Brando drove the little behemoth cart. He had a basic experience as a cart driver, which he learned as part of his job, and that proved useful now.“You did the right thing, not picking a fight with the eldest son of the Flyswale family,” Lasya told Gunnar while seated in the back of the cart.Vernon was struggling to breathe properly, let alone sit straight.“Is the Flyswale family that great?” Gunnar asked. “Are they more influential than your family?”“They have a different kind of influence,” Lasya said. “They supply healing water to fill the pools of multiple sects in the neighboring counties. The heartwood bamboo trees that only grow in this town are also imported by many other regions.”“Heartwood bamboo trees?”“The tea made from those bamboo leaves was said to slowly increase the resilience of the heart,”Lasya said. “People who work long hours love drinking it. Even martial artists who are stressed after a fight will feel at ease from just having a cup of the heartwood tea. T

There were no men in this building.Only females, and they all seemed out of the ordinary. They were giving threatening gazes to Gunnar and Lasya.Lasya knew that coming here was risky, but she didn’t want Vernon to die. “I’m here to meet my Castian,” she said openly. “I have an important business with him, so let me talk to him.”Nobody stood in their way, but the young ladies weren’t exactly welcoming, either.They surrounded Gunnar and Lasya. She thought they would attack them, but they didn’t.Gunnar kept walking upstairs. Lasya followed him.The young ladies reluctantly moved aside.On the fourth floor, Gunnar and Lasya entered the hall, where Castian was playing a board game with the female manager of the building.He was much younger than Luke and was also pretty handsome.“Young Master Castian,” Lasya clasped her hands together and greeted him. “I’m the sixth daughter of Trade Master Finnor. I came here to seek refuge, but I met your eldest brother at an inn. And his bodyguard

The next morning.Lasya was sound asleep in the bed. Vernon was sleeping on the floor.Gunnar was on the small balcony, meditating as the sun rays began to hit him.He used the muscle breathing technique to stay on guard.After a few minutes, he opened his eyes. “Yesterday, I was able to see through Castian’s attack, thanks to the muscle breathing technique, but it’s still far from the elders’ level. They can tell not only how many birds there are hidden in a tree but also what birds there are. I can’t do that yet. If there are bandits or assassins lying in wait, then I need to be able to sense them even if they’re suppressing their aura. I should keep practicing these three breathing techniques every day.”Gunnar got up to his feet and looked around.“This place that extends out of the building… they call this balcony,” Gunnar smiled. “There are no balconies to the buildings in my village. Some of the people here are sleeping on the balconies at night, but we simply sleep in the back

The markets opened before the sun’s rays kissed the tops of the buildings.The first thing that Gunnar noticed was the rhythmic noise everybody’s footsteps made. They were walking with footwear that had a copper metal base.Even elderly ladies were walking with the help of copper-cored sticks while carrying baskets on their heads. They went from street to street and sold flowers, fruits and vegetables. And they walked without even holding the basket as they could perfectly balance it on top of their head.Gunnar remembered the path he was told by the female blacksmith the other day, so it didn’t take him long to reach the destination. However, he ended up at a busy market.When he asked which house belonged to Johnson, they told him Johnson owned the street and all the houses there.There were stores selling footwear, weapons, clothing, armor and so on.“He owns all these stores…” Gunnar was amazed. “How much do you think he earns in a month?”“Assuming that the rent for a small store

The smoke bomb struck the ground and burst with a deafening noise, spreading thick gray smoke across the yard so rapidly that the people nearest the explosion barely had time to react before it swallowed them whole.In the blink of an eye, the queue disappeared. Johnson's chair vanished. Gunnar was swallowed. Even the sunlight filtering through the morning air seemed to be devoured by the suffocating cloud.Vernon and Lasya, who were in the back, had enough time to move away.The smoke reached all the way to Vernon, but he used his sword gust to push the nearby smoke away.Cough! Cough!“What the hell is this?!”“Stop pushing me.”“Get back! You’re stepping on my foot!”People crashed into one another, waving their hands frantically before their faces. The acrid smoke clawed at their throats, bringing tears to their eyes.Some dropped to their knees, coughing violently, while others scrambled away from the source, trampling the fallen lemons beneath their feet.Through the choking haz