Cultivating Civilization - Chapter 77

When they entered the lobby of the inn, Jack saw Shi Furui berating Zhu Lielei and a couple of teens from her village. He frowned, told the rest of his squad to do whatever they wanted, and walked up to them.

Shi Furui gave Jack a nod of greeting and continued his admonishments of the teens “In addition of staying in your rooms for the rest of our time here, will not get any food today as punishment.”

Jack waited for Shi Furui to finish, then asked him “What happened?”

The two Redwood teens had the good grace to look ashamed and lower their gazes, only Zhu Lielei kept her eyes locked on Shi Furui’s while the intent to argue radiated out of her.

Shi Furui kept his gaze locked on Zhu Lielei and said “I went to the bathroom for a few minutes while Yin Ping went to your room to get it sorted out and Ma Ruiman got distracted by a barmaid. During that time, these three sneaked outside against your orders.”

As soon as he finished, Zhu Lielei’s brows furrowed in anger and she objected with “We didn’t go outside, we stayed in the doorway!” She turned to look at Jack and added “We just wanted to see the buildings and people outside, but we listened to you and stayed in the inn.”

Jack’s own brows furrowed for a second before he sighed and patted Shi Furui on the shoulder as he said “Thank you for your vigilance, Furui. Leave them to me and go get your things settled.”

After a second of glaring at Zhu Lielei, Shi Furui nodded his head in acquiescence and left towards the stairs for the upper floors.

Jack glanced at the three teens, ordered “Follow me.”, and started walking towards the dining hall of the inn.

There, Jack sat down on one side of a long table, while the three teens sat down on the other. A few people started to fill up the hall by now, but most of the tables still stood empty.

As soon as they sat down a barmaid came and asked for their orders. Jack ordered a bottle of the local wine for himself and waved her off.

Only after she came back with the bottle and he downed a full cup, did Jack break the silence with “Disobey my explicit orders like that again and I will cut all ties with you.”

The two teens had frightened looks replace their chagrined ones, only Zhu Lielei kept a bit of the fight in her own. Fear and anger battled for a couple of seconds in her eyes before anger won out and she said through her teeth “We didn’t disobey your orders. I told you that we only stood in the doorway of the inn and looked outside.”

Jack gave her a level gaze while he poured himself a drink. Only when she looked down in guilt, did he start talking “Ignoring the spirit of the order is the same as ignoring the order itself, don’t pretend that you don’t understand a simple concept like that.”

He downed his drink and continued “What do you think would have happened if you became a little more curious and took a few steps along the street just to see a bit more of the city? What if you ran into an unknown cultivator? I don’t mean in a confrontational sense, I mean he just saw you standing in his way. What do you think would have happened?”

The three teens exchanged looks for a second, and then the oldest of them proposed “He would have stopped us and took us back to the inn?”

As soon as he finished his sentence, Jack snorted and gave him a mirthless chuckle. After a few seconds of silence, he explained “In the best case scenario he would just curse you out and frighten you enough to go back to the inn. Most of them would just beat you for not knowing your place as a favor to me. Others would just make you disappear and we would have never heard of you again.”

The three teens had furrowed brows and hints of doubt in their eyes by the end of his explanation, a few seconds later Zhu Lielei spoke up “Why would they do that? We spend our time around cultivators all the time and none of them treat us any different. I’ve even served you drinks while you talked to the ones that visited our camp yesterday, none of them behaved like what you described.”

Jack’s face spread into a wide grin, half because his men didn’t turn to bastards as soon as they left the Endless Cycle Sect and half because he found their innocence amusing.

A second later, his expression turned back to a serious one as he declared “That’s because we’re not normal cultivators, we’re something different. I know that you won’t believe everything I say right away, just give it time and you’ll see for yourself. All I ask is that you remember what your mothers taught you about acting towards ‘Immortals’ when you have any kind of contact with cultivators outside of the Immortals’ Lament.” He stopped and looked each of them in the eyes, before asking “Can you do that much?”

The three teens exchanged looks and gave him solemn nods.

Jack gave them a pleased smile and said “Great. Now go to your rooms, you can only exit them for meals and when you need to go to the toilet. Today you aren’t allowed to have any meals so spend it with practicing English.”

The trio’s eyes widened in disbelief, and Zhu Lielei started to complain “But I told you”

Jack’s face turned dark as he interrupted her “You disobeyed orders! Do not tempt me to cut your meals to one a day.”

That killed any complaints they had ready to throw at him, and could only accept the punishment with a sullen nod of acknowledgment.

Jack shook his head as he watched their defeated postures while they climbed up the stairs and thought ‘Ah to be young and dumb once more’ After a few seconds of reminiscing, he poured himself a third cup.

The rest of the Immortals’ Lament’s stay in the White River Outpost passed without any major incidents.

Once the rest of the company saw that Jack punished the first trio, none of them wanted to cross him. The rookies heard about what Jack told the trio and decided to keep to their best behavior while in the city.

A few times a normal person strayed a bit too far away from a cultivator and almost got into trouble with a cultivator, but soon either Jack or one of his men would show up and clear the thing up. Having old Long as someone with a higher cultivation than most of the people in the inn helped out too.

On the day their ship was supposed to set sail, the Immortals’ Lament got up before dawn and had their breakfast. They packed their things the night before, so when they finished eating they set out towards the White River Outpost’s harbor.

When they got to the large gate that led to the harbor, a long line of people already stood and waited to go in. The guards at the gates examined everyone so it took a long time to go through.

Jack used old Long’s cultivation to go up to near the top of the line so they only had to wait for an hour.

When they got to the top of the line, the guards wouldn’t let them through without checking everything they carried, even their Star Bags. Old Long looked like he wanted to argue, but Jack signaled to just let them do it.

Jack’s Star Bag didn’t have anything too strange in it, but old Long’s still had the corpses of the two Slaughtering Sword School disciples. That made them hold up the line for a few minutes until old Long managed to convince them that the corpses didn’t belong to anyone from the city. After they confirmed his claim the guards didn’t seem to care and let them through.

Most of the Immortals’ Lament people had their eyes wide during the entire way from the inn as they gawked at everything around them, but they remembered Jack’s warnings and kept their mouths shut.

Once they went down the long stairs for several minutes, the group reached the landing that held the tunnel to the harbor. When they entered the harbor proper, Jack’s people couldn’t hold themselves back from exclaiming about the wonder of it all.

Jack let them enjoy the sight for a minute before he told them to stay quiet and follow him and old Long to the largest ship in the harbor.

All of the ships had people in golden robes preparing them, while a few passengers waited in lines in front of their chosen ships. Jack saw some people pass the lines and present something to a member of the White River family standing guard in front of the ship’s gangplank. Once they did, the gold-robed person would let them get on the ship.

A line that stretched out of the main doors formed in the building where Jack and his squad went to get their reservations previously.

Ma Ruiman leaned over to Jack and whispered “Looks like that kid did us a favor.”

Jack nodded his head and said “I wonder why more people don’t reserve spots.”

Just as he said that he heard a man yelling “I have a reservation; you cannot just refuse passage to people that have paid for reservations!”

Jack turned and saw a man trying to board a small ship. The White River family member in front of him barred his way to the ship while he said “We are full. You can come back in twenty days for the next trip, or go buy passage on one of the other ships.”

The man looked like he wanted to argue some more, but once he glanced at the glares of the White River family members around him, he ducked his head and went to stand in the line for the large building. All of the people in line for that ship quickly moved to others.

Jack frowned and quickened his company’s steps towards the large ship.

A long line of people stood outside of it already, but Jack and old Long ignored it as they marched up to the front and presented their reservation token to the man standing there.

The White River family member took it and did something to disperse the imbuement that the middle-aged man from the large building did. He looked up at old Long and asked “Thirty-seven people, is that right?”

Old Long nodded his head in confirmation and signaled to Jack on the side that he couldn’t read the man’s cultivation.

The man didn’t seem to notice as he turned to look over his shoulder and shouted “Do we have room for thirty-seven more people?”

Several seconds later, a young sailor popped his bald head out and yelled “We can squeeze them in, Uncle.”

The man nodded his head and turned to back to look at old Long as he said “Welcome aboard the Unbreakable Fortress. Go up the gangway and talk to my nephew up there, he will fill you in on what we expect of you on this trip.” As he said that he didn’t move out of the way and extended a hand out with his palm upwards.

Old Long didn’t even blink as he took out a large pouch out of his Star Bag and placed it in the waiting hand. Jack saw a shimmer of spirit energy, and a couple of seconds later the man nodded his head and moved out of the way.

Jack and Old Long led the way up to the ship and the rest of the Immortals’ Lament followed in their wake.

As soon as they stepped foot on the Unbreakable Fortress, the bald sailor from before greeted them with “Hello passengers, please follow me to your accommodations.” With that, he turned around and walked through the mass of bustling sailors towards a hole in the top deck of the ship.

Jack and old Long exchanged glances, then followed after him.

The hole in the deck had stairs connected to it that led to the levels below. It took a couple of minutes for the bald sailor to lead them all three decks down to a large space that was half-filled with people already.

He turned to old Long and declared “These are your quarters for the next thirteen days.” When he saw the frown on old Long’s face he gave a sly smile and said “Cultivators of grade four and up can pay for better accommodations, of course. Just talk to any of the sailors and they will point you towards the right person.”

When no one jumped on his offer immediately he shrugged his shoulders and concluded “Anyone below grade four does not have permission to go to the upper decks. If we find such a person, depending on his station, we will either punish them with labor or will throw them into the River. You have been warned.” With that, he went around the company and up the stairs to the top deck.

Jack turned to his men with a sour smile on his face and declared “Make yourself at home people; we’re stuck here for a while so try to make the best of it.”

He received a few grumbles as they spread out across the cramped space and waited for the ship to begin their journey.