“Welcome back, Elder Mùchén.” A group of twelve similarly garbed people greeted the return of their peer while seated inside a long, ornate meeting hall, where discussions of events and punishments were decided. The hall was adorned with intricate tapestries depicting legendary battles, and the air was thick with the scent of incense.

  “I have returned.” Elder Mùchén gave a perfunctory bow. “Five disciples were saved once we arrived, three have passed away in combat with valor and have placed plaques in our Valor Hall.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Shame.”

  “Tragic.”

  Various words were exchanged among them to express their lament for the loss of their sect disciples. The thirteen people huddled together to debrief the events and discuss how to compensate the survivors, unaware of the interlooper that followed behind him.

  Soloman started circumnavigating the edges of the hall, taking in all the tapestries, blades, scriptures, and writings strewn about to gain a firmer understanding of the culture he was now subjected to.

  The walls were lined with ancient scrolls and weapons, each telling a story of its own. Through the use of his left E.Y.E.S. (Enhanced.Yield.Electron.Spectrometer.)— an augment he got in his early teens he took notice of the unusal colorless aura that some how enveloped them. Like nebulous magnetic waves exuded from them, which baffled him since the flying swords the twins gave him didn’t have the same characteristic.

  Walking towards the end of the hall, where a large chair centered in the middle with a book placed upon the armrest, he used this chance to familiarize himself with the writing style and lettering of this world while his internal bio-tech started deciphering the language.

  His ears (External.Auditory.Recognition.System) allowed him to get a general understanding of the world’s verbal language, which enabled him to talk to the three from before, while the crucial knowledge he would need would inevitably be inside books.

  The pages had an oily skin texture to them, with the lettering seemingly faded but permanent. The book binding appeared to be made from type of sinew or tendon of an animal. The aura from the weapons seemed to pale in comparison with the book in his hands creating an almost vibrating sensation on his palms.

  While walking and reading, taking in all the information he could deciphering the symbols and letters, Soloman bumped into something very soft and tall that smelled of blossoming flowers.

  Bmph

  Pulling the book off his face and looking at the object he ran into, he saw a smooth, flat midriff directly in front of him. Stepping back to regain his balance, he looked up to meet the gaze of the behemoth before him—a seven-foot-tall, youth-faced woman with pinkish-tinged skin, unbelievable proportions, glossy ash-colored hair, unusual petal-shaped irises, and two short horns the size of a thumb on her forehead.

  “My~My~” Her voice was soft yet commanding, a mix of amusement and curiosity.

  Taken aback by both the beauty and characteristics of the woman before him, Soloman found himself completely enamored by her, blushing even. Gazing at her for what seemed like minutes in the few seconds their eyes met.

  “How beautiful.” his E.Y.E.S showing an unusual pink hue fogging his vision. Quickly realizing he was behaving irrationally and slapped himself hard enough to force his eyes away from this charming foreign woman. The subtle taste of blood tinged his tongue.

  “Oh~ you broke out, interesting~” She tilted her head slightly, a playful smile on her lips.

  “What did you do to me?” Soloman took a defensive stance while avoiding eye contact, his heart racing.

  Hearing the voice of their Sect Master, the thirteen elders turned towards her to give their respects, then took notice of the man that was enraptured by their Sect Master’s ability in their hall holding their ancestral cultivation manuals.

  “How dare you!” Elder Yuro violently unleashed his blackened teal Qi towards the intruder in order to capture him, only to have his Qi stopped by pale grey and whitened pink Qi meshed together to form a protective wall. The hall’s atmosphere crackled with energy, the clash of Qis creating a palpable tension in the air.

  “Sect Master Aria, why do you defend this thief?” Eighth Elder Yuro receded his Qi from continuing its attack, confused by her actions. His voice echoed through the ornate hall, filled with ancient scrolls and weapons that seemed to hum with latent power as if responding to the Qi that was released.

  “I~ wasn’t the only one though~” Aria’s tone was teasing, her eyes sparkling with mischief. Her presence was commanding, yet her playful demeanor added a layer of complexity to her character.

  “Elder Mùchén, you too?” Yuro’s voice was incredulous, his eyes darting between Mùchén and Aria.

  Soloman took a mental note that it appeared that every cultivator he encountered so far had a special color to their energy. The twins, Ouro and Illia, being the only two who had similar colors but different shades. Was still confused on the inanimate objects produced a similar field as these ‘cultivators’ did.

  “Yes, it was an oversight on my part. I had forgotten to introduce him once we had arrived here. This man is Xīn yuè Soloman, a commoner whom by some unknown means was summoned here from another world. It was because of his presence that we could save the team before the spirit beast could finish them.” Mùchén’s tone was calm and measured, his eyes steady on Yuro.

  After hearing Elder Mùchén’s brief explanation alongside the previous discussion, the elders quickly had a change of attitude towards Soloman and gave thanks and praise for his deeds. The hall, once tense, now buzzed with murmurs of gratitude and respect.

  “My~My~I heard from outside the hall you used the talisman in order to save them, right~?” Sect Master Aria coquettishly spoke with her hand placed before her mouth, giving a cute girlish appeal despite her towering frame.

  “Indeed, but the power to summon another from a different realm is beyond the capabilities of a ‘Transcendent’ rank talisman.” Mùchén commented on his speculation while his eyes closed and stroked his beard, the light from the ornate lanterns casting intricate shadows on his serene face.

  “Hmm~” Aria scrunched her face cutely in thought, crossing her arms beneath her bounty. The scent of blooming flowers seemed to intensify around her, adding to her ethereal presence.

  “I have an idea of what might have happened to your talisman.” Soloman relaxed his stance without realizing, believing no ill intent came from the large beauty and Yuro. The tension in his muscles eased as he took in the serene yet powerful atmosphere of the hall.

  “You do?” Mùchén’s eyes widened with interest.

  “Oh~” Aria’s voice was filled with curiosity.

  “My suit wouldn’t have the capability to keep me alive from falling from the stratosphere, so from what I can gather from what we talked about before when you extricated me from the corpse-filled earth. When the release button was pressed, you found me inside surrounded by ‘pale grey aura,’ correct?”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Stratso- pear~? What’s that~?” she placed a finger on her chin in thought.

  “I see! That talisman must have been either for defense or healing. That would explain much of what happened.” Mùchén gestured with his hands, elated to finally understand the mysteries of the talisman’s power.

  “Wow~ So that means you owe him a debt now, right~?” Aria, well-versed in business talks with other sects and merchants, instinctively saw an opportunity to bring this stranger, who could read their treasured manual and break from her innate ability without any backlash, into their fold. A potential trump card to be sure.

  “Uh… I guess… I do owe you some gratitude. Since you said that paper was valuable… I need to compensate you… somehow, I suppose.” Soloman expressed his thanks to Mùchén, while confused how the direction changed to debts.

  “Hohoho- We can call it ev-Ah! Ahem, can you use your knowledge to perhaps construct something for us of equal value?” Elder Mùchén stopped mid-sentence when Aria secretly pinched him before he could finish.

  Knowing her for centuries and her real personality, which was the opposite of her usual presented demeanor, he understood that she must have seen or felt something from Soloman that would benefit the sect.

  “What can the commoner, untrained in this world, provide to us?” Fifth Elder Zara, the elder in charge of the sect’s finance, shared their skepticism, remembering the large dent in the vault that came from purchasing the item in question.

  “The armor that was discussed was heaven-grade.”

  “What?!” the elders exclaimed in shock.

  “How can a person without Qi create such a thing that even those in the ‘Golden Pill’ stage are rarely able to?” Ninth Elder Shariz immediately questioned the claim, being the resident blacksmith of the group in the third level of the ‘Golden Pill’ stage themselves.

  “You misunderstand, Elder Shariz.” Raising his arm to Soloman. “His whole world is unfamiliar with Qi.” Elder Mùchén clarified, leaving the hall quiet.

  …

  “Is~ that even possible~?” Sect Master Aria, despite her lengthy life and experiences, never would have thought of the idea of a world without any Qi, let alone one able to sustain sentient life.

  “It is, never heard of the stuff.” Soloman bluntly replied. “What do you want, Mùchén?”

  “That’s~ Elder Mùchén~.” Sect Master Aria clarrified intently.

  “Yes, right. Given the level of your technology so far, you won’t be able to provide me with the necessary tools for chips, plastics, or nanowires to create any pulse pistols, reverb grenades, repulsion shields, or oscillating blades. Do you have clear beakers to hold various compounds and acids? Or imprint mills that can rotate tensile alloys?…What…and…element…drill…blahblahblahblah…”

  “Kultr, do you speak it?!” Elder Shariz shouted a vein popping on his throat, frustrated by the jargon.

  “Is…is even that too advanced?” Soloman felt disheartened, seeing the idea of creating his own way home now poofed into nothingness.

  Ahem “How about you just create a blade?” Elder Mùchén stopped the awkward atmosphere with a simple request.

  “For who specifically?”

  “Anyone can use it.”

  “Curved?”

  “Huh, straight.”

  “Long?”

  “Ah…uhm…torso length.”

  “Double-sided?”

  “S-sure.”

  “Alloyed?”

  “O-okay.”

  “Tem-”

  “I want a double-sided, torso-length tempered blade with a fuller, rain guard, ricasso near the grip, and a half-moon pommel after the hilt, including a center ridge tip!” Elder Mùchén started gasping after giving a quick list to the nitpicking ‘would-be’ smith.

  “Tch…Could have just said that.” Soloman gave a deadeye stare to the wheezing old man.

  “…Scabbard?”

  “YES! Shariz, get him out of here and to the workshop!” Elder Mùchén violently pointed to the exit, red-faced.

  “Y-Yes.” Ninth Elder Shariz quickly grabbed Soloman by the collar and rushed out of the meeting hall.

  After seeing the two leave in a hurry, ensuring that they could no longer hear any discussions, Sect Master Aria looked at Elder Mùchén with a questioning look. He was her most trusted and competent ally, a friend who had supported the sect since the third generation of elders who have come and gone.

  “Is~ he really human~?” Aria’s voice was filled with a mix of curiosity and disbelief.

  “You sensed the objects inside him too?” Mùchén’s tone was serious, his eyes narrowing in thought as he glanced around the ornate hall, the scent of incense lingering in the air.

  “I mistook~ him for a golem~ I used my sakura physique~ to see if he was living~” Aria’s expression softened, but her eyes remained sharp, reflecting the flickering candlelight.

  “From what I gathered heading here, his people are able to fuse themselves with artifacts. Why and more importantly how, I cannot say. But his flesh, though tempered to be equivalent to yours, is indeed human.” Mùchén’s voice was calm, but there was an underlying tension, his fingers lightly tapping the armrest of his chair.

  “Without~ Qi he is as strong as me~?” Aria’s eyes widened in surprise, her mind racing with possibilities.

  “Either his people are overly cruel to raise a man in such a way…or his world is in constant turmoil to warrant such advancements in artifact crafting.” Mùchén’s voice was thoughtful, his gaze distant as he considered the implications.

  “And~?” Aria prompted, her curiosity piqued, a slight frown marring her otherwise serene expression.

  …

  “Both, is my answer.” Mùchén’s voice was firm, his eyes meeting Aria’s with a knowing look. The weight of his words hung in the air, adding a layer of gravity to their conversation.

  Landing in front of a straw hut with a patio filled with various ores and slag, the two walked inside. Soloman looked around to find what tools would be available for him to forge the requested blade, only to find one half of the room had accommodations to support a single person while the other had an eight-and-a-half-meter circular slab inlay on the ground covered in filigree with a chimney above. It was both spacious and cramped given its dimensions.

  “Are we here to grab things?”

  “We are here.”

  “What?”

  “We are at the forge, fool! Where else would we smith?” Elder Shariz scoffed at the idiotic questions.

  “Huh? Where’s the coal, anvil, blower, tongs, and hammers? There’s not even iced water for tempering, let alone liquid nitrogen to quench the metal after the iron reaches its critical index.” Soloman went on a rant about how ill-equipped the place was scanning the interior, claiming it couldn’t even forge a spoon. This infuriated the blacksmith of two hundred years at the accusation.

  “Boy! My palms, Fire imbued Qi, and Radiant Ember formation are all that are needed to make every item in this sect for over two centuries!” The fuming blacksmith grabbed a random ore from the pile and rushed over to the inlay slab, releasing his crimson red Qi that filled the entirety of the platform.

  The heat generated from the demonstration of the smith’s prowess caused Soloman to shield his face while the lab coat he wore was singed away. Once the ore turned soft as tofu in the blacksmith’s hands, Soloman saw an unbelievable event: beyond the fact that a human could generate flames from their body, the blacksmith was using telekinesis to make the molten ore levitate before him and started to use his bare hands to mold the ore into the desired shape.

  After hours of molding the ore, the smith relinquished the flames and walked over to one of the cabinets to grab a round, myriad-colored stone and started to perform the polishing. The rumbling of tools jolted Soloman awake.

  “There! A spoon!” the gasping blacksmith threw the spoon at Soloman spitefully.

  Soloman caught the object with an amazed look at what transpired. In his hands was a forearm-length spoon with a mirror polish. The supernatural show of fire and creating with one’s hands left Soloman awestruck at the physical abilities of the people and this Qi substance.

  A few seconds passed with a smug-looking blacksmith in the background waiting for Soloman to plead to become his apprentice, only to hear a snapping sound.

  Sigh

  “What a waste…What a waste of my time! Four hours! It took you four hours to make a spoon that couldn’t survive a strike from a rock!” Soloman walked over to the gobsmacked blacksmith with the now snapped-in-twain spoon and a random rock from the ground.

  “How…how is that possible?” Elder Shariz grabbed the items from Soloman with shaking hands. The thought of the effort he put in for hours and expelling his Qi turned to nothing in front of a rock. “The ore must have been low level.”

  “Tsk. The title of blacksmith is wasted on you. You know nothing of metallurgy. You didn’t fully remove the impurities from the ore, nor tempered the metal, let alone strike the metal to make its crystalline structure uniform, which led it to become warped and brittle on the slimmer parts.” Soloman pointed towards the residue of filaments and powder left from the polishing stone, causing Shariz to look at the pile with confusion and dismay.

  “Notice how instead of fine grains of dust or particulates, there is nothing but flecks of blackened metal shards. This shows the metal itself wasn’t properly refined to its highest purity.”

  “I have been forging for centuries and trained under many artisans, both mundane and cultivator. Never has someone pointed out an issue with the ‘Fire Molding’ process, such as you.”

  Sigh

  “…Then the fault is not with you, it is with the methods that you were taught.” Soloman placed his hand on Shariz’s shoulder to demonstrate solidarity and recognition of his effort since first stepping on the road of metalworking. “I will use my world’s methods to show you the true potential of earth and metal. First, we need to find a good vein of iron or tungsten. Perhaps if we are lucky, we can come across a diamond or two to help with fine cutting.”

  “Sir, I have a question?” Elder Shariz respectfully addressed Soloman, who announced he would freely teach him methods of refined smithing.

  “Yes.”

  …

  “What is iron?”

  …

  …

  “We have a long road ahead of us.”