Bandits, City, Teacher...

Seeing as the bandits were targeting innocents villagers I dashed and soon arrived near the village. Some villagers were already killed as the chief of the village, who was an old man, advanced to try to negotiate with the bandits. They were in a circle with both side taking one semi-circle position. I was kept update thanks to Osis who was hovering above us.

I advanced and succeed in hiding behind a nearby house. I listened to what they were saying.

"Please we don't have much resources and food, if you take this much we won't be able to live long. The crops aren't ready yet to plant our weat, so we will have to wait. If you take our grains we won' be able to plant and we'll die from hunger." The old man said almost shaking in fear.

The boss from the bandits turned to look at his bandits with a grin on his face. As he did all the bandits roared in laughter as if it was something funny.

"I don't give a sh*t, give me what I asked for, or you die. Remember, the strong prey on the weak and you're weak. Blame yourself for what is happening." The boss said as he suddenly turned serious. His eyes reflected a savagery which caused the villagers to shivers from fear and helplessness.

'Why must they always talk so much....?' I muttered as I walked up and drawed the attention of everybody.

"Who are you and what are you doing here ? Are you planning on interfering ?" The boss asked with a dangerous face. He clearly wanted to scare me away.

I lightly chuckled as his face turned furious.

" My name is James and I plan to trade some materials and informations with this village."

I said not at all impressed. He just looked like a clown trying to impress little childrens.

"Good if you just want that then f*ck off and you'll get to keep your other arm and be spared." He said with a confident smile.

"Hahahahaha...Oufff, you nearly got me there... You're a funny one, aren't you ? Try to use your head. How do you think I can trade if you steal everything from them, huh ?" I said mockingly.

The village chief was flabbergasted and stunned as he tried to stop me from doing something reckless.

" Youngster don't spout nonsense we don't have enough to trade with you anyway so please apologise and get out of here quickly before it turn out of hand." He whispered in my ears while the Boss of the bandits had a sullen face.

I looked at the village chief and smiled. I took out my spear and shot it to the Boss who revealed a face of surpise as I was the first to strike. After all I was alone against 20 something men.

The spear travelled quickly and transperced the right leg of the Boss. Pinning gim down. He roared and said.

"KILL HIM !!

I used my Time Phasing Art and came close to the first bandit I saw, I punched him with my right arm as my Lightning and Metal Qi merged and helped me inflige a hole in the abdomen of the bandit. The others were so afraid they tried to escape but ten minute later they were all dead. I slowly advanced towards the bandits Boss while he was shaking like a leaf.

"Please spare me I will do everything you want, I can be your slave, I can give you Qi crystals and the location of our hiding place. Please just don't kill me." He plead as fear was apparent on his face. I mused :

' How easy can a situation turn around...'

I cut the fingers of his right hand and said :

" You are free to go but first give me your hiding place and your Qi crystals." I said seriously with a cold face.

" Ok, ok just don't kill me please. That's all I have please don't harm me further. The location is beyond the montain there. There is a track there and you can find our hiding place if you follow it. " He said as he searched in his pants for the crystals and pulled out a green, a blue and a transparent crystals.

I took them and let him go.

He went out of the village and run for his life. He escaped through a forest at the foot of a mountain completely opposite to the location he gave me.

I wasn't really interesed in his hiding place. If there was anything of value they wouldn't have been this weak. I send Osis kill him as I didn't want him to cause me problem later. Then you'll ask me why I didn't kill him just there and robbed him of his Qi crystals ? It was to give a lesson to the old man and his villagers.

" Do you know why I didn't kill him ?" I aked them. They were still shocked by how easily I had taken care of the bandits.

" I want you to remember that it is new world for everyone. But not everyone will stay the same as they were. For some it's an opportunity to rise above the other and do as they please. I don't like what he said but he is right. You are weak and since you are weak you can be killed any time they want you to. You already know you're weak but you do nothing about it. Train, learn from your past mistakes. Delves yourself in blacksmithing if you want better weapons, or Alchemy if you have the affinity. Take every opportunity to rise above what you were in the past or you'll be trampled. This bandit will surely try to take revenge. To do it he will probably gather other bandits and wait for me to leave the village. I want you to resist, enhance your strenght, train everyday and make yourself strong so that if one dayř1 you die, you die without any regret." I had looked around the village while hiding and just saw crops. Do they really think that they can have the easy and free lives they had before. Wishfull thinking.

The old man got some tears in eyes as he heard my words and thought about it for several seconds. I waited as I saw everyone looking at me with admiration and a bit of remnant fear. He looked at me and heaved a sigh.

" Thank you, young man, it was already the third time these bandits came to extort our village. If you hadn't helped us, we wouldn't have lived much longer. The winters are rude in this world." He said, looking gratefull.

'The winter...'

" Don't worry about it. Coming back to business I came here searching for informations and materials. Do you think you can help me ? Of course I can pay." I looked in his eyes with hope. I don't have the time for small talk.

" Of course, if it's in our means we can help you as much as you want. You don't have to pay for anything that's alright." He said as he weaved his hand to let the villagers know that he will take care of me from now on. He lead me to a big house made of wood I had no idea of and asked me, what kind of materials and informations I needed.

" First I need clothes, I need a backpack and informations about other people. Do you know if there is a city nearby ?" I was sure a city had been established after 3 years in this world. There were probably a lot of Qi sensing and Qi Core Creating stage people. I was sure they wanted to gather information about the different Qi, application of Qi, How to maximize their strenght, create the best Qi Arts and Qi Techniques possible and suitable for them and the best way to do that was to increase the population around you, so you could monitor their progress and how they advance. You need Data and to have Data you must have people. Also the need of protection increased a lot in this world. That's why I was so sure there were cities already.

He took his time, lost in his thought, and gave me an answer.

" We have a lot of clothes that can be given to you, but I'm sorry that they aren't of a better quality. We make them ourselves and that's all we can do for now. As for the city, we heard some rumors of a city being built one year and a half ago south of our village." He said.

I thanked him and waited one day there. I slept in the house of the chief villager. The next day, one of the villager prepared my clothes and I changed myself.

'Ahhh, the feel of civilisation missed me.'

I was already preparing myself to leave the village. There was the village chief and some other villager around him. I gave him some roots imbued with Time Qi and told him.

" Give this to one of the youngster who has potential and if he is able to improve and become a Qi cultivator, be sure to make him go to the Time Forest north-ouest. It's 2 weeks of travel to reach. He will improve the strenght of your village and will have a path of it's own. Good luck and Goodbye..." I departed as a Silver Falcon descended and niched itself on my shoulder. Of course that was Osis.

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As I had become just a little dot in the horizon, one of the villager asked the chief.

" Chief, why don't we sell these roots and use it to create fences and improve our crops ?"

" We can't do that, we need to first defend ourselves against the threat the bandit represent. He is sure to come seek vengeance, this resources come just at the right time." The chief reploed absent-mindedly.

" Humph, if he is so strong why did he leave the bandit escape, it could have been easier that way." Another villager asked, clearly not content with what he received.

The chief glared at him and made him lower his eyes.

"Do you have any honor ? He already gave us a big help and gave us time, resources and means to fight back. What are you even complaining about ? Thanks to him, we will be able to live our life as we wish. We won't be some slaves. He did it so we had some motivation, we need to change and adapt to this world. The God did say that, but 3 years already passed and nothing changed. If he didn't let the bandit go, we would have regressed to what we were and would be again at the mercy of everybody. Since you don't know anything shut up." It was the first time in 3 years the chief had been this harsh.

The other villager were surprised as the man in question was red with shame. He understood now everything and decided to listen to the advice. It's smarter to shut up when you don't know what you're talking about.

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3 weeks later I found a house near a crop. I passed by and asked if I was in the right direction to go to the city. A man in it's forties told me I had to walk 3 days Sud-Est from now on and I would be good.

I did as he said and little by little found new crops owned by people. I was clearly approaching the city. I reached the city gate and waited for my turn. There was a long line of peoples hoping to enter before it got dark.

Soon my turn arrived and the guard asked me a serie of questions.

" Name, objectif of the visit, profession, and 5 Qi stones for the entrance."

" Hum, hello... My name is James, I came to find some relatives and I'm a beast tamer as you can see. As for the 5 Qi stones, I don't have any, I have been blocked somewhere for the 3 last years and didn't come across Qi stone..."

I said a little hesitant. The family part wasn't necessary a lie because I wanted to find my sister and mother but I knew I had to become srrong before. The world was vast and I didn't know where they were, I could find them now, as I could find them in 10 years.

" A beast tamer ?!?" He looked at Osis and nodded.

" As for the 5 Qi stones, if you have something of equal value it's ok too." He replied and looked at me with slight mischeviousness in his eyes.

"Hum... I understand..." I knew he wanted to take advantage of me since I had little to no human contact during these 3 years. So I decided to let him be desapointed. I took 3 grass imbued with time Qi and said :

" Really sorry that's all I have."

" that's fine, I'll take that." He said as he was curious what kind of Qi was inside.

I entered the city and saw that there was a mix of differents nationality and origin. There were Asian people, American, Canadian, French, Mexican, etc... They were all talking Chinese or English. There were a lot of differents stands in the street selling differents products. Going from food to weapons to Qi stones. I saw a big building at the end of the street and strolled in its direction. 20 minutes later I was just in front of it. There was a signboard with something written on it. It said : "Array association".

Really excited I entered the building and went to the secretary office.

" How can I help you sir ?" The lady rose up, and asked me.

"I'm new to this city, have been blocked in a certain area for the past 3 and wasn't able to find news. I want to join the association and trade knowledge with someone who can explain what Arrays are." I asked as I tried to supress my excitement.

The lady looked at me for almost 3 seconds and said slowly.

" You really want to join the association ?"

"Of course, if you've read eastern novel in your youth, you should know how important this secondary occupation is. I don't know the origin of Arrays in this world so I need someone to guide me." I said absolutely sure of my choice. Please how can I pass this chance. To tell the truce I'm more interested in Arrays than Alchemy but I take what I can to improve my strenght.

" Well, I know it, but the manager is quite...special, so nobody want to learn from him." She said with a frown.

" Don't worry so much I once had a excentric teacher completely passioned with sciences, who made us fight against him if we failed to give the right answer during his monthly test and despise his old age, he had incredible stamina. He always took a wood saber and gave us nothing to defend ourself. Quite the madmen if you ask me." I chuckled as I remembered the good old time.

The secretary paled and said nothing for nearly 1 minutes. Seeing that, I couldn't help but pale myself and say.

"You gotta be f*cking kidding me !! Seriously this madmen is still alive ?!" I nearly shouted.

" Oï watch how you talk about your senior, brat. You weren't even born I had already three grand children." An old man descended the stairs with a slight smile and came to me.

I frowned with an ugly expression.

" Student James, nearly 7 years have passed since we last saw each other and this is how you treat an ancient admirable teacher of yours ?" He asked me with a grin.

" Ohhhhh shut up old man, you know as well as me that I never bothered with the honorific. I won't start today. What's really interesting is that you seem to have given up on sciences."

I said while rolling my eyes.

"Nonsense, the study of Qis and Arrays are a science too. The world was changed so the law we found and searched in our 5 thousand years of history need to be kept updated. Qis and Arrays are a part of this new world. Why can't I study it. What's really funny is that you who gave the middle finger with your left hand seem to have lost it, hehe." He retorqued as the lady was completely stunned.

'Who is this young man, who can talk with the best Arrays master of the region. He can joke around with him, counterargument him, embarras him and other ?!? Quite the weird friendship if you ask me.' She was silent as she looked at us as if there was 2 bombs doing a comic show. With a weird look. She didn't know what to say.

"Ouch, point taken, you don't have to worry so much old man, as I advance in my cultivation, I will regrow my arm and of course search more mystery of the world than you. You will be left in the dust like the last time." I said the grin on my face grew little by little.

" Ok just shut up and come to my office we have things to talk about." He said with a dignified air but I could see the little smile hung in the corner of his mouth. I had missed our constants arguments.