Gleam - Chapter 82 (Patreon)

Chance and Bella quickly slipped into a pattern, working through several jobs every day and spending the rest of their free time cultivating and practicing. Chance quickly made his way through most of his good cultivation aids. He gave the majority of the low and mid-level pills to Bella, who could put them to better use than he could.

Between the two of them, they quickly started to amass a fair amount of contribution points. None of the jobs posed them much threat, and they were soon getting requests for jobs that paid out several times more than the ones on the board.

Even though he was making more contribution points every single day, the majority of his earnings quickly drained away into the endless funnel of cultivation aids. The higher level ones were far from cheap, but the benefits they gave were too much to pass up on, especially without the typical drawback of building impurities.

In that manner, two weeks passed. Chance continued to spend most of his time focusing on his vision as he cultivated, but no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t seem to make progress on what felt off with it.

Even so, he could feel himself continue to improve. Every fight they took went just a little easier than the last, and Chance’s control over Karma continued to progress. Bella wasn’t one to be left behind, though.

Around midway through the two weeks, she managed to latch onto inspiration. At least, that was what Chance suspected had happened. He’d woken up to Bella sitting on her bed, deep in cultivation, with a thin sheet of glimmering ice covering her and the room around her.

Luckily, it hadn’t stretched far enough to get onto Chance’s side of the room. Less luckily, that did mean that Chance was left without a partner for his missions. It didn’t slow him much, but it did make them considerably less fun.

Part of him hoped that Ocie would join in and actually help, but the Old City hadn’t shown itself again. It seemed content to let Chance do all the work while it sat around, doing whatever a pile of sentient rocks did for fun.

On one morning, after waking up to no changes with Bella, Chance headed out of the room to do a cursory check of the jobs board to see if anything interesting had been posted overnight.

As he closed the door gently behind him, Chance turned around to find a thin man standing before him. His black hair was pulled back in a bun, and he had a large leather sack slung over his shoulder. It bulged with letters and packages, threatening to tear and spill its contents everywhere at any moment.

“Good timing,” the man said, holding a small brown paper package out.

“Is this for me?” Chance asked, taking it.

“You’re Chance, yes? Or are you Bella?”

“Chance. What is this?”

“Delivery from the Dancing Cloud sect,” the man replied. “Normally nobody is home so I have to shove those under the door. Much better to actually hand it to you.”

Chance looked down at the doorframe. There was barely half an inch of space when the door was closed – not nearly enough for the package in his hands to fit through. The messenger followed his gaze and chuckled.

“Yeah. Things don’t always fit great, but I make it happen.”

“I see,” Chance said. “Do you need pay for this or anything?”

“Nope. Part of the job,” the messenger replied, giving him a sharp salute. “Have a good day.”

He strode off, stopping several rooms down the hall and pulling out another package. He rapped on the door. When nobody responded, the messenger placed the package at the base of the door and reared back, kicking it hard.

There was a dull crunch as the package wedged itself up at an angle. The messenger stomped on it, then kicked it again. The package scraped beneath the door, and he gave it one final nudge to push it the rest of the way through.

Giving Chance a thumbs-up, the messenger ambled down the hall and turned a corner, disappearing from view. Chance stared after him, then shook his head.

Good thing I was awake. I don’t think anything in that package survived delivery.

He tore the paper open to reveal a small wooden box. It popped open when he pushed on the cover, revealing a letter on plain white paper and two small wooden tokens. Chance shifted the tokens to the side and pulled the paper out.

Dear Cultivators,

We are pleased to inform you that you are in the top fifteen percent of contribution point earners within the Dancing Cloud Sect this month. As a result, we’d like to give you an invitation to the Azure Moon Coalition’s Ancient Realm.

It has been open for one week as of the time that this letter was sent, and it will remain open for a total of one month. If you choose to enter the Azure Moon Realm, please make sure you are sufficiently prepared and leave before the entrance is closed.

The tokens enclosed in this box will transport you to the Azure Moon Realm when broken. If you give the tokens away or otherwise lose them, we cannot offer a replacement at this time.

The Dancing Cloud sect is not responsible for death, injury, or losses that occur within the Azure Moon Realm. Enter at your own risk.

Chance snorted and folded the paper back up. He tucked it into the top of the box and turned back, heading into the room and putting it on the ground in the center of the room so Bella would see it if she woke up while he was gone.

He then headed out once again, making for one of the job boards in town. This time, he suffered no interruptions and reached it just a short while later. To Chance’s surprise, there was a crowd gathered around the board.

A faint layer of golden mist covered Chance and he walked through the crowd, slipping through tiny openings that closed behind him. He reached the front of the crowd and let his Essence fade away.

At the center of the board was a bright red piece of paper. It was held in place on every corner, making it so that nobody could pull it down.

“What’s going on?” Chance asked one of the cultivators beside him over the roar of the crowd.

“There’s an emergency job,” the woman replied. “Some small village is getting attacked by a powerful monster. The pay is terrible, though. They’re not under the Dancing Cloud sect’s protection.”

Chance grimaced. “Ah. No contribution points.”

“None,” the cultivator said, nodding in agreement. “If they were offering good pay in gold, I’d consider it… but they can’t even promise that. It’s unfortunate, but I’m not going to risk my life for no reward. We all came out here when we heard there was an emergency job, since those usually pay really well, but this… it’s just not worth the time or effort.”

Chance squinted up at the paper. It had been put up at the top of the board, making it easy to spot for anyone passing by, but it was a little difficult to actually read what it said. The cultivator wasn’t wrong – they pay really was bad. It was only around fifty gold for anyone that participated, and they didn’t have any description of the monster or its abilities, just that it was powerful.

His hands tightened and Chance turned, calling on his Essence and slipping through the crowd again. If the pay was this bad, almost no cultivators would be willing to take it up. People were going to die if someone didn’t act, price be damned. He made a beeline toward the nearest guard post and strode through the door.

“I want to do the emergency job,” Chance said, splaying his fingers out on the countertop. “Can you send me down and give me a token to get back?”

The guard blinked in surprise, but he gave Chance a curt nod and grabbed a wooden token from a small box by his desk. He quickly carved something into it with a glowing metal rod, then waved the smoke away.

He slipped the token into a small metal slot on the desk. The runes carved along it shimmered to life with faint gray light and it sank down with a click. A circle of matching runes traced across the ground in the center of the guard outpost, just beside Chance.

Ducking below his desk, the guard grabbed another token and set it out. He pushed it of over to Chance. “There you go. This job isn’t on the floating city, so you’ll need to use a more accurate way to teleport you down. Return is easier, as we have special premade runes for returning to the city.”

“Thanks,” Chance said, picking the return token up and tucking it into his pocket. He stepped into the center of the glowing rune circle. “Do I just stand here?”

“Yup. I should warn you that you’re the first Dancing Cloud cultivator to take this job up,” the guard said, his hand hovering over the token he’d put in the slot on the desk. “An emergency job is usually for a pretty powerful monster. You might be on your own here.”

“Someone has to do it.”

“Not arguing with you,” the guard said. “You’re a good man. Just be careful. Good men don’t tend to last too long down there. Make sure you break that return token if things get too bad. A cultivator is more important than a bunch of mortals.”

Chance’s lips pressed thin, but he gave the guard a curt nod. The man didn’t mean anything bad by his words, but implying that one human life had more value than another rubbed him the wrong way. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he’d been a powerless mortal himself.

“I’m still going.”

“Good luck,” the guard said. He pressed down on the token, snapping it with a click.  Essence rushed around Chance, swallowing him in a churning vortex.

“Thanks,” Chance replied.

Then he was gone, pulled away from the Dancing Cloud’s city and sent hurtling through space toward the village somewhere on the ground below. Chance just hoped it would still be standing when he arrived.