Valdris was not an impressive town.
Low stone buildings packed shoulder to shoulder along streets narrow enough that two people walking side by side would have to make a decision about personal space. Shop signs hung crooked on rusted hooks. Window shutters that needed replacing three seasons ago. The kind of place built for function, touched up just enough to keep standing, and never thought about again.
The main road was the widest — wide enough for two carts if neither driver had pride. Market stalls lined both sides, shuttered for the night, covered in oilcloth weighted down against the wind. A guild hall sat at the far end, the biggest building in town by necessity, three floors of weathered stone with a notice board outside so crowded with papers half of them were overlapping.
A dog barked somewhere in the dark.
Smoke curled from chimneys. A tavern at the corner was still lit, warm yellow light bleeding through the windows and pooling on the street outside, voices and the smell of cooked meat drifting out every time the door swung open.
Kael stood at the top of the hill and looked at it for a moment.
’Home for now,’ he thought.
He looked down at his left hand and at he timer running on the background.
Failure Penalty: Permanent loss of cultivation ability.
[06:45 hrs remaining]
He’d been turning that line over since the notification vanished. In the forest it had felt abstract — words on air, gone before he could properly hold them. Standing here now, with the primer still fresh in his head and the memory of that Gate beast’s weight on his back still living in his shoulders, it didn’t feel abstract anymore.
Cultivation was everything here. He understood that much after twenty minutes with a beginner’s booklet and one Gate clearing he had absolutely no business surviving. Rank was the line between someone who cleared Gates and someone who got carried out of them in pieces. He’d made it through tonight on instinct, terrain, a dead man’s sword, and the kind of luck that had an expiry date stamped on it somewhere.
Without cultivation he was fodder. A body waiting for the right monster to find it.
’To survive in this world you need to cultivate,’ he thought. ’Without it I’m a liability.’
He looked at the town below.
Somewhere down those streets was an apothecary. He hoped. And inside it, something that would complete the quest before the timer he couldn’t see anymore but could feel ticking regardless ran out.
’Best I find a way to complete this as quickly as possible.’
He started moving.
The checkpoint was simple. Two stone pillars, a wooden bar across the road, two guards in leather armor who had the look of men who had drawn the short straw for night duty and were still bitter about it. A lantern hung between the pillars, throwing orange light across the road and not much else.
One guard held up a hand as they approached.
"Guild card and rank verification."
Mira produced hers without breaking stride, holding it flat as she walked. The guard checked it, nodded, and waved her through. She stopped on the other side and looked back.
The guard was already looking at Kael. More specifically at his clothes — the kind of outfit that had no name in this world. No leather, no armor, no hunter’s gear. Just a strange grey shirt and narrow dark trousers that made him look like he’d walked out of somewhere that didn’t exist. The guard’s eyes narrowed.
"Card."
"Don’t have one."
"Rank?"
"Unranked."
The guard blinked. One slow blink, the kind that meant recalibration. Then came the expression — bored and contemptuous layered on top of each other, the face of someone who had seen this exact situation before and found it less interesting each time.
He stepped in front of the bar. "Unranked civilians need a residency permit or a local sponsor to enter after dark. You got either of those?"
"No."
"Then you’re not getting in."
Kael glanced at the tavern across the road, then at the quiet town beyond it. Finally, his attention drifted to the quest timer that lingered somewhere at the edge of his awareness.
Reaching into the dead hunter’s satchel, he pulled out the registration booklet and offered it to the nearest guard.
"I found this about two kilometers northeast of the road," he said. "The owner was dead. Gate beast, by the look of it. I was planning to report it to the guild in the morning. I figured his family deserved to know."
The guard accepted the booklet, flipping through it before handing it to his partner. Neither of them spoke until the second man gave a slow nod.
"You found him?"
"Yes."
"And you came here to report it."
"That was the idea."
The first guard studied him for another moment before looking past his shoulder.
"He with you?"
Mira stood a few paces away with her arms folded across her chest, watching the exchange in silence. At the question, she shifted her gaze to Kael. For a brief moment, something flickered behind her eyes—the same look she’d worn back in the clearing after watching an unranked stranger distract a Gate beast with nothing more than a well-thrown rock.
Whatever conclusion she reached, she kept it to herself.
She looked back at the guards."He pulled me out of a Gate beast ambush tonight," she said. "Unranked, and crazy enough to throw a rock at a Gate beast." She gave a small shrug. "I’ll vouch for him."
The guard held Kael’s gaze for another moment. Then he lifted the bar.
"Report to the guild before noon tomorrow. Get yourself registered."
"First thing," Kael said, and walked through.
They walked in silence until the main road split into three.
The guild hall stood straight ahead, its stone facade still lit despite the late hour. Residential streets branched off to the left, while the market district stretched away to the right beneath rows of lanterns that swayed gently in the night breeze.
Mira stopped.
"The inn’s down the left," she said, nodding toward the residential quarter. "No sign out front. Tell them I sent you and they’ll give you the cheapest room."
She hesitated.
Her eyes settled on him again, carrying the same thoughtful look she’d worn ever since the clearing, as though she still hadn’t decided whether he was merely unusual or something far stranger.
"The guild opens at the sixth bell," she said at last. "Be there."
Kael nodded.
"One more thing. Is there an apothecary still open?"
She regarded him for a moment, curiosity flickering across her face before she let it pass.
"Third building past the fish stall on the right. An old woman named Dara runs it. She stays open for hunters coming back from night Gates."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
"She’ll overcharge you."
"I’ll keep that in mind."
For another heartbeat she held his gaze.
Then she turned away, resting her spear across one shoulder as she disappeared into the lantern-lit streets without another word.
Kael watched until she rounded a corner.
Only then did he head toward the market.
_ _
Dara’s Remedies was impossible to miss.
The shop was narrow enough that the shelves nearly touched, and bundles of dried herbs hung from the low ceiling, filling the air with the mingled scents of crushed leaves, bitter roots, and something metallic beneath it all.
An elderly woman sat behind the counter with a book open before her.
She didn’t bother looking up.
"We’re open."
"I need an Essence recovery item."
That earned him a glance.
"Essence recovery item," Kael said. "Whatever that is — do you have any?"
The old woman set her book down and looked at him properly for the first time.
Her eyes moved to his strange clothes, then back up.
"Moonpetal root, Crimson cinnabar, Duskbloom extract," she said, tapping the counter once with a finger. "Those are the ones available. Which do you want?"
Kael had no idea what any of those were. "Give me the cheapest one."
Her eyes swept over him in an instant, lingering briefly on the black ring before returning to his face.
"You’re unranked."
"That’s right." Seems prominent people can’t sense your status with ease.
"They’re made for cultivators. You don’t have any pathways to recover."
"I know I need it for something urgent."Karl said while gazing at her calmly.
For a moment she simply studied him.
Then, with the slow efficiency of someone whose joints complained about every unnecessary movement, she crossed to a shelf and returned with a small bottle of dark glass.
"Duskbloom extract," she said, setting it on the counter. "It’s the weakest of the three. It will cost you three silver coins."
Kael counted out the coins.
When he’d gone through the dead hunter’s satchel on the walk into town he hadn’t known what the currency looked like, let alone what it was worth. He’d found a small leather pouch tucked into the inner pocket — twenty silver pieces, neat and round, stamped with a crest he didn’t recognize. At the time he’d pocketed them without thinking too hard about it.
Standing here now, three silver lighter and holding a small dark bottle, he was glad he had.Without that pouch he would have walked into this apothecary with nothing.
He dropped the three coins on the counter.
She swept them up without looking and handed him the bottle in the same motion.
She swept them into a drawer, slid the bottle across the counter, and had already returned to her book before the shop door closed behind him.
_ _
The inn Mira had described proved easy enough to find.
The woman at the desk barely looked at him when he mentioned Mira’s name. She slid a key across the counter, said "five silver," and went back to her ledger before he’d finished picking it up.
He counted out five more coins from the pouch. Ten now gone out of twenty. He was burning through the dead man’s money faster than he’d like.
His room was small but clean — narrow bed, wash basin, single candle, a window overlooking the quiet street below. He sat on the edge of the mattress and turned the bottle over in his hand.
It was a dark glass with a simple cork.
Inside, the liquid shimmered between deep blue and black whenever it caught the candlelight.
For three quiet seconds he considered how absurd his life had become.
Then he pulled the cork free and pressed the mouth of the bottle against the ring.
Warmth spread through the metal.
Not the violent surge that had blasted the Gate beast away, but something gentler.
The sensation reminded him of someone finally taking a full breath after holding it for far too long.
The extract vanished.
Not a single drop spilled. The liquid simply flowed into the ring as though the metal itself had become thirsty.
Kael stared at the now-empty bottle for a moment before setting it on the floor.
Then he lay back on the bed.
The room remained silent.
Seradhiel didn’t speak.
Yet the ring never cooled.
Its warmth lingered against his finger throughout the night, steady and reassuring in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep came almost immediately.
DING.
『 First Investment Quest — COMPLETE. Duskbloom Extract registered. Return queued. Pathway activation pending. Host, your first step upon the path of investment and cultivation is complete. The Empress acknowledges your contribution... whether she admits it or not. 』
In the darkness, the ring pulsed once.
Slow.
Steady.
Like a forgotten heart remembering how to beat again.