Cade stopped the Arrow mid-air, gazing upon an endless stretch of desert with his mouth half-open in awe. The land before him was covered in pale yellow sand that shone brightly in the morning sunlight, appearing almost white and sending shimmering waves of heat into the air.

  But it wasn’t the sight of the sand that had made him halt his speeder. In between the long chains of gently sloped dunes, an occasional basin could be found, filled with crystal-clear water. Cade lowered his altitude to get a better look. Hundreds of these ponds were dotted across the desert landscape, each surrounded by a ring of verdant, lush vegetation. The air that drifted up to him was thick with the scent of damp earth and sweet blossoms. He could hear the exotic, trilling cries of local birds and saw various animals, both big and small, traversing the dunes between the basins. He noticed a huge, yellow, cat-like creature kicking up a plume of sand as it chased prey far in the distance. This desert teemed with life; it was a magnificent sight.

  It’s a shame my parents never got to see anything like this.

  Cade released a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagging a little. Although it was still early, the sun was already scorching. He looked towards the horizon, where the faint silhouette of a massive tower could be seen. The enormous structure pierced the clouds, its bright surface glowing with reflected sunrays, giving it an almost otherworldly appearance.

  The Tower of Arts. Cade had read about how humongous it was and had even seen drawings, but nothing could compare to witnessing its splendor with his own two eyes. He had no idea how long it had taken the elven ancestors to build this titan. Even with thousands of first and second-tier cultivators working on it, the project must have still taken many decades. Or maybe it had been erected by a single, immensely powerful individual.

  As Cade flew over the desert, the tower grew in his eyes. The closer he was, the more he struggled to comprehend its enormous size. He now saw multiple fliers zipping in and out of the city like metallic insects. Some shared a familiar, dark, and heavy goldscale design, but the vast majority were of elven make, lithe and built of a white metal he’d never seen before. He focused his eyes on one speeder, shaped like an icicle and much larger than his Arrow. He couldn’t help but admire its richly engraved surface, with smooth, curved lines flowing into organic shapes resembling twisting tree branches. Its many gilded details lent it an aura of pure luxury. This wasn’t just a speeder; as Gorgo would have said, the vessel was a work of art.

  Impressed, he set his eyes back on the city. The gigantic tower was surrounded by a circular wall that appeared tiny in comparison but must have been at least two hundred feet high. As Cade came even closer, he saw the walls were assembled from huge, thick blocks of bone-colored stone, a shade very similar to the surrounding sand, creating a sense of unity between the city and its environment. This was Tower Oasis, home to several million elves, at least half of whom were cultivators.

  Cade was now less than a couple of miles from the city. From his vantage point roughly a mile above ground, he could clearly see inside its walls. Tower Oasis was aligned into three concentric circles separated by shorter walls, all connected by a network of canals that glinted like silver ribbons in the sun. The area covered by the city was difficult to estimate due to the tower dominating everything, but if he were to guess, he’d say it was eight to ten times larger than Kettle. Simply humongous.

  But what made him truly gasp was how green the city was. Lush trees grew between the buildings; there were even distinct areas akin to small, manicured forests, cut through with narrow paths.

  Hold on... Is that a lake?

  Not only was the Oasis filled with greenery, but it apparently contained several smaller lakes within its walls. If he wasn’t already impressed before, he definitely was now.

  The Asura began circling the city, eyeing the external walls for an entry gate. Not knowing their customs, he didn’t want to risk barging in with his flier. In the next moment, however, he saw an elven speeder approach, a beautiful female elf in the rider’s seat. She had straight, long blonde hair with pointy ears peeking through and a surprisingly pale complexion. Her blue dress, made of some lightly shimmering material, had a deep neckline revealing an intricate silver necklace. The dress wrapped tightly around her body, not leaving much to the imagination. She kept her perfectly manicured finger pointed at the comms gem and awaited Cade’s response, a mild amusement tugging at her lips. He noticed a timekeeper band on her wrist, a sign the city possessed a goldscale clock. The elf’s spiritual fluctuations suggested she was in the eighth stage of Qi Condensation.

  “Ah, right,” Cade mumbled, angry at himself for staring like a country bumpkin. He triggered the comms formation, setting it to open broadcast.

  “Greetings, Fellow Daoist. I am Lithoniel with the Oasis City Government, Foreigner Registration Bureau. Our security formations have detected that you do not possess a city token. Is this your first visit to Oasis?” The gem transmitted a pleasant, mellifluous voice. She spoke the Common language with fluency, her accent easy on the ear.

  “Yes, it is,” he confirmed.

  “In that case, please follow me,” Lithoniel said, her tone professional yet warm. She turned her speeder around, flying towards the city at a leisure pace.

  This city is something else. Even a nobody like me is greeted by a beautiful representative, and politely at that. Gorgo mentioned elves could be rude to other races, but she’s very pleasant.

  He flew behind the elven woman, heading towards a group of four buildings resembling tall, octagonal cylinders. They were built of the same bone-colored stone as everything else in Oasis City. As their fliers approached one of the tall structures, Cade noted it was built like a beehive and divided into numerous small sections, each with its own landing pad. The place was bustling, with dozens of fliers arriving and leaving at all times. Lithoniel led him towards one of the segments, and he followed, slowly descending onto its octagonal pad. The air here had a distinct smell—a mixture of hot metal and the sharp scent of heated repulsion ore.

  “You can leave your speeder here if you like,” she said through the comms gem before dismounting. Cade did as she suggested.

  The pad was connected to the building by a thirty-foot-long, wide bridge, its railings precisely carved to resemble interwoven cords. Cade walked behind Lithoniel, passing through a set of tall wooden gates into a long, brightly lit corridor with multiple doors on both sides. She led him into a room that had the appearance of an aristocrat’s study, which he assumed to be her office. A sunstone carved into the shape of a large, detailed leaf provided the necessary light, as the room had no windows, with a small formation circle engraved into the ceiling directly above it.

  According to his wristband, Cade spent fifteen minutes in the office as Lithoniel asked him several questions about himself and his purpose in the city. There wasn’t anything too personal. He used his real name, seeing little reason for deception being such a huge distance from the Empire, especially with his transformed appearance. After he provided all the necessary answers, the woman asked him to place his palm on her crystal tablet, then provided him with a small, octagonal white crystal.

  “Here’s your token. Please keep it on you while flying—it’s linked to the city's formations and can detect your position as well as your altitude. It will warn you if you’re too close to an obstacle, like a building or another flier. If you inject it with spiritual qi, it will bring out a detailed city map. As you have doubtlessly noticed, Oasis is divided into three concentric sections. This token will allow you to pass through the security formations protecting the first two. The outermost ring contains various government facilities, inns, and restaurants. The second ring is where you’ll find most of the craftsmen, shops, and auction houses. The innermost ring is only available to Tower disciples,” Lithoniel explained.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  With the bureaucracy handled, the elf escorted him back to the landing pad, letting him know he should fly slowly and avoid any abrupt maneuvers. He nodded before departing, thanking her for all the help, and was rewarded with a captivating smile.

  There were hundreds of speeders moving about, all maintaining a low speed and a steady course, which made their paths very predictable. On a couple of occasions, his token vibrated lightly against his skin, and he corrected his course to avoid crossing paths with another vessel. It was all quite cleverly thought through.

  Cade injected a tiny amount of blood qi into the token and was surprised to see it work without any strain. When using other maps, he always had the sensation of the slips not being quite compatible with his life force, like a pair of trousers too tight in the thighs that could rip at any moment. This was a common issue with spiritual qi artifacts; blood qi was too dense, causing a strain that would slowly damage the object over time.

  The map contained a wagonload of information, naming various facilities and establishments around the city, even offering a brief summary for each. It was perfect for someone like him, visiting for the first time. Cade quickly picked an inn with a charming name—the Hanging Leaf Inn. It was a tall, square building, its walls draped with thick layers of twisting vines. It had a large landing pad and an adjacent restaurant. The receptionist was unsurprisingly beautiful, as were pretty much all the female elves he had seen so far, and she welcomed him with a warm smile. The apartment he rented was very pleasant and equipped with all the useful amenities. There was a large glass window made of several small rectangular panels, opening to a courtyard filled with trees and winding paths, the scent of night-blooming flowers drifting in on the breeze. It was hard to believe such a city existed in the middle of a desert.

  However, Cade didn’t plan on getting used to such comforts. He came here to join the Sword Dao Monastery and learn their Law Severing Art, not to admire the views. He had to purchase a detailed map of the desert and find out when the disciple trial would be taking place. In the meantime, he needed to rent a training room and begin tests on his disabling pulse, then hopefully learn how to manifest the crimson mist. Finally, he had to start searching for blood to create his Blood Wings. All storage spaces suffered from a period of delay, which limited their use in situations where decisions had to be made in the blink of an eye. Having the ability to fly without a speeder was crucial to his survival.

  One day later, after making all the necessary purchases and arrangements, Cade stepped into a large training hall carrying a wooden cage with two live chickens.

  —

  “George, you’re a star. Thomas, you were doing so well. How about another round?” Cade asked with an ingratiating smile as he scattered more grain on the reinforced floor. Both birds turned their beaks away, ignoring the food and him.

  For the last two days, he had worked the chickens into the ground, forcing them to run from one end of the training hall to the another while testing his disabling pulse. The birds were surprisingly smart; they quickly realized that if they ran, they would receive delicious grain. In that sense, their cooperation could not have been better. However, there was only so much physical effort the chickens were willing to put up with. Once Thomas—the smaller one—had filled his belly, he refused to move and focused on digesting.

  Luckily, by that time, Cade had already established roughly how the disabling pulse worked and its maximum range, which was around a hundred feet, though at that distance the pulse was greatly weakened. The effect it had on the birds was fascinating. The strength of the initial pulse simply knocked them out, probably because he was fairly close to them at the time. After a short recharge time, his second try didn’t seem to yield any results, as if the chickens became resistant to its influence. This resistance lasted nearly an hour, meaning in battle he’d have one chance to use it well. It was still an amazing tool, and if discharged with precise timing, it could easily turn the fight to his advantage.

  However, it wasn’t the pulse that took the majority of his time inside the training hall, but the red mist. When attempting to release the pulse for the first time, he had established a deeper mental connection with his voracious heart. It greatly improved his comprehension—not just of how the heart worked, but also how it interacted with the spherules. There was an intrinsic connection between the two.

  He used this link to replicate the particular drumming his heart had released the night they spent waiting above Chi Chi’s pagoda. After only a few hours, he had managed to force out a faint layer of red vapor through his pores. He had been prepared for a grueling battle with his heart, but it turned out to be much easier than expected.

  “It’s working!” he exclaimed with elation.

  Observing the process inside his realm of consciousness, he found his spherules were rotating extremely quickly, shedding tiny, prismatic particles that stuck to his blood qi, allowing him to effortlessly push it outside his body. The resulting red glow was soft, almost invisible when he stood directly under the light, but became evident once he moved into a darker area of the room. Why he had released the disabling pulse and the mist on that night, Cade wasn't sure. He suspected it was as Gorgo had said—a spontaneous manifestation—but that was just a guess.

  However, this wasn’t all. He could control where the mist traveled. Even better, he could force it to form rough shapes, crudely replicating various larger objects. While this was interesting, there wasn’t much use for it, since he could only condense the mist into a barely tangible state that wouldn’t present an obstacle to a mortal, let alone a cultivator. Yet, the discoveries didn’t end there. Cade quickly realized he could recall all the mist back into his body, effectively using up only a small amount of the blood qi the spherules required to move it around. They also reabsorbed all the dust. This recall was very quick; the mist rolled back into him as if forcefully pulled back, a truly uncanny sight, like watching time run in reverse. This wasn’t as surprising, considering the mist was effectively an extension of his body, and the prismatic dust linked it with his voracious heart.

  Now he had to find out its true effect. When the chickens saw the billowing red clouds heading in their direction, Cade thought the poor birds would die on the spot, their little hearts bursting from fear. The amount of desperate, shrilling clucks they released upon seeing the mist almost made him stop the test. It was as if they didn’t know whether to run or fly—and where—instead staying rooted in place, their bodies shaking, their little eyes wide with terror. His conscience panged him, as he thought he had quite possibly sentenced the chickens to a gruesome death.

  But that didn’t happen.

  Cade observed as the panicked birds gradually calmed down. Some time later, they no longer concerned themselves with the surrounding mist. George tended to his feathers, while Thomas went to sleep.

  “How is this supposed to be dangerous? Seems pretty harmless to me,” he muttered with disappointment, recalling Gorgo’s words. He walked up to the birds, curious if they were inhaling the mist. They weren’t; the air seemingly ignored the glowing particles, flowing around them. He tried pushing it up their nostrils but failed. He wasn’t able to control the mist with a high degree of precision, at least not yet.

  As he pondered this situation, something rather obvious occurred to him. Maybe its main effect is to induce terror? I remember feeling something similar the first time I looked into one of the spherules with my insight. If that’s the case, this red mist could still be useful! He could already imagine a few scenarios. Control over spiritual qi was dependent on the state of mind. People who temporarily lost control of their actions, even for an eye-blink, would completely lose their hold over any spiritual qi they released. Any projections they maintained would, in that moment, either shatter or disperse harmlessly, their qi returning to the environment.

  To break someone’s concentration with the disabling pulse, I need to be close, unless their cultivation is low. However, the mist’s terror doesn’t seem to be affected by distance. Just like the pulse, it appears to no longer work after the initial effect wears off, but still… if used properly, this could be a potent weapon! Wouldn’t interrupting a powerful ability with a high cost force someone to pay the full price and get nothing in return? Not to mention he could use that moment of distraction to land a strike.

  It was these deliberations that brought him to the present moment. He peeked into his ring, staring thoughtfully at the prismatic bead. Over the last few days, he’d weighed whether to try and squeeze more benefits from it without raising his cultivation, ultimately deciding it wasn’t worth the risk. It was already greatly diminished in size, and every additional moment spent in his presence caused it to shrink further.

  With only one bead and no way to infiltrate the Tower of Arts to claim another, Cade had to use it wisely. But first, he had to manifest his Blood Wings. Leaving the training hall, he activated his token to locate the most prestigious auction house in Oasis. He had a decent amount of crystals, it was time to put them to use.

  I'm happy to say we've just crossed the halfway point of the first novel, and I'm currently putting finishing touches on the finale of Book 2!

  Muchas gracias! (it's all I know in Spanish)