Chapter 19: Release the Dragon!

-Monolith at Midnight-

Setting the scene of this romantic rendezvous, or rather, this prince rescuing the princess moment, the night’s sky was beautiful.

The dual moons were high in the starry heavens, bathing the world beneath them in a calming and harmonious mellow glow. The stars shone in strange and bizarre patterns, like ripples being created by rain drops. Not a cloud could be seen

Apart from James, garbed in his new handsome light blue robe and the little blue ferret sleeping soundly on his shoulder, the courtyard was empty. The glow of the moons reflected off the shiny surface of the monolith and the clear fresh scent of the night’s air pervaded the city.

In contradiction of this romantically inspiring scenery, James looked rather distressed. His distress came from two separate issues that were intuitively linked together.

The first one was Little Blue. He didn’t really want to sacrifice his little buddy to free some creepy stalker from a giant rock. This had nothing to do with having developed any significant emotional bond with Little Blue, but more from his possessive nature and his lack of desire to part with anything that he considered ‘his’.

The second reason stemmed from the ‘creepy stalker’ linked to the first reason. Just the way he referred to the focus of this worry is self-explanatory in his reluctance to create it. On top of that, once he freed her, he had to protect her. Without realising it, he’d already considered her a problem child that would bring him endless headaches.

However, conflicting with these worries was his desire to eliminate or escape any potentially mind reading entities. This was the sole reason for his decision to free the dragon. Well ... that, and if he didn’t, he’d most likely be leaving this city as ashes on the wind.

Although this coincided with his desire to eventually leave Gau City and explore the world, there was a particular part that eliminated this option. The being ashes part.

So here he was, standing in front of a rock, preparing to make a sacrifice of a harmless, cute little animal and summon the spirit of a dragon. If anyone else were to hear about what he was planning to do, he’d surely be burnt at the stake for being a demon craft.

Letting out a final long sigh James approached the rock and placed his palm against it. After a short discussion with Exsue, he returned to his body and started walking around the monolith looking for something on its surface.

As he observed the monolith’s array patterns, he was secretly shocked. He’d only just stepped into the world of arrays, but he thought he’d at least be able to discern the different parts or some of the code.

To his disappointment, he was incapable of even telling which parts were the foundation and which were support. Even the Lore patterns looked foreign to the handful he’d seen in the last 12 hours.

After half an hour of looking over bits of the array, he found what he was looking for. Naturally, it was in the hardest place to reach, nearly right in the centre of the rock, 20 meters up in the air.

James just gave another woebegone sigh then after putting Little Blue on the ground he began to pump as much wind energy as he possibly could into his body. Soon the gentle breeze of the night turned into a gale around James as he began to release spirit energy from his body.

This was how barrier realm practitioners usually manifested spirit power outside of their bodies. Although it could manifest, the moment it left the body all control of it would be lost, so generally they created what they called martial techniques to harness it properly.

Once you reach the True Spirit realm, you usually gain enough control to influence it once it’s left your body, but again, it’s not actual control and more like gentle guidance.

This was the first time James had tried to use a martial technique that wasn’t just injecting his power into something else. The moment the wind picked him up, he flipped over forwards and face planted into the side of the monolith.

As if face planting wasn’t embarrassing enough for James, a vision of it happening to him on repeat accompanied by a girl’s laughter was sent from Exsue. James was a proud man, and face planting it was unacceptable for him. Having someone witness his stuff-up and tease him for it only fuelled his determination further.

He climbed to his feet and this time, very slowly, began to pour wind energy into his body. Instead of allowing it to create the lightening effect it normally had, he started with the upwards gale force. Then he gradually increased his weightlessness until he felt himself barely still putting pressure on the surface of the ground.

Even though only taking a few minutes, just getting to this stage used almost half of his spirit energy. Finally, he began to apply a wind coming from the surface of his feet, and his body gradually rose off the ground.

James made no rush to increase his speed and consciously prevented himself from making any sharp movements or moving his centre of gravity. After another 5 minutes, he was floating in the air in a wobbly unstable manner right next to the middle of the monolith.

Having reached his goal, his hand shot out and touched a particular pattern as he pumped lightning energy into it. After a few moments, the design was lit up like a flare on the side of the monolith. Before the ache of simultaneously using two elements caused him to pass out, James let his body fall back to the ground with the weightless wind energy preventing him from any damage on landing.

Ever since he’d started cultivating he’d never used two different energies to such an extent at the same time. His body felt empty, and his remaining spirit energy was roiling about in a frenzy. It felt like he’d just run a marathon and then been clubbed in the head with a brick.

Before he had the chance to rest his weary body, an impatient vision flashed through his mind, and James gave a miserable groan as he pulled his body up. He then stumbled over to the sleepy, confused-looking little blue ferret and picked him up. Then in much the same manner as Skay had done the first time he met Little Blue, he launched him through the air towards the monolith like a furry little projectile.

Little Blue very quickly realised something was terribly wrong and let out a hissing scream moments before impact. To both the rodent’s and James’ surprise, instead of the ‘thunk’ they’d been expecting, Little Blue was sucked into the rock as if he was landing in a puddle of water. With a simple ‘plop’ the furry little bastard disappeared.

Before James had the chance to grow curious as to what exactly was supposed to happen next, the array patterns on the surface of the monolith lit up and brightened the entire city. He didn’t even consider sticking around to check out what the hell was happening next and made a strategic retreat to a hidden corner of the courtyard.

The last thing he needed was people wanting to lynch him for releasing a dragon into the city. Even if they didn’t know there was a dragon in the big rock now, they would undoubtedly soon find out.

As James hid away, the monolith continued to ramp up its power output then started humming and vibrating. If there were anyone in the city who wasn’t awake yet, they soon would be. Even the air felt like it was vibrating.

As this technicolour show grew more intense, enormous storm clouds began forming in the sky as if they were just materialising out of thin air. Great claps of thunder rang out for tens of kilometres and peels of lightning danced through the storm clouds like playful snakes, lighting up the entire city and all the land within the jurisdiction of Gau City.

Anywhere that was within the range of the Monolith could hear and see the results of this catastrophic level natural disaster. Rain started pouring down like a torrential flood falling from the heavens and the lightning being generated in the clouds cut the sky into ribbons as it struck down like Thor’s Hammer onto the landscape below.

Trees, buildings, livestock ... basically, anything that looked like it would be amusing to obliterate with lightning was engulfed in a plasmery streak of death.

James just watched both amused and horrified. Amused because watching lighting hit stuff is always a fun show. Horrified, because at this rate the city would be ashes once this crazy bitch was done with it. Everything he’d just spent the last ten days building would become pointless.

As these conflicting emotions battled within him, the clouds in the sky seethed and contracted as if taking in a huge breath. James suddenly got a vision of him covering his eyes. Then without any suspense, a lightning bolt nearly 10 metres wide fell onto the monolith, and the resulting light was like staring at a flash grenade going off. Everyone’s vision everywhere turned white.

The moment this flash descended, James sprinted into the now rather populated courtyard and arrived next to the monolith shard, just in time to catch the falling body of Exsue. The moment she was in his arms, James deployed what remaining lightning energy he still had and disappeared into the city like a thief in the night.

Standing in the centre of town and rubbing their eyes and staring dumbfounded at the monolith, was the Gau Clan’s Head and three of the Elders. Along with them were some of the heavy hitters from other families and guilds in town. About 30 people in total just stood there stupefied after rubbing their eyes.

No one was exactly sure what to make of these strange events. Even more confusing was that everything just returned to normal after that last singular strike. Well, almost everything, some houses and trees were still on fire, and several harmless unsuspecting cows and pigs had been replaced by small craters filled with wet ash.

An emergency town meeting was to be called with all the major Clan Heads and Guildmasters, to try and figure out exactly what happened and to make preparations if the monolith was damaged.

Something Exsue never told James, was that the monolith didn’t just alter people’s language. It also had the critical job of protecting the city from hordes of spirit beasts encroaching into it.

Typically, a town with a monolith would be protected to a certain range. For example, the Gau cities monolith protected a radius of about 20 km and altered language to 35 km. Which covered a decent area mostly utilised for grain production.

The only other monolith in the region was in Kantsu City, which the Kantsu Sect had appropriated from elsewhere and placed on their Sect’s mountain. Curiously, the range of that monolith’s protection was significantly greater than Gau’s, sitting at a large 32km radius and influencing language to nearly 50 km. This covered almost a third of the whole region.

The limiting factor on how far a monolith’s range generates to normally has no bearing to the spirit locked inside it, because they’re all abnormally powerful. They can support and operate in a radius moving into the thousands of kilometres, and some frightening spirits can work even further than that.

The real limitation is created by the monoliths array patterns and is generally dependent on how many cultivators reside within close proximity. Now in saying all this, the monolith doesn’t prevent spirit beasts from wandering into its area of operation. Instead, it only prevents large movements or stupidly powerful beasts from entering.

The reason for this is tied with the story of its creator, but regardless of why it doesn’t just stop them all, the fact remains that it only prevents the powerful ones or the hordes from encroaching. This naturally means that should the monolith stop working correctly, all the spirit beasts living out in the wilds can just march straight in and eat everything ... and everyone.

Of course, that means the big wigs of Gau City will need to start employing countermeasures should the monolith have just been damaged.

-The Lab-

James walked into the lab incredibly worn out. His body and mind were tired from the expenditure of spirit energy and the price he had to pay for using wind and lightning simultaneously. The moment he walked out of the elevator with the sleeping Exsue, he dropped to his knees.

Skay and Anvil, who had been down here playing with arrays, remained entirely unaware of the happenings up in the city. When James slumped out of the elevator, they both passed a look then ran over to check him out.

After a quick look over, Skay pronounced him still healthy, then just to be sure he collected a few suspiciously named tonics from a workbench. Starting with ‘Harbinger 2.3’ and moving through to ‘Reserectuleakianus 1.8’ Skay placed them all on the floor in preparation to feed them to James.

The moment he took the stopper out of one of them, James shot up from the floor and rapidly backed up against the wall. He looked like he was still passed out and this was somehow a natural reaction like scratching an itch in your sleep.

The moment he was a good distance from Skay his body slumped to the floor again. Skay just stared wide eyed for a moment then gave a dissatisfied ‘tsk’. “Damnit boy, even in your sleep you’re a massive pussy.”

Skay’s eyes then wandered over to the strange girl that James had carried in. Just as he was preparing to change his test subject the elevator gave another ding.

As the door opened, Harvy came into the lab with Song in tow. Choosing to completely ignore whatever Skay was doing to some unconscious girl on the floor of his lab, Song turned to Anvil. “There’s been some kind of incident in the city. We’re not sure what exactly happened, but the monolith’s array patterns are starting to dim. Clan Head is calling for an emergency town meeting.”

Song then looked around quickly and saw James sitting against the wall with lazy eyes. “Junior Brother James, although your guild isn’t a big one in the city, your members input at this meeting may be helpful. I hope you’ll consider joining us.”

James just gave a very lethargic nod, as if just doing that simple action made him even more tired. His voice then trailed out lazily as if sleep talking. “We’ll be there. I’ve been out doing some training and overdid it so we may be a bit late.”

Song just gave a solemn nod then moved towards the elevator with Anvil. “Very well, we’ll meet you at the Mansion.”

Harvy punched some buttons in the elevator, and the duo of Elders disappeared up to the surface. Skay had an odd look on his face as he looked at James. “Boy, have you been playing around in the city and broken something important?”

James just beckoned him over and weekly said “Arena” then slumped onto his shoulder. Skay shook his head and carried him into the elevator muttering things about young people and breaking everything they touch.

After meditating for about 10 minutes on the first level of the guild, James felt a hundred times better. If he had to describe spirit energy depletion, then he’d probably use the word ‘withdrawal’. He didn’t fully realise just how dependent his body was to spirit energy once he’d adapted to always having it.

Once he was ready, he went downstairs to collect Exsue and moved her to a nice safe location. Namely, the Lightning Chamber. After dumping her on the ground, he assembled the Guild members and went to visit the Gau Clan’s mansion.

-Gau Clan Mansion-

In the main hall of the mansion sat about 36 people from 4 Families and 8 Guilds. 5 People from each household were present, along with two people from each major guild. Standing around the crowded table these people sat at, was a handful of attendants and servants.

As James walked in accompanied by his guild mates they could hear the loud arguing and shouting of some people all competing to see who could out-yell the others. The two largest offenders were a gentleman in teal robes with a cauldron and a phial embroidered on his back, surprisingly the other one was the usually reserved Hao who seemed to be trying to cuss the other man to death.

Said other man looked about the same age as Hao and his most predominate feature was a messy long beard that was the same dark brown as his long hair.

The first thing James noticed on closer inspection was he could barely even see the man’s face. So messy and chaotic was the man’s hair and beard, it all just looked like someone had cut the afro off another man then stuffed it over the guy’s head. Like some kind of hair helmet.

As they trio of the Brotherhood entered the hall, everyone started to quiet down somewhat. To say they’d been expecting someone else would be a lie. Because apart from the 4 families and 8 guilds they didn’t believe anyone else in this city was on equal footing with them.

James, Skay and Jessy acted completely oblivious to the stares and sudden quiet and just strolled up and casually sat on some cushions at the table. After taking a moment to prolong the quiet by making themselves at home and sipping some tea James looked up, and as if only just now realising everyone was looking at them he glanced around with a shocked expression.

“Oh, were you waiting for us? Sorry about that, busy, busy, busy. I’m sure you know how it is. So, what’s all this about a town meeting?”

Hao and the Gau Elders all just had a wry smile on their faces. Generally, for anyone under palace realm they would show some sincerity to seniors in a situation like this. Customarily, at the minimum, they would greet everyone with a bow.

To add fuel to that fire they just walked in here like they owned the place and acted like they hadn’t even noticed all these other influential people.

Making matters even worse, they were late.

The afro faced man looked stunned. He didn’t know how to process this situation and wasn’t sure how to respond. To confuse matters for him further, someone from the Gau Clan should be jumping up and down right now. Especially because of this huge lack of etiquette in their own home. It was like a slap in the face.