Vampire Progenitor of the Immortal World

Chapter 41: Chapter 41 : Arrival

First priority: balance and distance.

Another.

Avoid unnecessary movement.

He stared at the notes for a moment before closing the journal. It was not much. But it was something he could build upon.

That evening, after the group stopped for the night, Ethan practiced again. Only briefly. He did not repeat movements until exhaustion. There was no reason to injure himself trying to prove determination. Instead, he practiced until the movements became slightly less unfamiliar, then stopped.

Later, when the camp had quieted, Ethan found a secluded place nearby. He sat down. His breathing slowed. His awareness turned inward.

Cultivation.

The journey did not replace it. Work did not replace it. Learning to use a weapon did not replace it. All three were pieces of the same problem.

He needed to become capable of surviving on his own.

The quiet lasted for some time. Then Ethan felt the familiar sensation of his blood stirring.

His eyes opened.

He did not activate it.

Not yet.

He simply observed.

The strange response was still there. Subtle. Unpredictable. And that bothered him more than the exhaustion it caused. He could not rely on something he did not understand.

Ethan opened his journal again. This time, beneath the weapon notes, he added another line.

Blood Tempering remains insufficiently understood.

He looked at the sentence.

Then added:

Observe before relying on it.

Only after writing that did he close the journal.

Across the camp, the merchant’s workers were settling down for the night. The road waited beyond them. Ethan looked toward it. He had chosen the safer path. That did not mean the journey would teach him nothing.

For now, he had food, a source of income, a weapon, a cultivation path, and enough sense to recognize the limits of each. It was a beginning. And tomorrow, he would have another stretch of road on which to test what he had learned.

The road changed before the city came into view. For several days, the merchant group had followed the same broad route, stopping whenever the horses needed water or the workers needed rest. Ethan had settled into the rhythm without complaint. Travel. Work. Eat. Cultivate. Sleep. Repeat. The simplicity had its own usefulness.

He had learned more about traveling than he had expected. A horse was not merely something that carried a rider from one place to another. It needed water before it was exhausted, food before it became weak, and proper rest after a long stretch of road. Whenever the group stopped at an inn or roadside station, Ethan made certain the horse was handed over for proper care, even when that meant paying a few extra copper coins. It was an expense, but a broken-down horse would cost far more. This was the kind of calculation he preferred.

On the morning of the fourth day, the landscape began to change. The low hills gradually gave way to flatter ground. The road widened, and the number of travelers increased. A pair of carts passed them going in the opposite direction, then another, followed by three more. Merchants carrying cloth, farmers bringing sacks of grain, travelers with bundles tied to their backs, and a group of young men walking together with swords at their waists all passed along the increasingly crowded road.

Ethan noticed the swords immediately, not because they were unusual, but because there were simply more of them. The closer they came, the more crowded the road became. Then someone ahead of them pointed toward the horizon.

"There."

Ethan raised his eyes. At first, he saw only a faint line against the distant landscape. Then the shape became clearer. Walls. Large walls. They stretched across the horizon in a long, pale-gray line, broken by towers that rose above them at regular intervals.

Beyond the walls, rooftops filled the distant space, packed far more densely than anything Ethan had seen since leaving the village. The city seemed to spread outward rather than merely rise upward. Smoke drifted above it, not the thin smoke of a few cooking fires, but hundreds of separate trails from forges, kitchens, workshops, homes, and markets. Life.

Ethan slowed his horse slightly. He had seen villages. He had seen settlements. This was something else. The road ahead seemed to be feeding directly into that enormous mass of people.

"A city," one of the merchant workers said beside him.

Ethan said nothing. He simply watched. So this was what a cultivator could eventually find himself moving through. Not secluded mountains. Not mysterious ruins. Not ancient palaces hidden behind clouds. Just people. Thousands of them. Ordinary people living ordinary lives beneath the shadow of a world that was anything but ordinary.

As they approached, Ethan began noticing another detail: the guards. There were more of them than he expected. Two large gates stood open beneath the main wall, with separate lines forming before each entrance. Constables in reinforced clothing checked travelers, carts, and cargo before allowing them through. The process was orderly, not casual.

A fee was collected for certain travelers and goods, while merchants with established arrangements were handled differently. The merchant group took care of its own entrance, and Ethan simply remained with them. His horse was led forward with the others, and after the necessary checks, they entered.

Ethan did not immediately leave the merchant group. The journey had ended for him, but their business in the city had not.

He stayed with them as they followed the main avenue deeper into the city, their carts gradually separating from the heavier flow of travelers around them. The merchants were not wandering aimlessly. They knew exactly where they were going.

Their destination was a commercial compound where their goods would be unloaded, counted, and transferred to the merchants who handled their business within the city. Workers were already waiting when they arrived, and the atmosphere changed almost immediately. The road journey was over. Now came the work of trade.

Ethan helped where his agreement required him to, remaining with the group until his responsibility officially ended. Only after the horses were taken toward the stables and the goods began disappearing into the compound did he receive the payment owed to him.

The merchant who had hired him gave him the agreed amount, along with the remaining food allowance that had been part of the journey. Ethan counted it once before putting it away.

Nothing extravagant.

But it was honest money earned without tying himself to any settlement. Before leaving, he also made sure his horse get some food and water . The animal had carried him for days. It would be careless to simply abandon responsibility for it because the journey had ended.

Once that was settled, Ethan and a horse finally stepped away from the merchant compound. There was no need for farewells beyond a few words. Their paths had simply reached their natural end.

The merchants had their business to conduct. Ethan had a city to understand.

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