Chapter 49: The City Shows
The burning in his veins settled into a low, persistent thrum, a second heartbeat pulsing just beneath his skin.
Kian pressed a hand to his chest and felt the blood moving inside him like a living thing, eager and restless.
He exhaled through his teeth and stepped out of the alley into the main street.
’A blood beast, huh?’
He would need a corpse first. But that could wait, for now, he needed to go and get the utensils and essentials.
As Kian walked through the street, he admired the city for its uniqueness and people.
Noticing a small crowd in the area, he keaned his head to see what was going on.
The crowd had gathered near the intersection of two main streets where the road widened into a flagstone plaza.
Kian shouldered through the outer ring of spectators with the easy momentum of a cultivator.
The bodies parted for him without anyone quite noticing they were parting.
Kian finally saw the center.
A wooden platform had been erected in the center of the plaza, draped in faded crimson cloth.
Servants in matching gray tunics were already dismantling it, hauling away empty display stands and rolling up silk banners.
"Forty vials of Cloud-Treading Elixir," a man beside Kian muttered to his companion, shaking his head. "It got sold in a single lot to some masked bastard from the southern clans."
"What is it even useful for?"
"It reduces the time it takes to initiate into training Iron Skin technique! Usually, people need an year of hardwork to initiate, but with it, they only need 6 months!"
His companion, a woman with a merchant’s ledger tucked under her arm, clicked her tongue.
"The real shame was the beast core. Stage Four Silverback Ape, fully intact, and it went for twelve thousand because the bidding started too late and half the serious buyers had already left."
Kian lingered at the edge of the dispersing crowd, watching a servant girl struggle to fold a banner twice her height while a guard barked useless instructions.
The auctioneer snapped his lacquered box shut and descended the platform steps with the stiff-legged gait of a man who’d been standing for hours.
Kian’s grabbed a nearby person and asked: "What’s going on?"
"You don’t know it? It’s the auction plaza. You can buy a lot of stuff here. Like techniques from the Martial Dojos or resources and weapons."
"I see. Where are the Martial Dojos you mentioned?"
The man Kian had grabbed blinked at him with the startled expression of someone not used to being noticed.
"Iron Skin technique? That’d be the Iron Serpent Dojo, no question. They’re the ones who sell it during trials. Most eye catching dojo in the outer ring, right up against the eastern wall. You can’t miss it—red pillars, iron gates, banners with a serpent eating its own tail."
He gestured vaguely eastward with a thumb.
Kian released his grip and gave a nod of thanks. The man scurried off into the crowd, likely eager to be somewhere cultivators weren’t asking him questions.
Kian adjusted the pouch at his hip and began walking east.
The Iron Serpent Dojo announced itself long before Kian reached its gates.
Red pillars rose above the rooftops like bloody fingers clawing at the sky, their lacquer chipped and faded by seasons of wind and sun. The iron gates stood open, and above them hung a banner of black silk embroidered with a serpent devouring its own tail—the Ouroboros of endless discipline.
Visitors were apparently welcome, or at least tolerated.
Kian walked through the entrance without slowing, and no one stopped him.
The training yard sprawled across packed earth worn smooth by countless feet.
Rows of wooden posts studded the ground like grave markers, each one wrapped in fraying rope where fists had beaten against the grain for years.
The air smelled of sweat, iron, and something coppery that might have been blood.
Kian was stunned by how many people he found around: there were at least seven people training.
That might seem small, but one had to understand that only 6th Stage Qi Builders or above could train in techniques like this!
Men and women in gray training robes moved through the yard in clusters, their bodies gleaming with effort, their faces set in masks of grim determination.
Kian leaned against a pillar and watched.
"Hit him!"
"Don’t be gentle! Kick! Punch!"
His eyes caught a commotion near the yard’s eastern edge, where a young man—barely out of his teens—stood with his arms spread wide while two men twice his width circled him.
They were beating the shit out of the young man!
"Damn," Kian muttered.
The young man’s body already bore the marks of earlier rounds: purple welts across his shoulders, a split lip, one eye swelling shut. He spat blood onto the dirt and raised his chin.
One of the fat men grunted and swung, a meaty hook that caught the boy across the jaw and sent him staggering into a post.
The wood shuddered.
The boy did not fall. He pushed himself upright, swaying, and planted his feet again.
The second fat man stepped in and drove three short punches into his ribs in rapid succession—thud, thud, thud—and the boy grunted through clenched teeth.
"Iron Skin doesn’t come from sitting in meditation," an older disciple muttered to a newcomer near Kian’s pillar, his arms crossed over a chest mapped with old scars. "It comes from beatings, over and over, until the body learns there’s no other choice but to harden."
The newcomer winced as the fat men’s fists kept falling.
"What level is that young man?"
"He is a low level in Iron Skin technique. If he were at medium, those punches would not even faze him."
"How long has he been training?"
"He has been training since he was a child. Don’t expect to reach his level any time soon.
"You first have to spend an year on your fundamentals, then get initiated into Iron Skin training. Then, you need another two years to reach low level."
Two years to reach low level. Kian pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and swallowed the laugh before it could escape.
The scarred disciple was still talking, something about bone density and Qi saturation rates, but the words slid past Kian without sticking.
Two years.
With his system, he had done it in the space of a few breaths, only needing fortune points.
Meanwhile, the beaten young man pushed himself off the post with both hands, spat another glob of blood onto the dirt, and left the training ground groaning.
Walking in Kian’s direction, he glanced at him as he passed.
The kid stopped a respectful distance away and wiped his split lip with the back of his hand.
Up close, Kian could see the swelling around his eye was worse than it had looked from across the yard.
"Newcomer?" the young man asked. "If you’re here to join the dojo, I can introduce you around. Show you where the training schedules are posted. That sort of thing."
Kian pushed off the pillar.
"Just looking," he said. "Not staying."
"That’s good," the youth said, limping away.
Kian turned and walked back through the open gates.
Sadly, there was no new targets around!