Travellers - An Isekai, Cultivation Fantasy

"That's enough, arrest this bastard!" ordered Byron. "First, we'll find out who he sold the zenith pill recipe to. Then he will be exiled forever!"

Henry did not even attempt to resist. He saw Astoria, crying pitifully on the floor. If he didn't know she was lying, he would have believed her.

What the hell is going on… what the hell did you do, Oliviaaaaaa?

Once they had taken Henry away, Byron turned to Astoria.

"Don't worry little girl. You are safe now. He will no longer hurt you."

Astoria's crying came to a stop.

"Really?"

"I promise."

"Then, can I ask a favour?"

"Anything. You have suffered so much because of my stupid son. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you, you just need to name it."

"Then… I want to leave. I cannot go back to that mansion again. Will you please let me leave? I cannot live here anymore," saying so, she started crying again with her head between her knees.

Byron sighed. He picked up all the money on the floor, apart from the treasures, and placed it in a new bag.

"Here, take this," he said.

"Huh?"

"How will you be able to survive on your own without any money, silly?" Byron asked with a smile.

Astoria was overjoyed. She broke into a smile and hugged Byron like a daughter hugging her father.

Byron felt happy and he gently patted her head.

As he gave the bag, he said, "If you ever want to come back, our mansion will always be your home."

"Thank you, lord Byron," said Astoria.

Then, giving a deep bow, she left.

They were close to the eastern gate already, so she left the village immediately with her money.

Soon, Byron and the guards took Henry away.

Around an hour later, another figure left through the eastern gate.

In the middle of the night, two figures met outside the eastern gate of the Leon village. Initially, they were separated by a few meters, observing each other from a distance.

Then, as if on cue, they both ran towards each other.

When they met, they fell into an embrace.

"We did it!" Sam whispered.

The two hugged each other. Relief, sense of achievement, happiness – they were feeling so many emotions.

This past month, Sam had constantly been on the run and Astoria was treading on thin ice; running around the headmistress and finding out information only to barely tip Sam off and help him keep ahead of the search.

They were under huge stress the whole time, and finally, it was all over!

The duo started laughing like maniacs under the moonlight.

Half a day later.

Sam and Astoria were walking back towards Jain village, having successfully completed their mission. Astoria got the Zenith pill recipe she wanted, and Sam got revenge on Henry.

In fact, it was much better than he could have anticipated. Seeing Henry be beaten and disowned by his own father, Byron and all the guards looking at Henry as if he was a scheming, treacherous, perverted, scumbag, and arresting him, was the best ending he could think of.

He had been observing the whole confrontation from a secret spot.

It was incredible to watch. Best of all was Astoria's performance.

He had never seen anyone act so perfectly. She played everyone for a fool. Henry, Byron, all the guards, and the maids and servants in the house.

The only person who saw through her was the headmistress, and she killed her with her own hands.

Not to mention, she poisoned and brutally murdered two guards who trusted her, betraying them too, before framing the man who thought of her as the love of his life, for all the murders by using his love against him!

This little girl before him. Can there be any human being more cold-blooded than her?

Her appearance might be that of an innocent young angel, but underneath it all, she was a cold, calculating, ruthless, scheming, manipulating demoness!

He shuddered in fear just thinking about everything she did.

"Remind me never to make you my enemy," Sam chuckled.

Astoria laughed. "I could never hurt you, Sam."

Sam smiled dryly.

Astoria couldn't help but think back to that day in the woods. She had been so completely useless. The only good thing she did was lift the tree stump trapping Drake's leg. After that, he led them to a tree house, which hunters used when staying for longer periods of time in the Beast Woods. She didn't understand how Drake could remember so much information but it saved their lives. The two climbed up and immediately collapsed out of exhaustion.

Holt and the villagers found them after some time and woke them up. Holt healed them using magic, which blew Drake's mind away. Drake then told them everything that happened. Once Elwin found out, he flew into a rage. Before anyone could stop him, he charged into the woods like a lunatic. There, he found the injured minotaur and clashed with it head-on.

The minotaur was a servant class oni. Although it was originally injured, it had marginally won the fight against the demon bear and was completely spent. However, a servant class oni was still not something to be underestimated. It activated its Berserk skill and grew to almost three times the size of Elwin.

Yet Elwin showed remarkable skill as he engaged it in combat.

Father and the rest of the villagers who chased after him stopped in their tracks upon witnessing their fight. It was like a scene from a legend. His every move was calculated and refined as if he were a seasoned veteran.

However, since the minotaur was heavily injured, its body was weakened, allowing Elwin to ruthlessly target its injuries. Miraculously, Elwin landed the killer blow.

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Astoria had speechlessly witnessed the whole fight. She thought about Drake and then saw Elwin. Drake was known for his intelligence and kindness whereas Elwin was strong and upright. Her two brothers, younger and older were both so talented. Far more talented than her.

She remembered thinking to herself, 'If only I had the same strength as Elwin, I could have fought the minotaur and protected Drake instead. Or at least, if I wasn't so stupid, I wouldn't have screamed and put us both in danger.'

While on one side she really loved her brothers, but on the other, she always felt helpless as she watched them march forward while leaving her in the dust.

But not anymore, she smiled to herself. I won't lose to you two anymore.

The two were halfway through their journey when they unexpectedly saw two figures approaching them from a distance.

It was quite rare to see people far away from the villages, but it still happened, so they continued their journey.

However, the two figures kept coming closer and closer.

'Were they heading for us?' Sam and Astoria were confused and wondered who they were.

The figures walked quickly and soon reached Sam and Astoria.

"This girl is his daughter. She will be useful for our plans," one of them said.

"Indeed, you're right. Let's take her and kill the man," the other replied emotionlessly.

Sam and Astoria became alarmed.

Who were they? Why were they randomly attacking them?

They were wondering what to do when the two released incredibly strong and sinister auras.

Dark mages! At the grand mage realm!

…

"Master, I did it!" exclaimed Drake.

Ray saw a small light orb floating around Drake. He had watched his disciple struggle for over half a month before finally succeeding in his first summon. This was considerably longer as compared to how quickly he learnt to summon artifacts, but still quicker than the average time people took to learn to summon their first simple spirit, which was a month or two.

'Maybe he just has a gift for summoning artifacts?' Ray thought.

"Well done, Drake," Ray said plainly.

Drake smiled while playing around with the light orb, filled with an overwhelming sense of joy. This reminded him of the first time he encountered magic.

"Drake! Drake! Wake up!" yelled a voice.

Drake slowly squinted his eyes open, his blurred vision making out a vague figure.

"Father!" he cried immediately.

Not just his father, but his brother Elwin, along with a bunch of villagers were also there.

"Oh, Drake!" cried his father as he hugged him tightly.

"Ah!" Drake yelped as his father unintentionally pressed his broken leg.

Holt immediately stopped and apologised for his carelessness.

Then, without saying a word, Holt moved his hands. They started glowing in a light green colour.

A few seconds later, the light literally separated from his hands and converged into a small green ball of light. The light was initially bright, but it soon dimmed to reveal the petite figure of a small girl, whose size was no more than that of a thumb.

She quickly moved towards Drake's leg and gently pressed with her hands. Immediately, his wounds started healing! The little girl, who could only be described as a fairy, was gracefully healing all his injuries before also treating his sister who had just woken up.

'This..." Drake mumbled.

He knew what to call it, but he couldn't bring himself to do so.

How could he?

He was a scientist in his previous life and a genius one at that. He was a very rational person, but, after everything he had been through, he had no choice but to accept the truth.

This was magic!

Drake's mind returned to the present. He dissipated his light orb and recalled the summoning process. It took about ten per cent of his total mana to summon a light orb spirit and used about the same amount of mana to retain it for an hour.

If the mage didn't dissipate them, artifacts could continue existing indefinitely like regular items. However, spirits required a constant stream of mana from the mage to exist, hence could only live for a finite period of time.

The light orb wasn't the only spirit he learnt to summon. He closed his eyes, focused on his mana and willed it to materialise into a spirit.

Twenty-five per cent of his mana disappeared, and a small, green, petite fairy appeared before him.

This was the other summon he learnt, the summon his father used that day to heal him.

Ray advised against him multitasking, however, Drake wanted to look at both summons simultaneously so he could compare and contrast the different runes, spirit bodies, etc, and understand better how they worked.

Seeing the fairy, Ray was slightly surprised.

'Never mind,' he thought.

Learning to summon two spirits in two weeks from scratch as a beginner was definitely not normal.

His student was a freak.

Drake summoned a small needle artifact and used it to cut his own skin. The fairy immediately approached the injury and placed her palms on it.

Now he knew how it worked. Her palms carried healing runes that she was flowing her mana through. The mana became transmuted into life mana, and entered his injury, healing it.

Within a few seconds, the bleeding stopped, and the wound closed.

'This is so cool!' Drake thought to himself.

He wanted to experiment with spirits some more but his mana was running low, so he decided he'd go for a walk while waiting for his mana to recover.

Drake skipped across the bustling streets of the village, followed closely by two guards. People were visiting the various shops, yelling out prices and bargaining. It was lively.

However, he wanted some quiet time, so he turned a corner into a less busy street. There were a few shops and some trees littered around, but there was much less activity here. He paused at a shop which was selling some sweets. The shopkeeper was an old man and recognising Drake's clothes and the guards as a symbol of wealth, he immediately approached him with a smile and started fawning.

"Hello, master, how can I help you today?"

Drake thought for a moment and decided to buy a few sweets to celebrate his success.

"Thank you, master, please come again!"

Drake enjoyed the sweets as he walked along the quiet streets of his village. It reminded him of the walks he used to take along the park with his dog, back on Earth.

He missed those days.

"Ahhhh!!" screamed a voice.

Drake was brought back from his thoughts and ran towards the voice.

"YOU! STUPID! BRAT!" screamed a voice, and each word was followed by a whipping sound and a scream. Drake found a middle-aged man whipping a boy.

The boy was on the street, crying and begging the man to stop. He had a collar around his neck, indicating his slave status.

Slave collars were an artifact made using magic. It would cause the slave intense pain if they disobeyed their master. Attempting to remove the collar would result in instant death.

The man stopped whipping and started kicking him instead. Then he picked him up and started punching his face.

"STOP!" yelled Drake furiously.

The man was startled to hear the unfamiliar voice and looked in its direction. He spotted a young man dressed in expensive-looking robes, followed by two huge guards. He seemed like the son of someone wealthy.

Immediately, the man chucked the boy away and bowed to his visitor.

"Hello, kind sir. May I know who you are, and what you are doing here?"

Drake ignored him and approached the slave boy instead, who was bleeding all over his body and was almost unconscious. The man was irritated at being ignored but he couldn't do anything, especially given the two huge guards who were present.

"How much?" Drake asked.

The man looked confused.

"I want to buy him, how much?"

"This…" the man hesitated. He didn't know who this boy was or why he was interested in the slave.

"Two… no three silvers!"

Drake threw five silvers towards the man without hesitation. The man's eyes lit up with greed as he flew to pick up the silvers from the floor.

"Thank you, mister, you are so generous. The boy is all yours!"

Drake picked the almost unconscious boy up and brought him to a corner. Then he closed his eyes and summoned the healing fairy and instructed it to heal him. It took a few minutes, but most of his wounds were healed and the boy regained consciousness.

The boy looked at Drake terrified, but then realised all his injuries were healed. He then remembered what happened and realised that Drake had saved him.

"Um, thank you, master," he replied weakly.

"Do you have a family?" Drake asked.

"Um," the boy hesitated and then nodded slowly.

"Then take me to them."

The boy looked at Drake pleadingly.

"Please master, I will serve you forever, but please, please don't hurt my family!"

Drake was taken aback and then felt even more pity for him. He was so young, yet the idea of freedom did not even cross his mind even when offered to him.

There were three types of slaves in this world. Debt slaves, who were sold as slaves to pay off a debt, criminal slaves, who were sold as slaves for punishment, and illegal slaves, who were trafficked human beings. Although all slaves were treated badly, debt slaves were better than most, and they had the chance to be freed once their debts were paid off. The other two suffered the most and it was basically impossible for them to taste freedom unless their master willingly released them.

This boy was likely either a debt slave or an illegal slave, most likely the latter.

"Don't worry, I won't harm you. I want to free and return you to your parents," Drake consoled.

The boy was speechless. He didn't know what to believe.

"Really?" he asked softly.

"Yes, so take me to them."

The boy wiped his tears and started running enthusiastically. Drake followed with a smile.

…

"RUN!" screamed Sam as the two sprinted for their lives.

But what was a grand mage? A realm that truly began to show the supremacy of cultivators. There was only one grand mage in the surrounding three villages and that was Myra Wan of the Elven village.

But two grand mages had suddenly appeared!

The one on the right chuckled as he summoned a dark light which transformed into a huge tarantula. It bared its fangs and rushed at the two. Everywhere it went, the surrounding air turned corrosive and poisonous, making it hard to breathe. They were both captured within its legs and brought before them.