Sarah Davis
Stories
10
Chapters
3,751
Words
1.8 M
Comments
0
Reading
6 d, 3 h
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The location of acid pits was a guarded secret, but given their immense importance to the economy, they could never be truly secure locations. With a starting point from Orillia and a ship that could fly reasonably high, it wasn't so difficult to find another one. While still overhead, Kai actually thought he could sense a bit of unusual qi. Not like a cultivator or crystallier, more like the acid powers that Gundle had been working on. That instinct proved to be correct as he flew closer. There, in the…-
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Zae Zin Nim awoke from dreams that she was being dismembered to find herself in a dark room. She could barely make out a few crystal-reinforced windows at the tops of the walls, letting in what looked like moonlight. The architecture struck her as the lord's estate, but she had never seen this room. There was no way to determine how she had gotten to this position, so Zae Zin Nim attempted to leave. She only got two steps before a wall of blue light flared to life and pushed her back. There was a dark…
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After several more days, Kai decided that he needed to take a lesson from Zae Zin Nim. If he stayed in the acid pits until he found some magic way to help everyone, he'd end up wasting his time and not actually helping anyone. He needed to cut his losses and move on aggressively to find another source of power. When he told the workers he would need to leave, many of them were sad, but not as much as he expected. Kai began to wonder how many of them truly believed he would change anything about their…
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A boy named Gundle, a slave barely considered to be worth the expenses of his own life, turned out to be a genius. Given his history, Kai wasn't generally on good terms with "geniuses" who found that the powers of the world came easily to them. Yet Gundle was so small, and the hacking cough wracked his body so painfully... the fact that he took to acid cultivation like a fish to water didn't feel unfair. Even with his limited spiritual sight, Gundle had been making progress on his own, basically…
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Along the way to New Laeneria, Zae Zin Nim repeatedly heard about how the city state was going to hell. Some said that all the merchants had been executed, others were just terrified that the peasants had taken over. As far as she could tell, their primary concern was that the city was no longer conducting trade in luxury items. It had been one of the greatest cities in the nation based on its fine metalwork. When she began flying over the outer fields she didn't notice anything particularly different. No…
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Despite Kai's deep skepticism that something would go horribly wrong or it would all turn out to be a trap, the acid pits community truly was as welcoming as it seemed. They seemed almost pathetically grateful to have someone from the outside who was willing to help. He didn't need to give them any promises about big plans for the future, just easing their pain was enough. Everyone cooperated with maintaining his secret. So long as he stayed in the central pits area, between several of the acid plateaus,…
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The moment seemed frozen in time. Nothing but the soft sounds of the acid as everyone stared at Kai. He realized that he was completely surrounded, not that the workers were any physical threat to him. And yet, if he had ruined things from the start... Abruptly the boy began squirming. Kai set him down and the boy patted his leg before wandering off. His sister cried out "Gundle!" and scooped him up, though he didn't seem much happier in her arms. But the disruption finally broke the stalemate and some of…
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Reaching the acid pits required very little time, the problem was getting in. Kai had been expecting something similar to the mines, with some kind of underground complex produced by the acid. Instead the acid sat in great pools between the plateaus, and in some places he even saw waterfalls of it - acidfalls? - eroding down the stone. He speculated that the acid must be under pressure from some underground system, but that wasn't the difficult part. Unlike the mines, with easily controlled entrances, the…
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Kai ate dinner, but he felt guilty about it. Even though he didn't eat at any of the most expensive restaurants, every single meal would have been an unfathomable feast to the workers in the mines. In an ideal world, everyone should have been able to eat like he did. But he didn't live in an ideal world, and he couldn't stop thinking about how this luxury was based on the enslavement of so many people. What else could he do, though? Sometimes he actually considered running out into the wastelands to eat…
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Moving across Krysal, especially on foot, meant that Kai had less time for Physique training. It was a bit of an adjustment, after all his time exercising in the mines, and he thought he could understand Zae Zin Nim's desire for a vehicle a little better. But another part of him welcomed the chance to experiment with everything he'd been suppressing among the workers. One of his first orders of business had been to reconsider his monstrous abilities. Infernotoad's Burst had served him well enough, but he…
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