to from his time on this world. After a bit of deliberation he chose to be honest, even if it revealed some weakness.

“Thank you. I am new here and I’d like to gather information. Who should I speak to?”

Sage watched the server’s strange face carefully, trying to pick up on whether or not he’d just been made into a target by admitting he was clueless. If this place was anything like others, then admitting he was new and unfamiliar would make him into a great mark for thieves or conmen. To his surprise, he saw no signs of maliciousness on the server’s features, but this was of course tempered by the fact that he had no experience with this race. The man seemed experienced with this sort of thing and he simply nodded, “Right this way.”

The server led him to the staircase and they climbed up and then onto the balcony over the bar area. Then they turned down the hallway. In this position, Sage could now see there was a small lobby area at the end of this hall with what looked like a hotel check in. There was only a single attendant there at the moment and the server led Sage over to the desk.

“We’ve got a fresh one that needs orientation.”

The man behind the desk was not one of the floating squids. Instead it was a heavily muscled man with a bulbous bald head and a nose that had been replaced by a trio of squirming tentacles. So the Demi-human squid works with this squid race? Interesting.

“Dropped right into the deep end, eh? You seem pretty composed. You were probably told a lot in advance.”

The server who led him here immediately left them after making that short introductory statement. Meanwhile the squid-man behind the desk was smiling and giving him a visual examination. Then his meaty fist reached below the desk and brought out a Stone Tablet. He placed it upon the desk while waiting for Sage to answer.

“I was only told to head to the Merciful Mollusk Headquarters for training.”

The attendant seemed surprised, “My, quite the mental state then. Alright, this is the basics you’ll need to know. This is a public copy, so you can’t take it away, but you can read it here. The higher ups are pretty stingy, so this is the only freebie. Once you’ve finished reading you’ll have to rent a room or buy something from the bar to stay. Unless you want to head back to wherever you came from that is. Welcome to the Depths.”

The squid-man pushed the tablet slightly towards Sage and Sage sent his consciousness inside to take a look after probing it with his Spiritual Sense for traps. The information he found inside was not extremely detailed, but it was definitely important. Just as he’d been told, this was an excellent place for training. Unlike the rest of the world, this place had an extremely high concentration of energy which led to a large number of powerful Demonic Beasts. The average beast he could encounter in this area was at the fifth tier, and sixth tier beasts were not extremely rare. It turns out this place was something of a high level hunting ground. With so many powerful beasts to hunt it was a place of immense riches and opportunity, but it was also extremely dangerous.

Along with this basic information, it also had some of the rules of this new place. For the most part they detailed that the cities here were basically safe zones. Nobody was allowed to start fights or they would be at the mercy of the City Lord. While this might not be much of a deterrent in other places, the Stone Tablet was actually infused with a bit of the City Lord’s will, and as soon as he read the words, Sage felt the City Lord’s power. It made him sway in place, like he was blown by a sudden wind. Since it was only a sliver of power it couldn’t really harm him, but he did get to feel its quality.

Saint. The City Lord was a legendary immortal. A real rank seven was here and making sure everyone behaved. So extravagant! These people really mean business.