Chapter 32: A vacant town road

There hadn't been a particular point or task that had befallen the young lady Lockheed. In her own cultivation journeys, her wild ascent to greatness, filled with danger and chance. If things happen the way the stories, she had heard from disciples who had returned from similar journeys, she would have her own harem of hotties this time next year.

Noble lady in question objective was to locate the missing sage. Her formal education gave her a more measured approach to her transmigration and the search for the lost deity cultivator. The world map had been enough to tell her that she wasn't on her home planet anymore. Pair that with what she managed to glen from Iris and those of this realm and she had a reasonable understanding of her odds of finding the rainbow sage.

Zero, if they could be lower, less than zero.

Fortunately for the girl in question, it was not expected to return with the sage, provided she spent enough time looking for her. The sect knew it was unlikely to find, and this happened to be an excuse to send the girl to gain experience in the world.

Valentine had not been alone like this since she came to this world. She was surprised at herself, and just how aimless she felt.

She had almost turned seventeen when Iris Xin had crashed into her life. Always drawing the noble into her pace, filling her with sweet words. The noble had felt that the sage needed the quiet as opposed to herself, who had trouble dealing with world. Most of her memories of the two of them together were done without spoken words. There was also the time Iris felt her up under the guise of instructing her… The time she fell asleep on her…the time she molested her under the guise of a recovery technique.

Iris may have needed to grope women to destress.

Peace put the girl who was used to fighting for her entire life in a state of constant oppression. Like a cat without claws, her cultivation base was wrecked. She was a powerhouse of the realm, fallen to serving a noble in a world that had no understanding of its greater principles.

That was what she had done, from the first day, all her actions were aimed at recovery. Every day off she had constituted a search for items with pure qi. After which she would fool around and harass the noble and the maids.

The noble pondered yet as she considers, there was not a single instance of the sage molesting a maid in the noble's memories. Could it have been just her? Did the noble somehow imagine that the sage would always ignore the personal space of others? Reflection answered that with yes, the sage only spent time harassing her.

If so, did that mean that she was considered special somehow?

Relationships were too confusing for the noble in the first place, so rather than dwell she considered the sequence of events. Iris appeared, started teaching her cultivation, at lest the martial side of it. From there she took leave in winter, triggering a tribulation when she rebuilt her foundation. Later in spring she managed to rebuild her golden orb trigger a second tribulation.

This led to the noble in the garden breaking through to what should have been nothing. Foundation building doesn't incur the wrath of the heavens unless one was attempting to switch from divine to demonic or vice versa.

Unless it wasn't the case for her realm. Iris may not have cared that she was in a different plane of existence or even knew if that was the case. Furthermore, the noble's own ascension to golden soul was marked with tumultuous thunder. In retrospect, it made sense that such instability was created when the two powers clashed.

Possibly, the only way to return home would be to twist the laws of the earth and ascend. Her golden orb coalesced properly, yet the space around her had been distorted. It made sense that her ascension to nascent soul might be enough to break through to her realm.

So, she could see Iris again.

Home, so the noble could go home to her house. That's what she had meant as she slapped her face to clear her thoughts.

The road she wandered on was surprisingly smooth. Despite its lack of traffic, she found it pleasant to walk along. Groves of bamboo and other dense underbrush showed signs of pruning. Gentle leaves and thin branches wove into a soft canopy filtered light and sheltered the noble from the heat of the day.

"Halt!"

Startled from her idle musing Noble Lockheed, glanced in the direction of the noise. Over the slight rise in the road stood a frayed group of ragtag individuals. Tucked away in the curve, Valentine hadn't considered anything of them. Dozens of indicators told her that this was not a group to care or be concerned about.

"This road is our road, and as such we demand a toll." For a moment the noble was stunned, she couldn't believe that such a clichéd event was happening to her. There had been tales told of the 18 forest bandits, the 12 strongholds of the valleys, which were large sects in their own rights. The area she was traveling through had no real mention of such activity.

"A toll, I thought only the governor bestowed a seal by the emperor could collect such tolls." There was no reason to be nervous, she was the enlightened one in this group, and messy dirty men rarely inspired the desire to be auspicious.

"She's right boss, were not supposed to be doing-"

"Quiet! This is our road now not the emperor's so we can toll if we want to." Silencing one of the more gangly youths in the group.

"If there's no toll, there no passage." Finishing smugly crosses his arms and appearing completely convinced that this was going to work. Nobles did not believe in hand outs, less of bandits and thugs, taking what belonged to nobles by right. Observing them for a bit the traveler came to a few conclusions about this group.

"She's not moving any Lee, what should we do?"

"We rehearsed this were supposed to look intimidating and threating. Tang, put those away now is not the time!" One of the men had a rake moving to smooth out a small depression on the far side of the dirt path.

"Qin, Ran, this isn't a time to clean the tools, it's time to show them off" To the side the 'bandits' were sharpening shovels and taking care of various tools. All of which would work to make a road easily traversable and navigable.

"From the top! Positions!" Like an overly nagging stage director, the townsfolk were herded off the road into the brush. For a few moments nothing happened, Valentine was grateful as she didn't have to say anything more. Several of the workers suddenly filed out with the leader Lee in front. Tang snuck off to the side to fix and smooth out the small depression that had bothered him.

"This here is our road! All those who pass must pay coin, right men?!" There was a weak hurrah behind them with the general scraping of the rake against the earth.

"I have no coins, I'm a traveling cultivator." That got a reaction of the associated rabble. Even a weak cultivator was more than enough to thrash them, who felt they could deal with low class warriors and escorts.

"Crap what do we do then?" Lee had turned and a small huddle formed as the small group started to bicker about what they should do.

"I have hard rations that I can spare if that would work." Valentine managed a simple welfare program on behalf of the duchy. Every month, she witnessed discrepancies and poor management whisk funds away from those who needed it. Even though she had coins, that would rarely lead them to success. Rations were the wiser choice.

"Goddess!"

"Divine benefactor!"

"Saint of hardtack!"

There were several more cries as the group were ecstatic at the prospect of lunch. It was obvious that these 'bandits' were just common villagers who fixed the roads. Pulling several small boxes from her storage space rings, she did not hesitate to hand them to Lee.

"You're not really thieves or highway men, are you?" Sputtering the man didn't have a coherent response. Making move to leave, the man finally got his act together. Handing of one of the boxes to the men he grabbed one of his subordinates to escort the lady.

Valentine for her part didn't say anything more and just let Lee and friend ramble on about how he ended up become a 'bandit' leader.

!@# !@# !@#

Iris Xin had begun the strange process of becoming Valentine Lockheed. In terms of ability, it wasn't a question, temperament on the other hand was a much more difficult problem. Ten great masters were generally solitary existences. Iris spent too much time cultivating to amass wealth and servants.

It took less than three days for the maids to miss their soft quiet noble lady.

Iris on the other point, was dancing with yet another maid. Here the week had been a constant struggle of survival, overcoming boring classes and histories. Dance was mildly enjoyable, the sage preferred to move verses study. Mrs. Ivory Petals was the dance instructor. Strict and overbearing, rambled endlessly on the meaning of each movement and step, recounted a long sordid history of each dance.

Martial cultivators were effective at drowning out others. Something about not recognizing others with significantly lower cultivation as humans, made them old hats at ignoring others without any care. Iris felt a slight tinge of guilt since lady Lockheed would never ignore her instructors.

"Feel this moment to guide your partner through the first spin. Such a spin ties the two lovers together who were swept away by torrential rain." Petals' voice cut through the soft music.

"Who gets swept away by rain?" Muttering to her partner as Iris delicately spun the girl, her black maid skirt flaring out. For reasons Iris could not discern, her partners all seemed to tither and blush when she danced with them. Rumor about the maid corps was that she looked dashing in noble clothes, male in the case of dance practice.

Ivory had taken a single dance to realize that no male could or would the sage allow herself to be led in a dance. Ten great masters and the like did not do things like get led by pathetic males who were weaklings. Iris only put two people in her eyes in the entire duchy. Valentine and the head maid even than the head maid were that way because she treated Iris like her own and was heavily liked by the noble lady of the house.

Iris was not the most aware of individuals, but it didn't take long for her to piece together that the position of personal maid or lady-in-waiting was a big deal for almost everyone. A few weeks in she had gathered enough to understand that it was a smiler position to aide of the sect leader of a sect on the same scale and level of the five great sects, most of which were deity cultivators themselves.

So, her 'crime' was just a shallow excuse to reward someone without admitting that she was rewarding someone.

Iris found it adorably cute.

There was a slight jangle as the brass buttons on other frills on her uniform rattled against itself. Her slacks and shoes were sharply pointed, showing off her solidness rather than her average height. Framewise the loose blouse with its accouterments showed her broadness gained from a lifetime of martial purists. Her jagged exotic nature gave her a sharp pretty boy look.

The second turn happened shortly after, and the maid was a bit of set and stumbled slightly. Showing off a bit of prowess, Iris stepped close, guiding the maid slowly into a deep dip, supporting her completely. Locking eyes, the maid was swept away by the sage's natural intensity, promptly flushed tomato red and steamed.

Ivory wanted to chastise them, but she had noticed the maids mistake, and the cover move was inline with the history of the piece. In retrospect, teaching the stand in daughter the leading male parts of dance was not the best of ideas. However, Ivory Petals was a dancer first, a instructor second and worshiped dance as her lord and master. Of all her students none had managed to hold the poise or control that this woman held. Who cares if she would latter humiliate some dumb male, dance was love, dance was life, the performance was all that mattered.

"Miss Petals, why do they always take of running as soon as we finish a number?" Iris had asked this off handedly, as when she went to bow, the overheated maid dashed off, making her six in the list of maids that couldn't handle dancing with a ten great master.

"They are not as committed to the art as you. Their inability to control their expressions, the missteps the lack of understand for history and their own nature within this greatness leaves them empty. Unable to bare the weight they flee."

Iris felt that this somehow was not the case, however she was a martial warrior, what did she understand about the intricacies of this nation's performance arts? All these actions were familiar as women and sometimes men would act in this manner after she had her first bone metamorphoses.

Ivory felt that the girl had too much intensity, and her natural focus was enough to send young ladies into tithers. Had Ms. Petals still been Lady Petals, she wasn't certain she could have held her focus in for a performance with the martial sage. Either way her blood boiled at the innate movement and physicality, it was defiantly the right choice to teach the girl to lead, as well as the male steps.

"Worry not, you who can bring this art to new heights should not be concerned." Iris tuned the dance instructor out as she thought about the noble, she was pretending to be. Her dark hair was still strait and long, acquiring the natural curls that that Valentine had wasn't possible. However, there wasn't need to worry, she knew a few stealth and deception techniques from her long life.

"With this even if all else fails, your dance will pierce the heats of all who witness, allowing them to ignore whatever short comings you have." Iris wasn't concerned, what she needed was to repay the favor and…

…See the noble again.

"I wonder if she would run away from me as well?"