Chapter 18: Fatty gets abducted ... again.

Ascension Star is a planet with a circumference of nearly 300,000 km. For reference, the Earth sits at a comfortable little 40,000 km, and Saturn is about 380,000 km. To help you realise just how big that is, the surface area of earth is about 510 million km². The surface area of Ascension blows it out of the water at a whopping 28.6 billion km².

Now for a new comparison, take New Zealand. It’s got a surface area of 260,000 km². If the surface of the earth was covered in New Zealand’s, it could fit approximately 1900 of them. This is an apt comparison because the continent James is presently inhabiting, is the New Zealand of its world.

Curiously, that only makes it slightly smaller than the continent of Asia at a humble 15 million km². This continent is called Atsunari and is one of the weakest most pathetic continents on Ascension. It would be more accurate to call it an island in comparison to other land masses on the planet, but it sits on its own tectonic plate, so gets to be called a continent.

The primal spirit energy saturation of Atsunari is one of the lowest in the world. The only continent with less saturation is called ‘Dead Island’, which sounds pretty self-explanatory.

Amusingly, the next highest saturation is a continent called Lakiola, which is 8 times bigger. It’s situated on the opposite side of the planet and has almost 200 times the average saturation of Atsunari. For future reference, if the average saturation of the entire globe were 1, then Lakiola would be about 0.2, which would leave this bottom tier continent, Atsunari, at less than 0.001.

Surrounding Atsunari was thousands of ‘Islands’, which in comparison to any isles of Earth, would be considered huge. Sections of these islands joined together to form Island Nations, which comprised nearly 8 separate nations. Interestingly a good majority of these islands were inhabited by sea-based spirit beasts and animals. Making the inhabitants the most adaptable on the continent.

On the southern end of the mainland, was the largest ‘Island Nation’ in regards to land mass. This island was unique, in that it had no single faction in control but was instead overseen by a council of 5 separate sects, which all placed in the top 10 most influential factions of the continent.

Regardless of that, the Empire James resided in, which has been mentioned a few times, is the Yori Empire, and is ... you guessed it, the puniest Empire on the continent, being so small as to be able to cover the surface area of Atsunari 75 times.

Obviously, Atsunari doesn’t have 75 tiny little Empires making it up. It had about 20 different powers, some small and some big, but none as small as Atsunari. The only reason they haven’t been consumed by surrounding nations yet is because they were sandwiched right in the middle of the three biggest Nations on Atsunari.

This was both a blessing and curse for the Yori Empire. A blessing, in that none of the three countries wanted to allow any of the others to take that little piece of middle ground and have some advantage over the other two. It was also a curse because it meant the Yori Empire could never become strong enough to contend for land with the three Great Nations and would never be able to expand.

This left them all in a stalemate, and apart from Yori Empire, every border shared between them was constantly embroiled in skirmishes and an occasional all-out war.

It wasn’t even so much that the nations cared who took the Yori Empires land. It was more that it was used as a method for the wealthy families and merchants to trade with each other without worrying about the wars on the borders. Having the Yori empire, allowed the nations to exchange commodities and be at war simultaneously.

To the leaders of the Great Nations, it was just a fun chess game and apart from truly rare resources or other such things, they rarely enforced any of their political might onto the Yori Empire. This basically left them in an equalised status quo, and generally, no one wanted to push the scales and tip the balance.

Finally, we zoom in on Yori Empire. Yori was founded thousands of years ago, after they rapidly consumed adjacent lands, until finally, they united all the lands between the great nations, only to realise the great nations were already so big and powerful, any one of them could blow Yori to dust with less effort than a sneeze.

Within the Empire’s borders, were 7 Regions and the Capital City of Yansho. Yansho didn’t rule an area, but rather an entire empire and was the home of the Imperial Clan. It was a city that spanned nearly a thousand square kilometres.

Of the 7 regions, was the one James was in right now, the Kantsu province, which was, of course, one of the crappiest, taking up only 15,000 km². Making it the second smallest. This section was run by the Kantsu Sect, as opposed to a Clan, as one would normally expect.

The provincial capital was actually centred around the Kantsu Mountain on which the Kantsu Sect resided. The city was inherently named ... Kantsu City.

Of the other major Cities in the region, there was only 2. One was Gau City, and the other was Felsine City. Gau City was as you’d expect ... the 2^nd biggest after Kantsu.

So, all in all, not only was James on the 2nd shittiest continent in the world, but he was also in the 2nd shittiest city, of the 2^nd shittiest region, within one of the shittiest empires. If someone wanted to describe this situation, it would be with two words. Fucking Shit.

James and Skay had long since learnt a bit about these circumstances and were entirely aware that, if they ever wanted to become strong cultivator’s, they would eventually have to get the fuck out of this empire. Unfortunately, they were also vaguely aware of just how difficult that would be.

Before anything, to travel, you had to at least have some degree of power. In this empire, that level was the True Spirit Realm. If you reached Palace Realm, you would be only one realm below the elites of the empire, and you could most likely move to one of the surrounding nations without being mugged by someone’s children.

Interestingly, being the centre hub of trade for the three great nations made the Empire rather rich in resources, on the market anyway. The problem was that hardly any citizen of Yori could afford them. Apart from food and lesser spirit materials they didn’t have much to trade and so the higher end of the market was mostly run entirely for traders and cultivators from the 3 Nations.

This whole scenario was somewhat bizarre, because running through the middle of the empire was a magnificent mountain range, called the Jetsu Mountains, or if being referred to by locals, ‘Fucked’. This naming came about from the death toll that usually accompanied any trips into the mountain range. It was generally said that anyone who goes to the mountain range was fucked.

In the neighbouring 3 great nations and the entire empire itself, this mountain range had the highest level of primal spirit energy saturation. It was the second highest point of saturation on the whole continent, reaching almost 2 times the global average. That made it nearly 2,000 times more potent than the spirit energy in the rest of Atsunari.

It also meant that huge numbers of violent and powerful spirit beasts congregate on the mountains and not even the strongest of the three great nations dared to travel too far into the area, preferring to hunt and train around the outer areas, where the energy was thinner, and beasts were equally weaker.

This meant that the only people who could frequently handle hunting, gathering or training on the mountains, were the strongest people on the continent. This was also why the empire remained so weak even with such a precious natural resource inside their borders.

-Gau City-

Fatty had been through a rough few days this past week. After leaving Lost Village, he arrived in Gau City about the same time as James completed the pacts with the Gau Clan. For the first few days, he completely forgot about his goal in coming to the city and was travelling around everywhere looking for any sort of work he could find.

Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, he once again got employed by the city stables. Fortunate, because he earnt more and had a place to sleep. Unfortunate, because he spent nearly two days shovelling the entire stables and replacing hay before he was paid. He was paid 20 coppers for two days work which was enough to afford him a stop in at a busy pub hosting an eating competition.

The rules were simple. You pay 20 coppers and with a team of 4 people had to eat the entire leg of a cow. If you could accomplish this goal, you eat for free and win half the pot paid by competitors. Now for those of us who aren’t aware that’s nearly 5 kg of beef each person.

It goes without saying that fatty entered alone. Actually, the owner of the pub was almost afraid to deny him after he saw the glowing hand. Most likely even without that, the way fatty looked at him and basically everyone around him as food made the announcer even more unlikely to refuse, due to fear of being consumed alive right here on the street.

Fatty was hungry. So hungry that, in his entire life, he’d never been more hungry. He actually tried to take a bite out of a horse in the stables and only failed because he wasn’t nimble enough to catch it. He came to realise just how much his appetite had grown since coming here.

It was okay in the grain fields because he was always eating. But now, having not eaten anything for two days, he was ready to just lean over and take a munch out of some random pedestrian. Proper decorum be damned!

The announcer started to get the crowd fired up as about 10 groups of 4 and Fatty sat at a big table on the stage of the pub.

The moment the fire-roasted leg was placed in front of him, Fatty gorged himself. He didn’t stop until he started to feel a little bit full. Only at that point did he awaken from his frenzied face stuffing and come to know that not only had he devoured his 20kg of leg meat. He’d eaten his competitors as well, hell the fat bastard even ate the bones.

Of the 11 cows legs that had been brought out, fatty had eaten 9 of them. It was a mystery where exactly in his body it went because he didn’t look any more bloated than usual as if his stomach was a bottomless pit.

The whole pub was quiet, and not even the normally rowdier patrons made a sound. They all just stood and stared. After a short moment had passed the announcer reached out and through a sack towards Fatty with half the pot in it.

He said nothing as Fatty made a rapid escape from the tavern. In all the 4 or 5 years that the bar had hosted this competition, no one had ever managed to finish the leg. Even between four people, there had never been a winner. How could he possibly imagine that some mysterious cultivator would appear and clean the table of 9 of them all by himself? Just what sort of sick cultivation did he practice?

After that whole scene, a rumour began to spread around the city of the ‘Red Baron’. Aptly named because everyone imagines barons as gluttonous fatties and because of his red glowing hand. The rumours eventually became a folklore parents told their kids at night to make sure they behaved.

“The Red Baron will sneak into naughty children’s rooms in the dead of night and gobble you up without a sound.” Or some other equally embellished fairy tale.

After that whole incident, Fatty found his appetite equalling out a little, enough at least to not make a scene every time he went out for food. He continued working in the stable for the next few days and asking anybody he could about cultivators and cultivation.

A couple days after the Red Baron incident Fatty started hearing rumours about a new guild that just opened in the city. Rumour had it that this guild was selling a method to start cultivating and to view your spirit realm. Most importantly, it was cheap enough that a good majority of the town could afford it if they worked hard enough.

Fatty, being the conspiracy theorist he is, immediately began to imagine strange things. He was sure of the truth hidden behind this rumour, especially when he heard the guild was called the Dark Brotherhood.

‘If that’s not a flag for something dubious going on, what is?’ With that thought in mind, Fatty cleaned himself up a little and made his way to the Dark Brotherhood to get to the bottom of whatever this conspiracy was. ‘Because it’s obviously some sort of conspiracy to entrap the common folk of the town!’

-Dark Brotherhood Guildhall-

It was another busy day in the brotherhood Guildhall. Luckily, Jessy, had the staff managing most things, and Harvy was usually around to prevent any trouble by just taking off his bandages now and then and releasing a death aura. Although this created some negative stigma for the guild, everyone was far more concerned with missing a chance to cultivate.

Funnily enough, even Xanzu and Jeng started sending out some disguised Sword Hall lackeys, trying to spread rumours about the meditation techniques stealing your soul. The only problem was that 8000 people had already marched through the doors of the guild and seemed okay, so these rumours generally died before they got a chance to spread.

The whole city was going through a cultivator craze. After yesterday’s huge intake, Jessy had to send someone out to get more Tree of the Elements branches so they could process more people at once. Today, they essentially filled half the arena, blasted them with hypno and then waited a half hour for them to meditate and build up some energy to test their affinity. Once that was done, they could leave.

The guild hall was processing nearly 2000 people an hour. By lunch time they’d already pushed through more citizens than they had the day before.

In the foyer, Jessy was somewhat enjoying herself managing the receptionists and taking people’s money. As they processed townspeople, loud arguing started at the doorway of the guild.

The discord was from a group of very ne’er-do-well looking individuals with black cloaks covering their bodies and hoods up covering their faces. The gentlemen they seemed to be having a problem with was a great big fat man in a dirty poncho.

So fat was the man, that Jessy was sure he’d crush her to death if he were on top. Then she decided it was strange that was her first thought upon seeing the man and chose to immediately forget it’d ever occurred to her.

Everyone in the foyer split like the red sea as Jessy approached the trouble makers. It wouldn’t be a lie to say rumours of the Lady of Lust had already spread across the city almost as fast as the brotherhood selling cultivation for one silver.

Everyone could recognise the iconic freckles peppered over her face, and the equally iconic figure tightly fit into the red cheongsam she had chosen to wear today. Not just that, though, whenever Jessy released her lust spirit energy an odd smell would permeate the surroundings and bring out the desires in everyone around her.

The fact that she even exhibited some materialisation of spirit energy at the barrier realm showed just how powerful her lust really was. The only thing stronger than that feeling of desire she had, was her sheer fortitude and willpower to prevent herself from being ensnared by it and spending the rest of her life on her knees or back trying to fulfil it.

As that sickly sweet and enchanting aroma filled their noses, the ne’er-do-wells that had been causing a raucous finally stopped creating anything. Their entire face went white like they’d just seen a ghost and their bodies stiffened like rigor-mortis had just set in. One of them, presumably the leader of this little gang turned to see the slightly smiling Jessy slowly approaching them.

“M-m-mistress Lust, p-please forgive this uncouth peasant from disturbing your Guildhall again.” Cried the leader then as quickly as he spoke he dropped to his knees and smashed his head into the ground in kowtow to the mistress of the brotherhood.

Some might think this reaction to be a little bit extreme but this man knew better than anyone, after all, just yesterday he’d had a run-in with the Lady of Lust and spent the rest of the time since then in agony. So powerful was the reaction he had from Jessy’s spirit energy, he actually came until he bled from his cock.

It wasn’t until he managed to fall into a deep sleep that he escaped the pain of an endless orgasm. He felt lucky for two reasons when he awoke this morning. Firstly, because he actually managed to wake up at all. Secondly, because he still had feeling in the most important part of his anatomy.

Jessy looked the man over for a moment then it suddenly clicked that she’d seen this fellow causing trouble yesterday. “Oh? I recognise you. They had to drag your body out of our Guildhall yesterday. How disappointing, to not learn your lesson the first time. This time, you might actually die if I touch you again, so I suggest you show yourself out without my assistance.”

The leader of the little group simple grovelled further as his friends too dropped to their knees and tried to force their foreheads through the floor tiles, in an attempt to kowtow even lower. “M-mistress. Please forgive this wastrel. I only found a suspicious character travelling around the crowds and asking strange questions about your Guild. He was trying to spread malicious rumours about you kidnapping common folk and telling everyone to be careful and keep some distance from your Guild.”

After saying this little bit, another of the group’s men spoke up. Clearly, this one had a silver tongue and was quite smooth even when talking to someone whom he believed could instantly kill him.

“Most illustrious and beautiful Lady, please forgive us lesser beings. Rumours of your grandeur and stunning visage have already travelled through the entire Empire. I can see now, that they are but trifling pleasantries in the face of your true magnificent semblance, which could no doubt aspire boys to be men and men to be heroes. I beg you, Lady Lust, to grant as mere peasants clemency.”

Jessy was rather taken aback by these honeyed words and shortly after a beautiful blush lit up her face and caused everyone in the surroundings to groan and their knees to weaken.