Wandering Storm
Chapter 1: Arrival

On a peaceful grassland, in the middle of nowhere. The vast expanse of the vivid green grass, along with some scattered colorful flowers here and there, together they create an amazingly breathtaking scenery. The evergreen prairie stretched endlessly in all directions and connected to the boundless bright blue sky above on the horizon. Here, one could only have the desire to lay down and mindlessly look at the sky, waiting for the day to pass.

Out of nowhere.

Pop!

A human figure simply appeared on the grassland, without any signs or disturbance, even the grass below was still gently swaying, as the figure seemed to be floating at a very low altitude. He was a tall guy, with a youthful looking face. His hair is black and simple, albeit a little bit unkempt. His eyes were grey-purple, with a hint of mysteriousness dwelt deep within.

He wore a simple brown robe, one that you could replace anywhere. This style was popular among the magic apprentices in most fantasy world. However, his robe looked worn, but not too much, and it was weirdly tidy and ironed.

As his lips curved into a relaxing smile, he said:

“Ah, what refreshing air. Hmmm, so this is like my home world eh? Fantasy and magical… Why are there so many worlds like this…?”

He looked around, and saw a faint silhouette looming afar on the horizon. It looked like a large city of sort, with gigantic buildings, and an especially colossal, sky-piercing tower sprouting from the middle. The man nodded slightly and decided to walk toward it.

He casually strolled straight towards the city, admiring the blissful sights along the way. His pace was constant, and he whipped his head left and right, up and down, to fully absorb the immaculate beauty of the grassland.

Once reached the city, the first thing he saw was the towering wall surrounding it. It was extremely tall, almost as tall as that weird building called Burj something in a world that he had came across, he craned his neck to its limit and could barely see the tip. Moreover, aside from the looming height, subtle but potent magical waves could be felt emanating from the wall.

“What’s with all these defense? Is this peaceful city under some sort of attack?” The man wondered.

Skirting around the outer wall for a while, the man had finally found a gate. A long line of people could be seen stretching from it.

“Also generic human? I guess evolution and natural selection like this way a lot, huh. Well, I’m one of them too, nyeh.”

The gate was also colossal, taking almost about half of the wall’s height. And it was even thicker, too. Additionally, intricate black lines could also be seen etched on it, which gave it a mysterious and magical vibe.

Each side of the gate stationed a guard in heavy armor and a polearm, and a big metallic golem. Even more overkill, a cannon or something was hung on top of the gate.

“Seriously, isn’t this too much? What are all these for?”

Slowly, the robed man approached the line. The people seemed not to notice him and kept on chattering. They spoke a foreign language which the man had never heard before. He couldn’t understand a single word. But then, a faint smile appeared on his lips.

“Hehe, I understand now. Hmmm, this language is kinda similar to the English, was that what it was called? The structure is the same. But the vocabulary is completely different.”

Simply eavesdropping what the people said, he had got some information. He was now in the Empire of Hatosh, and this was the City of War, Derenal. The man wondered again, about what was the chance that he landed on such a city right from the start.

He then joined the line from the tail, patiently waiting for his turn to come. He noticed that all of the people have their own wagons containing goods.

“Most of the wagons contain either metal or weapon parts. Some others have food and random necessities” He scrutinized.

Without no one’s knowing, the man pulled a cart out of thin air, and on which a stone with intricate blue drawing lines laying and humming gently.

From the wagons and the people’s chatter, the man inferred that the city was in the middle of a preparation, a really big one, and they encouraged citizens from all over the Empire to sell metal and other military related goods here. Therefore, he came up with an idea, that is to sell a rune stone. Because of the magical settings, he thought that magical material could also be sold here.

After a while, his turn had finally come. An officer, wearing a different type of armor, which was more “pompous” than those the 2 guards’, approached him.

“What is your business visiting this place?”

“Sir, I am here to sell a rune stone. I’m a sorcerer you see. In order to earn some money and to help the Empire, I have decided to sell this precious stone which I found during an adventure”

‘What horrible lies, hehe’ The man thought to himself.

“... Wait here.” The officer told him.

He whispered another soldier nearby something, which made the latter’s eyes widened a bit. Then he ran away. A short while later, the soldier came back and brought another person with him.

The companion of the soldier, dressed quite like the robed man. Long robe, which obviously indicated that he was another magician. However, this magician’s robe was purple with some golden lines embedded on it. And he wielded a long staff, whose design was similar to the robe.

“Stay back, we are going to examine the stone.” The officer said in a commanding tone. The man obliged and backed of a bit.

The magician then started casting some spells, magical letters and symbols with various colors hovered around the stone, caressed it carefully.

About a minute late, the magician stopped casting and nodded to the officer. The brown robed asked

“Is everything good, sir?”

“Yes, you can go in now. Welcome to Derenal.” The officer said in a monotonous tone.

‘Huh? That was easy? I thought it would fail and I had to make another plan, or just blink into the wall… That would be boring…’

“Thank you, Mr. Officer” The man bade farewell to the guards and the purple robe magician and got into the city while pulling the cart.

Actually, after passing through the tall gate, the merchants had to traverse through another vast field between the outer in inner walls. The distance from the inner wall to the outer was roughly 4 kilometers, this made the brown robe man perplexed even more.

To his expectation, the city was indeed extremely crowded and busy. Everybody seemed to be in a rush, trading happened all over the place. Humans, elves, but no dwarves in sight… Here and there, troops could be seen keeping order of the city.

Luckily, there was also a newcomer, and she asked a soldier where she could replace a smith. The soldier replied that all the dwarves and smiths had been called by the city’s government.

The man was interested in the heated and bustling atmosphere of the city, captivated by how orderly this city is despite all the chaos. Looking at the rune stone on the cart, he said to himself.

“Let’s replace a place to sell this first, I need some money anyway. I can also get some information by trading.”

Pulling his cart with one hand, although most people ignored him, some others’ focus was captured by the stone, which was displayed obviously on a poor-looking vehicle.

Wandering from streets to alleys, the man finally decided to sell the stone to a random store. He pushed the large wooden double-winged door of the biggest house he could found, on top of the door hanged the sign of crystals and the name “Astaris”.

Even the inside of this building is crowded ‘Huh, guess I got into a popular one. Or every shop is just like this…’

“Welcome to Astaris, how may I help you, sir?” A young blond girl in a brown robe similar to his greeted him.

“I’m here to sell a rune stone, can you help me?”

“Sure!” The girl cheerfully replied and led him to another room.

Of course, there was also a line outside the room. Welp, waiting is happiness, or whatever the Vietnamese said.

In the line, most of the people were robed. Some held chests, others had bags, some even simply held a stone in their hands. Only the robed man pulled a cart with him, and this made the other people in the line look.

Several eyes gleaming with interest or greed stared at the stone on the cart. But soon the gazes soon disappeared, as their owners perhaps were afraid of the order of the city or the shop. The robed man didn’t care about any of this.

Finally it was his turn, pulling the cart into the room, the robed man found himself in a interesting place. The room was neither small nor big, in the middle of it was a device with several colorful circles and lines surrounding. At the door, a man in blue robe was standing.

“That’s the biggest one today, or even this week” The blue robed pointed at the stone.

“Really?”

“Yes, rune stones as big as this are usually not that hard to replace, but a blue one…”

‘What’s wrong with blue?’ The brown robed worried.

“Seems like you don’t know the value of this treasure. Where did you get this, young man?”

“I came across it during an adventure, it was a very arduous one. I was really lucky to survive it. As how I brought it here, I mostly used my subspace bag given by my teacher. Hehe, I only put it on a cart because I worried that I wouldn’t be able to pass the gate.”

“Alright… Put it on the device, I’ll have it measured” Said the blue-robed halfheartedly.

Putting the stone on the device, the brown robed man stepped back a bit. Then the circles began to glow, symbols and waves similar to what the purple robe magician cast appeared and surrounded the stone.

“Who was your teacher, young man? That subspace bag with that much volume is quite hard to craft since it could hold such a stone.”

“Oh, my master was dead long ago, this was his legacy that he left for me. His other students got better stuff.”

In fact, the brown robed only conjured the bag before entering the room. He couldn’t just say that he conjured a rune stone and a cart out of nowhere, right?

After a while, the orb connecting to the device started to glow, it was a faint blue color.

“Interesting… Although it is not as potent as I expected from the size and color, it was still a very precious stone. You can give this paper to the receptionists outside and negotiate the price with them”

“Alright, thank you, sir” The brown robed bowed and walked out, towards the receptionist desk and gave the paper to a woman.

Like many others, this woman was also robed in a deep green one, she was middle-aged, with long wavy black hair.

“Hmmm, I see, a tier 5 stone, although not potent, its size should make up. We’ll pay you 800 gold coins. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, I think that’s good enough” He accepted the price without negotiating any further, as he had no idea how the economic here worked at all. And also because he was too lazy to pour the information into his mind like what he did to the language.

The man said goodbye to the shop and exited. Now having gained some money, he wondered what to do next. After aimlessly walking around the streets for half an hour, he got to a large square, where a small stage was held and a figure wearing a noble-looking dress was standing on. The figure unfolded a scroll and announced out loud.

“Citizens of Hatosh Ep! Our Empire has been growing strong and fast for the last decades, all thanks to the brilliance of His Majesty and all the people’s contribution! However, a disaster is about to descend upon our peace! Thereby, we need more power to protect this peace from the ruination. In the next 7 days, a recruiting program shall be held to select soldiers who are willing to fight for this Empire. The Emperor encourage everyone to join in as Glory and Wealth shall be rewarded regardless of victory or failure!”

“Interesting…” A mysterious smile once again bloomed on his face. “A disaster, not a war or battle… I guess that’s why the outcomes doesn’t matter as long as you survive… I’ll have to check this out tomorrow.”

Then he left the square and found a cheap hotel to eat and sleep. To his surprise, the cost of food and the accommodation only costed him 0.8 of a gold coin ‘The stone was that valuable? I only made it on a whim…’

The man took off his brown robe and hanged it in the wardrobe, then he took a warm shower. Having finished the night routine, he turned off the lamp and went to bed, patiently waiting for the next day to come.