The group of cultivators and I stood over a section of beach that held a body imprint in the sand. I wasn’t sure what the significance was, but I wasn’t really the one here for my brains. Eventually, I was supposed to bring a sample of the apparent mana to the capital. I looked up at the group and blinked.

  “So, you’re saying Silas was here?” Hisai said, with doubt very clear in his tone.

  “Yes, he’s my oldest friend. If anyone could have survived whatever happened here, it would be him,” Kio’s impassive voice sounded cold and defiant. As if she were daring Hisai or any of the others to argue with her.

  I looked up and looked around a little and spotted the Chens off to the side. Something about them seemed nervous. They seemed to hear what Kio said and kept looking back and forth between the group of cultivators and then at each other. I narrowed my eyes at them before I raised my eyebrow. Mei and I locked eyes for a moment, and her eyes went wide before she nudged her husband, and they both ran off.

  “Weird,” I mumbled to myself.

  “I’m sorry, Maikeru?”

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  Kio stared at me. Her usual expressionless face was frowning. “You think it’s weird how one of the most powerful cultivators in the Empire. No, the world survived an attack?”

  My eyes almost bulged out of my head. “Kio, no!”

  She frowned, so I corrected myself. “Cultivator Kio, no, I do not think it’d be weird. Just the Chens were over there acting shifty.”

  Her frown only deepened. “Maikeru, you’ve been asked here as a courtesy to Hisai, who has taken an interest in you and your path.”

  I gulped.

  “The least you could do is try to pay attention when we’re discussing the matter at hand,” she continued.

  I went to give a bow and apologize to Kio, but Hisai put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Now, now, Cultivator Kio. The dressing-down isn’t needed. My friend here is a wagoneer, not an investigator. He’s both far along his path and somehow still beginning it. He saw an interesting thing and commented on it. Let’s move on, shall we?” Hisai defended me with a shrug and a smile.

  Kio’s eyes flashed at Hisai, but she looked back to the spot on the ground and then at Moritoshi. “Master Alchemist, do you have a tool or anything to judge the aura that was here?”

  It was Moritoshi’s turn to frown, but instead of looking at me, he looked over at Niku. She gave a soft bow to her master and once more said she was sorry.

  “No, sorry. They’re rather expensive, and I brought only one, unfortunately. My apprentice had an accident with it while trying to inspect the puddles of goo, which apparently are mana,” he explained to Kio with a soft bow of his head.

  “Mana?” she asked, and a cocked brow, and looked around a little before she looked around the beach to see if there were any of the puddles around. There weren’t. They had all been in the town, where the apparent battle or whatever must have happened.

  “Yes, Cultivator Kio. I haven’t tested it myself, but I have faith in my apprentice. She used the tools we had and identified as some kind of mana, but we aren’t sure what aspect. It’s not anything we’ve seen before,” Moritoshi explained.

  “Yes,” Niku said and offered her own soft bow towards the cultivator from the Sect of the Jade Mountains.

  Taimei cleared his throat, and now everyone looked over at him. “You know, I don’t mean to interrupt all of this riveting information, but are we sure Silas was the only survivor? We aren’t even really sure there was a battle here. All we know is that something attacked, and everyone is gone. If people died, where are the bodies?”

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  “There absolutely was a battle here. I can feel it,” Fang Min said. The martial cultivator stood a little way away from the rest of the group and looked over at us with his arms crossed against his chest.

  Yeah, leave the hothead battle mage to be able to smell the remains of a fight.

  Hisai looked over at him and nodded his head. “Reports show people saw something coming from the sky. Something massive, and dark. Also, I think my friend recognized something in the mana before Fang Min called to us.”

  I stared at Hisai when he motioned to me, and I frowned. Ah, shit, I had hoped they would forget about that.

  “Oh? So the simple wagoneer has something to add to the conversation finally?” Kio said.

  I stared at them all, and it took a moment for what the woman said to really hit my brain, and then I stared at her and frowned. Exhaling, I ignored it. I decided I’d be the bigger person in this. “So…”

  “Yes?” Hisai said and smiled at me expectantly.

  I felt Niku put a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, Maikeru, if you know something, you should tell us. You never know what might help.”

  I stared at Hisai and warred with myself on how to explain this. I don’t tell them I’m from another fucking world, right? They’ll probably put a medieval version of a straightjacket on me.

  He just stared at me expectantly with a small smile. That fucking smile. I felt like the man was teasing me.

  “Are you alright?” Niku said and put a hand on my shoulder.

  The surprise almost made me shout as she knocked me out of my mental civil war. I smiled at her and then looked back at Hisai. I heard Kio say my name before anyone else could say anything.

  “Can I talk to you somewhere? Privately?” I stared into Hisai.

  The man’s eyebrows rose, and he held his hand out away from the group of cultivators. “Very well.”

  He raised a hand to silence the group when they started to object and then looked at the group. The man never lost his cool, calm composure. He just smiled and inclined his head. “Just give us a moment, my friends. Maikeru and I will be right back.”

  With that, he put a hand on the small of my back and we wandered off away from the beach back towards the village. I walked with him easily, and when I tried to speak, he just held a hand up and shook his head.

  “Not yet. Wait till we get a bit further away and I use a technique to ensure privacy,” he explained.

  _________________________________

  “By the Kami…” Kio muttered and shook her head. The woman was obviously frustrated. Especially with this new information that her friend was here on the beach and now was missing.

  “Do you know what happened?” Taimei looked at Niku with a raised brow.

  All Niku could do was shrug.

  Moritoshi clicked his teeth and then sniffed. “Come now, if anyone knows what’s going on with him, it’d be you.”

  Niku turned to look at her master and gave him a look of helplessness. “No, I don’t, Master. We talk and spend time but there’s a lot I don’t know about him.”

  “Hm,” Moritoshi said and looked at the other sect representatives and shrugged.

  “Well, he does look up to Hisai, maybe he needs guidance on something before he can tell us,” Taimei said.

  “He smells odd, different. Something about him doesn’t quite match up everything up around.”

  Everyone turned to stare at Fang Min with questioning looks. Even the usually stoic Kio’s expression showed her confusion at the random statement.

  “Smells?” Taimei asked.

  Moritoshi looked at Niku, then the fire cultivator. “You don’t mean he smells like Niku, do you?”

  Niku gasped. “Master!”

  Kio glared at Moritoshi before she looked back at Fang Min. “Explain.”

  Fang Min looked between all of them and shook his head. “Why does no one else use all of their senses?”

  “I’m sorry I don’t walk around sniffing strangers, Fang Min, no explain what you mean,” Kio said coldly.

  “Everything has a scent in this world, on this planet. If you train your nose well enough, there’s one particular scent everyone has deep down below everything else. No matter who or where you’re from. You smell of the Earth,” Fang Min explained.

  Kio’s lip upturned at this news. Taimei still just looked confused. Niku and Moritoshi just stared.

  Fang Min sighed and pointed at the backs of the two walking away. “That man does not have that scent about him. Maikeru, when he says he’s from somewhere far away, I think he’s from very far away.”

  Kio clicked her tongue. “That’s impossible.”

  Taimei and Niku just looked uncomfortable, and Moritoshi gave an excited gasp.

  “I knew it!” he shouted.

  Niku frowned over at her master.

  “He’s weird and lacks any social graces. I’ve met people from Ilion who have behaved better, and those people are…” Moritoshi trailed off and even shivered a little.

  Niku put her face in her hands, exasperated.

  Fang Min stared at Moritoshi for a minute and then shrugged. “Maybe? I’m just saying that he doesn’t smell like he’s from this planet.”

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