Chapter 383 - 3: I Have Wine, Do You Have a Story?

Before being wiped out, the group of bandits who tried to rob Su Zhou had been forced to give up a great deal of information.

Among this information was the location of the largest nearby Shelter City, Naisel City.

Naisel City was located within the borders of the former Thousand Lakes Country, nestled between three large freshwater lakes. It was a lakeside city, easy to defend and hard to attack. Standing on a hill, Su Zhou gazed into the distance and could see its towering city walls, as well as the vast stretches of farmland along the lakeshores surrounding the city.

’It looks normal enough.’ Su Zhou saw no signs of chaos in the city, nor did he sense much of a deathly aura. It seemed the Naisel family, despite being nearly wiped out, had a sense of responsibility and some principles. Even on the brink of their clan’s annihilation, they hadn’t chosen to deactivate the Sheltering Array and let the nearly one million people in the city die or be forced to migrate along with them.

Of course, it was also possible that the mysterious force that attacked them simply hadn’t given them the chance—but that would have been an incredibly difficult feat.

Before setting out for Naisel City, Su Zhou took some precautions to avoid trouble. He dismantled a few tents at the bandit camp, using the fabric to conceal his luggage, and disguised himself as a weather-beaten voyager. He also took the opportunity to scrounge some local currency from the bandits’ corpses.

The local currency of this world was a peculiar, dark-gold metal alloy. Its original name was quite long and complicated, so Su Zhou simply decided to call it "gold."

One standard gold piece weighed about 100 grams and was enough to buy rations for a family of three for over half a month. The entire band of bandits had been hired to find the heir of the Naisel family for a payment of just 30 gold. If they succeeded, they would receive a bounty of another 100 gold.

When melted down, this alloy could be directly forged into high-grade, masterwork weapons. It was a recognized hard currency in many regions; even when not used as coinage, its value as a raw material was still considerable.

Between the forty or fifty bandits, they had a total of fifty-seven gold pieces on them, which was quite a fortune. It was also very heavy, so Su Zhou found a chest and carried the money on his back.

With money in his pouch and power in his fists, he should have been, in theory, completely without worry. And yet, Su Zhou was still concerned. ’This is a fallen world, after all. What if the City Guard demands a bigger bribe, or insists on inspecting my luggage? If a conflict breaks out and I can’t stand being pushed around, my only choice will be to kill them all.’

’But I’m here to gather information, not to kill people. What am I to do?’ Thinking this, the good-natured Su Zhou let out a long sigh.

"You’re overthinking it." Yara, who had been observing everything, poked its head out from Su Zhou’s hair. It shook its head slightly, refraining from saying what it was really thinking. ’With that undisguised aura of someone who just killed at least a dozen people, what kind of City Guard would have to be insane to stop you?’ Instead, it just said casually, "According to those bandits, the city has no ruler right now, and no one else has managed to seize control yet. In a situation like that, how could the City Guard possibly be functioning normally?"

Yara was absolutely right.

When the Naisel City Guard Army spotted a young, weather-beaten adventurer carrying luggage, approaching from the desolate northwest road—a route rumored to be plagued by bandits—they felt an inexplicable sense of danger.

’He passed through Old Anda’s gang’s blockade all by himself, and he’s strolling through the wilderness so casually... You don’t mess with a Wilderness Wanderer like that!’

One of the veteran City Guards even took the opportunity to teach the rookies some common sense. "The easiest targets for extortion are usually small squads of seven or eight people. As long as the amount isn’t too large, they’ll just split the cost and pay up. Even if they’re strong, they often won’t bother stooping to our level, just to avoid trouble."

"But a lone wolf who dares to travel by himself is either a Powerhouse who doesn’t fear the Undead of the wilderness, or he’s a lucky fool. And in this day and age, where are you going to find fools? It’s not our turn to be shaking him down."

And so, Su Zhou, who had expected to be harassed and forced into a fight, was only required to pay an entrance fee. Because he was a stranger, he had to hand over a small shard of alloy worth about a tenth of a gold piece, as per the rules.

Afterward, the City Guard Army gave him a wooden plaque inscribed with a Rune as proof of identity, and Su Zhou entered the city without any further trouble.

From start to finish, Su Zhou didn’t even say a word, and his luggage wasn’t inspected at all. For a grand fantasy city with walls a full twenty-plus meters high, the City Guard Army was astonishingly lazy! This prompted Su Zhou to shake his head in bitter disappointment. ’This world really is messed up!’

"You’re obviously the one with the problem," the Snake Spirit tutted, shaking its head.

Naisel City was surrounded by three large freshwater lakes, with city walls built only at the three narrow land entrances. The shores of the lakes were mostly covered in farmland.

The entire city and all its farming areas were enveloped in a translucent layer of light. The moment Su Zhou passed through it, he immediately felt the Spiritual Qi of various Attributes become several times more active—even slightly more so than back on Earth.

However, this activity wasn’t a property of the Spiritual Qi itself, but rather of its Attributes.

To use an analogy, a world’s Spiritual Qi density is like the amount of water in a cup. If the Spiritual Qi is cut off, the water level drops. During a Spiritual Energy Revival, the water level rises.

The activity of its Attributes, then, is like how easily that water can freeze or vaporize—how readily it changes state.

Back when he first arrived in this world, Su Zhou had sensed that while the Spiritual Qi density in the Otherworld was slightly higher than on Earth, the speed at which Attributes converted was frighteningly slow.

This was certainly not a good thing. On Earth, the conversion speed of Spiritual Attributes was perfectly normal. Water Spiritual Power from the ocean would rise into the sky and transform into Wind-Attribute Spiritual Power. If it rose even higher, direct sunlight would convert it into Light-Attribute Spiritual Power. It was a natural cycle, similar to the transformation of matter, and it remained in sync with the physical world.

But when the attribute conversion speed is too slow, different types of Spiritual Qi interfere with each other. Water Spiritual Qi rising into the sky fails to quickly convert into Wind Spiritual Qi, which in turn disrupts the physical world’s normal patterns of wind and rain, leading to an unbalanced climate.

To make another analogy, it’s like a delayed reaction where water is heated to one hundred degrees Celsius but takes a long time to actually start boiling. This is just a simple example; in reality, this is an issue big enough to destroy a world. For one thing, plants would have a very difficult time surviving.

Of course, a conversion speed that is too fast isn’t good either. A little faster is fine, but an excessive rate would be like on a high plateau, where low atmospheric pressure causes water to boil below 100 degrees, making it difficult to cook food thoroughly.

Su Zhou could sense that this world’s Spiritual Qi conversion speed was about to plummet, likely within the next few decades. This wouldn’t have mattered in an Era of Severed Spiritual Qi; after all, in a purely physical world with no Spiritual Qi, the conversion speed is irrelevant. But if a Spiritual Energy Revival occurred and Spiritual Qi once again filled the world, this spiritual abnormality would lead to the destruction of the physical world.

However, after he entered the area enveloped by this Great Array—which the bandits called the ’Elemental Order’—everything returned to normal. People could farm and live as they should.

The walls of Naisel City were high and thick, averaging about twenty-one meters, with clear traces of having been shaped by Magic. However, after witnessing the thousand-foot-high walls of the Southern River Celestial Gate in the Divine Wood World, Su Zhou was no longer fazed by the bizarre architectural styles of various Extraordinary Worlds. ’With Spiritual Qi, what couldn’t you build?’

Naisel City’s urban planning was surprisingly advanced. Its city blocks were arranged in a neat grid, and its sewage system was well-developed. It wasn’t noisy and chaotic like a typical ancient Western city. Aside from a large number of guards, the streets weren’t particularly dirty or messy, and the stone houses were mostly well-maintained by their owners, showing no signs of grime.

But now, the doors of every house were shut tight. The pedestrians on the road hurried along, not daring to linger in the streets for long. When they saw Su Zhou, a stranger carrying a large pack, they would at most glance up for a second before quickly lowering their heads in fear.

Across the entire city, the only places with any audible bustle were a few areas that seemed to be taverns and markets.

’Looks like there aren’t many other options,’ Su Zhou thought. After passing through the gate and entering the city, he picked the liveliest-looking tavern and headed for it.

The moment he entered, the raucous tavern fell silent before slowly returning to its previous clamor. Then Su Zhou walked up to the counter and slapped two gold coins down on the wooden surface.

The sound of metal on wood wasn’t loud, but it was exceptionally pleasing to the ear.

The tavern owner, who had been observing the scene, immediately pushed a server aside. He stepped forward and asked with extreme politeness, "Sir, would you like a private room? Also, this is far too much money. None of our wines are worth this much."

Of course, Su Zhou couldn’t understand a word the man was saying. Fortunately, being of the Extraordinary Tier, he could simply use Soul Communication. "Bring me your best wine and some of your house specialties. I’ve been traveling alone in the wilderness for months, and I’m starving. Start me off with a five-person serving."

’Soul Communication!? Is this an Extraordinary Tier Professional?’

’Why would someone like that come to a tavern for common adventurers?!’

Sensing the faint aura Su Zhou was giving off, the burly tavern owner—who had likely been an adventurer himself in his younger days—broke out in a cold sweat. He repeated his earlier words via Soul Communication, then added respectfully, "My lord, even a full table spread wouldn’t cost this much. A quarter of a gold piece would be more than enough."

As Su Zhou learned the prices of the tavern’s food, he got a rough idea of the purchasing power of one gold piece. ’So one gold is equivalent to about two thousand Zhengguo Currency? That’s not surprising.’

’Of course, I can’t rule out that meat and wine are expensive luxuries in this world... but even so, my estimate shouldn’t be too far off.’

At the same time, the other voices in the tavern also died down.

"Why would an Elite-Tier Professional come to our tavern?" the patrons whispered to each other in confusion. Most common adventurers were only at the Apprenticeship Stage, just beginning to perceive Magic Power. An adventurer who had earned a Formal Professional title was qualified enough to serve as a captain under a Lord. If they chose to remain an adventurer, they could easily form a large party.

Elite-Tier Professionals had only become more numerous in the last few decades, since the Demon Tide returned to the world. Before then, even Initial-Stage Professionals were rare. No matter where they went, they were considered true masters, powerful figures.

The adventurers weren’t idiots. Seeing the tavern owner replying respectfully when Su Zhou hadn’t even opened his mouth, how could they not realize this was an Extraordinary-Tier Professional capable of Soul Communication? As for the language barrier...

Heh, even back in the day, the Four Great Kingdoms couldn’t understand each other’s languages. Now, almost a thousand years after the fall of the kingdoms, the various Shelter Cities have all developed independently. Dialects have become so pronounced that people from cities that were once part of the same kingdom can no longer understand each other.

"The money isn’t a problem," Su Zhou said with a smile, still using Soul Communication. "I’ve just returned from the wilderness. It gets lonely traveling by yourself. For now, I just want to listen to people talk and get a sense of what’s been happening in the city lately."

With that, Su Zhou turned to look at the other patrons in the tavern. He began to broadcast his Soul Communication to the entire room. "Everyone’s drinks are on me tonight. I have only one request: anyone who wants a free drink must tell a story."

As he spoke, he took out several more gold pieces and slapped them on the counter, proving he had the wealth to back up his power.

—I have wine. Do you have a story?