The sudden absence of sound was almost defaning, after the constant sound of the train ride there. She stood, and stretched, and couldn’t resist the urge to laugh at the way nothing was shifting beneath them. It certainly made the whole experience so much better… the number of talismans she’d had to discard because of an errantly placed line…

She shivered, then pulled open the door and stepped out into their cabin. A few other stragglers were still around, pulling out of their own cabins and streaming towards the doors— not sparing her more than a brief glance.

Avyr, however, wasn’t quite so inconspicuous. The moment he slunk out of their cabin the entire car seemed to rippled nervously, passengers catching glimpse of him and flinching back. The reactions varied, beyond that. Some quickly looked away, hastening to their departure as fast as they could. A few others stared at him in naked fear. One or two watched in clear, almost disturbing, fascination. It was akin to what it’d first been like at the academy, except in many ways even more extreme.

The effect wasn’t at all diminished as they stepped out into the station, easily leaping over the small gap between train and platform. Everyone stared at them. Even at the worst of times, it’d never been this bad in East Saffron— there had been attention, even significant attention at times, but people had at least heard

of the cats. Here, they gawked at Avyr like she’d personally tamed the celestial tiger and brought him to their little town.

Avyr, at the attention, shrunk back, hackles rising almost instinctively— and before he could fall back even further into himself, Lily reached out and ran a hand along his flank. “It’s fine. They’re not going to do anything— they’re just… nervous. Let’s go. We need to figure out where our final destination is anyways.”

“Right.” Avyr almost visibly wrested control over himself— “right, we’re— hey! Wait up!” Lily smirked to herself as Avyr bound after her, sliding neatly through the crowd with all the feline grace of a Shedding cultivator who was also a cat. He caught up quickly, obviously, pouting at her as they stepped out of the station and onto the streets of Chongtian. “That was mean. Did you really have to do that?”

“I had to get you out of your head.”

“Not your job,” he grumbled, but didn’t complain further. They both knew it’d probably been for the best. Now… where to? She hummed to herself as she scanned over the small square outside of the station. The town— or at least this part of the town— had clearly been built a long time past, the ancient style of architecture evident only a little less than the incredible amount of color. The buildings of East Saffron were usually more tastefully colored— those that were painted anything other than a cool white or dull red at all— but Chongtian was covered in vibrant color. An almost garishly blue townhouse abutted a burningly scarlet hall, right next to a business building of some sort painted eye-searingly green.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Avyr looked out at it, blinked, and summed up her thoughts on the profusion of color quite nicely— “that… is an interesting design choice.” She wondered what had happened in the past, to make such incredibly vibrant colors the fashion of the area. It was so different from East Saffron…

She stepped out onto the streets— cobbled streets, not even asphalt! And just… kind of set out in the rough direction of where they needed to go, Avyr following reluctantly behind her. There was so much to explore. They couldn’t spend much time in Chongtian if they wanted to get anything done before they had to leave back to the academy, but for this one brief moment she let herself just marvel at the city as she wandered through it. Lanterns hung from ropes and electric cables, cars puttered through narrow streets, people gave Avyr looks of almost-terror… normal things, mostly. It was a strange experience.

She wondered what it was like, for the people who lived here. Did they have a sect they could enter with enough effort? Could they, too, follow the path of cultivation? Would they feel the same sense of wonder, traveling to the monumental polity that was East Saffron? Or not, perhaps, even the majesty of its walls paling in comparison to the mountains that stretched high into the cold heavens above Chongtian…

“Can we hurry up and get to the bounty hall?” Avyr, on the contrary, was clearly not quite as enthused with the city as she was. She could see it in the way he walked, nervously shifting from paw to paw, gaze flicking across every shadowed eave and darkened hallway and tight street— and there were a lot of tight streets, all interconnecting and tangling together almost without rhyme or reason. “I don’t know how long it’s going to be until someone calls the guard on us, and I want to be out of here as soon as possible.”

“Fair enough.” So went her yearning to taste the local cuisine… but that wouldn’t have come to fruition anyways. They had enough funds for rations, and only rations. She wanted to keep some in reserve just in case anything unexpected happened. “I’m pretty sure there’s a good one just a few minutes walk from here. We’re almost there.”

“Thank the heavens… I’ve been tired of this whole thing from the moment I stepped off the train.” Right. Right… Lily winced, and picked up the pace a little. Maybe she should’ve been just a little more considerate…

Well, either way, they still had to actually make it there. It didn’t take long, following the signage towards the Chongtian-Dragonspine Association of Alchemists, Formation Masters, and Explorers, accepting applications apparently, if their advertisements were anything to go off.

The building itself was… impressive, in a pathetic sort of way. She saw it as they stepped out into the small square— really more of a slightly wider street— in front of it; a five story pagoda that must have at one time towered over the rest of the town’s buildings. Now reduced— not actually changed but rendered all the lesser regardless by the blocky new construction that’d risen around it, changing its backdrop from empty sky to gray concrete.

The mountains still rose behind it all, though. Inescapable and unchangeable; those pillars from heaven to earth outstripping any work of hand or paw.

She spent a moment just taking in the sight, watching and being watched in turn by the various people slipping into and out of the pavilion, before she nodded to Avyr and strode inside.