Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 35: Pills

Chapter 35: Pills

When Chance got back to the Whiteheart house, Pete and Yeo had already returned. Yeo was locked up in his room, cultivating, but Pete stood behind the kitchen counter, preparing dinner for all of them. He smiled at Chance as he walked into the building, setting aside his knife and wiping his hands off on the stained apron he wore.

“Chance. You completed your advancement to Squire?”

“Yeah. It’s seriously something else,” Chance said, shaking his head in awe.

“Just wait until you get some practice in,” Pete said with a knowing chuckle. “That’s when you’ll really start getting dividends. When you focus on the vision you had during the advancement, your cultivation will be much faster, and you’ll gain more Essence.”

“I’ll try it out tonight,” Chance said. “I wanted to ask, though. Were you able to find any leads on a way to locate people?”

Pete nodded. “I was. There’s an Investigator in Gleam that takes cases specifically for people from Earth, trying to locate relatives or family members. It’s apparently more common than you would think. Unfortunately, it isn’t cheap.”

“I didn’t think it would be,” Chance said. “How much?”

“Well, I suppose cheap is relative,” Pete said. “It’s one hundred gold an hour, and he estimates about a week until he can locate someone – if they’re on Centurion. If they’re somewhere else in the universe, then no promises at all.”

Chance did some quick mental math, then frowned. “That’s around seventeen thousand gold. God, that’s a lot.”

“It’s not impossible to earn as a Shikari. Fairly realistic, actually. Some of the best Shikari earn far more than that, and if you can place high in tournaments or other competitions, you’ll get pretty sizable bonuses.”

Chance nodded, but his mind was already drifting elsewhere. Tournaments and competitions were great, but he suspected nothing around their level would be paying anything too crazy.

But if he hunted monsters in the Old City and turned them in on his own… that would pay quite well. He’d have to find a way to conceal his identity, but that was better than waiting around forever and not getting to spend any of his money while saving up.

Chance felt slightly guilty for working behind Bella and Yeo’s backs, but there was no way he was going to risk their lives by bringing them into the Old City. Not with Yamish’s threat hanging over him – he had no doubt the man was strong enough to kill any of them if they went against his orders.

“It’s not all bad news, though,” Pete said, walking over to the dining table and picking up a dense leatherbound book. The words on its cover were faded – not that it mattered, Chance couldn’t have read them either way. “I got a technique manual for you. It was difficult to find. There really isn’t much in the way of information on Karma cultivation. Luckily, that meant there wasn’t a lot of demand for things like this in the library.”

“Thank you,” Chance said, tucking it under his arm. “I don’t suppose you have a book that’ll teach me the written language as well? I’m afraid I can’t read anything here.”

Pete chuckled, revealing a second, considerably smaller book. It was only a little larger than his palm. “English-to-Common. This one is yours to keep. You’ll have to return the technique manual if anyone requests it, but since the demand is so low, I doubt you’ll have much difficulty there.”

Chance took the second book with a relieved grin. “Thank you again, Pete. This is fantastic.”

“It’s the least I can do. I’m supposed to be teaching all of you, after all,” the old man chuckled. “All three of you are clearly taking this very seriously. I want to support that, while you still have someone to lean on.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chance asked, cocking his head to the side. “Sounds ominous.”

“I didn’t mean it to.” Pete adjusted his grip on his staff and sighed. “As you know, the Shikari teams are initially established to make sure young cultivators survive long enough to become really useful to Gleam. But, once you reach Knight rank, you’ll be eligible to branch out on your own. And, inevitably, you will. Cultivation does not lend itself well to remaining on the same path with people for long. Cultivation is a path that leads you to strive for the heavens, and there is little safety along it. I’d like to think that I’m doing enough to make sure your chances of survival are high, but there’s always something I could have done better.”

“I see where you’re coming from, but that doesn’t seem like the right mindset to have,” Chance said. “You’re looking at it like you’re responsible for us, aren’t you? In the end, it feels like you’re trying your best to make sure we’re prepared for the future. That’s more than most would do.”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Pete said, walking back over to the kitchen countertop and picking his knife up. “Perhaps I’m just getting sentimental. This isn’t the first team I’ve overseen. I’ve been at it for a while.”

“Well, reaching Knight rank is considerably harder than getting to Squire, right? We’ve got a good bit of time left.”

“Quite so,” Pete said with a nod.

Chance started up the stairs to his room, then paused and glanced back at the older man. “Forgive me if this is prying too much, but how many teams did you oversee before us?”

“Eight,” Pete replied. “And I was on one.”

“Of those teams, how many survived?”

Pete’s eyes darkened. “Two of them, Chance. There’s a reason this world brings in new cultivators and draws them to the scholar-cities. There are only so many people that are capable of becoming cultivators on Centurion, and there are always more threats.”

Chance swallowed. “I see. Thank you.”

Pete just nodded, returning to his work while Chance walked up to his room. Once the door was shut behind him, he sat at his desk and set the books down before him. He pushed the technique manual to the side and picked up the small dictionary, leafing through it. There was a lot of memorizing to do, and Pete was right. Cultivation wasn’t safe, and he needed every single advantage he could get.

He spent the rest of the night reading and memorizing. Chance had never taken himself for a particularly apt student, but something about cultivation had fundamentally changed him. If he’d been given this task on Earth, he doubted he would have been able to accomplish much within a month.

On Centurion, Chance found that his focus had grown several times, as had his comprehension. By the time the sun shone through his window the following morning, he’d already started to recognize some of the more common words in the dictionary and was well on his way to memorizing the language.

He set the book down, blinking furiously. His Gate was warm, almost as if he had been cultivating. It faded back to normal quickly and Chance shook his head, rising to his feet and walking out of his room.

Yeo stood about an inch away from his door. Chance cursed, jumping back and nearly tripping over his own feet. “God, Yeo. What are you doing?”

“Sorry. I heard you walking over and I was about to knock,” Yeo said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “You want to go do another job? I want better armor, and the set I’ve got my eye on costs fifty gold.”

Chance glanced down at his clothes. Now that Yeo mentioned it, an upgrade wouldn’t be remiss in the slightest. Then again, he would have preferred to spend the money on something more useful like a cultivation aid.

“Ah, shit.”

“What?” Yeo asked.

“I was going to ask Pete if he knew anything about Cultivation aid pills,” Chance said. “I visited an apothecary and they had some for sale, but I wasn’t sure how good they were.”

“Oh, yeah. I know about those. They’re not bad,” Yeo said. “You just have to take them in moderation. Like… one a week at most. If you take more, your body won’t be able to get rid of the impurities fast enough and you’ll end up hurting yourself in the long run.”

“The lady selling them said something similar. But what if you don’t have any impurities?” Chance asked.

“Ah, like if you managed to purge everything? Some really powerful cultivators or rich families try to do that for their kids,” Yeo said thoughtfully. “If you’ve got no impurities, then you could technically take as many pills as you wanted. But, the more Essence you’ve gathered within you, the more potent pills you’ll need to get stronger. It would be worth it if you could get completely pure, though. It’s just really difficult to get to that level of purity.”

“Let me guess, the more potent ones are stupid expensive?”

“You got it,” Yeo said with a grin. “So… how about that job?”

“Let’s go get Bella.”

Yeo grinned and darted over to Bella’s room. Chance followed him out as the dark-haired boy eagerly rapped on the door. It swung open a minute later and Bella emerged.

“Ready for another job?” she asked.

“Do you want to go do – oh,” Yeo trailed off. “Well, great. I was kind of expecting to have to argue for it. I’m not sure why.”

Bella rolled her eyes. “While you and Pete were off practicing, some more job offers rolled in. I’ve been sorting through them to try and find the best ones. We’re Squires, but since we haven’t gotten our ranks confirmed by the Shikari, they still see us as Foundlings. Because of that, our offers were pretty crap.”

“Nothing interesting at all?” Yeo asked, scrunching his nose. “Nothing at all?”

“I didn’t say that. I just said they weren’t very good,” Bella corrected. “I found one that I think could pay pretty well, actually. It’s just going to be a bit of a slog. There’s apparently been a weird increase in the number of Soothounds wandering around the city. There’s a job to kill as many of them as possible, and they’re paying ten gold per monster.”

Chance kept his features plain, but he couldn’t help but feel a flicker of unease.

What is it with Soothounds? Why is it always them? Shit, I hope they’re not the human versions.

“Soothounds? Really?” Yeo asked. “Those were never a problem for us outside of Gleam. I didn’t realize there were so many here.”

“There usually aren’t,” Bella replied, frowning. “Not from what I knew, at least. That’s why we’ve got a job for this, though. Soothounds usually aren’t too dangerous, especially if they aren’t fully grown, so it’s a good task for Foundlings.”

“Let’s do it,” Yeo said. “Did the job say where they were?”

“Most of the attacks and sightings have been in the Rose district,” Bella said. “It’s not far from here. Maybe ten minutes.”

“Are they on the main road?” Chance asked carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was go anywhere near something that resembled alleyways. The Old City would probably end up sucking all of them into it.

“The main street and in the parks,” Bella said. She took a scroll of parchment out and hand it to Yeo, who scanned over it. Chance peered over his shoulder, pleased to find that he recognized enough of it to get a vague understanding of what it said.

Granted, he already had an idea of its contents said because of their conversation, so he had a bit of an unfair advantage deciphering it, but it was still progress.

“Let’s do this, then.” Chance said. “This looks like a great way to make a good amount of money in a pretty short amount of time.”