Travellers - An Isekai, Cultivation Fantasy

Drake entered the portal with the rest of his party. A formless energy washed over him, and Drake was reminded of the time he was transmigrated. However, the sensation soon left his body, and he was welcomed by a vast, barren land.

The ground was hard, dry, and cracked. Along with the air, the earth felt hot as the sun’s scorching rays spread over the expansive grounds. However, the sun wasn’t clearly visible in the sky but was obscured by a veil of dust and sand. A ginormous dust storm covered the land and the otherwise blue sky, rendering sight beyond a few dozen metres, completely indiscernible. Its loud winds cut through the air with such ferocity that Drake felt like he would be pushed off his feet.

Drake gawked at the enormous scenery stretching before him.

What the hell… is this?

Drake didn’t know what he expected. Maybe something similar to the maze in the founding ancestor’s inheritance, but perhaps larger and more complicated.

But this… this is like a whole new world!

Worried, Drake scanned his surroundings but couldn’t see anyone else around him.

“Blaze! Sylvia! Helen! Are any of you there?” he screamed; his voice muffled by the fierce winds of the dust storm. But Drake knew that being martial artists, his party members possessed a keen sense of hearing and would be able to pick up his voice even amidst the loud winds, provided they were close by.

However, there was no response. ‘Did we get separated?’ he thought.

Suddenly, Drake heard a rustling coming from the side and turned around warily. He hoped that it would be his party, but there was a high probability that it could be a stranger or even a demon.

However, Drake didn’t have to wonder for too long as the two figures quickly revealed themselves.

“Are you master Drake?” called a voice. The figure of two young men was revealed, and Drake sensed that they were both tempered body martial artists. The voice had come from the one on the left.

After getting closer and seeing him clearly, the man on the right gasped. “It really is you! You’re master Drake from the dragon’s party!”

“Yes I am,” Drake replied, relaxing. They didn’t seem to carry any ill will towards him. “Who are you two?”

“We are a copper class hunting party,” the same man replied. “There were more of us, but we got separated, similar to you and your party it seems?” he finished the sentence with a questioning tone.

Drake just nodded again in response and the man on the left continued.

“In that case why don’t you travel with us? We don’t know what kind of dangers would be present here, so it would be good to stay in a group.”

Drake thought for a moment and agreed. Although he didn’t trust people easily, wandering through this unknown place alone would be quite dangerous. As long as he kept his guard up, even if they wanted to try and rob him or backstab him or something, he would be able to easily defeat them.

“Okay, let’s travel together,” Drake agreed, coming to a decision quickly. The two men were elated at being able to travel with someone strong.

The group of three began walking together with Drake in the centre. Apart from the heat and the dust storm, their journey was initially smooth. However, soon, that changed.

“Watch out!” yelled Drake, pushing the man on his right away, just as a giant demon eagle swooped down on him.

“Yee!” the man yelped and jumped back, barely dodging the attack.

“Caw!” the eagle cawed and rose back into the air before turning around and eying the man like prey. Everyone sensed that it was a servant class demon and slightly relaxed.

“Solar barrage!” Drake yelled. A large number of fireballs instantly appeared and shot towards the eagle.

The eagle dodged them easily before charging towards Drake this time. Just before it reached Drake, he poured mana into his robes and a light barrier appeared before him, forcing it to change directions at the last minute.

“Chain lightning!” Drake yelled, using the opportunity to attack the eagle from behind. A large lightning bolt streaked across the air and struck the eagle in its back.

This time, the eagle couldn’t dodge and was hit by the powerful bolt of lightning. Even as a rank one artifact, his fireballs were able to do a lot of damage to servant class demons. Now that he made his gloves rank two, his spells were a lot more powerful. Hence, this demon eagle didn’t stand a chance of surviving and fell to the ground with a cry.

From the sides, the two martial artists had barely processed the attack before it was already over. They looked at Drake with awe. They didn’t know if the stories about Drake were true, especially given his young age, but there was no longer any doubt in their minds.

“Thank you,” the man on the right said, bowing to Drake.

“No problem,” Drake replied. “But don’t drop your guard. You were lucky that it was just a servant class demon and only one of them at that. If a warrior class demon or a group of servant class demons were to attack, I wouldn’t be able to protect you two so easily.”

Drake spoke to both of them and they nodded in response. Since the beginning of the journey seemed smooth, they had let their guards down. Otherwise, as tempered body martial artists, they wouldn’t be defeated so easily by a servant class demon either.

After taking any materials Drake thought would be useful from the demon’s corpse, the group began walking again.

The plains stretched everywhere around them so they didn’t know where to go, not to mention their vision was largely obscured by the dust storm so they couldn’t see very far into the distance. Hence, they decided to just keep walking straight till they found something.

However, more demons soon started appearing. There were a lot of insect-type demons attacking from the ground such as ants, scorpions, and centipedes, as well as bird-type demons like hawks, eagles, and vultures, attacking from the sky. The group had to stay extremely vigilant to not be caught off guard, especially given the dust storm making everything difficult to see.

Luckily, they were all only servant class demons so they didn’t pose much of a threat to Drake. On the other hand, the two, tempered body martial artists were a different story. They quickly became exhausted after the first few battles and were slowing down considerably.

Drake had refined thousands of rank one and two healing, recovery, and various other types of pills during his alchemy practice, so he shared a few with them to help them keep going. The two were very grateful for the support and were able to pick up the pace.

Just as the group finished off a group of demon scorpions, they were suddenly attacked by a crowd of dozens of demon ants, crawling out of the ground. They were all still servant class but Drake couldn’t finish them all off very quickly. So, the two, tempered body martial artists were quickly surrounded by over a dozen demon ants.

“Help!” one of them cried as he was attacked from three sides.

He had bought several rank one artifacts specifically for this trip and he was using one now to summon a wind barrier, and another to attack with fire arrows. However, the arrows didn’t seem to affect them much and instead, numerous cracks started appearing on the barrier. It would only be a matter of time before it was broken through.

“Hold on!” Drake yelled as he used all his martial techniques and artifacts to kill one demon after another, trying to rush towards him. However, another half a dozen demon ants appeared in front of him and blocked his path.

“Damn it!” Drake cursed, he wouldn’t be able to make it in time!

The barrier couldn’t bear the constant assault of the demons anymore and cracked. Two demon ants gleefully rushed towards the martial artist. He used his sword to block one but the other stabbed into his body with its mandibles.

“NOOO!” yelled the other martial artist, fighting off another demon ant while rushing to his friend’s aid.

But it was too late.

Soon, several demon ants appeared and used their sharp mandibles to bite off various parts of his body before devouring him.

“DIEEEE!” the martial artist cried as he stabbed down a demon ant before rushing towards the group of ants devouring his friend.

Watching this scene, Drake became gloomy.

‘We only just arrived and someone died already? What the hell is this inheritance?’

Drake started attacking even more ferociously and managed to kill off all the ants within another two minutes. But it was too late.

The young martial artist knelt on the ground, looking at a dismembered foot in shock. The rest of the body was already eaten. They were just a small party that decided to enter this inheritance for a chance to change their lives. He did not expect his friend to die so quickly!

Drake wanted to comfort him but didn’t know what to say. However, they were both interrupted by a chorus of distant cries echoing from the skies.

“Demon vultures! And so many of them! The corpses must be attracting them here. We gotta go!” Drake yelled.

This seemed to bring the martial artist from his trance. He wiped his face and stood up once again with his sword and nodded, his eyes red from sobbing.

“Okay, let’s continue.”

The two quickly start making their way through the plains once more. However, there was no end to the demons attacking them.

With one of them dead, the pressure on the two increased, especially on the remaining tempered body martial artist. Additionally, the dust storm also kept becoming stronger, making it increasingly difficult to see anything, let alone fight.

Drake was able to manage with acute sense, but the martial artist was struggling a lot, even with help from Drake and his pills.

Soon, the second martial artist also died. His exhaustion prevented him from fighting efficiently, and he started racking up injuries as well. Eventually, he committed a critical mistake in a battle and died.

Drake watched helplessly as a bunch of demons gleefully leapt at his body, eager to get their hands on a piece of meat. Luckily, this reduced the burden on Drake so he managed to break through the demon encirclement and continued on his own.

“Such a shame…” Drake sighed.

All the demons attacking them were just servant class. With his steel body cultivation, numerous artifacts, and an endless number of pills, Drake could fight them easily and continuously for days if he had to. But any ordinary cultivators even at the steel body realm would struggle, and it would only be a matter of time before the cultivators below the steel body realm died.

‘This inheritance is made to weed out weak cultivators,’ Drake thought to himself, looking at the sky. Although the dust storm blocked most of his view, with acute sense, he could tell that it would be noon soon.

‘Hope everyone’s okay,’ thought Drake, and remembered Helen. She was the weakest among them, and he hoped she would be able to survive till they all regrouped.

With a sigh, Drake continued forward. Demons would occasionally attack him, sometimes on their own, and at other times as a group. However, Drake would easily make quick work of them before moving on. He managed to gather a large number of demon materials during this process, making him quite happy.

After some time, just as Drake finished off a servant class demon earthworm, he spotted something in the distance. He could barely make it out with his acute sense, but there was a large building there – or was it multiple buildings? Drake wasn’t sure, but he started running towards it quickly.

Due to his speed, he got close to the building very quickly.

‘It’s a village!’ Drake gasped.

Or more accurately, it was the ruins of a small village, much smaller than even his Jain village. There was a short fence erected around an area, within which a few dozen buildings of all sizes were located. However, they appeared old and worn, and some buildings carried a lot of cracks, making them look as if they would fall apart at any moment.

The most surprising aspect of the village was that it was completely isolated from the dust storm, like a small haven for cultivators in these harsh plains.

Drake became even more excited upon noticing this and started running quicker. Just before he reached the village gates, however, he felt a cold killing intent approaching very quickly.

Immediately, Drake jumped and twisted in the air, narrowly dodging the claw of a large demon scorpion that showed up out of nowhere.

“Die!” screamed Drake as he activated solar barrage and shot multiple fireballs towards the scorpion midair, before landing on his feet.

The scorpion was taken by surprise at Drake’s quick retaliation and wasn’t able to block or dodge in time. All the fireballs hit their mark, killing the demon scorpion instantly.

‘That was close!’ Drake thought, cursing himself for letting down his guard.

He took a moment to catch his breath before turning around to face the small village gates. For a moment, Drake worried if they would be locked, however, the gates opened with the slightest push from Drake’s hands, revealing the interior of the village ruins.

The first thing Drake noticed was the lack of dust storm, which allowed him to see the entire village, and the dust storm continuing on the other side. Even the temperature was not burning hot like the outside but was at a pleasant, room temperature.

It appeared as if some mysterious barrier was preventing the harsh outside elements from affecting the inside of the village.

‘Are there no demons too?’ Drake thought and decided to carefully explore the village. Since the village was relatively small, he managed to quickly run around and check the entire place within fifteen minutes and realised that there were no demons.

‘Is this some kind of a safe zone?’ Drake wondered as he walked towards the centre of the village. It made sense, since no cultivator, regardless of their strength, would be able to fight continuously against an endless onslaught of demons, in harsh weather conditions, without breaks. ‘So maybe there are more places like this scattered throughout the plains.’

‘Wait – could these places carry any treasures?’ It seemed plausible. Where else were they going to hide the inheritance, in the middle of the plains? That would be impossible to find unless you were lucky enough to stumble upon it. It made a lot more sense to hide the inheritance - or at least a part of it - in these safe zones.

Drake wanted to search for treasures, but he was quite tired now. He looked up at the sky and realised it was noon. He decided to take a break for an hour, recover his stamina, and then search the village thoroughly for any treasures.

Thinking so, Drake sat down cross-legged and began meditating.

…

“Firestorm!” Blaze yelled swiping his large sword horizontally as a whirlwind of fire shot out of his blade, decimating a group of demons in front of him. Blaze planted his sword into the ground and looked around. A couple of martial artists and a mage were fighting various demons around him. This was the group of people Blaze had spawned with.

After a few minutes, the group finished off the horde of demons attacking them, but one of the martial artists had died.

“Do we just have to keep fighting forever?” one of the martial artists asked.

“There must be someplace to hide and rest, let’s keep going,” the sole mage responded.

Having no choice, the group continued forward.

…

“Decimate!”

An arrow containing an unbelievable amount of mana shot through the air and pierced through a large snake demon, right in between its eyes. The servant class demon was no match for the powerful mana arrow and immediately died.

“Piercing gust!” screamed a red-haired swordswoman as she jumped into the air and pointed her sword at another snake demon, next to the first. A gust of piercing sharp wind was released from the sword and sliced the snake’s head cleanly off its body, making its torso fall limply to the floor. The swordswoman rolled back midair and landed cleanly on her feet, in front of the archer who shot the arrow.

The two were naturally Sylvia and Helen. They had luckily spawned together and had been working as a team to make their way through the inheritance.

“Have you found any of them yet?” Helen asked Sylvia.

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “However, my pixie spirits did find what looks like the ruins of an ancient village not far from here. It seems to have a barrier protecting it from the dust storm and demons, we should rest there for a while.”

“Great, then let’s get going!”