Money

Wearing my long and loose pants, plus a T-shirt too small for me, I wandered in the streets of Orario, searching for a job.

The problem with being a young worker with no experience or qualifications was… you got rejected a lot—a rule which was true in both my old and my current world.

"Sorry, but I don't think we have a place for you here…" That was the 9th rejection. I sighed, my shoulders dropping, and walked away from the flower shop. This couple mentioned having terrible experiences with employing young people for their shop—bringing them troubles or something.

I didn't bother listening to the conversation after this, knowing damn well where it would end up, with my ass back in the streets again. And, surprise, it did. I opened my pouch and counted the valis in it one more time—about five thousand valis.

I will need to have a look at the price of the inns here at some point.

I felt something shift and slither around my neck. Oh, Tiamat woke up from her beauty nap?

"Did you sleep well?" I asked the little snake around my neck, looking at me with her purple and slitted eyes. I brought my index finger close to her little scaly head, then she nodded to me. What?

"Did… D-Did you just nod to me?" I looked around to see if anyone else saw that. "Can you understand me?" I added.

I had to thank my luck I was not on one of the major streets of Orario, but in a calmer corner of the city, where the lone flower shop was located. So, not that many people could have witnessed Tiamat's awakening. I focused on her.

Judging by the small amount of qi her body generated, a literal awakening.

She nodded once more, pushing her body in the air to touch my waiting finger. Well, I'll be damned.

Turns out this whole dragon thing would be a lot easier than I thought. I patted Tiamat's head with my finger, chuckling when I saw the shiver her body went through and the widened slits of her eyes when I started sliding my finger across her scales.

Her tongue shot out of her mouth, flicking from top to bottom faster than I could catch, as always. I wondered what's the purpose of this action. I mean, I know it's what snakes do, but I didn't know the reason behind it.

The insects in her stomach had disappeared a while ago, so she had returned to her smooth and lithe body, wrapped around my neck with a soft but firm grip. I liked to think I trusted Tiamat enough to not try to choke me, but to be honest, with her current strength, even if she tried, she wouldn't succeed.

I trusted the knowledge given to me by this eldritch being—maybe more than I should. And it told me I had nothing to fear from cute Tiamat here.

"Alright, we- I need to find some job for us, little Tiamat," I said, removing my finger from her head. She stared at me for a few seconds, before just barely tilting her head to the right—very humanly, I must add—as if she was confused about what a job was.

My lips twitched at the mannerisms Tiamat already displayed. It was both cute and somewhat disturbing to instinctively know what Tiamat wanted to express on a very basic level just by her movements.

Or maybe I was just hallucinating and interpreting things wrong.

Hearing no answer from me, Tiamat went back to sleep, her eyes hiding from the sun behind my neck as we left the shaded region of the flower shop.

Back under the clear sky, I steeled myself, ready to continue on my journey towards the fabled employment. The chorus of calling insects ringing in my ears. No wonder the temperatures bypassed my resistance to heat when I was spending the entire day on the fields. It was summer, and the tyrant of the sky was asking for tributes.

#####

I walked in the city of Orario, the qi in my body flowing through my meridians unrestricted. I spent a good amount of time trying to feel things with my brand new energy—and it wasn't an effortless task.

After all, might as well use any way to get stronger—if it wasn't a xianxia world, maybe I would have been allowed to be… normal.

But it was, so I had to train as hard as I could afford to. And even then… I'm not sure that'd be enough. I would be lying if I said the incoming tribulations didn't scare me, but they would just make the rewards at the end of the journey sweeter.

The knowledge burned in my memory, thanks to my good friend Ghubbu, guided me through this city and bolstered my determination—I had a leg up on the competition.

"Is this it?" I asked no one in particular. Tsubaki's Workshop was written on the wooden sign, sitting atop the small building. A thick smell surrounded the shop, burning my nostrils with an acrid stench. An adventurer gave me directions towards a smithy when I told them I was searching for a job, so I guessed the horrible smell was the scent of coal and molten iron—or other minerals, since it was a fantasy world.

I couldn't say I was looking forward to working here, however, since my nose was itchy and my eyes were burning. The forge must be pretty damn close to the actual forefront of the store if I have to endure the effect of its hot mess from here.

Whatever—money is money. I can't exactly afford to be picky here.

The temperature resistance I got when coming here with my cultivation came in handy, as I could barely feel the increased heat on my skin, despite feeling the other effects because of my enhanced senses.

But spending a good portion of the afternoon under the burning sun after making the trip from Hinks' farm to Orario was pushing this resistance to the limits. I felt sweat drenching all over my body.

The moment I opened the front door, I heard a bell above my head tinkle, and the sound resonate in the shop, announcing my arrival.

"Hello," I greeted, looking around. The shop felt… cozy, for a lack of better words. None of the previously uncomfortable sensations hit me there, making me think the actual smithy must be somewhat outdoors and separated from the shop part of this building. "I heard you were looking for someone."

"Ah, welcome to Tsubaki's Workshop, sir," The… receptionist? Yeah, the receptionist greeted me with the standard commercial smile. She didn't give off the impression of being a blacksmith, however.

When considering the fact that this Tsubaki was, according to the adventurer who sent me here, searching for people, it didn't seem that far-fetched that they'd recruit someone to take care of the selling aspect. I just hope this wasn't the job I was told about.

The person sitting behind the desk looked young, wearing a white simple shirt, highlighting her slim figure while exposing just enough cleavage to draw the eye without being obscene. The persistent smile on her face and the half-lidded eyes made for an attractive picture, messy short and brown hair decorating her head. Brown eyes as well, I noticed.

Overall, a young and above-average woman who knew how to smile. While someone more beautiful would be better, she would still attract more people than me—it's hard to beat a vibrant young girl, after all.

I sighed, dreading the upcoming moment when I ended up competing against her for the job.

"Are you here for the job of Tsubaki's assistant?" She asked me. When I nodded, her smile immediately dropped, probably because I went from customer to possible co-worker. The change in demeanor, her expression… This woman knew how to sell a product and what her strengths were. "Follow me, then." Even her voice dropped. The chirpy tone was all but gone.

"Sure." We both entered the backroom of the shop part of this building through a door behind the counter. I observed that despite looking old from the exterior, the entire structure from the inside felt renovated. The lingering smell of chemical products I hypothesized only I could catch was stuck to every inch of the place. The paint of the walls looked fresher than a smithy had any right to be, and the wood of the counter looked lacquered.

The silence between us was broken soon enough. "You seem new to the city," she observed, glancing at my clothes.

I followed her gaze for a moment. "Huh, what makes you think that?" I asked her. Making myself seem as normal as possible in this city was paramount to my success. No self-respecting cultivator would make himself visible to others by choice in a xianxia setting. It could bring too many problems.

"I know every trend in this city, and you follow none. To be honest, I've never seen a top quite like the one you're wearing," she answered; her tone as monotonous as her expression. So nobody wore T-shirts in this city? I glanced at my torso and realized what was the problem here. I had arrived in a medieval world, and yet I brought a printed T-shirt.

"Ah, before we get to Tsubaki, could you give me your current level?" She requested, looking at me and deciding to change subjects after my lack of answer. So she isn't really looking to interrogate me, or she already got the answers she wanted. — "We don't ask for experience in a smithy for this job, but, well… you can probably guess working alongside someone as high-leveled as the famed Cyclops requires a certain level of strength and endurance…"

Since I knew nothing about this… 'Cyclops', which I guessed was some sort of title for Tsubaki Collbrande, the owner of this shop, I just nodded again and followed the girl inside of the shop. I had strength and endurance to spare, as a cultivator, but I'm pretty sure those weren't what this civilian girl was talking about.

I had to say: the shop was much bigger from the inside, it's a never-ending series of doors and turns. The amount of equipment I could see just lying around was incredible. We reached a big room full of weapons—no armor—and the earlier stench of a smithy comes back.

"I just arrived in the city, and have not received any God's blessing yet," I claimed, even though I was not planning to offer myself on a plate to any god, even if their strength was sealed. I'd read too many books in this genre, and I knew better than to trust divine beings in this kind of setting.

But I couldn't exactly lie on this. According to Old Hinks, it was very easy to know if someone is part of what they call a 'Familia'. Plus, even if I managed to dupe them, it would bite me back at some point.

These Familias were very similar to a sect or a clan—the ones I knew from the xianxia novels I read in the past. The only key difference was Familias weren't as focused as sects on bloodlines and a specific school technique for ascension. The main appeal of a sect was that each had a specific but verified way to ascend, but in this city, everyone seemed to share the same technique—called falna, granted by a God or a Goddess.

Of course, everything I knew about Familias came from Old Hinks, and therefore was prone to be wrong, or at least wrong enough it could bring me troubles if I didn't double-check when I had the chance to do so.

The girl abruptly stopped, right in front of the last door separating my potential future employer and me, as evidenced by the strong and weighty smell coming from this direction. She looked at me with a tired expression, her eyes even more closed than normal, and her flat stare continued for a while.

"What?"

"I- You know what? Just go in, not my problem anymore." She gestured to the door, shrugged, and turned around, going back into the shop. The bell tinkled again after that.

I winced just a bit because I wished to not reveal that piece of information, but I had no choice. My experience so far with job-searching had been catastrophic, and I would prefer to be able to earn a living and deal with the potential problems which came with others, knowing I was not affiliated with a God or a Goddess.

As I grasped the door handle, one question appeared in my mind. If higher levels are direct synonyms to higher realms in this world, like I thought, then why is an experienced cultivator looking for a random assistant out of the street? I'm pretty sure her clan—Familia, whatever it's called here—can get someone to help her…

Wouldn't it be dangerous to show me her techniques? Something isn't adding up.

Then again, a lot of things have not been adding up ever since I entered the city. It just didn't match the xianxia worlds I knew. Sure, the adventurers I saw on the street looked to be relatively weak—because despite having a lot of qi inside of their body, it was unused, stagnant.

Like mortals.

But I shrugged it off and thought the truly stronger people weren't just dallying around in the city.

However, I knew they were much stronger than me—call it an instinct—probably linked to cultivation. Is this a technique to hide their cultivation I'm simply not aware of? That... would be scary, I thought with widened eyes. Every adventurer I've met felt the same regarding their qi, so that would mean I'm the only idiot broadcasting his cultivation, basically outing me as an outsider.

…shit, I could be in trouble. I wished the being who transported me here gave me more information about this world—it's only after I jumped in without a clue of what is going on here I realized I really should have gotten more information.

Still, as I opened the door and the sound of a hammer hitting steel reached me, ringing loud enough that I staggered—getting my first look at the female blacksmith, probably Tsubaki herself, at the same time—I couldn't remove the nagging feeling at the back of my mind that maybe this world wasn't what I expected it to be.

'This entire city doesn't really look like a Chinese city...'

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Beta: AsuraJZero and Ekaterina.

A/N: Tiah Mat is the best, simple. Imagine having a cute snake around your neck like a scarf: perfection. As for the T-shirt part, the clothing we wear today would directly broadcast to anyone that he's not from here immediately, in any medieval setting.