Chapter 71: Velmora

Far across the cosmic divide, in a world far removed from the neon towers of Silverwood City and the blood soaked ravines of the thousand mountain trials, the afternoon sun cast warm golden rays down upon a quiet farming village.

Rustic rooftops glowed under the sun’s gentle touch while the cool autumn wind danced across the peaceful fields surrounding the village.

Along the edge of the village commons tall amber colored grasses swayed lazily in the breeze. The children of the village tumbled joyfully through the golden blades their laughter ringing merrily into the fields.

Chasing after the children, a large broad shouldered man wrapped in a heavy dark cloak took slow steps forward his hood casting his face into shadow.

Never had he spoken a word since arriving at this strange new place.

Despite his frightening stature and silent nature, the children had somehow taken to the strange giant as if he were one of their own.

He would toss them gently into the air and catch them again, and just stand as they climbed all over his large cloak treating it as if it were a giant jungle gym.

"Aww, this game is getting boring!" a stocky little boy named Pip grumbled.

He dramatically fell to the ground then crossed his arms over his chest puffing out his cheeks. "We play tag every single day! Why don’t we do something different today!"

The little girl next to him with neatly braided brown hair suddenly clapped her hands together eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Ooh! I know!" she exclaimed brightly "Let’s go fishing down at Crystal Creek!"

The other children erupted in cheers.

The all scrambled to their feet and suddenly were running in excited circles around the large towering man.

The hooded giant simply stood there amidst the commotion.

For a moment he lowered his head watching silently as the children played around him.

Then without a word the giant turned and started walking toward Crystal Creek.

The children cheered even louder as they hurried after him.

One of the older boys tugged at the edge of the dark sleeve covering his arm.

"Hey Brother Mute! Let’s go down to the creek and catch some river-scalers! What do you say?"

The silent man lowered his deep shadowed gaze to the excited faces of the children.

Even under the shade of his hood one could see the sharp crimson tinted eyes narrow slightly.

He did not speak.

Instead he simply gave the children a slow assenting nod before raising his right hand to give them a simple affirmative gesture.

"Yay! Brother Mute is coming!"

The children erupted into cheers before turning and racing down the dirt path toward the shimmering blue ribbon the creek.

Their laughter echoed off the valley walls as they disappeared down the path.

The large man, known as Shadow One, took a slow step forward.

He followed several paces behind the children his heavy footfalls making quiet indentations in the earth.

Only seven days had passed since Shadow One had first set foot on this strange new world.

Despite his imposing stature, it had not taken long at all for him to quietly integrate himself into the small rural village.

When he had first appeared through a spatial rift in the woods near the village, the people had not been overly happy to see him.

Peering out from behind their doors, the locals had all held pitchforks and silently warned their children to stay away.

But Shadow One had never tried pushing himself onto the villager.

Instead he had simply done what he could to make life easier for the locals.

Over the past seven days he had silently helped the villagers with his great strength.

He moved massive boulders from irrigation ditches with ease, repaired torn fences with frightening precision, and even moved entire piles of harvest cart’s up muddy hills with surprising ease.

He never asked for anything in return.

Nor did he ever speak of where he had come from.

But the actions had been enough.

Warm meals of roasted root vegetable and bread as well as wooden containers holding clean spring water all mysteriously appeared outside his door.

No one ever asked who put them there but Shadow One always accepted them in silence.

That small silent exchange had become a sort of silent truce between the masked giant and the local villagers.

But despite what the villagers thought, Shadow One was not just some mute wandering laborer looking to settle down on the frontier.

For the past week the masked giant had been silently observing.

All the while, his sharp tactical mind had been analyzing everything and everyone.

From loose gossip between the locals to random conversations in the village bar, Shadow One had been methodically absorbing every bit of information he could get about this world.

From him scattered fragments emerged.

A great landmass that stretched for vast distances.

Countless oceans dotting the landscape each with a different type of storm-qi.

Of course, the villagers knew only what they knew.

After all, they were but mere mortals.

Shadow One quietly kept his thoughts to himself as he sorted through the information.

The geography was certainly impressive but what interested Shadow One far more was the power structure.

Unlike the spheres back home, it seemed this world of Velmora had a different cultivation hierarchy.

It seemed that there were three major cultivation paths.

The first, Body-Refining Cultivators.

They were the traditional martial cultivators.

However, despite their reputation, martial cultivation had long since been relegated to a niche and difficult practice.

Strengthening the body required agonizing bone-tempering, rare resources, and expensive elixirs.

Not to mention the long hours of physical training.

Compared to other cultivation methods, body refining was painfully slow and required massive dedication.

It was no wonder martial artists were so few and far between.

Though Shadow One quickly tucked that bit of information into the back of his mind.

The second branch of cultivation was the Immortal Cultivators.

They were the most numerous cultivators by far.

So numerous in fact that they reminded Shadow One of stray dogs.

At the lower levels their combat capabilities were notoriously weak.

Their only real advantages came in the form of external items.

Spirit pills, talismans, enchanted artifacts, and defensive formations all made up for their lack of natural combat prowess.

However, they did have one major strength.

A single determined immortal could consume low grade spirit stones and harness the surrounding heaven-and-earth qi to break through multiple mortal realms by the time a body-refiner broke through a single muscle.

Shadow One quietly tucked all this information into the deep recesses of his mind.

The third cultivation path, the rarest of them all, was the Soul Cultivators.

They were so rare that they were filled with countless rumors, taboos, and forbidden tales.

Unlike the other two cultivation paths, Soul Cultivators made no effort to strengthen their physical forms.

Instead, they focused on expanding, refining, and weaponizing their spiritual consciousness.

Even the villagers spoke of them in hushed tones.

Shadow One remained silent as he followed the children’s chatter.

For a moment his attention drifted toward the pale blue sky.

There, permanently hanging above the landmass, were two dark purple moons.

They hovered side by side in the air, an odd sight to behold.

Their faint bruised-violet light was visible even during the bright afternoon.

Something about the sight felt wrong.

Unnatural to Shadow One’s senses.

Something was wrong with those moons.

It was difficult to describe.

But to Shadow One they seemed to be emitting some sort of strange synthetic rhythm, like a signal of some sort.

As if something was watching.

Shadow One’s heavy footfalls eventually came to a stop at the edge of the creek.

Below him the children played in the shallows splashing gleefully trying to grab hold of the silver finned river fish.

The large figure remained silently standing behind them as if he were some sort of black stone statue.

But beneath the heavy cloak his crimson eyes flickered briefly.

His consciousness already ran through a series of silent diagnostics.

Seven days.

Seven days of silent observation.

Seven days of Shadow One quietly collecting information.

Quietly playing the part of the innocent mute laborer.

Yet it had all changed with the strange sight of the moons.

The strange synthetic rhythm they emitted had sent an equally strange signal to his consciousness.

For the first time since arriving on this mysterious world, Shadow One realized something was wrong.

Velmora was not just some calm and serene frontier world filled with ordinary cultivators and quiet villages.

Behind the peaceful surface, unseen threads had already begun weaving together slowly drawing distant forces together toward an impending conflict.

And far off across the unexplored continent, those forces had already started to move.

Slowly, Shadow One tightened his fist under his cloak his crimson eyes narrowing as they stared into the pale blue sky.

The two dark-purple moons hanging above the world.

The peaceful scenery suddenly seemed a bit off.

The sounds of the children’s laughter, the flowing water, the gentle autumn breeze, all seemed to conceal something else.

A vague feeling of foreboding that something dangerous lurked nearby.

But Shadow One said nothing.

Instead, within the depths of his consciousness, countless calculations had already begun running.

Velmora had secrets.

And Shadow One was prepared to uncover them.