An Unknown Location…
"Sigh! So, it has truly begun," an old man sitting on a mountain top said with heavy emotion. "This generation's Heavenly Emperor is sure ruthless. He did not waste much time in calling the Great Tribulation. If he had only waited for a few years, our plan would have been complete."
"Now, we have to improvise according to the situation. What a drag!!! What a drag!!! It was my mistake to miscalculate some things. If I had been a little more careful, we could have avoided this predicament."
"Still, the Heavenly Emperor is a bit naïve to call upon Great Tribulation like a willful child. Sure, it did hinder my plans a lot. But, the thing about Great Tribulations is that no one is safe from them. Be they be the Heavenly Emperor, Dao Ancestor, or even a Dao Lord. Not even me," a strange smile flickered across the old man's face,
"A Great Tribulation lasts for 100 years. That is 100 years in the realms at the top of the cosmos. Ha ha ha, with how these arrogant immortals act, they would never consider beings from the lowest realms to be a threat during these times. They would be politicking among themselves to try and bring down their enemies far too much to even think about these little nuances."
"This is also the time where countless Heaven's Chosen would emerge among the myriad worlds. To the Great Dao, all these things are immaterial. It treats everyone equally."
"As they say when Heaven closes one door, it will open a window in the back to ensure that there is always a possibility of a miracle. I will bet on that miracle. After all, time flows differently among the different realms. Heavenly Emperor, the game has just begun. Don't be too complacent…"
With that, the old man began laughing madly causing the surroundings to shake from the might that emitted from his body. After several minutes of deranged laughter, the old man vanished into thin air, leaving a calm breeze ruffling the mountaintop.
*****
Meanwhile, two months passed in a blur for Duncan.
Every alternate ten days, he went out to hunt with Roy's team. He had to say that being a mercenary hunter truly brought him an ample amount of money to live a leisurely life in the Starmist City.
With ample pay, Duncan began to once more indulge in his two true vices. By the end of the first month, he had almost tasted every flavor of wine that was present in the Starmist City that was available to non-cultivators.
He had even made a schedule for wine drinking as he went about spending most of the money he earned by doing that. One would be astounded as to the levels of length Duncan went to ensure that he tasted all the wine flavors present in the city.
In his room, there was a crude map of the city marking various kinds of wine available in the different parts of the city. He had meticulously made it after multiple sojourns through the city.
Apart from hunting, Duncan's one true job was to suss out what kind of wine was sold where in the city. He made it an almost daily ritual to go to the bar and talk with various locals about the wine in the city.
First, he would regale them regarding the different wines he had drunk. Which would inevitably lead to one hot-headed fellow or the other refuting his statement over which wine was best. Then, he would ply the information about the new wine that the person was talking about with drinks.
Once done, he would set his sights on the new wine and make his way to taste it the next day. Duncan almost made it an art form with the way he sussed out this information from unwitting fellow drunkards.
By the end of three months into his stay in the city, Duncan had tasted most of the wine available to common people in the city. The only few holdouts were wines that was in the hands of the wealthier class that couldn't be bought with money.
This also made Duncan realize yet another thing about life in general. Money was important, but sometimes it was not just enough to attain certain things. Status was yet another prerequisite to enjoying finer things in life.
Even if Duncan agreed to pay twice the price for a jar of wine in their hands, these wealthy people would only scorn him for his ignorance. To them, the amount of money Duncan paid was negligible. Unless Duncan could help them somehow, they would never share their wine with him.
For that, Duncan needed some sort of status or influence that could only be obtained slowly.
Duncan was not dejected learning this. In fact, it only motivated him to know that despite having enough money, he was not qualified to taste a jar of wine. In that case, he needed to get these qualifications to taste those wines. It was simple.
Moreover, he had also learned that the cultivators also had their own brand of wines of increasing potency. Unless one was a cultivator, one can only dream about obtaining them.
Initially, he had been lost in the haze of his wine drinking. After all, the city had a large variety of wine flavors to offer. Until he had met a wall in the form of insufficient status, Duncan had been content to taste the multitudes of wine flavors to his heart's content.
However, once he ran headfirst into the wall, he sobered up and realized that he had deviated from his original plan of finding answers to his questions regarding cultivation.
The worst thing was that he had yet to go to the Blue Wind Society Hall that Tong De had told him about. Not that he didn't want to go there, but the tricky thing was that the Blue Wind Society Hall was located in the wealthy quarter of the city.
Once more Duncan was stymied in his desire by the issue of status. The more he realized it, the more he understood how hard it is for some commoner like him to truly rise up in the world.
It only made him more determined to find a way to move up in the world.
As for his other vice, it can be said that Duncan was enjoying the bounties of the city very much. Compared to Bessa, the girls here were even more voracious and voluptuous.
Duncan could hardly resist their charms. If there is another thing that Duncan did apart from drinking wine and going on hunts, it was the fact that he sampled a wide variety of women during his stay in the city.
As a result, Duncan's experience in pleasing the opposite gender had gone through the roof. He had learned multiple ways to enjoy his time with a willing female for a few coins.
Moreover, unlike wine drinking, his escapes into the pleasure lands of the city also brought immense benefit to him due to the Coiling Dragon Sutra in his mind. The yin-yang vital qi that he obtained from his escapades nourished his body to a whole new level.
In short, Duncan's pure physical power was just shy of reaching the level of an entry-level cultivator. If Duncan was to fight against an entry-level cultivator, he might not necessarily lose at this moment.
Not that Duncan knew of it. He just assumed that he was far stronger than normal humans at this point. In his mind, cultivators were still all-powerful beings. The various warning Granny Jiao and Tang De had given him had instilled a firm belief in his mind.
Even though he kind of had a very poor opinion of them, in his mind, he was still wary of offending them due to the warnings. Duncan also harbored a little resentment towards the cultivators as they didn't share their wine with him, but that was whole another matter.
However, like with the wine, his other vice also met a roadblock. Lately, Duncan had begun to feel that he wasn't getting stronger anymore. He felt as if there was a barrier in his body that was hard to break. It felt as if he had reached the peak of his strength in this body.
This, along with the fact that there wasn't any more wine he could get his hands on, was the impetus that pushed Duncan to seek an opportunity to make a breakthrough at this moment.
However, despite Duncan's efforts, he still fell short in this aspect.
In the end, Duncan decided that it was time he went back home for a while before continuing his journey somewhere else. In a way, he missed Granny Jiao's wisdom and felt as if he was lost in this huge city unable to make any progress.
So, Duncan bid his farewell to the hunting team and came to the Mercenary Association to do one last mission. The one mission that has been always there but no one had the balls to accept.
"Need a sparring partner."
Duncan read the mission details and the corresponding high payout posted. He fell into silence for a moment as he thought furiously as to what to do, before ultimately deciding to see what the mystery behind this mission was all about.
With firm steps, he walked towards the reception counter in MA.
