Chương 422: Making a Life Where No One Else Want To

The terrain of the Central Continent was varied but few places defied the laws of common sense quite like the Village of Verticality. Locally known as High-Roost, the settlement wasn't built on a mountain; it was built on the side of one. It clung to the sheer limestone face of the Razor-Wind Cliffs like a patch of stubborn moss. There were no roads, no alleys and no flat ground larger than a dinner table.

The "streets" were a terrifying interconnected web of bamboo ladders, swaying rope bridges and narrow wooden planks jutting out over the massive drop. Li Yu stood at the bottom, craning his neck until it cracked.

"Well," Li Yu muttered, shielding his eyes from the sun glaring off the cliff face.

"I suppose that is one way not to be in anyone's way." He began the climb. While he could have easily used the Void Step to teleport to the summit or simply flown up, Li Yu was committed to the mortal experience when possible. He gripped the rungs of the main "thoroughfare"—a ladder made of ironwood that was polished smooth by centuries of hands—and started pulling himself up. The first thing he noticed was the locals. They were built differently. He passed an elderly woman who must have been eighty years old.

She was carrying a basket of laundry strapped to her back that must have weighed at least fifty pounds. Yet, she ascended the ladder with the speed and grace of a spider, her forearms corded with muscle that would shame a bodybuilder.

"Make way, flat-lander!" she cackled, hopping from the ladder to a swinging tire-swing platform with practiced ease.

"Apologies, Grandmother!" Li Yu called out, genuinely impressed. By the time Li Yu reached the "Mid-Level,' his appreciation for the city had grown, though his palms were sweating. The wind here was constant, a howling draft that made the entire village creak and groan like a living thing. He found a small plaza, which was really just a collection of planks lashed together with spirit-vines, where people were gathering for lunch. Li Yu's stomach rumbled from his climb up. He looked around for a restaurant.

He spotted a sign hanging from a rock outcropping fifty feet above him: The Flying Bun. There was no ladder leading up to it. There was only a man standing on the ledge, waving a flag.

"How does one order?" Li Yu asked a nearby local, a man who was currently hanging upside down by his knees from a rafter, to repair a window.

"Yell!" the man said, not stopping his work.

"And have your coin ready. Do not drop the coin. If you drop it, you have to go down and get it. That is the law here." Li Yu looked up at the baker.

"ONE MEAT BUN!" Li Yu bellowed, projecting his voice against the wind.

"SPICY!" The baker nodded. He turned and whistled. From a coop carved into the rock face, a blur of brown feathers shot out. It was a Gale-Hawk, a spirit beast known for its speed and precision. The bird carried a small wicker basket in its talons. It didn't fly; it folded its wings and dropped. It plummeted toward Li Yu like a stone. Li Yu, trusting the process since it seemed like a common thing around here, held up a silver coin between his thumb and forefinger. Screech!

At the last possible second, the hawk flared its wings, braking hard with a gust of wind that messed up Li Yu's hair. In one fluid motion, the bird snatched the coin from Li Yu's fingers with its beak and simultaneously dropped a steaming, wax-paper-wrapped package into his open palm.

"Show off! And does it need to be done in such a way?" Li Yu muttered but he was grinning. He unwrapped the bun. It was still hot and felt soft. He took a bite, savoring the pork and scallion filling while his legs dangled over a kilometer of empty air.

"Efficient," Li Yu noted.

"Though I imagine the soup delivery is messy." He spent the rest of the day observing the "Vertical Dao" of the villagers. He watched children playing tag, leaping between suspension bridges with fearless joy. He watched a courier drop a letter, scream in frustration and then dive after it with a rope tied around his waist. That evening, Li Yu found a secluded outcropping to practice. The environment felt perfect for the Drunken Monkey style.

"Gravity is not an enemy here," Li Yu mused, looking down at the clouds drifting below him.

"It is a partner." He practiced the Sweeping Tsunami strike. On flat ground, it was a horizontal swing. Here, balancing on a beam no wider than his foot, he had to use his core to anchor himself, turning the staff into a counterweight. He realized that if he fell, he could use the staff to hook a lower rung, turning a fall into a swing and a swing into a strike. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The Village of Verticality taught him that stability wasn't about standing still on flat ground. Stability was about finding your center when the whole world was trying to pull you down. As he slept that night in a hammock strung between two stalactites, rocked gently by the high-altitude winds, Li Yu felt a respect for these people who looked at a sheer wall and decided it was a perfectly good place to build a home.

His journey continued and he visited Fog-Hollow, a town where the visibility was permanently less than five feet. The locals all wore bells on their hats so they wouldn't crash into each other. Li Yu bought a hat with a tiny bell that sounded like a dying cricket. He spent a day navigating by sound alone, accidentally walking into a wedding, a funeral and a high-stakes mahjong game within the span of an hour. In every town, he practiced.

In the mornings, he would find a secluded spot to meditate and enjoy the company of his two souls. In the evenings, he would practice Drunken Monkey Destroying the World. He was getting better at it. He learned that the key wasn't just force but commitment. You couldn't hesitate with the Drunken Monkey. You had to commit to the smash with 100% of your being. One evening, outside the town of Red-Clay, Li Yu found a massive boulder blocking the path. It was the size of a carriage.

"Comet's Kiss," Li Yu whispered. He didn't use Qi. He used body mechanics, leverage and the explosive release of tension. He thrust the normal bamboo staff forward. CRACK. The bamboo staff didn't break. The boulder didn't explode. Instead, a perfectly circular hole, exactly the diameter of the staff, appeared through the center of the rock. Li Yu pulled the staff back. He looked through the hole at the scenery on the other side.

"Progress," he smiled. After some more traveling, Li Yu arrived at a landscape that dazzled the eyes. He had entered the Glass-Plains of Lumina. The ground here wasn't dirt or grass. It was sand that had been fused by ancient intense heat into smooth translucent glass. Some of the landscape was like a mirror, reflecting the sky below his feet. In the center of this blinding expanse rose Lumina, the Prism City. It was a city constructed entirely of giant faceted crystals.

Towering spires of quartz and amethyst caught the sunlight and fractured it into a million rainbows. The air shimmered with refracted light, making it difficult to tell what was real and what was an illusion. Li Yu squinted, pulling the brim of his hat lower.

"I'm going to need better eyes for this," he muttered. He walked toward the gates which appeared to be made of solid diamond. As he approached, he walked straight into an invisible barrier. BONK. Li Yu stumbled back, rubbing his nose.

"Entrance is five feet to the left!" a guard shouted. The guard was wearing a suit of mirrored armor, making him almost invisible against the crystal walls.

"That was the Wall of Hubris. Everyone walks into it."

"Very effective," Li Yu grumbled, stepping to the left and passing through the actual opening. Inside, Lumina was a chaotic kaleidoscope of color. The buildings were nearly transparent, meaning privacy was maintained only by heavy curtains or distortion spells. The light was so intense that the locals wore dark spectacles made of smoky quartz. Li Yu found a market square where beams of concentrated sunlight were being crisscrossed overhead like architectural supports.

He found a food stall with a sign made of glowing neon moss: SOLAR-SEARED DELICACIES.

"What is the specialty?" Li Yu asked the chef, who was wearing what looked like thick black goggles.

"Sun-Ray Skewers," the chef replied. He held up a raw skewer of spirit-lizard meat. He tossed it into a precise spot in the air where three beams of focused sunlight intersected. FZZZT. In just a moment, the meat was seared perfectly brown, smoking and sizzling.

"Fast food," Li Yu noted and was impressed.

"I'll take three." He sat on a bench made of warm amber and ate the lizard. It was smoky with a crisp char that only extreme instant heat could provide.

"A bit dry," Li Yu critiqued, chewing thoughtfully.

"But the novelty is high." After eating, he wandered to the Plaza of Reflections. It was a maze of mirrors designed to help cultivators confront their inner demons or just get really lost. Li Yu walked past a mirror that showed him as a fat wealthy merchant. He walked past another that showed him as a beggar. He stopped in front of a third mirror. It didn't show a reflection. It showed nothing. Just the empty street behind him.

"Void," Li Yu whispered. He tested his Drunken Monkey techniques against the reflections. He thrust his staff. In the mirror, his reflection thrust back. Comet's Kiss. Li Yu committed. He didn't just poke; he drove the staff forward with the intent to pierce the world and stopped just before his staff would have hit the mirror itself. As evening fell, the city changed. The crystals absorbed the starlight and began to glow with a soft luminescent hum.

The harsh glare of the day was replaced by a dreamy ethereal purple twilight. Li Yu stood on the eastern ramparts of Lumina, leaning against a cool emerald low wall. The wind blew across the glass plains, making a low whistling sound like a flute. But under that whistle, Li Yu heard something else. It carried a scent on the spiritual wind. It smelled of salt. It smelled of brine. It smelled of vast, crushing depths and endless blue. Li Yu stood up, inhaling deeply. Li Yu grinned.

He looked at the dazzling crystal city behind him and then looked toward the dark horizon of the East.

"Salt water," Li Yu mused, his eyes sparkling.

"That means ocean. And ocean means..." He licked his lips.

"... Seafood."

"I think we're done with rocks and glass for a while," Li Yu announced to the empty rampart.

"I need something else." He adjusted his hat. The mountains had given him wine. The forests had given him roast pork. Who knew what the sea would offer? Li Yu walked to the eastern edge of Lumina, where the glass plains finally gave way to soft earth leading toward the coast. The World Walker tapped his bamboo staff on the crystalline ground, a final chiming note to mark his departure. He stepped off the glass and onto the dirt road with a spring in his step.

"To the East," Li Yu laughed as he was spinning his staff.