The Continental Express Line 9 sliced through the jagged granite canyons of the Western Continent's outer rim like a silver spear. Powered by a twin-core compressed mana turbine, the massive train maintained a steady cruise of nearly six hundred kilometers per hour, hovering effortlessly a few inches above elevated magnetic rails.
Through the panoramic reinforced-glass window of VIP Suite 4, rugged, mist-shrouded peaks gradually yielded to vast expanses of golden pine forests, sparkling glacial rivers, and towering wind turbines that harvested both kinetic storms and ambient natural Qi.
Inside our private suite, the atmosphere was remarkably serene.
Furnished with plush velvet sofas, polished cherrywood tea tables, and faint acoustic formations embedded in the walls, the cabin completely drowned out the mechanical hum outside. I sat comfortably by the window, legs crossed, enjoying a freshly brewed cup of mountain-spring jasmine tea.
Pushpa lay curled into a neat black circle directly on my chest, her gentle breathing rising and falling with soft, rhythmic purrs. Her fur was sleek and obsidian once more, though every now and then she would crack open a slit golden eye and cast a narrow, suspicious glare toward my hands—a silent feline warning that if yellow dye ever came within ten feet of her again, she would casually unravel my soul from the astral plane.
"Relax, little master," I murmured, lightly scratching beneath her chin with a gloved finger. "The dye was water-soluble. A master strategist uses every tool at his disposal, including creative costuming."
Pushpa let out a tiny, dismissive harrumph, closed her eyes, and buried her chin deeper into my robes.
Across the seating area, Lina sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a semi-circle of floating, holographic schematics. Her brass mechanical monocle whirred softly, adjusting focus as she analyzed the mag-rail train's internal circuitry while simultaneously cracking the local encrypted commercial data-nets of the Central Plains.
"Master," Lina spoke without looking up, her stylus rapidly tapping notes across a glowing slate. "I've tapped into the train's internal manifest and trade network. Since the Continental Express connects the eastern maritime ports directly to the mercantile capital, the first-class observation lounge is currently hosting a rolling mid-transit private exhibition. High-tier traveling merchants and auctioneers are showcasing rare regional goods before reaching the grand auction houses inland."
"A traveling marketplace?" Lu Xiaoran asked, leaning over the back of the sofa with sudden interest.
He was still wearing a clean traveling tunic, though his eyes carried the faint, haunted look of someone who had recently sprinted for his life. He stretched his arms, wincing slightly. "Master, please tell me we can go check it out. Anything is better than sitting here waiting for my muscles to remember what Chintu's footsteps sound like."
"Chintu was merely helping you refine your three-point pivot, Xiaoran," I smiled warmly, setting my teacup down with a delicate clink. "Though a stroll through an exhibition isn't a bad idea. Broadening one's horizons by studying rare artifacts is an essential scholarly discipline."
Beside Lu Xiaoran, Roman was quietly tightening the leather wraps around his massive forearms. His bear-like frame practically occupied an entire two-seater bench on its own. He chuckled deeply at Xiaoran's complaining, reaching out with a heavy hand to affectionately ruffle the young swordsman's messy hair.
"Don't whine so much, kid," Roman rumbled, his voice rough but filled with genuine warmth. "Footwork keeps your heart beating. If you can outrun an ancient beast, no assassin in the Central Plains will ever touch your back."
"Easy for you to say, Uncle Roman! You're built like an iron fortress!" Lu Xiaoran swatted playfully at Roman's giant hand, though there was zero heat in the gesture.
To an outsider, the dynamic between them looked like an older brother teasing a younger one. But observing the quiet tenderness in Roman's scarred, weathered eyes whenever he looked at Xiaoran, I knew the connection went deeper than simple sect companionship. Roman carried an unspoken weight—a lingering shadow from a chapter of his life long before he joined Anonymous Hall, tied to an old tragedy where only a single girl had survived a catastrophic fire. To Roman, that girl was a daughter; and to Lu Xiaoran, that girl was his mother. It was why Roman watched over the boy with the fierce, protective instinct of an old guardian angel who refused to fail twice.
"Come along then," I said, rising to my feet. Pushpa smoothly shifted her weight, transitioning from my chest to her familiar perch draped around the back of my neck like an opulent fur scarf. "Let's see what treasures the traveling merchants have hauled from the eastern frontiers."
The first-class observation lounge and exhibition carriage was an opulent, two-story atrium.
Stained-glass chandeliers illuminated velvet-draped display pedestals, polished brass railings, and heavy display cases protected by low-humming crystal barriers. Aristocratic travelers in fine silks, wealthy guild representatives, and wandering weapon collectors milled about, sipping champagne while appraising ancient spellbooks, rare beast cores, and enchanted armaments.
We strolled casually through the perimeter. Lina immediately gravitated toward a glass case containing pre-calamity mana-conduits, murmuring rapid technical critiques under her breath, while Lu Xiaoran dragged Roman toward the weapon displays, excitedly pointing at twin daggers and broadswords.
"Look at this curved saber, Uncle Roman! The forging array has three wind runes etched directly into the fuller!" Xiaoran pointed through the glass.
Roman nodded politely, but his gaze remained distant, casually scanning the room with the practiced vigilance of a veteran.
Until he suddenly froze.
His heavy footsteps came to an abrupt, dead halt. His colossal shoulders locked up, and every muscle in his neck pulled taut like iron cables.
I stopped beside him, narrowing my yellow eyes behind my gold-rimmed spectacles. "Roman?"
Roman didn't answer. His breath hitched in his chest, a deep, raspy inhale that sounded like a man drowning. His scarred face drained of all color, his eyes wide and trembling as they locked onto a pedestal at the center of the exhibition floor.
Resting on a crimson velvet cushion inside a reinforced glass case was a weapon.
It was a heavy, bone-white scepter, roughly four feet long, forged from dense, polished celestial ivory and banded with weathered dark-iron rings. The head of the scepter was sculpted into the fierce, blunt visage of an open-jawed lion, its hollow eyes set with dull, dormant red spirit stones. It didn't possess the flashy, brilliant elemental mana of the modern western staves; instead, it radiated an ancient, brutal weight—the distinct aura of an unyielding bludgeon that had tasted the blood of a thousand gladiatorial arenas.
A decorative brass plaque beneath the case read:
[Lot 14: The Ivory Cleaver - Former Scepter of the National Arena Champion][Acquired from the Eastern Border Pawn Exchange. Starting Bid: 50,000 Gold Coins.]
Lu Xiaoran noticed Roman's stillness and walked over, tilting his head in confusion. "Uncle Roman? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Roman's massive hands clenched into fists so tight that his leather wraps creaked, the knuckles turning stark white. A faint, uncontrollable tremor ran down his right arm.
'That weapon...'
I stepped closer to the glass, extending a whisper of Prana energy to probe the scepter's internal structure. Embedded deep within the dense ivory core, buried under decades of dust and faded enchantments, were tiny, microscopic fractures—scars left behind by the raw, crushing physical pressure of an earth-shattering brute force.
It was Roman's old signature weapon.
Long before he ever wandered the wilderness, long before he walked into the Great Fire Forest to seek a path to supreme power, Roman had been a fighter. A national tournament gladiator who had bled in sandy rings, breaking bones and shattering champions beneath the roar of bloodthirsty crowds, all for a purse of Victory.
He hadn't fought for glory. He hadn't fought for pride. He had fought to keep the hearth fires burning in a small, secluded sanctuary—an orphanage filled with innocent children who had nowhere else in the world to go.
He fought warriors from different nations, even in international or intercontinental tournaments, representing his nation. Until fall in love, deciding to make a family but that love disappeared one day; since then, to fulfill his need to love, he built an orphanage for the orphans like him who need a family and love, more than he needs it.
And when the tournament purses had dried up, when winter came, and medicine was scarce, Roman had done the unthinkable for a proud warrior: he had parted with his own soul-bound partner, selling the Ivory Cleaver to a merchant caravan just to secure bread, blankets, and medicine for the children he loved like his own flesh and blood.
He had sacrificed his pride as a martial artist for that haven.
Yet the tragedy of his past was that gold couldn't stop cruel fate. An arson fire of mysterious origin had swept through the sanctuary years later, turning the building, the laughter, and the children into cold black ash. I know that there is something fishy about this and someone or something did that to that orphanage, and that curse on Roman is proof of that; it is a tragedy so traumatic that Roman doesn't want to talk about it. All I know is that only one little girl survived, not because of luck, but because she was away. Lu Xiaoran's mother is the only surviver cause before that incident, her real parents somehow found her, stating that she went missing and requested to take her back, which Roman accepted despite her tantrums, which somehow saved her from death.
Roman stared at the white scepter, his broad chest heaving slightly as ancient, suffocating guilt rose in his throat. Selling the weapon had bought them food, but it hadn't saved them. Seeing the scepter now, polished and displayed like a gaudy souvenir for wealthy aristocrats to gawk at, was like watching a ghost from his darkest nightmare being paraded for spare change.
"Uncle Roman?" Lu Xiaoran asked again, his voice turning genuinely concerned as he reached out to touch Roman's rigid arm. "Are you alright?"
Roman swallowed hard, his voice thick and rough as gravel. "It's... nothing, Xiaoran. Just... an old memory."
He made to turn away, his head lowered, ready to swallow his pain and walk back into the shadows as he always had.
"Hold on," I said softly.
My voice cut through the hum of the carriage with calm, absolute authority.
I stepped directly in front of the pedestal, adjusting my spectacles with a slow, deliberate movement.
"Master?" Roman murmured, looking at me with pained confusion.
"A warrior may outgrow a technique, Roman," I said, turning my yellow gaze toward him, my voice devoid of mockery, carrying only the profound, unshakeable respect of a scholar who understood the weight of sacrifice. "He may even outgrow his armor. But a weapon forged in the fires of an honorable purpose—a weapon sold not out of greed, but out of profound love—does not belong under glass as a plaything for merchants."
Pushpa stood up on my shoulders, stretching her front paws. Her slit golden eyes glanced at the white scepter, letting out a low, approving purr.
A wealthy merchant in silk robes standing nearby sneered, holding a crystal wine glass. "Hey, scholar. If you're going to gawk at Lot 14, move aside. Lord Vance's procurement team has already expressed interest in it for their private display—"
CLACK.
I didn't even look at the merchant. I casually tossed a heavy, velvet pouch onto the marble counter before the startled exhibition clerk.
The strings loosened, spilling out five radiant, crystalline cores pulsing with pure, unadulterated high-tier spiritual energy—cores harvested from deep-sea beasts that far exceeded the price of mere gold coins.
The clerk choked on his own breath, his eyes nearly bulging out of his skull. "T-T-Third-tier Abyssal Cores?!"
"I am buying it," I said pleasantly, my scholar smile sharp and unyielding as my vertical pupils locked onto the trembling clerk. "Wrap it up immediately. Or do we need to have a scholarly debate about the fair market value of sentimentality?