Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 74: Pyramid

Chance’s urumi snapped back around his wrist and the golden mist receded. Stunned stares bored into him from the surrounding cultivators. He wiped some of the mud from his face and flicked it onto the ground, grimacing as the thrill of the fight faded.

Jerrin snapped his fingers. James and Tamara shimmered, vanishing from the wet ground and leaving nothing behind.

“If I’m not mistaken, I get his materials now, right?” Chance asked.

“You do,” Jerrin said with a curt nod. “And I’d say you earned them. Five mid rank cultivation aids, so a total of ten for you. Impressive fight.”

An attendant jogged up and handed Jerrin two pouches, which he passed to Chance. Chance tossed them into his case, together with all the other pills he’d stored up.

That’s it? I guess that’s a pretty good signing bonus for a sect that doesn’t actually require anything from you.

“Thank you.” Chance walked back to Bella. She gave him his case back and they sat back in their chairs.

“Well done,” Bella said. “You had me worried for a second. That was a pretty dirty trick that the other cultivator pulled.”

Chance shrugged. “Yeah, kind of. Is there such a thing as a dirty trick in a fight, though? He was just using his powers to the best of his ability, like I was. If I had some sneaky ability, I’d use it too.”

Bella blinked. Then she frowned. “Don’t make me feel sorry for him. He was a dick.”

“Not arguing with that.” Chance grinned. “I think he intentionally antagonized me while you were cultivating to see if I was strong, then decided I was too naïve or soft and thought I’d be an easy target. Guess that didn’t work out for him too well.”

Bella nodded. Several cultivators were still watching them warily, as if Bella or Chance were a hair’s width away from snapping and trying to kill everyone in the area.

“Any other challengers?” Jerrin asked, clearing his throat to try and get some attention back to himself. “I’ll be honest, we typically prefer to thin the herd a little more before continuing. We don’t exactly have that many pills to give out.”

“I’m not challenging the kid,” a cultivator muttered. “He’s a smiling demon.”

“I bet the girl with him is even worse,” another one added, sending a worried glance at Bella. “Shit, she’s glaring at me. Don’t look in her direction.”

Chance cocked an eyebrow at Bella and she sighed, looking away from the cultivator.

“Come on,” Jerrin said, practically begging. “What about someone else? Those two aren’t the only ones here, you know. Don’t forget they could challenge you if you aren’t fighting someone else.”

That worked better than anything Jerrin had said yet. Several people immediately leapt to their feet and rushed up to him, challenging each other. Chance leaned closer to Bella as Jerrin prepared next two fighters.

“Why is everyone so surprised at us not being terrible at our age? I thought you said that the younger a cultivator was, the more likely they’re actually really powerful and just immortal.”

“It’s because we’re not in a Scholar-City,” Bella replied. “Powerful cultivators like that aren’t going to be wandering around in the open very often. They congregate in powerful cities like Gleam. So when there are people that are fairly powerful at our age…”

“Ah. They’re either probably in trouble or on the run, which is why James thought I might have been a good target. Maybe he thought I was just a spoiled kid who pissed his parents off,” Chance said, nodding his understanding. “Gotcha.”

He glanced at the cultivators fighting in the center of the square. They were talented enough, but he had to admit that they weren’t nearly as good as the students he’d seen in the Shikari Tournament, much less someone like Pete.

Chance reached into his case and pulled out some more lower quality cultivation aids. He popped them into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully as one of the cultivators forced the other to surrender.

The loser trudged back to his chair in shame while Jerrin congratulated the other man and gave him his allotted pills. The next few cultivators stepped out and the fights continued for the next few minutes. Chance didn’t pay them much attention, instead focusing on his cultivation.

He was getting so little out of using the weaker cultivation aids at this point that the pills were borderline useless. It was about time to start using some of his better ones. Chance resolved to save the rest of the low level pills for Bella, since they’d be vastly more useful to her than they would be on him.

The last of the fights wrapped up after just under an hour. A little less than half of the cultivators remained. Aside from Chance and Bella, there were only five others. None of them had been particularly interesting to Chance, but he couldn’t help but notice that there was no sign of the Redhand bandits.

When he voiced that observation to Bella, she shrugged.

“Maybe they decided to wait for another day? Their boss still hadn’t returned after all. To be honest, it might be best if they don’t apply. They’re still bandits, you know.”

“Fair enough,” Chance admitted. Brent had been such an amiable guy that he wanted to believe the whole bandit shtick was just the man playing around rather than actually being a murderer, but after a few months on Centurion, Chance knew better than that. It didn’t hurt to pretend, though.

“It looks like we’re all wrapped up,” Jerrin said with a pleased smile. “Much better. I’d like to formally invite all of you to the ranks of the Dancing Cloud sect. Please make no mistake. While we aid those with talent, all those who proved themselves to have potential in the first test will still be allowed into the sect if they pass another set of trials. We do not pride combat ability over everything – just most things. They are simply being treated for their injuries before they continue.”

“Why’s that matter to us?” a short, stout cultivator with a receding hairline asked.

“He’s warning us not to be idiots and fight everyone we see,” another man said. “They want capable cultivators, not bloodthirsty fools.”

“Precisely.” Jerrin reached into his pockets and pulled out a stack of wooden emblems. He walked down the short line of cultivators, handing them out. “These will grant you entrance to the floating city from any point. They’re one time use, so don’t waste it. If you want another, you can buy one. For now, since we’re already on the island, you can just walk in. You’ll learn the rest soon enough.”

Chance turned the wooden badge over in his hands. It had a simple engraving of a cloud on one side, with a circle of straight-lined runes on the other.

“We can just stroll in?” the stout cultivator asked.

“You passed the trials,” Jerrin replied. “Nothing other than these initial supplies will be free, and you’ll find that you can’t buy most things here with gold. We require contribution points, which you can only earn from doing things for the sect.”

Nobody looked all too surprised at that revelation. The cultivators wandered off toward the city, muttering amongst themselves. Chance and Bella didn’t budge from their spots. Jerrin glanced at them, a small frown crossing his face.

“Is something amiss?”

“I’m just trying to determine what you gain from this,” Chance said. “I don’t mean to cause offense, but you’re giving free supplies and granting cultivators access to your flying, protected city for basically nothing in return, aren’t you? That doesn’t seem like a sustainable business model.”

Jerrin smiled. “Ah. I understand your worry. The lands below us are dangerous and fraught with threat. As a sect, we have the power to be a little more open with who we allow in. Make no mistake, we are not altruistic beyond belief. You are cultivators, not worthless mortals. You would defend yourself from attack, no?”

“Of course I would.”

“Then what do you think would happen if someone were to attack our city?”

“Ah. It’s a militia that you don’t have to pay for.”

“Precisely,” Jerrin said with a nod. “And that is not a secret. Cultivators come here knowing that they can practice and train mostly in peace, with access to many of the supplies that they could only get in a scholar-city. In exchange, if we do get attacked, they defend their temporary home. It is a symbiotic relationship.”

“I see,” Chance said. “But what if we don’t want to defend the area when you get attacked?”

“Then you leave, but do not expect to be let back in.”

“That’s fair enough,” Bella said. “What about leaving normally? These tokens let us into the city. How do we get out of it?”

“There are a multitude of waypoints throughout the city. Touching any of them will return you to the location on the ground that you left from,” Jerrin replied. “Alternatively, you can purchase transport to another location, but it costs contribution points. You won’t get that unless you help us out.”

“Fair enough,” Chance said. “Thanks for the honesty.”

“Of course. It doesn’t help me to lie, especially to people such as you,” Jerrin said. A sly grin crossed his face. “After all, I’d very much like if you stayed, and lying tends to have the adverse effect. We have use for talented cultivators such as yourselves.”

“Thank you. We’ll go check the city out, then,” Chance said. He and Bella nodded to Jerrin, then started after the other cultivators toward the city proper.

Chance waited until they’d put enough distance between themselves and Jerrin to be out of earshot before he spoke again.

“I think this whole thing is kind of a pyramid scheme.”

“Pyramid scheme?” Bella asked. “What pyramid? This looks like a normal city.”

“Not a physical one,” Chance laughed. “It’s a phrase from Earth. It’s a scam of sorts. The guy at the top has all the money. He recruits some people and gives them a tiny portion of it if they recruit even more people. That keeps going down, with the vast majority of the money remaining at the top while all the work is done by people at the bottom.”

“Ah, I see. The contribution points are us doing all the stuff that the city actually needs done.”

“Yeah, I bet everything is crazy overpriced here,” Chance said with a nod. “It seems safe enough, though. I don’t think Jerrin was lying. What do you think?”

“The same. Even if their prices are high, as long as we get the bare minimum of what we need, this is safer than below. We can train here for a while, which has the added benefit of lessening our chance to run into any Shikari. I guess it depends on just how bad their prices really are.”