Jack could fully admit that he’d had his ass kicked a lot since he’d come to this world. First by Men and then by Yin.

It had been rather disappointing honestly, given he’d expected to be a one-man wrecking crew. Instead, he’d had his pride and his suit rather systematically demolished, each time winning only by expending irreplaceable resources.

Truth be told, that didn’t bother him too much. It was annoying, but he was a man accustomed to being shit on from great height. The resources existed to be used, and he’d long since learned to roll with the punches life dealt out to him. He knew how to eke out what advantages he could from an unfavorable hand.

For example, he knew that you often learned more from defeat than from victory.

“I do dare. You are no great master. Merely a man swanning about on unearned airs. Here and now, this Pan Su will unmask you as the charlatan you-”

Jack mentally tuned out the woman’s ongoing monologue. He’d gotten her talking, so he’d achieved his objective.

That was important, because the first thing he’d learned about cultivators was that they were fast. Unreasonably fast. Worse, they hit hard too.

Float like a delivery drone, sting like an enforcer drone and all that, he thought.

So, if you were going to take one down efficiently, it was best done by placing them in a position where they couldn’t move – or by taking them by surprise.

Which was easier said than done, given their enhanced senses, but doable.

Because they were easily distracted. All he’d had to do was make a show by shattering a few floorboards with his foot before making some big proclamation - and now the woman was talking his ear off.

Which was good, because that way no one would notice the microbots sliding down his pantleg and slithering under the floorboards through the hole he’d just made. Pan’s ongoing droning was more than up to the task of masking the clicking of his little beauties as they gathered directly underneath each of the women across from him.

“-back to my mother in chains, as is befitting of one who would forget his station in- Aaaagh!”

The room was filled with surprised shrieks as black glistening tentacles ripped up through the floorboards to grip the cultivators by their ankles. Even as he lifted the cultivators into the air in an attempt to arrest their locomotion, he could feel the bonds between his bots straining as the cultivators tugged or slashed at their captors.

Fortunately for him, it was hard to get a good kick or slash in when you were being shaken like a ragdoll, while also occasionally being slammed into the nearest hard surface. Indeed, in moments most of the surviving furniture in the room had been reduced to little more than kindling by high speed collisions with the bodies of shrieking cultivators.

“Hold your fire,” he instructed to any of the more jumpy militia members behind him. “I’ve got this well in hand.”

As he demonstrated by smashing Pan into both the ceiling and the floor. Repeatedly.

To her credit, her flailing was much more… directed than her friends, as she hacked at the tentacle wrapped around her limb with a vengeance. Unfortunately for her, as stated, the microbots weren’t weak, nor was her current predicament well suited to giving her a good angle on the thing as she was flung about with bone shattering force.

Of course, what would have been bone shattering for mortals was merely bruising for cultivators. Fortunately, that was still more than enough to knock the fight out of most of them.

“So easily,” Ren murmured from his side as he used one poor woman as a particularly bloody mop.

Jack shrugged. “As a crafter, if you’re going into a fight where the outcome is unknown, you’re fucking up.”

“If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,” Ren echoed with the tone of someone that was quoting something.

Whatever it was, it sounded wise. He’d have to ask where it came from.

He’d certainly tried to apply a… watered down version of that maxim the last two times he’d clashed with cultivators. Each time he supposed his weakness was that he hadn’t truly known his enemy and suffered for it.

This time though. Well, he liked to think he was gradually coming to understand cultivators.

Which was why he was keeping a wary eye out for any of them getting a sudden power up. Not that it seemed likely. Most had gone quite limp and were doing little more than moaning. The only one still trying was the leader.

She wasn’t about to-

“Enough!” she screamed, the bonds of the tentacle holding her coming apart from some unseen force.

And there’s the powerup, he thought.

He’d been expecting it though and he was already marshalling his microbots away from the limp bodies of her friends to form a wall between him and her.

One with strategically placed holes.

Murder holes.

“Guns up,” he called.

It said something about Gao’s selection of his personal guards that they didn’t hesitate at all to react to the sudden change in circumstances. Between one blink and the next, the barrels of twelve rifles were slotted through the holes in the black shimmering wall that had neatly bisected the entirety of the inn.

Pan was fast, but in an enclosed space like this, one of his people would hit.

A shame really, he thought as she leapt at the wall in a rage, sword raised high. I’d rather been hoping to take everyone alive.

A bunch of cultivators would be useful as bargaining chips for him, especially now that he actually had the means to contain them.

Of course, that was still theoretically an option for him. He could feel the comforting weight of his taser in his hand and the presence of his microbots in his mind – but he wasn’t about to risk it.

Safety first, he thought as he got ready to instruct his people to fire.

“Fi-”

The words had only just begun to leave his mouth when Pan was blasted from the side by a column of lightning so bright that Jack was left blinking spots from his vision. Though his discomfort was less than nothing compared to Pan’s, whose smoking form slammed into the wall of the inn with a crack and went limp.

Immediately, his heart went into overdrive as he searched around for the presence of the Magistrate – or failing that, wherever the hell that blast had come from.

He found nothing though. Just the presence of his guards, a wary Ren and a whole bunch of downed and moaning cultivators.

“If you’re looking for the much-storied leader of this fair city, I’m afraid she’s not here.” A voice spoke with a… strange accent. It sounded almost French. “There’s only me.”

Jack blinked as on the other side of the wall, he found a woman sitting there who had definitely not been present a moment ago. Nor was the chair she was oh-so-casually sitting on.

I thought I was immune to this invisible mumbo jumbo!?

To his right, Ren’s eyes widened, before a scowl fell over her features.

“Magister,” she muttered in a voice so low he had a feeling it wasn’t truly meant for his ears.

Unwillingly, Jack’s eyes flitted between the black robed and hooded woman and the still form of Pen.

“Not that I’m ungrateful for the aid, even if I had this well in hand, is the girl you just hit alive?” he asked, deliberately keeping any of his discomfort from showing.

As a hidden master he was supposed to be above that kind of thing.

Under her hood, the woman’s shadowed features tilted to the side, a single pale hand coming up to touch her chin. “She should be.” The woman’s tone was remarkably blasé about the alternative. “Unless the locals are weaker than I’ve given credit for.”

Locals? Jack thought. Was this woman from out of town? A cultivator from another city? Ren said independents were rare, so does that mean she’s affiliated with the Imperial Army?

“Check on her,” he instructed Ren, keeping a wary eye on the mystery woman even as he opened a person sized hole in the wall he’d erected.

He didn’t miss the way the stranger perked up a bit at the formation of the doorway, evidently interested in his microbots.

Ren kept a wary eye on the woman, even as she moved to place a hand on another woman who moments ago had been trying to kill them all.

“She’s alive.” Ren withdrew her palm. “Though she will need a healer to remain that way.”

That was good, their bargaining chip was still more or less intact. He’d have hated to walk away from this clusterfuck with nothing more than complications to show for it.

Unlike his last prisoner, he’d try to keep this one alive. Back at the compound they had something called ki restraining collars and they would hopefully make that possible.

“Then it seems you have my thanks for your aid,” Jack said, turning his attention fully back to the woman.

It rather gratified him to note that while his guards weren’t aiming at the stranger, they’d also not withdrawn their rifles from the murder holes either.

Gao selected good people.

“I’m sure it was unneeded.” The robed stranger waved a hand dismissively, her strange accent flaring. “You and your peculiar golem had it well in hand.”

Golem?

Ren returned to his side, Pen slung over one shoulder. “Then why get involved? You made an enemy tonight with your actions, magister, and you are far from home. You would have done well to stay out of Imperial business.”

Magister?

“Perhaps I should have, but while I have made an enemy, I am also rather hoping to make an ally tonight.”

Her pale fingers pulled back on her hood to reveal… a distinctly elven set of ears.

--------------------

The stranger had – or did have - other features too. Unnatural gray eyes. Equally unnatural silver hair. A set of high aristocratic cheekbones that framed a stern, if attractive face.

Of course, neither Jack nor the guards with him had long to stare, before Ren got rather insistent that they all leave before more members of the Silver Paw showed up. Something Jack had no issue agreeing to. They’d bundled up the groaning bodies of the downed cultivators and gotten the hell out of there. They even took Bai’s corpse, though he had no idea what he was going to do with it.

Bury it?

He shook his head dismissively as Ren and their new guest followed him into the meeting room.

As leery as he was of bringing an unknown back to his fortress, it was also where he was most secure.

They hadn’t had the opportunity to talk on the way back. Elwin, as she’d introduced herself, had a horse, while he’d rode in the carriage. Ren had flitted ahead, jumping across rooftops, to get the preparations ready for their new ‘guests’ before they arrived back at the compound.

The cultivator had only reunited with them while he’d been guiding Elwin to the drawing room.

As the elven woman took in her surroundings, Jack took the opportunity to look at her. Really look at her, now that he had some decent lighting to work with.

Under the robes she wore, she had some distinctly medieval looking garbs. A black dress, lined with fur around her neck. The material of the dress was quite thick. Whether that was for warmth or armor, he didn’t know. It looked like it was intended for colder climates than here though, or was perhaps designed that way for the long sea ride she had presumably taken to get here?

He assumed she came by sea because they’d just been near the docks and Elwin definitely wasn’t local. Even Ren, for all her classically Nordic looks, had some Asian ancestry in her line somewhere, giving her just a hint of Eurasian features to her appearance.

By contrast, the elf in front of him was… ‘pure’ Caucasian?

Does Caucasian still count if we’re talking about an elf? Hell, does Asian count when you’re talking about animal people?

He shook his head. The point was, he definitely didn’t see any ‘Imperial Classic’ in the elf woman’s genealogy.

He’d also definitely not forgotten that she’d called his microbots a golem rather than a spirit beast. Combined with the flinging lightning thing and what Ren had called her… well, he had a rather damning suspicion brewing up within him.

It didn’t help that she’d summoned an honest to god's raven from somewhere on the ride over, one that now sat primly on her shoulder.

Wasn’t this supposed to be mystical china? With kung fu wizards and animal people? Why was a fantasy high elf showing up?

He was not prepared for this sudden leap in genre.

“No drinks for your guest?” Elwin asked as she ran her fingers over the distinctly workmanlike table in front of her.

Ren made to move but he stopped her with a raised hand. He wasn’t in the mood for games.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Straight to business then?” Elwin tittered, her vaguely French accent coming through in full. “I think that will need to be trained out of you. You’ll find that people are generally more free with information when you have sufficiently relaxed them, darling.”

Jack was having none of it. “Who. Are. You.”

Rolling her eyes, the woman nonetheless slipped off her robe, and after hanging it off a nearby chair, curtsied. “Lady Elwin Blackstone of House Blackstone of the Kvari Dominion. A pleasure”

Yeah, that confirmed it. “You’re not of the Empire.”

The pale elf raised an eyebrow, as if he’d just stated the obvious. And perhaps he had. Though it wasn’t obvious to him. Nor the average person, given that Lin had never once mentioned lands outside the Empire.

“Obviously not.” She spoke arrogantly, eying Ren. “I knew you Imperials were isolationist, but to this extent?”

Ren bristled, but Jack spoke before she could. “I’m an outlier. Almost an outsider myself in these lands. So tell me, what is the Kvari Dominion?”

That seemed to take the woman off guard. “It’s a kingdom, many thousands of leagues across the sea from here, with many other kingdoms between us and them.” She shrugged. “I’ve traveled an awful long way to get here.”

“Why?”

“Darling, you really need to work on your tongue. Bluntness can be endearing to some, but there’s an upper limit.”

Ren bristled again, but Jack just stared. “Why?”

The elf seemed to deflate, disappointed that he refused to engage with her. “To meet you. Or rather, a man like you.”

“Like me how?”

She cocked her head. “Gifted with noble blood, obviously. And unmarried, which is harder than one might think. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been forced to go on this… tour of most of the known world to find you.”

Jack could fully admit he was stupid. He wasn’t a complete moron though.

“Would I be correct in assuming that anyone that can do ‘magic’ would be considered someone in possession of ‘noble blood’?”

Again, she gave him that peculiar yet confused, look. “Of course.”

Jack sighed. He didn’t have the time nor the energy for this. He had enough local problems without including this… outlander. “Can this wait until morning?”

She smirked. “I was rather hoping it would. It has been a most trying day, and most hosts would usually give their guests a chance to recuperate themselves before interrogating them like this.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“Lin,” he called to the woman standing outside the door. “Find a room for our ‘guest’. And post half a dozen guards outside her door.”

He had no clues what a… witch, wizard or whatever she called herself could call upon, but he figured six fully armed guards would at least be able to make a sound before she managed to kill them all.

That was security enough for him.

If Elwin was in anyway offended by the addition, she didn’t show it. Instead she just smirked, which did nothing for his peace of mind.

“So defensive.” She tittered. “Still, never let it be said that a lady of House Blackstone refused to allow a man to feel at ease in his own home.”

“Just… go.”

The woman sauntered past him, turning to an openly curious Lin. “Tell me servant, why are these guard’s spears shaped so-”

Then she was gone, disappearing down the hall with Lin and an escort of half a dozen guards.

“That woman is…” Ren started to say.

Jack raised a hand “A problem for later.”

He had a lot more questions about the world. Most of which were about the fact that the Empire wasn’t all of it. Which sounded obvious in retrospect, but it wasn’t to hear the locals talk about it. To them the Empire was the world, and it seemed he’d unknowingly been brainwashed by that.

“I assume the restraining collars will work on our guests?”

He’d given Ren the task for that reason. It allowed him to ask that question without giving away the fact that he was clueless about them.

Ren’s features twisted into something close to satisfaction as the subject of her thoughts shifted. “More than enough, master. The Magistrate was most generous in her payment.”

Given he was giving her the means to change the dynamics of warfare for generations to come, he’d like to think she had to be.

“Silver Paw,” He stated. “They attacked us. Murdered our prospect.”

She shook head. “Bai was a member of their sect. They were will within their rights to hunt her down. That was always a risk.”

He’d sort of known that, he just hadn’t expected it to be so… blatant. “Would the Jade Pavillion do that to you?”

Ren shook her head. “I’m an established member of your retinue. Bai wasn’t yet.”

“So they killed her.” Jack nodded. “Apparently she wasn’t as discreet in slipping away for our meeting as she should have been.”

Or Ren’s information network had sprung a leak. He didn’t feel the need to say that though. He was sure Ren would be checking out that possibility regardless of what he said.

She was efficient like that.

Which was part of why he didn’t know whether Ren was sadly shaking her head because of Bai’s death or because she’d failed to acquire an asset for them. Either reason would fit with what he knew of her.

Either way, their ‘sect formation plan’ was now stillborn. With Bai’s death, Jack sincerely doubted many other people would be looking to jump ship anytime soon.

“Why did the Silver Paw attack us?” he asked changing the subject. “You said they were misandrists, but we just signed a deal with Sects. Attacking me outright is political suicide.”

Ren shrugged. “I couldn’t begin to guess at the logic of Pan, Master. Beyond what she said before you so easily dealt with her. It is possible that this attack was merely a product of opportunity and youthful exuberance combined.”

Jack twitched at the thought. “Is that kind of thing common?”

He felt stupid the almost the moment he asked the question.

He didn’t even give Ren a chance to answer, sighing. “Fuck it, we’ll sort all this out tomorrow.”

He’d been tired even before this clusterfuck happened. Everything that had happened since had only exacerbated that.

“As you wish.” Ren bowed.

Tomorrow would be an interesting day though.

As he let Ren follow him out of the drawing room, ignoring her small blush as he guided her back to his room, he found that one small thought brought a smile to his face.

After all, the only question now was whether he’d be offloading his hostages onto the Magistrate or Shui for punishment?

Both had ample reason to punish the Silver Paw for the youth’s actions.

Yes, tomorrow will be very interesting, he thought.