Travellers - An Isekai, Cultivation Fantasy

Dalia sensed something and came to an abrupt stop. A spirit in the shape of a pigeon – a messenger spirit – approached her. Dalia raised her hand and the pigeon spirit sat on her finger, before transforming into mana and being absorbed into her body. For an instant, Dalia’s eyes became blank, before returning to normal.

However, her smile was gone, replaced with an expression of pure rage.

“Aaaaahhhhhhh!” she screamed.

Dalia poured mana into her ring artifact and slashed her hand across the air. A powerful wind blade flew out into the sky. She poured more mana into her ring and repeatedly slashed her hand across the air, releasing hundreds of terrifyingly powerful wind blades into the sky, each carrying an aura that could equal an attack from a grand mage.

Henry cowered in fear. He didn’t know what made her so mad but was horrified that she would take her anger out on him.

Luckily for him, that didn’t happen. After a few minutes, she started gasping for air and calmed down.

“Those old foxes!” she started talking to herself. “They’re really attacking my entire order to draw me out? Hmph fine! I’ll play your game - and show you that I can still win!”

She then looked at the sky and yelled.

“None of you can stop me from becoming the most powerful immortal!”

Her voice echoed across the plains. Several birds sitting on nearby trees flew away with a cry, casting the group into silence.

Nobody spoke for a while, but Henry couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“Lady Dalia, what happened?”

“Nothing,” she replied, more calmly now. “The Order that I’m a part of, the Order of the Blood Raven, is soon going to come under attack by the Myriad Sword Palace. I need to go reinforce them.”

“Oh, well with your strength, I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake to beat them lady Dalia!” Henry responded encouragingly.

Dalia seemed to brighten a bit. “Of course, it’s just a shame as I have to give up on this town… for now.”

“That’s true,” Henry agreed. “But we’ll come back after dealing with the attackers.”

Dalia looked at him. “No, we are not coming back,” she replied.

Henry looked confused and she continued.

“We have made it this far so it would be a waste to turn back now. I will go reinforce them on my own, you take Jin Tong and carry on.”

“Oh, okay. I will do as you command, lady Dalia,” Henry replied, while inwardly rejoicing that he didn’t have to go fight in a dangerous war.

“Good, good!” she spoke, in a better mood now.

“Then here is what I’d like you to do.”

…

Back in the present, one week after Drake and Helen arrived, Basindale.

It was a windy night.

A mysterious hooded figure was standing just outside the town gates, hands behind his back. It was difficult to make out his features, but his hood was rustling heavily with the wind, revealing a neck tattoo in the shape of a black and white snake coiling around each other.

One moment he was standing, and the next moment he vanished.

The guards at the gate felt a gentle breeze across their faces but didn’t think much of it. If they turned around, however, they would have spotted a hooded figure slowly walking into the town.

The next morning, inside an inn, in Basindale.

A young boy was sitting in a room, legs crossed, in a meditative pose.

Mana was coursing through his body, in every muscle, every bone, and every tissue, breaking it down before recreating it stronger, infused with mana. The process must have been excruciatingly painful, so it wasn’t a surprise when the boy screamed out.

However, what he screamed out, was surprising. He didn’t scream in pain, but rather joy.

“I have finally cultivated the steel body!”

Drake could feel a qualitative change in his body. He stood up and hopped from one leg to the other. His body felt very light, but clenching his fists, he could tell that they carried far more power than before. All the bones and muscles in his body were stronger. Even the skin was infused with mana and had become more durable. It would be slightly difficult for ordinary weapons to pierce his body now, even if he didn’t put up any defence.

Drake was elated. Losing his mage abilities was a major blow to his battle strength. But cultivating the steel body now would make his martial arts alone, almost equal to the strength he had previously.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

At this moment, Drake heard a knock on his door.

“Come in!” Drake said out loud.

In walked a beautiful young woman with long red hair. She was dressed in a light chainmail, and had a sword strapped to her waist, making her look graceful and elegant.

“Congratulations on your breakthrough, master Drake,” she said with a smile.

“Thank you!” Drake replied. “I’m surprised you sensed it immediately.”

Helen shook her head, “Actually master Drake, I just returned from the last bit of shopping and wanted to talk to you.”

“I see,” Drake replied, understanding why she was there. “Please, have a seat.” Drake sat on his bed and pointed towards the chair next to his bedside table. Helen pulled the chair out and took a seat.

While Drake had been busy cultivating this past week, Helen had scoured every shop in town, looking for rank one pill recipes, as well as information on how to heal damages to mana cores that Drake had asked for. Drake was interested to know what she had found.

“Did you manage to find any information?” Drake asked straight to the point. This is what he wanted the most, as he really didn’t want to go through the effort of refining the Three Leaf Healing pill if he didn’t have to.

Sadly, life didn’t often work out the way we wanted.

“Unfortunately no, master Drake,” Helen sighed. “However, I did get this for us.”

Helen handed Drake what looked like a pouch, but Drake’s sharp senses immediately spotted a strange rune engraved onto it. He took the pouch to study it, but the rune was more complicated than anything he had ever seen before. Drake couldn’t make sense of it at all! Drake looked at Helen questioningly.

“It’s a storage pouch, master Drake,” Helen explained. “It’s a spatial artifact that has a lot more space inside than outside. You just have to pour a bit of mana to activate it.”

Realisation dawned on Drake. He had heard of spatial artifacts before, but they were extremely rare due to there being very few mages in the world that could understand and use spatial magic.

Most mages used one of the traditional magical elements of fire, water, lightning, wind, earth, and light. Dark mages often also used the shadow element which contained darker forms of magic like poison, mind control, necromancy, and more.

However, most mages could not comprehend the spatial element, so they couldn’t use spatial magic.

The one exception to this was the storage pouch. The rune it used was one of the simplest runes in spatial magic making it relatively easy to understand and use. And, due to its utility, many people learnt, practised, and helped produce them over the centuries. So, spatial pouches were still widely made and sold everywhere throughout the continent. Almost every cultivator had a storage pouch as it was a handy tool to carry items in.

Drake stopped trying to decipher the rune and instead poured his mana into it. Although he was now basically useless as a mage, as a martial artist, he could still use artifacts. So, Drake was able to activate it without issues.

When his mana entered the spatial pouch, he could sense the contents within. There were dozens and dozens of pill recipes, mostly rank one, with some being rank two, along with some common pill refining materials.

There was also a cauldron, a rank one wind artifact that was necessary for any alchemist to refine pills. By pouring mana into the cauldron, the alchemist could sense the contents within, and then use its wind rune to control the materials and combine them the way they wanted.

This was the other thing Drake had asked Helen for and she had managed to obtain it successfully.

Drake was quite happy.

“Good job Helen, this will be very useful for me, thank you.”

“It’s my honour, master Drake!” she smiled, delighted at being praised by Drake.

“Well then, since I’ve cultivated the steel body now, how about we kick off the day by registering with the hunters guild and taking on a mission?” Drake asked.

“That sounds wonderful master Drake!” Helen replied enthusiastically.

“Excellent. First, let’s have breakfast downstairs, then we’ll make our way to the hunters guild,” Drake said, standing up.

Helen nodded and followed Drake as he went downstairs. They ordered breakfast which was included with their rent. The innkeeper, who was happy to please a well-paying customer, rushed his maids to cook the food and deliver it quickly.

Soon, two delicious plates of breakfast were served to the duo. Simply breathing in the aroma increased their appetite. Drake internally thanked Tom for recommending the inn before digging into his food with Helen. They enjoyed it while chatting and laughing.

After about twenty minutes, the two finished their meals and started making their way through the lively streets. Helen was quite familiar with the streets after going through so many shops over the past week, so she was able to easily guide Drake towards the hunters guild.

Drake saw a fork appear on the road ahead, with a street branching off to the left.

“It should be in that street,” Helen said, nodding to the left.

Drake became a little excited and hopped forward, before quickly turning left at the fork. Unfortunately, that meant he couldn’t stop in time when he spotted a large man standing right at the entrance to the street and bumped into him.

“Aww!” Drake yelped, as he rebounded from the crash. Drake rubbed his head slightly but then stopped as he noticed something.

The man was tall, almost 6’2 in height, and had a large, six inch wide sword wrapped with a white cloth and strapped to his back. The handle of the sword slightly obscured the short, red hair on his head, where his most interesting feature was located - two, spiral horns.

Startled, the man turned around to reveal a surprisingly young, but handsome face. Unlike his fully covered sword, he only wore loose leather armour covering his upper body up to his elbows, and lower body down to his knees, with the rest of his legs covered by thick, long leather boots, and his hand and forearms by leather gauntlets.

“Hey there kid! You should watch where you’re going,” he spoke but his voice carried no frustration or anger. In fact, he had quite a friendly tone and he spoke with a bright smile.

“Uh, sorry mister.. umm…” Drake hesitated.

“Blaze. The name’s Blaze Emberclaw,” the man finished the sentence for Drake. “I’m from the Emberclaw dragon tribe, as you can see,” he said, pointing towards his horns.

This man was a dragon!

Drake stared at his horns again. They looked extremely hard, and the spiral twist made them stand out even more.

At this point, Helen had also caught up and was startled to see Blaze standing before them.

“Yikes!” she gasped.

Blaze responded to her with the same friendly tone. “Hey… sorry for startling you guys,” he laughed sheepishly, rubbing his hair.

“No… problem,” Helen stuttered. She had never met a dragon before and only knew them through their fearsome lore. Hence, she had no idea how to interact with one.

“Cool. I was just telling the boy that my name is Blaze Emberclaw. I’m from the Emberclaw dragon tribe. What about you guys?” he asked.

“Um, my name is Helen… master… Blaze?” she replied, her speech sounding just as confused as her thoughts.

Blaze laughed. “Oh please, just call me Blaze. I am only 87 years old.”

‘That’s crazy old!’ thought Drake but then calmed himself. Dragons could live for tens of thousands of years, so 87 must be like a child for them. In dragon years, Blaze may only be a couple years older than Drake.

‘Well… he does seem to have a youthful personality,’ Drake thought to himself.

“That’s good to know. My name is Drake, Drake Reynard,” Drake responded, making Helen grateful for taking Blaze’s attention away from her. “We’re sorry, we have just never seen a real dragon before.”

“Haha, I totally get it. I too, have not met many humans,” Blaze laughed. His friendly demeanour set Drake and Helen at ease and helped them relax.

“So then, what brings you here Blaze?” Drake questioned curiously.

“My tribe sent me to this town to get some worldly experience while I’m still young,” he responded.

“On your own?” Helen asked.

“Yes, we dragons have a slow reproduction rate. There are normally only a couple children born every few hundred years in a tribe. So, there wasn’t anyone else my age that my tribe could send out with me,” Blaze explained.

“Oh, I see,” Helen replied, nodding her head.

“Anyway,” Blaze continued. “Since I am supposed to live in this town for a while, I wanted to join the hunters guild. I heard that’s a great way to make money for cultivators?”

Drake and Helen shared a glance.

“What a coincidence, we were actually going to register there ourselves,” Drake replied.

“Excellent!” Blaze smiled. “How about we register together then? I’d love it if you guys could help me out, as I am not very familiar with human customs.”

“Of course!” they both replied enthusiastically.