V5C23: The Fashionable Gentleman

“Have you heard? That man is in the district again!”

“No way, the Fashionable Gentleman? How many spots are open for his banquet this time? Is he still not allowing anyone to take the food out? I just want one taste of his legendary frost cake!”

“That thing is said to be made with materials of the seventh realm, you dumbass! Do you think anyone would let you keep a piece of something so precious when they could eat it instead? Now, the honeyed roast, on the other hand…” the person gulped at the mere thought of it.

As she went through the Bao District, walking at a reasonable pace to get to the event on time without missing out too much of what was happening in the district, she made sure to listen to the people that had not gathered near the centre. Most were not of the highest echelons of society, nor did they have particularly high cultivation realms, which made a great deal of sense once she had heard the mention of open spots for the event. If there was indeed a limit, the normal people would be unlikely to find a spot open for them.

Given that she wasn’t exactly a normal person, she expected that there would be a chance of her getting in, but it wouldn’t be too much of a loss if she did miss out.

“I’ve heard that the Fashionable Gentleman intends to give out a dozen abnormal planar stones that have merged with golden opals, meaning that they will contain a thousand times the typical energy concentration! Imagine if we could get our hands on even a shard of that!” another person exclaimed.

“With one breath of the energy around it, we might finally reach the second realm… and with the whole thing, we could get to the third! Are you sure that they won’t actually give us a single spot there? It would be fine if we have to sit at the edge, on the carpet, so long as we can get even the smallest opportunity to get one of those stones!” their partner in conversation asked, “Damn, why did you have to bring this up now?”

‘Don’t think I’ve heard of a golden opal planar stone, but there are plenty of things in the world I don’t know about… Alright, missing this might be a little unfortunate if this is true.’

She quickly checked her Ascendant’s Library with the entirety of her focus and attention, using a moment prior to this to confirm exactly where she would be able to go without bumping into anyone or anything. However, no matter where she looked in her boundless shelves filled with books, she couldn’t locate a single mention of such a thing, which was odd, but still understandable for the moment.

One or two things that she couldn’t understand at all would be fine, as there were that many things out in the world that wouldn’t have been documented, and apart from the odd familiarity with which the people mentioned the golden opal planar stone, nothing was amiss. She did suspect that there might be something about the object that wasn’t quite getting through, however.

It was possible that the name was an exaggerated or somehow incorrect one, spread intentionally by the Fashionable Gentleman or otherwise generated in the minds of the people from seeing or hearing something about him. Whether it was deliberate or not, it was fine so long as she received that which benefitted her without somehow harming her and her cause. The man might have certain secrets or certain reasons for setting the banquet up, and the only thing that she needed to get was something to contribute to her cultivation. Even if he was attempting to trick everyone in the district, which was not impossible, she wouldn’t necessarily need to expose him.

Of course, it wouldn’t be any good for her to conclude such things too early, so she shifted those thoughts to the side and glanced up from the road, her gaze settling on the building that the banquet was being held in.

Just as the rest of the district was at least partly decorated with gems to an excessive degree, this building also made great use of them. The windows, which covered every outer wall, were made from a transparent diamond, each one embedded with two inscriptions each. One was for cleaning the windows when they become too obscured by dust or snow, and the other was to prevent the windows from being shattered with a sufficiently powerful hammer smash.

A single pair of doors was located at the front of the structure, although the front wall was the shortest side and was connected to two identical walls on either side, forming a nearly triangular shape on the front and a semi-hexagonal arrangement on the back. The front of the structure was also the second largest room, with the largest being a theatre-like arrangement around a stage, with several floors for the seats that were connected to the other chambers of the structure. Each one of these floors matched with a row of windows, so she could have concluded that there were ten of them even without using her spiritual perception.

Similarly, she didn’t need to use her spiritual perception to see that half of the floors were completely filled with people, at least in the areas near the windows.

The doors were open, and two guards stood on either side facing the outside. With just that, they were already more secure in terms of a human security force than the Bao District itself, which she found a little amusing. Of course, the actual defences of the district were stronger, but there was a certain absurdity to it that had to be noted.

None of the guards acted until she was two steps away from the doors, at which point both of them blocked the way with their spears and looked at her in near perfect synchronicity, with the man on the right and the woman on the left looking her over.

“Do you have an invitation?” the woman asked.

“No.”

“Hm… You are in the peak of the fifth realm, and your cultivation technique is difficult to discern… That fits the Gentleman’s criteria, right?” the man said.

“Something interesting is what he was looking for, so this should fit. Come inside.”

Their spears parted and their returned their gaze to their front. As their armour and helmets covered their bodies almost completely, showing only their eyes and a thin line of skin between them, this was the only thing that one could be certain about without peering further in through their equipment.

She had only said a single word and was suddenly permitted entry, so seeing that the guards weren’t in the mood for conversation she proceeded through before they decided to change their mind. At the moment, it was difficult to judge their exact authority in allowing the passage of guests, so if they did decide to stop her from coming in there might be no alternative method to get a seat inside of the large stage inside the building, where she was sure that this mysterious figure would appear, and likely give out the golden opal planar stone alongside his frost cake.

It would be a shame to sabotage the possibility purely out of curiosity that could be indulged elsewhere, so she got straight to doing that by heading to the most interesting thing that she could find in the entrance chamber, that being the food tables. There were a few people that looked to be vaguely interesting, whether it was due to their cultivation, appearance, or just some small detail that caught her eye – or mind, as it were – but after the excessive number of times that the Fashionable Gentleman’s food had been mentioned on the streets, she had to try at least one of the dishes to verify the accuracy of the rumours.

As with all food for her, there was no expectation of taste, but the ingredients should result in a great boost to her cultivation and strength if they were not exaggerated by the residents.

On the table in the front room, one with few people standing by it, she found no trace of a frost cake, whatever that was even meant to be, but there was clearly something roasted in honey from a planar beast, so she took a piece and ate it.

‘As expected, I can only sense the texture… It’s not bad, but it doesn’t seem particularly special, either. Nothing in terms of planar energy benefits, nothing to do with resurrecting the sense of taste, nothing at all, in fact,’ she frowned, grabbing another piece of food from the table, ‘Yeah, if there is something outstanding here, then I don’t think that I will find it on this table. Unfortunate indeed, considering the expectations that people have of the Fashionable Gentleman. Makes me think where those came from…’

Expectations did not emerge from nowhere, as they all came from someone’s actions, be it simply talking or even acting in a particular way, without intending to do so whatsoever. Perhaps someone just walked about in a way that made them seem particularly satisfied after attending the Fashionable Gentleman’s banquet, leading to some mistaken conclusions regarding it.

She couldn’t know this without inquiring with the past guests, and given that she had no clue whether repeat attendance was even possible, Wei Yi couldn’t be sure that she would find anyone in the building. It would thus be a bad idea to pursue one particular lead over all others, meaning that she chose to seek out conversation based on the previous assessment of the people’s interesting traits and characteristics. One sufficiently noteworthy person was only a few steps away, so she approached her.

That it was a woman was purely incidental, as was the fact that she looked incredibly beautiful. The woman wore a black dress that revealed much of her large breasts and soft pale skin, while her face was covered with a black veil that hid all but her luscious red lips.

“Good evening,” she said, the woman turning to her and looking her over.

“You are not from here, are you?” the woman in black said, glancing away in the direction of the theatre room, “I would suggest that you are careful here. There is something about these banquets that has always caused some interest from the district’s leadership, but it is the first time that they have managed to get someone inside.”

“I see. Are you that person?”

“I am. Whatever is happening here, I would prefer to avoid unnecessary harm to outsiders, so don’t get into trouble.”

“Well, I’d say that I am capable of taking care of myself, but since the leadership is wary, I’ll take care.”

“A fifth realm might be sufficient, but it might also bring you down. There are certain troubles that only those in higher realms have to deal with, and given the mysterious nature of the Fashionable Gentleman, it may very well be that he is using such methods. Then again, we could all be getting agitated for no good reason,” the woman shrugged, “None of the strange reports relate to death or even any harm.”

“That must not have been enough for you or the Patriarch, though. Well, don’t let me get in the way for too long-”

“Hold on. Since we’ve talked this much already, I would feel bad if I just let you go off and die at this banquet, so take this,” she said, handing over a small amulet the size of a coin with a silver chain with which to wear it on one’s neck, “I didn’t get your name, but that is fine. If something does happen, I would hate to remember it.”

With that, she walked away and headed over to another table, where a number of miscellaneous items were placed. None had a particular beneficial function, like a planar stone or artefact might, but they were still interesting to look at, which was what the woman in black did.

‘Huh… What an interesting thing to encounter. Aside from her features, which were nice, the indication of something unusual happening at these events is almost reassuring. It would be far stranger if there was nothing abnormal at all about a figure known only as the Fashionable Gentleman, who, according to the words of others, seems to be a man, although that is rather hard to tell when the Master of Yi City was also referred to as male or female depending on the hopes and preferences of the people mentioning him,’ Wei Yi recalled the way in which everyone had tried to guess his identity.

It was likely, then, that the Fashionable Gentleman did not reveal too much of their own appearance to outsiders, and that the people who had attended a banquet of this type before did not choose or were unable to spread too much information regarding him to the rest of the district. Of course, she could also be reading a little too much into it.

The only reason that this was even a problem for her was that the Fashionable Gentleman did not seem to be present anywhere in the building, at least not as far as she could see. Her spiritual perception reached into every corner she perceived – a statement that could be put instead as her being able to see everything that she saw, and nothing more – and none contained a figure that fit the expectations that had been generated for the man.

Whether that was her problem or that of incorrect expectations would be seen soon enough.

‘For now, I should slowly make my way further inward. The theatre room is still mostly empty, with only a few people sitting in the seats before the stage and seeming to do so only because they were lacking much physical strength or energy to stand elsewhere,’ she noted, ‘I can get there later.’

She continued to sample the attractions of the banquet, continuing to confirm that most of the food on the first floor was lacking in anything that might increase her power. The people there were mildly interesting, but the only worthwhile interaction aside from her first one was with a man that was a merchant of gems that was attempting to win some interest over to the north, and he offered her a jewel with a straightforward shield inscription placed within it. Due to her location, it would be highly effective for a while, but would be far less so the moment she left.

On the topic of interesting things, the amulet that she got from the woman in black was placed in one of her pockets, and the contents seemed to be a rare healing inscription.

The moment that enough physical harm came to her body in that area, it would trigger and flood her body with regenerative energy that would stimulate its own ability to recover from injuries, which was the most straightforward yet still a rather difficult way to cause healing with something other than a medicinal pill.

It was for this reason that healing treasures in general were far more rare than offensive or defensive treasures, and why it was generally preferable to prevent or stop an attack than to recover from it. Even if they were more common, the process of recovery was rarely quite as efficient and effective as not being hit at all. Very few would ever attempt to integrate actively being hit into any of their strategies, as only someone with the regenerative abilities like hers would ever dare to endure attacks.

That amulet alone was sufficient to convince her that the woman wasn’t just an insignificant figure, so even if she was lying about her origin and purpose, she was someone to keep an eye on.

An hour or two later was when the situation finally began to change. Her attempts to learn more about the banquet and the district in general got her little. She found out about the source of their gemstones, how earth-type cultivation assisted in all of the great arts relating to them, and that she could actually get the position of an apprentice for most of the craftsmen in the district quite easily.

Despite their unwillingness to go too far out of their way to spread their gem craft, they were more than happy to let people learn it and bring it out themselves. It was hard to do so without access to many of the same gems outside of the district, however, and this was where another roadblock came from. According to some of the people she spoke with, the gems in the Bao District were uniquely suited to their use of them due to the mine at the southern part of the district being filled with a dense earth-type energy.

This made all of the gems far more effective conductors of planar energy and meant that any opal found in the Bao District would outperform an opal from outside of it no matter how shoddy the craftsmanship of the inscriptions or array within was.

In theory, it would be possible to replicate this kind of effect elsewhere, so long as the mines actively produced materials and they were steeped in earth energy, but it was easier said than done. The sheer quantity of elemental energy needed to be provided by something or someone, but there were few people with a sufficient pool of energy that were willing to waste it all on some gems.

That was, in part, because the pool of energy needed was close to the seventh realm, at least. If someone wanted to achieve an even greater effect, then several Patriarchs might not be sufficient.

Naturally, the question of this energy’s origin arose the moment that it was discovered, but this was where the people of the Bao District struggled to find any answers. Their excavation of the gem mine brought them further and further beneath the ground, and yet they just kept uncovering more and more gems, more and more types, and no end nor beginning to the earth-type energy. If there was a clear increase in quantity as they went down, they would have had some clue, but there was none of that, either, meaning that they didn’t know whether there was even a point to this.

The digging would not stop for a long time, as new gems were always useful, but the investigation had mostly lost any of the steam that it might have had at the start. Whatever caused their district to be richer in earth-type energy, it was useful and had yet to harm them.

Onto the change in the situation, however, Wei Yi had found that people were beginning to head towards the stage, finding seats in a semi-random arrangement. Some looked to have a place reserved or picked out in advance, whereas others just found a comfortable place to be and occupied it. They also brought along drinks and a few small plates of food, although the majority went in with a cup or glass only.

So far as she was able to tell, there was nothing explicit that prompted this gathering, but it did become faster as people noticed others doing it. As she couldn’t find anything else to attempt at this banquet, she accompanied the first third of people and found a seat that she considered sufficiently comfortable in the middle of the front third of the rows.

It was a good enough place no matter what she really wanted to do, as it was close enough to the stage for her to approach if necessary, but she had access to an escape route close by via one of the doors on the side of the stage if whatever she encountered wasn’t within her power to defeat. Furthermore, there was an area beneath the seat she sat on that she could break into with just a bit of effort and escape that way, which would be useful if the door was obstructed by something that she also couldn’t beat – or the very thing that she wanted to flee from.

Finally, she had her Mask of Yama, which had sat without too much use in her House of Gold. The golden faceless mask wasn’t useless to her, but there was still a certain preference against any kind of otherworldly gift that significantly affected the world around her. She could avoid recognition by most in the south, so she had not yet taken it out. Perhaps a later point, she would take it out once she crossed the boundary to the Tundra, but before then, it wouldn’t be of much use.

Everyone else entered slowly and located other places to sit, and the theatre room slowly filled up to around a three-thirds full state.

There weren’t enough people to occupy every seat, but just enough to prevent every group from sitting at least one seat apart from every other. This was unfortunate for Wei Yi in particular, as the man that sat down to her left looked to be the most irritating person in the room. When he sat down, the majority of those within seven seats of them took the opportunity to shift away, while the rest followed the initial group as they presumed that they must have had a good reason for moving away from the man.

This was compounded with the interactions between him and the others that she had passively observed but only recognised and processed once he got near to her, which confirmed that he was an obsessive flirter with anyone and anything that had breasts. It wasn’t someone that she wished to be near, and especially not while she couldn’t easily ward him off – the lack of an arm made it more difficult.

Flirting in itself was not a problem. She was not some kind of fragile sculpture that would crack and shatter the moment anyone looked in her direction, and it seemed that other people would likely suffer more due to her Conqueror’s Eye among other eye-based techniques. That being said, her killing intent constantly being at the brink of bubbling over and exploding all at once did not help her with calmly handling situations that she should really be able to handle without aggression.

That he didn’t look good regardless of the perspective he was judged from did not help.

She could only hope for the Fashionable Gentleman to appear as quickly as possible, since she did find the seat that she had occupied to be highly agreeable.

“Hello there, sexy-”

“Nope,” she moved her right hand and flicked a small bunch of air towards the man, manifesting a few barriers behind the man so that nobody and nothing else would be damaged. It was unfortunately too irritating for her to handle at the moment, but not so much that she wouldn’t take the most basic precautions.

Her finger strength was more than sufficient to hit the man’s face and thrust him straight into that barrier, incapacitating him within an instant.

“Wasn’t that a little excessive?” one of the people that had moved away on her right asked, not seeming particularly concerned about the man himself and more about the relative calmness of the proceedings so far, “He hadn’t even begun his three-hour speech regarding his lengthy and complex preference of women.”

“I had heard them a thousand times with my spiritual perception already. Also, I am not in the mood.”

The man shrugged, “I don’t think the rules have ever been explained for this banquet, so… do as you wish.”

“That is something that I will do regardless of your permission,” she said, leaning back in the seat and sighing, “That being said, the permission is appreciated greatly. I don’t know what I’d do without it.”

Since her sarcasm could hardly be more obvious, he understood and also stepped away, figuratively. To begin with, he clearly didn’t have any interest in preserving the condition and health of the person that she had incapacitated, so it wasn’t too significant for him to bother to continue on. Furthermore, she had displayed a clear degree of agitation and a notable ability, so he would prefer to not be harmed by her if she found him irritating as well.

She did not, but it was a safe bet to step away anyway.

A little more time passed, and then the doors of the chambers shut as abruptly as this sentence makes it seem. None of the people in the room had actually been involved, so far as she or anyone else could tell, forcing their attention to the stage before them.

There was no indication of a person coming up to the stage, and yet they could distinctly see a figure walk onto it, his body mostly obscured by regal clothing that had a dark golden trim and was primarily composed of a matte black cloth. Altogether, the style was most reminiscent of a suit that she had seen a certain otherworldly demon wearing. The clothes themselves could be found in the Planar Continents anyway, and even the hat on the top of his head was not particularly out of place, although a top hat was not worn commonly anywhere in the Continents, so far as she knew.

No, that was not concerning at all in comparison to the man’s visage – if the thing before them could even be called a man.

It had no skin to be seen, having only an amalgam of dirt, mud and stone that amassed together into a horrific humanoid visage with a jagged, pointed mouth and empty eye sockets that sank just a little into its face. This was not the appearance of any human, but a vile mockery from an entity that could never look and speak in the same manner as a man.

This was something that she was sure of, even before this thing spoke.

“Greetings, mortal things. Is this an event that you consider to be pleasant to your limited senses? Is this the kind of thing that you desire?”

None of the outward thoughts around Wei Yi helped her recognise this thing, but she was able to easily conclude that nobody at all wanted to let this thing talk for too long. Everyone feared something different, and it was only the general intent of attacking that was shared by each and every single person present.

All at once, countless masses of energy flooded into the air, some arranging themselves into something complex whereas others simply launched their planar energy at their perceived foe.

“What a curiosity. The mortal pests seek to overcome eternity?” the entity said, the gravelly noise barely being recognisable as speech, “In that case, let me take it. Let me take all of your worthless effort!”

The many projectiles should have struck at that moment, but they instead went wide and struck the stage. Every single attack exploded as it collided, but instead of doing any regular damage to the structure it instead tore a strange gap within the world itself, revealing an absolute darkness behind the fabric of the world. It grew and swallowed up the gaps that remained, and quickly overwhelmed the entire theatre chamber, and seemingly everything beyond it in a breath.

A single volley and a single entity darkened the world.