by Charles Dean
Lars wanted to take in those surprised expressions and savor the moment as he watched the entire city as far as he could see stop in silence and stare at him, awestruck, but he lost focus on them the second the Qi began to enter his body. He had thought that the Qi from the slave that had died when he killed Bok Kyu was good—he had savored that feeling when it had entered his body. But that was only 7,412 Qi. This was over four times that, and the difference in how it felt was far greater. It was like every inch of his body was covered in pure bliss and joy as his skin tingled and sparked with an electrical feeling that coursed and popped across every inch of his being. It felt like his brain had been melted by liquid happiness pouring across it as he drowned in the momentary ecstasy that came with the kill.
Lars, I don’t think I have said this, but I have absolutely loved our little vacation into this city.
Huh? Lars thought, trying to wrest mental control away from the ensnaring euphoria that gripped it. Oh, uhh— His brain stuttered, failing to start as he did his best to get it going like a man trying to light wet twigs with flint.
“Lars? Master?” The voice of Su Ryeon pierced through the purplish Qi cloud of emotions.
“Yes?” Lars did his best to keep a straight face, to not show how absolutely filled to the brim with pleasure he was as he responded. “Ah, right, the other one,” Lars said, turning to face the “young master” that had started this incident.
“You instigated a conflict where there was none, and now you are short a loyal guard. I trust you have learned your lesson, so on behalf of my master, I shall let you go . . .” Lars let his words trail off for a moment. “But I think there needs to be a punishment befitting your behavior before you run away.”
The weak, scared, shivering teen that stood where a confident, arrogant bastard once strutted around didn’t move an inch except to open his mouth. The sound of chattering teeth filled the air. The boy couldn’t even manage a word out at first.
“I think I’ll make it easy on you,” Lars said as he looked at the giant Qi gauntlet still enveloping his hand. “Either you slap yourself ten times, apologizing for wasting precious minutes of my day and making me”—he looked down at his once-white robes, now splattered with blood—“dirty myself with that foul man’s remains and run back to your father, or I’ll slap you ten times with this hand. The choice is yours.”
As if humiliation were worse than death, the boy’s fire returned. Lars could see it light up in his eyes as the guy ground his teeth for a moment before finally speaking.
“I, the son of the prince of the ruler of our great city, will not dare to— I mean, yes!”
He started to protest, but when Lars lifted his hand, the boy instantly capitulated and slapped himself.
“That . . . That wasn’t hard enough,” Lars said. “Ten times. Properly. I want people a street over to hear it!”
“Are you mad?” Su Ryeon whispered to Lars in a soft voice. “He’s still a member of royalty. This could still get us killed. Murdering the guard was one thing. Do you want to make the whole city your enemy?”
YES! YES! I DO! And we’ve already got helpers! She’s right. This is brilliant! Forget buying your mother; let’s just kill everyone. Can you imagine how good killing a Stage 2 or Stage 3 or Stage 5 Qi-Condensing Cultivator will feel for us? Your guard is right. Kill everyone!
“Ah, you’re right,” Lars said, hearing Ophelia squee for a moment as she anticipated his next action. “If he’s royalty, that means that he has other people, probably people to carry his luggage and belongings, with him as well—people that should be punished for not better informing this precious royal heir of both his station and the errors in his morality and being. If he had been better educated, he would be a boon to this city, not the blight that stands before my eyes.”
Indeed! Indeed! A blight who should be killed along with his followers as well as everyone in the city that tolerated him. Let’s bring on the cultivator genocide and cull these foul creatures from the earth!
“Where are the pallbearers that carry this young man to an early grave? Have his servants step forward, or else I will have to punish everyone here to make sure that they do not escape responsibility,” Lars said.
At this request, four more men were pushed forward and onto their knees by the crowd around them. They weren’t that strong and were dressed in plain, undyed woolen robes.
“Master, please,” Su Ryeon pleaded. “Do not dig yourself a grave you cannot climb out of. My life as well hangs in the balance, and no justice that will be brought here is worth a death.”
Lars put a hand on Su Ryeon’s shoulder as he continued to look at the young master and his four servants. “Since this young master only bears half the responsibility for his actions, and you who raised and guided him the other half, then he shall only slap himself five times, and you all shall slap yourselves five times as well. Do this, and I’ll let you leave my presence.”
Upon hearing that his punishment would be halved, the boy seemed to perk up a bit before striking his own face. This time, Lars heard it ring out throughout the streets. The servants, seeing even their master throw his pride away, also struck their own faces. One hit after another, they quickly racked up five slaps a person before standing up.
Congratulations! You have completed the following quest: Go slap yourself!
Reward: You have been granted the new skill Rising Flames Waltzing with the Sun.
Skill Details:
Rising Flames Waltzing with the Sun allows the user to perform the long-lost dance buried deep in the traditions of humanity before the first cultivator discovered Qi.
Skill Note: Fire is neither life nor death, but hunger—a desperate hunger that, when unfed for even a single moment, spells the end of flames. It can have no patience, take no respite, nor ever be at peace as it is forced to continuously destroy everything around it to feed its appetite, a trait that once scared all who saw it. While others fled, however, man became intoxicated with the flames, consuming their nature and birthing the first civilization as they waltzed with the flames and an endless, desperate hunger that, like the sun’s, must always be consuming itself and everything else lest it vanish into the dark.
Additional Note: This skill is manual, lacking the need for Power or Qi. As such, it cannot be scaled. No levels may be gained from this skill.
Another dance? Lars frowned, having hoped the reward would be better as he watched the people in front of him prostrate and slap themselves.
“Now, have you learned your lesson, boy?” Lars asked the young master.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, avoiding eye contact with Lars.
“Then you can leave. But you should be careful in the future as well. Your status won’t protect you from the wrath of those you wrong. Say the wrong word, do the wrong thing, or be the wrong person, and death will grip you and take you with her in a moment.”
“A lesson you should remember as well, master,” Su Ryeon replied under her breath to the pretentious speech Lars had just given.
Can’t you let me just have this? Lars thought. There is no way that me getting the brat to slap himself is going to make things any worse than killing his guard in front of everyone.“So, the auction?” Lars asked the girl in the qipao. “Could you lead the way? Perhaps bring me a clean robe as well?”
“Umm . . . yes, yes, young master,” the serving woman said as she gestured toward the casino’s entrance for Lars to enter. “I’ll make sure to show you to a good booth befitting someone of your status.”
“Someone of my status . . .” Lars chuckled. You mean the status of a tailless welp from the boonies, a bastard child of a slave woman who couldn’t even cultivate a week ago? That status? he wanted to ask, but he bit his tongue as he followed the thin, dainty serving woman through the hall, through the building, and into a booth with ten chairs looking out over a large theater filled with hundreds of cultivators and their entourages.
“Take this, sir,” the woman said a
s she extended a stone to him. “Channeling Qi into it will cause it to light up and signal to the auctioneer that you are placing a bid. Please keep in mind, young master, that all bids are final and that if you cannot afford to pay for an item for which you win the bid, then you will be killed on the spot, and your possessions will be seized and distributed at the next auction in the name of the cultivator whose item you failed to pay for.”
“I see . . .” Lars replied as he studied the woman’s expression. She clearly was afraid that such a threat, even if it was likely mandatory for her to make, might anger Lars into action. “You don’t need to be so tense. I appreciate all that you’ve done for me.” Lars reached into the bag of gold on Su Ryeon’s waist, grabbed two coins, and gave them to her. “Thank you for your patience, and I’m sorry you had to get caught up in the earlier incident.”
Instead of being gracious about receiving the coins, though, the young lady rejected them, pushing them back at Lars. “I am sorry, sir, but my station does not allow me to accept tips or bribes. Doing so would be an insult to my profession, implying that service of quality was only performed in hopes of extracting even further payment, and so I must decline the compensation, but thank you sincerely for the gesture.”
“I see . . .” Lars felt a little embarrassed, never having run into this situation before. “I’m sorry for putting you on the spot.”
“Not at all, young master. It is a pleasure to know my service is regarded so highly.” She gave another short bow before adding, “I shall return with clean clothes and refreshments for you to enjoy during the auction.”
“That’d be wonderful,” Lars said as he looked over at the chairs. Then he signaled Su Ryeon. “Carry on with the plan. Let me know when it’s time for the slave auction part of this event.”
Su Ryeon closed the curtains that would have allowed them to look out of the booth and onto the stage below.
“You know, boss,” Daniel said as he leaned against the right wall, pulling the curtain open just far enough to peek out of it. “I’m kind of curious . . . How strong are you?”
“I’ve always been . . . as strong as I needed to be to stay alive till now,” Lars replied, dodging the question.
“The force of that blow. I don’t think I could muster it at all,” Weatherly, the weaker of the two guards, said. “Maybe if I were trying to kill her or someone like her”—Weatherly pointed at Su Ryeon—“but not against someone close to my own strength. You obliterated the bastard. How is that just strong ‘enough’?”
“Ten points for style, by the way,” Daniel said, laughing as he took his spot on the other side of the room. He peered out from behind the other side of the curtains while Lars sat down in the centermost chair, gripping the auction stone tightly. “I mean, I woulda liked to have had more fun with the bastard. We coulda done a lot of neat stuff with him.”
“Coulda kept his skull, hooked some strings up to it, and made it look like the proper puppet he lived as,” Weatherly suggested.
“No need to be that fancy. Coulda just mounted it on the wall of an outhouse. His ugly mug would have discouraged people from taking their time in the morning. Would be a real lifesaver in a large house,” Daniel joked with Weatherly.
Lars felt a pang of longing as he watched the two of them laugh back and forth. Their cackling and comments constantly played off each other as they continued to come up with more and more elaborate ideas of how they might have preferred humiliating Reginald following his death.
I never had someone like that, Lars thought, remembering how isolated he had been his whole life and was even now. No matter what the others said, he believed Ophelia when she told him to trust none of them. Su Ryeon wouldn’t be with him if she didn’t fear his death would kill her, and the two of them wouldn’t be there if they weren’t getting paid. Desdemona had been dragged by force and beaten into submission, and his two acolytes treated common people like trash, or at least he was certain that Matthew did. After all, that was how Matthew spoke of him before he fabricated a proper identity out of thin air. Ruri and Brandon had been nice enough, and Nick had stuck with him, but Ruri and Brandon were their own people and had left the moment they found each other, and Nick had only clung to Lars hoping to stay alive. Lars, on the other hand, unlike Ruri and Brandon or Weatherly and Daniel, had never had anyone. He could think of a ton of excuses as to why it was the case, but it didn’t change the truth of the matter: until he saved his mother, he was alone. He had no one he could trust, no relationship built up that he could lean on, and the moment he wasn’t useful or needed by those around him, they’d scatter like leaves in the wind.
No one? Really? Don’t hurt a girl’s feelings, Lars. I’ve always been there with you, and we’re closer than those two could ever be. Whether you’re an annoyingly stubborn boy who refuses to kill even a small child for some Qi or a brazen, brash man murdering millions, I’ll still be here with you. We’re always going to be together.
That we are. But that thought didn’t fully remove the frown that had slowly pulled his face down toward the patch of ground he was looking at. Even though Ophelia was with him, and even though he was closer to her than he could have ever been with anyone else, it wasn’t the same.
“Ah, found you, boss,” Birkett said as he opened the door to the room.
“You were there with us at the entrance,” Daniel noted. “Where’d you get off to?”
“Flee when the fighting started?” Weatherly asked.
“Flee? I went to get this,” Birkett said, handing Lars a piece of paper.
“What is this?” Lars asked.
“Buyout prices. It’s a one-time offer before the auction begins. Heard about it from one of the people watching the spectacle. They said they were going to go purchase the herb they wanted from the buyout menu so that they wouldn’t risk running into you when the auction ended.”
“Buyout prices? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of an auction?” Lars asked.
“Well, it’s more like a limited-time offer that can drive someone to pay far more than the auction would because they worry the item won’t be available once that gavel gets moving and things hit the floor.”
“And the slaves are on this list?” Lars said as his eyes quickly began looking through the paper. He couldn't find one thing or the other, though, because every item was marked with numbers or unit acronyms.
Birkett came around and pointed at an item number. “Yup, it’s this item, priced at six hundred and thirty gold for the remainder of your village.”
Lars read the text: “Item ninety-four: sixty slaves, three unbound children.”
“I woulda been up here sooner if it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out which one was yours,” Birkett remarked.
“This is . . . This is great,” Lars said, looking over at the bag of gold on Su Ryeon’s hip. “Here, hand me that. Someone go call the attendant. Let’s buy it and get out of here now.”
“Do you need to free them all?” Daniel asked. “Thought you were just trying to save your mom.”
“The buyout won’t sell them separately,” Birkett replied. “It’s a package deal.”
“I don’t care. Go find someone and buy them now. Don’t let anyone beat us to the punch. If anyone does, tell them we’ll triple the price to take it from them.”
“So demanding.” Birkett shook his head. “It’s a good thing you’re buying all these people ‘cause you really are a slave driver.”
“Low Qi-stage villagers from some unknown place? Boss, I think you’re safe waiting. You can probably get the lot of them for fifty, maybe seventy-five, gold tops. You should wait,” Weatherly suggested.
“No, I’m with Lars. We need to get out of here as soon as possible. Let’s buy them up and vacate these premises immediately,” Su Ryeon said. “It’s the safest option.”
“Safest? You have us, don’t you?” Daniel said.
“Women are always so quick to hurt the ego, aren’t they, bro?” Weatherly sighed.
“I’ll take care of it right away, boss,” Birkett said. “And when you leave for the sect, I’m coming with you. Don’t need people recognizing me from that skirmish and trying to skin me to get to you.”
Su Ryeon nodded her agreement as she tossed Birkett the cash needed to make the transaction. “Not a bad idea.”
It didn’t take long for him to return again, all smiles as he rushed over to Lars with a piece of paper.
“The villagers are being re-shackled and prepared for us at the back entrance of the establishment. There’ll also be someone who is bringing the collars so you can perform the enslavement at your leisure,” the serving woman who had been taking care of them earlier said as she entered the room with Birkett.
Mom . . . Lars thought as he stood up. “Let’s go!” he said practically bursting out the door.
“Wait! You don’t have to leave! They are guaranteed by the establishment. They’ll be there when the auction is over!” the woman insisted.
“Don’t care!” Lars shouted back. “Thanks for the help!”
“At least he didn’t break the wall this time,” Birkett said to the servant woman as he and the others followed after Lars.
Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Lars repeated as he focused on getting out of the building. He had done his best to resist getting his hopes up, to suppress thoughts of her, to focus on anything he could that wasn’t her, but the moment he knew where she was for certain and that she was free, he couldn’t help himself. He had to go see her.
