Path to Transcendence

He stood right beside Lily while she greeted City Lord Zheng. He had already read the brief report about Tyrian Zheng, and the man appeared to be right in line with it. However, he was a little taken aback by how much respect the city lord was giving Lily.

He even fully stopped his conversation with the person he was talking to, placing his entire focus on Lily.

“Lady Lily, I am so glad that you could make it. I hope you’ve been enjoying the city these past few days,” the man said with a softness and steadiness that made you want to hang onto his every word.

“I have. Goldmere is certainly a treasure even compared to the cities of the Empire. You have done an excellent job at managing it,” Lily said with a gentle smile.

“Your words honor me,” City Lord Zheng said and looked at Julius, who was standing right next to her. “Who’s this you brought with you? I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him yet.”

Lily gestured at him. “This is Julius; he is a friend and my escort.”

Julius bowed his head slightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, city lord.”

“Julius, huh?” City Lord Zheng said with a weird glint in his eye.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re also from the Empire?”

“Indeed.”

City Lord Zheng tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Interesting… you must be quite the individual for someone like Lady Lily to call you a friend.”

Julius felt a soft prodding from the woman standing beside the city lord. It was a respectful inspection, though, something well within the lines of what was expected. However, that wasn’t to say he let the woman go further than that. He stopped her attempt immediately and watched as her nose scrunched up, clearly not expecting her probe to be turned away so casually.

“He is,” Lily said, unaware of what had just happened to him.

“Oh? Then I must keep a close eye on him,” City Lord Zheng said with a slightly teasing tone and then gestured at an empty chair. “Please, take a seat. We will begin the official meeting now that everyone is in attendance.”

Then the woman who had inspected Julius suddenly tapped a small bell with her finger and a soft chime rang out. Everyone finished their conversations and quickly sat down if they weren’t already. Julius thought about standing beside Lily like the rest of the attendants were, but he remembered that Marcus asked him to be slightly disruptive.

There wasn’t a chair for him to sit down in, so he decided to make one of his own. He carefully molded a simple chair made of mana and placed it right beside Lily before lounging on it.

He saw the woman behind City Lord Zheng make a move, as if she was going to reprimand him, but the city lord held up a hand to her. However, he saw the man was looking at him with a curious tilt of his head rather than annoyance.

While Lily’s face didn’t show it, he could feel her amusement rippling through their connection.

“Really?” she asked with a light laugh in his mind.

“Why not? Look at their faces,” he replied with a light laugh of his own.

“Yeah, if you wanted to annoy some people, I think you’ve already accomplished it,” she noted, no doubt already picking up on the people who might have let their emotions slip through, which had been their exact intention.

“You think they will do anything just because of something this minor?”

“Probably not, but don’t underestimate how prideful and petty some people can be,” she replied.

While they talked, City Lord Zheng started to give an introductory speech to everyone. While he did this, Julius was examining the rest of the room more closely.

He didn't recognize many people, but he did recognize a few faces. Some of them he wasn’t quite prepared to see.

Specifically, he noticed Kaito sitting a few chairs down from Lily. The man didn’t seem interested in the meeting at all, looking down at the piece of paper in his hands with boredom. Julius would have to go and see the man after this meeting was over. He was curious how Lora was doing.

He also spotted Celestine sitting at the end of the table. She didn’t seem to recognize him and instead was staring at Lily hungrily. Julius was tempted to reach over and punch her in the face, but held himself back. He was supposed to be a little disruptive, but he wasn’t supposed to do anything that would permanently harm Lily’s reputation, and he believed that jumping over the table to punch Celestine might do that.

That being said, he saw several people at the table glaring at him from their seats. They clearly didn’t like that he forced his way to the table. There were even more attendants looking at him with anger, too. They clearly didn’t think he belonged to sit there. Perhaps it was a mix of jealousy and envy.

He also spotted what appeared to be representatives of the Golden Cauldron Sect. There were two of them at the table. An older woman with graying hair, delicately bound in a bun. Then there was a younger man who looked like her grandson. The woman was clearly Tier 5. Her aura was unsuppressed and was confidently pulsing outward. However, the guy seemed a lot more reserved. He was only a Tier 4, though, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

Actually, when he thought about it, the only people who were displaying their auras without any reserve were the Tier 5s. Almost everyone at the table was a Tier 5 except for several people, including him and Lily. However, he sensed that most of these people weren’t fighters. They might have been Tier 5, but he didn’t get any real feelings of danger from them.

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Not sensing anyone going out of their way to inspect Lily or any hostile intentions, he stretched out and relaxed in his chair.

He didn’t know what to expect from the meeting, but he found himself getting quite bored. Much of it was full of tedious reports on various projects. Some of them involved House Violet, but it seemed more like an announcement for the other parties than a discussion. Several people did have a few objections over certain details such as which distribution channels will be used during this phase, but City Lord Zheng swiftly handled their questions, demonstrating his knowledge and foresight.

“I understand the idea behind increasing the supply of healing potions and other similar products throughout the city, but I don’t understand the necessity of forcibly lowering prices. They will undoubtedly eat into many companies’ and stores’ profits. Stores who already have razor-thin margins on these products, I might add,” one of the men sitting closer to the head of the table interjected with a frown as he read the brief that he had been handed out that detailed the steps and phases of the new project.

“Razor thin margins?” the old lady from the Golden Cauldron Sect barked out a sarcastic scoff. “More like you’re upset that you will no longer be able to take advantage of the people who buy your products.”

The man stood up in anger, his slightly balding head sparkling in the light. “Those are some seriously slanderous accusations. I demand an apology, Olona.”

“Demand? You demand nothing, pup,” Olona said with a raspy laugh.

However, before the two could continue bickering. City Lord Zheng cut his hand through the air. His aura pulsed out firmly.

“Enough, it’s already been decided, Jeffrey. I’ve already discussed the reason for this at length. There are many reasons why we are beginning with this. First off, the current high prices of healing potions only incentivize the distribution of inferior and dangerous potions. This year alone, we have more cases of potion sickness than ever before. We also need to increase the strength of our lower-tier combatants. The high price of healing potions deters them from going on missions for fear of not having enough money to heal themselves if something goes wrong. We also predict a massive increase in other products with the increase of missions taken. It has been something we should have done a while ago, if nothing but for the people of our city.”

City Lord Zheng glared at Jeffrey and a few others who were probably having similar frustrations about this new development. They probably had several stores which sold these high-priced potions and would be the most affected by this change.

After he settled that matter, it became quite clear that most people here understood that this meeting was more of a formality than anything else and that they were there to only bring up any serious issues these projects could present. Anyone who didn’t have a serious concern was quickly shut down by the city lord. It was quite refreshing to see, and Julius could see why Goldmere had flourished under his governance.

Much of the later half discussed things that Julius didn’t really care for. Things like tax rates for certain imports or certain fees for some of the new services House Violet was going to help set up. Or how certain funds of the city were going to be allocated. Several of the people here were on the city’s council and had a few things to say about allocation, but ultimately had to accept after City Lord Zheng’s aggressive stance on the matter.

He was also surprised by how much respect these people showed Lily. Even the people who were arguing against some of her ideas didn’t outright go after her. Rather, they were tiptoeing around the issue. Even the two from the Golden Cauldron Sect didn’t seem to speak up against Lily. It was that they had some concerns over the particulars, but they didn’t directly oppose her.

Was House Violet really that scary?

It took some time, but the meeting finally concluded. And it seemed that once it was over, it was open season from there. Lily was immediately swarmed by several people. However, Marcus had already warned Julius of this, and he quickly pulled Lily out of their way.

“You can set up an appointment with Angelina if you wish to talk about matters with Lily. We have other matters to attend to,” he said and roughly pushed past the blockade of people.

They weren’t pleased by his tone, but ultimately didn’t press any further. Rather, they immediately swarmed Angelina instead, though the woman appeared to handle them with professional grace.

However, as they were walking out of the conference room, he felt someone quickly approaching them from behind. He turned around to see that Kaito was already within a few feet of them.

Lily touched Julius on the shoulder, stepping past him, proceeding to curtsy toward the Lord of Clan Yoshu.

“Lord Kaito, it is a great honor to finally meet you. I’ve heard many great things about you and hope that our families can work together harmoniously.”

Kaito bowed in response. “I hope for the same, young Violet.”

However, despite his polite words and manners, Julius noticed that Kaito hadn’t stopped looking at him.

“Do I know you?” Kaito asked with a frown.

Julius had already thought about this possibility after he’d seen Kaito at the meeting. He’d been playing around with a few ideas on how to approach the man, but ultimately, he realized that Lord Kaito could quickly become a supporter of Lily. After all, Julius had helped his daughter, and the man had already explained his intent to repay the favor.

That wasn’t to say that Kaito would consider it repayment, though Julius hoped the man would at least see Lily and his relationship as a good sign to foster a positive relationship of his own with Lily.

“We do,” he said with a slow nod.

This only seemed to confuse Kaito, and the otherwise stoic man looked at him with even more scrutiny.

“From where?”

“We met several months ago,” he hinted.

Julius could have sworn he saw sparks of recognition in his eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Julius,” he finally revealed with a small smirk.

Kaito paused momentarily as if he was trying to stare deep into Julius’s soul before nodding, as if confirming his suspicions.

“Is that so? You don’t look like I remember.” While he said this, the man was clearly still a bit skeptical.

Julius scratched his head. “Yeah, I might have been wearing a disguise when I met you.”

“A disguise, huh? It must have been a pretty good one.”

Julius chuckled internally when he realized that Kaito was waiting for Julius to give him some kind of proof that he was indeed the same person. But luckily Julius had an idea in mind already.

He gently pulled back the collar of his jacket and revealed the small form of Drasil waving at Kaito with a toothy grin.

Kaito might not have seen Drasil’s real form yet, but the life mana coming from Drasil was unmistakably familiar, and the man finally let out a large grin of his own. “Hey there, Drasil. So that’s your real form, huh?” he greeted the spirit, softly extending his finger.

Drasil gave it a soft shake with both of his hands and let out a quiet whistle.

Kaito glanced back up at Julius. “I thought you might have died inside the vault.”

Julius frowned. “Almost.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. I haven’t repaid you for what you did for Lora, and I’m not a man who enjoys being indebted to anyone. Still, I’m a little amazed that you’re here with Lady Lily of all people. I suspected that you were connected to some kind of important organization or sect, but I didn’t think it was someone like House Violet.”

Julius scratched his temple and was about to respond, but someone was heading in their direction, and despite a sound barrier being up, he didn’t feel comfortable talking out in the open like this. Kaito also realized this and bowed to Lily.

“Let’s set up a meeting soon. I would love to talk to you about your plans and what Clan Yoshu can do to help,” he said and gave Julius a small wink before heading off.

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