The city of Biragawa had been visible since late morning – rising out of the winter-brown plains scattered with snow like some oversized monument to wealth and pride – and yet Jiang knew he would be lucky if he reached it before the end of the day.

  Biragawa was… large.

  Even from this distance, the outer wall dominated the landscape, a clean white line curving along the riverbank. It was easily twice as tall as Qinghe’s, and unlike Qinghe’s uneven stone, this one looked almost pristine – smooth blocks, carefully mortared, broken only by dark-topped guard towers at regular intervals. Flags snapped and fluttered above them in the wind.

  Interestingly, Jiang could see a line of people waiting – a slow-moving cluster of carts, riders and foot traffic trailing away from the gate like a second, living road. Beyond them, faint and indistinct, he could make out the silhouettes of armoured guards checking papers, the occasional glint of spearheads catching the light when they shifted.

  It was odd – while the snow was thinner than it had been around Liǔxī, and the wind had lost that knife edge that cut straight through clothing, winter still wasn’t exactly the best season for travel. Unless there was a good reason for it, people usually stayed where they were when it was cold. Maybe Biragawa’s fortunes were simply that good. Or maybe something else was going on – he had heard people talking about a tournament the few times he had passed through some towns on the way here, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it. Nor did he think that a tournament would be a big enough deal to travel through winter for, but then again, maybe it was more important than he thought.

  He turned the thought over for a moment, then let it go. Idle speculation wouldn’t get him to his destination any faster.

  Jiang shifted the pack on his shoulders and set off once more, wincing slightly not from the weight – which, thanks to his breakthrough into the second realm, felt negligible even without active reinforcement – but from the spike of heat that flared along his meridians with the movement. It was a constant, grating presence, like the high-pitched whine of a mosquito you couldn’t quite swat, but buried deep inside his own flesh.

  Two weeks of walking had dulled the novelty of his new strength, replacing it with the grim reality of his condition. He felt powerful, certainly; his legs ate up the miles with a rhythmic, tireless efficiency that would have killed a mortal horse. But the moment he tried to reach for his Qi, even without actually trying to move it, the dull hum of pain turned into a scream.

  He let his awareness sink inward for a moment, brushing his sense lightly along the channels beneath his skin. The pain sharpened immediately, a prickle rising towards a burn. He pulled back hurriedly, jaw tightening. In some ways, it was like picking at a scab – painful, but somehow irresistible.

  Clearly, his hope that the problems from using corrupted Qi to refine his meridians would be temporary had been in vain. It had been a long shot at best, so he wasn’t terribly surprised.

  And really, it could have been much worse.

  He wasn’t dead, buried under a mountain of rubble with Gao Leng. He wasn’t a mindless thrall bleeding Qi into a formation. He was alive, and, even better, was finally closing in on his family. That was something he would be willing to give up his cultivation for – and even if he wasn’t able to use Qi any more, he was still significantly stronger than any mortal could hope to be.

  Two spirit beasts had made the mistake of crossing his path a few days back. Weak things, the strongest of which was only in the fourth stage of the first realm, and even his rudimentary swordsmanship was more than enough to kill them both when coupled with his superhuman strength and speed.

  And this time, he hadn’t made the mistake of leaving the cores to rot in the snow.

  He tapped the pouch at his belt, feeling the smooth orbs contained within. It was strange to think that the two cores, small enough to fit comfortably in his hand, represented more money than he’d ever held at one time. It was even more strange to think that it wasn’t even that impressive to him any more, especially because he knew that if – or, hopefully, when – he got his meridians fixed, he would be able to gather cores like this whenever he wished. Money simply… wasn’t as much of a problem for him anymore.

  A breath of wind shifted, coming up from the city instead of across it.

  It hit his heightened senses like a physical slap – a dense, cloying miasma of poorly washed bodies, animal dung, and the metallic tang of industry. It was the smell of too many people living too close together, amplified a hundredfold by his cultivator constitution.

  He wrinkled his nose, fighting the urge to gag. Qinghe had smelled bad, too, but Qinghe had at least had the decency to look like it should smell bad. Biragawa didn’t – or at least, it didn’t look like it from a distance. Then again, maybe it wasn’t too bad for most people; Jiang had noticed his eyesight and reflexes seemed to be improved just as much as his strength and speed, so it was entirely possible he was just facing the downsides of enhanced senses to an extent that he hadn’t before.

  Hopefully he would get used to it. He couldn’t be the only cultivator to run into problems like this, so surely there was some kind of solution. He could already feel the looming press of noise and motion waiting for him at the gate. The thought made something in his chest tighten.

  The last time he’d been in a city, it hadn’t exactly gone well. Then again, he wasn’t nearly as ignorant now as he had been back then, not to mention he at least had money and a way to earn more. A significant step up from how he’d entered Qinghe.

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  He reached the bottom of the slope and merged into the loose trickle of travellers heading towards the gate. The line thickened steadily as he drew closer, resolving into distinct groups – a farmer with a handcart piled high with sacks of grain, a pair of traders arguing quietly beside a laden mule, a small family huddled together against the cold.

  Jiang peered at them curiously. They certainly didn’t look rich enough to travel through winter for a tournament – and now that he was looking for it, he noticed that they were far from the only family waiting in line.

  Interesting.

  The traders and farmers seemed positive enough – or at least, as positive as anyone could be while standing in the slush of a high-traffic road. They chatted amongst themselves, complaining about the wait or the weather with the easy familiarity of people who had done this a dozen times before. The families, however, were different, standing in tight knots. They looked… worn.

  Jiang adjusted his cloak and averted his gaze to avoid attracting attention. Whatever was going on didn’t affect him right now, and asking questions would just get him noticed. Not to mention that he didn’t particularly feel like talking to people anyway.

  The line crept forward, boots squelching in half-frozen slush. As Jiang drew closer to the walls, a faint pressure brushed against his skin – subtle at first, easily mistaken for the shift of wind coming off the river. But the closer he got, the more distinct it became. A slow, steady thrum, like heat radiating from sun-warmed stone. Not actual warmth, but something that pressed against his senses in the same quiet, insistent way.

  Qi.

  Jiang frowned slightly, letting his attention tilt toward it without actively drawing on his own energy. The burn in his meridians twitched warningly, but didn’t flare. He kept his touch feather-light, barely more than instinctual awareness. The sensation sharpened – thin threads of structured Qi woven through the stone, pulsing with the steady rhythm of something alive and vast.

  Formations, he realised. Or something close to it.

  He didn’t know much about them beyond the basics – that they were static techniques which could fortify structures or channel ambient Qi to great effect – but he knew enough to recognise that the cost in resources to cover an entire city wall would be astronomical. It was a statement of power as much as a defence.

  He let the sensation slip away before the ache could spike again, forcing his shoulders to loosen. Just another reminder that this city was operating on a level far above anything he was familiar with.

  The line shuffled forward once more. Human voices grew louder, clearer—the clipped tones of guards, the haggling of merchants, the quiet murmurs of families trying to coax restless children into patience. Jiang kept his gaze forward, expression bland.

  It made no difference. As he approached the actual gate, one of the guards stationed near the side of the checkpoint turned toward him.

  The man was older, armour worn but meticulously maintained. Unlike the others, he had a jade pendant hanging openly over his chestplate – a deep green disc carved with some complex symbol Jiang didn’t recognise. As Jiang drew within a dozen paces, the pendant gave a faint, almost insect-like buzz.

  The guard captain’s brows lifted. He angled the pendant toward Jiang, and the buzzing intensified.

  Jiang slowed instinctively. Confusion flickered across his mind, followed quickly by a faint prickle of unease.

  The captain stepped toward him, raising a hand. “You,” he called out, tone firm but not unfriendly. “Step aside for a moment.”

  Jiang obeyed, slipping out of the line. A few of the nearby travellers edged away, clearly not wanting to be implicated in whatever this was.

  “Cultivator?” the man asked.

  Jiang nodded cautiously. Clearly, that pendant was able to identify him somehow. Could it sense his Qi?

  “Then you’re in the wrong place,” the captain said bluntly. “Cultivators don’t need to wait in the mud with the commonry.”

  Jiang blinked once. “I didn’t know,” he admitted.

  The captain snorted, waving for Jiang to follow him toward the side gate. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take someone patient enough to wait when they don’t need to over someone expecting everyone to bow. You wandering types have been crawling out of the woodwork lately. Must be half a dozen of you showing up every day this week.” He glanced sideways at Jiang. “Here for the tournament, I assume?”

  Jiang kept his face blank. He had no idea what tournament the man was talking about, nor did he care. Then again, saying ‘no’ might invite further questions, which he would prefer to avoid.

  “Yeah,” Jiang said, keeping his voice casual. “Here for the tournament.”

  The captain nodded, seemingly satisfied. He didn’t ask for a name or papers. Apparently, the fact that he was a cultivator was identification enough.

  “Well, good luck,” the captain said, stopping by the open archway. “Just a word of advice – keep your head down until you’re in the ring. The Ninefold Jade Sect runs this city, and they don’t take kindly to outsiders causing trouble in their streets. Save the fighting for the arena, or you’ll find yourself in a cell before you can draw that sword. Also, I’d advise you to get yourself registered quickly – best not to wait too long, or you might find yourself in trouble before you manage it.”

  “I’m not looking for trouble,” Jiang said honestly.

  “Just the way I like it,” the captain nodded to him politely and waved him through the gate, turning his attention back to the line outside.

  Jiang stepped beneath the archway – and immediately stiffened as something swept over him. A touch of foreign Qi brushed against his skin, flowing over him like the lightest touch of a fingertip. His skin prickled beneath his clothes. His meridians flared in dull protest.

  He could feel the source even without looking up – somewhere along the top of the wall, a cultivator was scanning the people entering the city. He froze, his heart hammering against his ribs. If the scan dug too deep, if it sensed the touch of the Pact coiled around his dantian or the corrupted scarring on his meridians, this could end up being a very short visit.

  But the sweep passed over him without pause. It was broad, impersonal. Barely more than a cursory check.

  Jiang let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, his shoulders loosening. He walked a few more paces into the city proper before pausing to adjust his pack, using the motion to glance back up at the wall. Hopefully, he hadn’t drawn any additional attention by stopping in the entryway. Fortunately, the press of humanity past the gates swallowed him quickly.

  He could feel the lingering residue of the scan fading from his skin, which, now that he thought about it, was new. That wasn’t something he’d been able to do back in the first realm, but clearly breaking through to the second had enhanced him in more ways than just the physical. It made sense, really – and he no doubt would have realised that sooner if he’d been able to actually manipulate his own Qi in any way.

  Another reminder, he supposed, that he had changed more than he’d realised.

  He followed the flow of foot traffic deeper into the city, forcing himself not to look back at the wall. The captain had been right – there were cultivators here. A lot of them. He could feel it already, faint threads of unfamiliar Qi drifting through the air, brushing against the edge of his awareness like distant ripples in a pond.

  He would have to be careful.

  Very careful.