Cara closed her eyes as she walked and she felt the earth around her. She focused her mana through the Spirit of the land and she could see beyond her eyes, and a new world opened before her.

[Spirit Forge has increased!

Spirit Forge: 4]

Once again a familiar interface popped up. Cara brushed it aside. She understood that 'Forge' meant something different here than what she knew. She considered that it might have been a mis-translation, since her skill in the language of this world did come directly from a 12 year old girl.

In her time here, Cara spent most of it in isolation. She had little practice in speaking to others using the 'Common' language her status listed. For a moment she wondered if she should enter an education institution during her time in the Tin City just to polish her communication abilities.

That thought passed like a fleeting cloud on a windy day.

Cara had bigger fish to fry. She looked over her shoulder and noticed her student following along. Both women smiled when their eyes met. It was a wonderful day for a stroll.

Cara wore an older, gray, patchwork robe; it was something Zara brought over. Despite the harsh look, the robe itself had several powerful Arrays inscribed into its weaving, and it could serve as a lifeline in an emergency.

-

The wide and savage forest thinned. The trees clustered into pockets, leaving wider spaces free. Soon the forest gave way to winding, stone-paved roads.

As they walked Cara noted that they passed several Golems. The more fascinating thing, though, was that the Golems didn't seem to be running out of energy despite having a Qi base.

"Zara, how did you make the Golems not need recharging? From what I can see they still run on Qi, and there is no Qi here," Cara asked.

"They can make their own Qi," Zara replied. "They are solar powered, and they can convert sunlight into Qi just like a Third Rung Soul Refining cultivator can make Qi from their environments."

Cara's jaw dropped. "That's genius," she remarked, in complete awe. "Can you share the spell models you used to create them?"

"Sure, Teacher, but we'll have to do that later."

"Why later?"

"Ah, that's right. You're a lot weaker now. I keep forgetting that. There are people coming down the road behind us, moving towards the City. They must be just out of your detection range."

Cara didn't know what to say to that. Her detection range was already incredible by using the ability Spirit Forge, but even with that she shouldn't be compared to the sensory abilities of an Ascendant Realm cultivator.

Just as the thought passed, a small group entered Cara's detection range. There were three men on horseback and a small carriage. They were moving north along the roads.

"I can sense them now," said Cara.

"They're moving quite fast. Should we leave the road?" Zara asked.

"Let's just move to the side and let them pass. I'm sure they won't bother us," Cara replied.

The ground started to shake a bit as the horses and carriage approached, their hooves thundering on the stone road.

"Out of the way!" Bellowed one of the horsemen. He was a stocky man, stout and round, but he had the aura of a veteran. He practiced Outer Cultivation and seemed to be in the Xantian Rungs, by Cara's estimate. The other riders were only in the Houtian Rungs.

Cara and Zara moved to the side of the road, stepping on the mossy banks. They watched the carriage and horses barrel past them. There was a crest on the carriage of two magpies crossing in flight.

"I'm glad your Golems are letting people through on the roadways," said Cara with a smile. She hadn't brought up the idea with her disciple yet, but it seemed Zara was two steps ahead.

Zara grinned, but her mind was in turmoil. She hadn't intended for the Golems to leave the roads alone. In fact, she originally intended for them to clear the roadways too, but when she commanded them:

"Go, protect this forest from outsiders. If any human enters here, kill them with extreme prejudice. Leave only me and the young girl Cara."

She realized the loophole in her original command! She used the term 'forest' but the Golems hadn't considered the roadways part of the forest, since they were technically man-made constructs.

She lucked out.

"Yeah," Zara replied, "Of course I would command my Golems to leave the people on the roads alone. They're just passersby, after all."

Her voice wasn't convincing, but Cara didn't seem to mind.

-

Following the trail left behind by the carriage, the end of the forest appeared. Cara smiled as she walked out from the final glade and into an open field that stretched for miles around. In the distance she could see the outer wall of the Tin City. Above the wall the tops of several buildings were peeking over, their upper windows leering like voyeurs, and beyond them a few imposing towers stood like monoliths.

The walls and buildings were made of metal and were reddish-brown in color from years of rust. A powerful magic traveled along the outer walls and mana coursed through them like blood through veins.

The city itself almost seemed alive with magic. Even from this distance Cara could feel an imposing pressure.

"There's someone at least as strong as a Nascent Soul cultivator in that city," said Zara, her eyes meticulous and sharp. "No, it's stronger than that. Whoever is giving off this pressure is probably in the Soul Refining Rungs, even."

"Your ability to sense mana isn't that great," said Cara with a smile as her eyes glowed, shining the color of charcoal from her connection with the Earth Spirit. "There are two strong people, and both are in the First Rung of Soul Refining."

Zara's head snapped to the side and she looked at her teacher with a strange eye. "How can you tell? Aren't you just practicing Outer Cultivation, right now?"

"I'm not practicing Internal Cultivation with mana, if that's what you're asking. I still think that's an impossible feat," said Cara.

"Then how can you sense that well at only the Zong Realm in Outer Cultivation?"

"I haven't told you, but I somehow contracted a Spirit of this forest.."

"No, really, Teacher, how did you actually sense it?"

"I'm not joking," snapped Cara.

"Spirits exist here?" said Zara.

"Souls exist. Why shouldn't a forest have a soul, then?"

"Is... Is 'Contracting a Spirit' a new Path?" Zara asked with a trembling voice, a voice touching on deeper desires.

"I'm not certain. I only know how to use it in some very minor ways, but there might be other ways to use the ability. It's one of the reasons I want to travel. There's only so much I can figure out through self study."

Zara sighed, "Very well. Then let's go. If there are only two in the Soul Refining Rungs, I can let you go without much worry."

"We'd go to the city even if they were in the Ascendant Rungs," Cara remarked as she started walking across the field towards the city.

"If there were Ascendants in that city I'd have dragged you back to the tree-house," Zara muttered under her breath, careful to make sure her Teacher didn't hear.

As they neared the city, the number of people on the roads increased. Several buildings and markets were set up outside the city limits, and a basic suburb thrived. Among the people there were a few who practiced knight techniques and even a couple were weapon cultivators, but there were no Mages.

Cara felt a bit disappointed she didn't get to see any mages as she walked, but she didn't let it show. She kept a bright smile on her face and she would have attracted a ton of attention if not for her patchwork clothes and Zara's ferocious eyes. The two held hands and made sure to scour the stalls and shops for any good materials.

Cara still wanted to create a weapon for her own Weapon Refining Cultivation. For that she needed materials that wouldn't limit her cultivation on that front, and she didn't want to rely on the materials Zara brought over.

Cara didn't want to cultivate a Weapon with Qi-based parts. She planned on doing it with Mana-infused ores and monster chitin instead.

The reason was simple: if she used Qi-based materials the newly crafted weapon would need to absorb Qi to advanced in cultivation. If the weapon was forged with magic-based items, though, it would be able to cultivate with mana. In a world without Qi but filled with Mana, the choice was obvious.

Along the way Cara found a few items she liked, and she managed to get them using pelts from the Crocodile-Apes and other basic items in trade.

At one particular stall, as Cara approached, she sensed a dense mana. She jumped forward and found a small black stone leaking a foreign energy. Cara reached for it but, at the same time, someone else's hand did too. They both grabbed it at the same time.

Cara looked up to see a tall young man wearing refined, red robes. He held onto the rock with one hand, just as Cara did, and he wore a sneer on his face.

"Trash, let go of this Magicite Ore, and I'll only have my guards break your legs after this instead of killing you," said the young man. He pulled on the black ore with a strength slightly beyond a normal human, but Cara couldn't sense any mana from him.

It was at this point Cara noticed the man wore a crest of two magpies crossing flights on his lapel. Behind him were two men, one of which was one of the guards that had rushed by on horseback earlier.

Unfortunately, the Xantian Realm knight wasn't there.

With a quick snapping motion, Cara pulled the rock free from the young nobelite's hand, nearly taking him off his feet with the sudden force. It was so easy it reminded her of an old idiom from her time on earth: 'It was like taking candy from a baby.'

"You dare!" The man yelled as he corrected his stumble. One of his guards pulled free a sword.

Cara smiled and started to release her aura. Without her concealment technique active, the air itself seemed to shiver from the raw mana. Cara's hair danced on the wind her own cultivation produced.

The guard with the sword charged and swung down, aiming to split the girl in twain. Several onlookers screamed at the sudden assault, and a few ran off to get the guards. Most closed their eyes, not wanting to watch a young woman be cut down by some nobleman's guard.

Cara laughed and caught his sword's edge with her bare hands. A loud thunderous sound boomed in the area. Time seemed to stop in that moment. The people cringing back opened their eyes to see a strange scene: a broken sword and a red-faced man literally slapped into the ground.

"Young Miss, please forgive my Young Master," a new voice cut in, a familiar voice. Cara turned her head to the side to see the Xantian Realm knight running over, his breath shallow. He wheezed a bit under Cara's mana pressure.

The 'Young Master' was on the ground trembling. At that moment Cara could finally feel a touch of mana from him, but it was below the Houtian Rungs entirely. It was an undiscovered level of cultivation, for Cara, but it was in the wrong direction! Rather than setting records by reaching a new higher tier, the Young Master set a record by reaching a tier even lower than the Houtian Rungs.

Cara almost laughed.

"Your 'Young Master' here threatened to break my legs and then some," said Cara with a grin. She tossed the broken sword to the ground and lightly kicked the dropped guard, sending him flying off towards the group's carriage.

"I'll atone for him," said the Knight. "If you've seen his crest you must know who we represent. Please do us this favor and you'll be recompensed greatly." He bowed until his head touched the dirt. Cara could feel his sincerity and, honestly, didn't feel too bad about the entire situation. Earlier this man had yelled out in warning while riding his horse, too. He clearly wasn't a bad person. Cara didn't want to put him in too tough of a spot just because he served someone incompetent.

"Well, alright," said Cara as she relaxed and hid her aura again. In the end she didn't really care too much about punishing some uppity arrogant kid. She turned towards the shopkeeper of the stall and grinned while holding up the rock. "Shopkeep, how much for this 'Magicite Ore'."

The shopkeeper, almost in the throes of a panic attack, gave the ore away to Cara for free. The Xantian knight had dragged away his young master during this time.

Cara watched them go back and tend to their horses and wagon. Their carriage was parked at the end of a long line of carriages that snaked its way through the bazaar towards the city ahead. Cara rubbed her chin at the sight.

"Do we need to wait in that line to get in the city?" Cara asked a passerby.

"No, miss. That's the line for carriages and merchants. If you're just a normal citizen there's a gate about a fifteen minute walk along the East Wall. There's only a brief inspection and a short line there."

"Thank you," said Cara in reply. She started walking off but was jerked to a stop. Her hand, still holding Zara's, didn't move.

Cara turned her head to see a still Zara fuming.

"Zara, leave it," said Cara in a stern tone.

"Why did you just let them off?" Zara asked, her eyes not leaving the Magpie carriage and the guards in that direction.

"Why do I need to do anything to them? I already beat down one of their guards. It's just some arrogant noble upstart. They're a dime-a-dozen."

"He TOUCHED your HAND!" Zara yelled, drawing a few stares from the surroundings. Cara cocked her head to the side.

"... Zara, you're being set off a little too easy, here. Touching hands? That doesn't really mean anything. Remember all the times when we were traveling through the Jalsa Worlds, when I shook hands with those villagers? You didn't act like this back then..."

"That was different!" said Zara. "You weren't a cute girl, back then! Only I should be allowed to touch your hands!"

The stares from the surroundings turned a bit stranger, and a few people turned away, deciding to ignore the crazy raving woman with green hair.

"Just come with me," said Cara as she pulled hard, her voice and eyes deadpan. She almost wanted to give up at that moment. Zara reluctantly let Cara pull her along.

It was still very early, but Cara could tell that it was going to be a very long day.