Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reborn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 1

by M. H. Johnson

  Liu Jian frowned. “It wasn’t always so difficult,” he said.

  Alex blinked, taking a moment to focus on the older man’s words, so awed was he by the massive city walls they had just passed, a good twenty feet thick and perhaps twice as high. Truly, the cities were bulwarks against the wildlands beyond their walls. Alex could only wonder at how fierce the spirit beasts or invading armies must be, to necessitate such megalithic defensive measures.

  “I’m sorry, what wasn’t always so difficult?” he asked, catching sight of endless wooded valleys and glades, the High Road they were taking quickly leading them above ever steeper hills that soon turned into mountains, though none so high as to lose their thick canopy of trees.

  He did spot, here and there, well-demarcated roads and what he took to be walled villages, with patchwork fields on all sides. He actually found this reassuring, part of him having visualized endless miles of dense woodlands between all points in civilization. Instead, it appeared that the major hubs of art, cultivation, and commerce were thousands of miles apart, but small hamlets and villages dotted the still largely untamed landscape. Alex suspected the lives of the inhabitants below were completely separate from the massive cities connected by the High Roads that the three of them were traveling along at that very moment.

  Since the massive cities seemed only to focus on their own concerns or commerce between each other, he could imagine any number of shadow kingdoms forming below. And all of them far too distant and numerous for any proper authority to ever bother dealing with or even caring about, so long as vising farmers and craftsmen paid proper tariffs on the produce and goods they flooded the major cities with.

  He couldn’t help shaking his head with awe, wondering how many kingdoms and cultures were superimposed upon each other in this wild, beautiful world.

  “Traveling between cities, Alex. Are you even listening to me?”

  Alex flushed.

  The older man’s glare turned to a bemused smile. “It is a marvelous sight, isn’t it?”

  Alex nodded as the alchemist sighed.

  “Some of my fondest memories of army life was simply traveling the High Roads, seeing our kingdom in all her glory. Though I never did see the wider empire, I did leave the principality a time or two, aiding against barbarian incursions many thousands of miles to the east.”

  Alex nodded, duly impressed.

  “In any case, I suspect that it didn’t used to take soldiers months of training just to be able to cross from one city to the next without dropping of exhaustion.”

  “But Father, the theory you espouse is nothing short of absurd!”

  “Is it? Some of the most esteemed scholars at Dragon Temple were in complete agreement with me, before I finally left.”

  “Well, yes, but that dungeons left unchecked too long actually cause the world around them to expand? How is that even possible?”

  “The influx of Dark Qi mixed with the elements of Fire, Metal, and Earth, is causing strange changes within our world, Daughter. Have you even looked at the maps I've showed you?"

  Liu Li nodded. “Yes, Father, I’ll admit the way some cities are more isolated than others is… eccentric, but that really doesn’t prove anything!”

  “It does when you read the histories, daughter. All the cities within this principality, within the entire kingdom, were once laid out in neat grid patterns.”

  Alex frowned, suddenly thinking of dark energy and the expansion theory of the universe that everyone had taken as a given on Earth, once upon a time. “I take it that now they’re not?”

  Liu Li sighed. “Ancient cartographers had not perfected their art, Father.”

  “Yet our city planners managed to establish aqueducts, sewers, parks, government buildings, and everything else a burgeoning center of commerce needs? Such that even with 10 million inhabitants, we don’t suffer from illness and overcrowding? That level of ancient technology was in play, yet a few foolish cartographers were allowed to wreck Emperor Long’s perfect grid? I find that highly unlikely.”

  Alex blinked. “So wait, you’re saying that in addition to cultivators, this world also has dungeons randomly popping up in the wilderness? Please tell me they're filled with treasure."

  He winced when Liu Li casually smacked him so hard, he could feel it even through his helmet. “You sound far too excited, Alex. Dungeons are dangerous places. And for all that prizes can be found within in the form of potent herbs, mushrooms, and powerful monster cores, there is a terrible cost as well that has broken many cultivators.”

  Alex blinked. “I didn’t realize.”

  She snorted. “All you have to do is look 5 miles outside our very own city. Those bastards at Dragon Temple don’t even bother clearing it out! No matter the threat it poses not only to our city, but to the land itself, if allowed to fester for too many centuries.”

  Alex blinked. “Wait, we have an active dungeon five miles from where we live?”

  Liu Jian grunted in the affirmative. "And they don't care how many young cultivators it ruins, so long as the corrupt bastards now running the school can profit with the beast and essence core tithes they demand as payment from every student they teach, having conveniently stifled all competition by fair means and foul, over the last five hundred years.”

  Alex furrowed his brow, stomach tightening, knowing he would have to visit that school himself one day. If Silver Fox’s hints were anything but deception, the secrets to his advancement were hidden somewhere within that school. Whether it was students who had stumbled upon a unique path, wizened elders, or ancient tomes hidden somewhere in the dusty reaches of whatever passed for a library there, Alex was all but certain that the price for his advancement was enduring whatever trials that academy put before him.

  Then he took a deep breath of the remarkably fresh air, utterly free of the city odors he had quickly grown used to after all those weeks training and living with his two newest and only friends in this world. He put all brooding thoughts about corrupt instructors and jaded schools aside, focusing only on this moment, gazing at the deep blue sky above, and the verdant hills lush with endless forests below.

  Despite his growing fatigue, he managed to embrace a certain state of Zen, one with each moment and that moment alone, so the growing pain and exhaustion of the passing hours meant nothing, and the future was always eternally distant. There was only this one instant in time, and within each instant, Alex had more than enough willpower to survive and endure.

  Until he gasped, stumbling to a halt when Liu Jian's deceptively powerful grip upon his shoulder stopped him cold.

  “At ease, Alex. We are here.”

  Alex blinked, slowly spinning around, seeing no trace of any magnificent walled cities on the horizon, not even one of the occasional villages they had spotted with decreasing frequency the further they made their way along the high road.

  There wasn’t a soul for countless miles in all directions. Alex was sure of it.

  Alex blinked. “Where are we?”

  His mentor grinned. "Exactly where we need to be. Take a good look around, Alex. Try to memorize where all the mountains and hills are in relation to one another. Don't just see it, feel the majestic weight of the mountains, the gentle covering of woodlands giving the land a rich vibrancy. Notice where that pristine blue lake is, relative to everything else. Do you feel it like a living mark on the compass of your mind?

  Alex closed his eyes, grinning when an unexpected message popped up from his mind.

  Interfacing with map. Save point stored.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Excellent! Now it’s time for us to go.”

  Alex’s eyes widened. “Wait, we really aren’t going to continue to a rest point?”

  Liu Li winked. “See you on the other side,” she said, leaping backwards off the High Road with a final farewell wave.

  "Liu Li!"

  “I’m doing this for your own good, boy, so hold onto your ji!”

  Perceptio
n check failed! Finesse check failed!

  Alex gasped and cried out as a surprisingly powerful arm clenched him by his waist and leaped off the bridge.

  For an endless, terrible moment Alex was at the apex of their leap, everything utterly still and peaceful, a frozen slice of time.

  And then they began to fall.

  Alex’s stomach shot up his throat as he screamed, recalling in that instant why he absolutely hated roller coasters, and that was when he was safely strapped into a ride. Not falling hundreds of feet through the air with no parachute, to what he was certain would either be a very quick death or an agonizingly slow one.

  "You're doing fine, boy!" laughed the older man over the howling whistle of the wind in their ears. "Now don't forget to brace yourself for impact. Roll with the fall, and don't lock your legs! This shouldn't hurt worse than a twenty-foot drop!"

  Alex’s eyes widened. “That’s plenty fast enough to break my bones!” he screamed, and then he could think of nothing else but Facetube videos of young skaters screaming as limbs shattered and bones burst from their flesh when stunts failed spectacularly. And the ground was coming in faster than a tidal wave. He inhaled and prepared for impact…

  Then blinding pain and blackness.

  14

  “Didn’t he do anything to break his fall?”

  "Sadly, he is nowhere near as strong as we are, my dear. After a few years of solid cultivation? I have high hopes. But for now, I'm afraid we're going to have to set up camp here. He should rest his ankle for at least a day. Fortunately, nothing’s broken. I sense he’s a natural body cultivator; his muscles, tendons, and bones already sucking in all the Qi his meridian gates are making available to him.”

  “But Father, the Qi generated after all those hours on the High Road should have cushioned his fall completely! Hardly any soldier breaks anything, even on their first jump close to the city.”

  “True. And all of them spend dozens of hours training how to jump and fall, readying themselves instantly for attack from all sides, in case they are jumping right into the fray. Our dear Alex has no experience of this kind, whatsoever. This was his first jump in every sense of the word.”

  “I hope he’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

  Alex felt a tired pat on his shoulder. It was all he could do not to get up and yell at them for that madcap stunt, and with no warning. But he was just too comfortably snug in woolen blankets to bother, so settled for a half-asleep smile, sensing Liu Li performing manual tasks he knew she’d love to delegate to him if their roles were reversed.

  “Fear not, my daughter. It is exhaustion, not injury, that is responsible for his current state. The bruise on his forehead is already gone. I have no doubt that by tomorrow, he will be as right as rain."

  Then the crack of thunder could be heard overhead.

  “You just had to mention rain, didn’t you, Father?”

  By the time Alex opened his eyes, sufficiently free of his daze to want to help, he found the pair already snoring away, sensing that it was the middle of the night. A glance outside allowed him to see the ethereal glow of some kind of ward that Liu Jian had undoubtedly established as a protection/warning system, useful for any adventurer.

  You have sensed Basic Flame Ward. Comprehension is now at 40%. You are unable to cast the ward at this time. Earth, Fire, and Metal affinities are needed to cast this ward.

  Basic Flame Ward comprehension is now at 75%…

  Basic Flame ward comprehension is now at 100%. It is now possible to absorb Qi energies based on this skill. Caveat: Proper pathways need to be established and Elemental cycling techniques mastered, or meridian gate damage is possible.

  Alex’s eyes widened with awe. He swallowed, in that moment appreciating what a boon his odd gifts might become, once they were allowed to fully blossom. If his interface, subconscious, whatever it was, was able to analyze and break down the energies associated with various elemental attacks and wards and somehow absorb all or at least some of the damage… that could be an incredible boon.

  But it sounded like he'd need to at least ascend to Bronze, and somehow have found a proper cycling technique for his eight element affinities by then, not to mention have begun forging idealized links between at least several of these meridian gates, or risk severely damaging himself. So, Qi attack absorption was not a move he would dare make before he was ready, unless the strike would otherwise kill him. Still, the potential alone filled him with a fierce sense of excitement.

  So much potential, as long as he could keep himself focused on the right path, and find the resources he needed to pursue that path. And, more motivated than ever, he spent the rest of the night further mastering the Dual-Path Cultivation technique, and what was at first a hopeful suspicion soon became a certainty.

  Even though his cycling was limited to his Qi naturally flowing from his three opened gateways, it was most definitely clustering around his still-tender ankle. And with each carefully held breath, the tenderness and swelling seemed to be steadily fading. By the time the horizon caught fire with the first rays of dawn, he found he could walk on it with only the slightest amount of tenderness, as if it had been healing for days.

  And when the morning was well and truly underway with the birds chirping overhead and Liu Jian and Liu Li making jokes about his overzealous dedication, like a true cultivator, he found he could move it with absolutely no tenderness at all.

  Liu Jian had frowned when he first saw Alex putting weight on it. “I think it might be too soon for that, Alex. As impressed as I am with your strength, even a sixth-ranked basic cultivator...”

  His eyes widened when he saw Alex effortlessly stretch his limbs before springing from one foot to the other in a series of hopping dodges Liu Li had taught him as part of their system of fighting.

  “Your kung fu is improving, Alex,” Liu Jian said with a curious smile as he tossed Alex his ji.

  “No doubt thanks to his excellent teacher,” Liu Li quipped with a smile as she kitted up in her armor, and Alex couldn’t help but return the grin.

  “The best and loveliest teacher to be found anywhere in a thousand miles,” Alex assured.

  She rolled her eyes, but her cheeks flushed a pretty rose nonetheless. "If you were serious, Alex… but never mind. Come, finish kitting up, and let's head out. Our preferred campsite is just a day's journey to the west. Then we'll be in an ideal position to harvest the most potent seeds and cuttings to be found anywhere for a hundred miles."

  Alex didn’t hesitate to nod his assent as they began their journey through the forest, gazing with wonder at the towering trees soaring hundreds of feet high, golden shafts of sunlight spearing through the verdant canopy overhead. He thought he spied giant species of oak, apple, and chestnut, but couldn’t be sure until he spotted dozens of what seemed perfectly ripe apples at the roots of one massive trunk.

  He frowned, hesitating before touching the glossy skins of those delicious-looking apples, turning to catch Liu Li’s gaze.

  “Are they safe?”

  She quirked an eyebrow, spotted what he was pointing to then grinned, taking a quick sniff before biting deep into the apple, groaning with pleasure as apple juices streamed from her mouth.

  “Absolutely delicious! Why can’t we get more fruit like this in the city?”

  Her father snorted. "Because an area this rich in Heaven and Earth spiritual essence is also rich in spirit beasts. You're spoiled, living in the city all your life, Daughter. These woods are wild for a reason. No one who lacked a cultivator's gifts would dare set up a village here, and a village of cultivators would no doubt find far more profitable things to do with their time than pick baskets of fruit it would then take them weeks to haul back to the cities.”

  Liu Li rolled her eyes but kept her tone polite enough. "It is as you say, Father."

  Alex smiled, suddenly hit with an idea. “So, these apples might be worth a pretty copper or two if we brought them back… or a nice treat if we brought it ourselves.
”

  His mentor nodded. “Yes, Alex. But my pack has limited holding space, and I plan on filling it with precious herbs, cuttings, and of course spirit beast cores and the choicest cuts of meat.”

  Liu Li nodded. “Lamellar armor made of properly treated Spirit Beast hide is almost as strong as good quality steel. Depending on the beast it’s made from, it could be even tougher, not to mention prove extremely resistant to whatever elements the creature had an affinity for.”

  Alex nodded, contemplating all the natural treasures around him and the two people in a city of ten million that had gone out of their way to befriend him, help him, even nurture him from the brink of death when he would have otherwise perished.

  They stopped, somehow sensing the weight of his regard as he came to a decision.

  “Alex, what’s wrong?”

  Alex met Liu Li’s gaze. “If I show you guys a secret, can you promise me it will go no further than the three of us?”

  Liu Li grinned and nodded. “We’re honored for your trust, Alex.”

  Liu Jian scowled. “As if we had ever given you reason to doubt us...”

  Alex bowed to his master in apology before approaching the cluster of deliciously ripe apples, each of them as large as a grapefruit, inspecting one carefully before taking his first bite, finding it just as delightfully sweet and crisp with a hint of tartness as his favorite New Zealand apples back home.

  Verifying that they were indeed worth storing, he touched his copper ring to one after another, visualizing scores of iceboxes within the ring.

  Insight gained. If you can visualize whatever you like in the spatial dimension that is your ring, why not visualize low-temperature containers perfect for keeping produce or meat preserved indefinitely?