A week later, she was pretty much ready. Qi fruit, nice and neatly packed away— check. All the money, tucked carefully away in a wallet in the inside of her jacket, just in case— check! The six qi stones Mingtian had given her for whatever reason, also check… that was pretty much it. Off the top of her head, she couldn’t think of anything else super important that she was missing… though knowing her she’d probably only realize she was missing anything when she was halfway there.

  Sighing softly, she tried her best to focus on the positives of the situation. She was going out to Old Saffron! Sure, everything was more expensive there and the whole place just reeked of snobbishness, but it was called the most beautiful part of the city for a reason.

  Alright… a few talismans, for self defense, her brush, some ink… she grabbed them on the way out, then just pulled her jacket tight, ever so slightly bemoaning the loss of the extra-warm one she’d gotten just for her trip up into the Dragonspine range. The amount of pockets in that thing, just— perfection. Going back to a mere handful of small pockets always felt terrible.

  She chuckled as she slipped down through the orphanage, most of the other kids still asleep. It was pretty early in the morning on a Saturday, and the Matron usually let them sleep in then. She couldn’t rightfully blame them— it was cold outside, and chores were hard, and there was something just so very appealing to shutting out the world for a while and dreaming of whatever might. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option for her.

  Actually it totally was, but just because it was an option didn’t mean it was a good option. Huffing softly to herself, she paused at the door for a moment— that final threshold between in and out, the unadorned gate to the start of her quest… then smiled and pushed it open, stepping out into the bitter early-dawn chill. No need for dramatics— she’d traveled to the Dragonspine Mountains and back. A simple trip to Old Saffron wasn’t anything bad at all. Comparatively, it wasn’t even cold!

  Of course, that was just comparatively. By the time she’d managed to pick her way out of the precinct and to the nearest subway station, she was shivering from the bite of the dawntide winds. Wasn’t it supposed to be turning spring soon? It certainly didn’t feel like it!

  Then, she had to wait for the train. At least down in the tunnels it wasn’t too bad— the worst of the bite held back by the layers and layers of earth above. It was dark, there, as she stood on the platform between almost brutal pillars of concrete, appearing almost seamless as they joined the concrete arch of the roof, the faint lighting of LED advertisements one of the few sources of illumination. Even that failed to reach far into the tunnels to either side of her— rails flung off into pitch darkness, inky shadows swept upwards to claim their whole of their chthonic world.

  Just her, and the darkness, alone far beneath the earth. Waiting.

  And waiting.

  Clearly, the station wasn’t one regularly serviced. Over the long minutes, a few more people trickled down into the station— not a great many, but enough that the place didn’t seem so entirely empty. She couldn’t help but glance around curiously at them, but they were by and large unremarkable. A pair of women, looking tired, bags slung over their shoulders. A man, face locked on his dataslate, occasionally typing something out. A boy listening to music, the cords of his headphones a little frayed and a lot tangled, leaning against one of the pillars with his eyes closed, so nonchalantly that Lily might have almost thought him asleep if she didn’t know any better. A few others…

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  Until, finally— the train arrived. She flinched back a little as it screeched to a stop in the station, taking her by surprise— she rarely ever used the subway, and the way it hurtled out of the darkness, absent one moment and then suddenly there the next always caught her by surprise. Then she snorted to herself, as the doors hissed open as she stepped off the platform— here she was, having been literally attacked by a Foundation Establishment cultivator, and she was getting spooked by trains. That couldn’t possibly be a good omen for her future…

  A minute passed, in silence, before the doors of the train hissed closed, and with a lurch— they were off. The tunnel turned into a blur of darkness beyond her as the train rushed forward, shooting to the north at such speed…

  It was a boring ride, all considered. If she remembered correctly from the last time she’d gone to Old Saffron— which had been quite a while ago— there wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy about the line. It stayed underground the entire time until it reached the final stop, upon which it just… turned around and went back. Apparently some of the metro had once crossed East Saffron on the surface, but that’d all been reworked after the big war. Not the last one, the one before…

  It was a boring ride, all together. A long, boring ride, and not a lonely one— which was a bad thing, as after they started passing through some of the more populated areas of the city, the metro got so packed that she practically had to defend her seat! Some kids were far too pushy when it came to trying to get to her to move… she was pretty exhausted by the time they reached her stop, and she hadn’t even done anything!

  The platform she stepped out onto couldn’t have been much more different than the first one if it’d tried. Refulgent arc lamps lit the entire place, catching every tile and paved surface, and bench and graffiti plastered over advertisements plastered over the wall— the entire space riotous with color. The walls were a stately red, where they showed through, clearly crafted with care even if they hadn’t been cared for.

  And the people! She found herself all but swept along in the crowd as it seethed towards the exit, pulsing up the escalator and vomiting out onto the near as busy street. Above her, the towering skyscrapers of East Saffron’s business district rose like so many steel stele to heaven— towering monuments to human ingenuity. Beyond even those lay the docks, barely visible through it all, yet still seeming to sprawl out forever along the coast.

  It was a really magnificent view— but, she still had things to do! So she steeled herself and continued through the ever-shifting passersby, on the short walk to the port proper. The crowd thinned out considerably by the time she reached the boardwalk proper, but it wasn't by any means gone. They were just smeared out over the little band of open land dividing the business district behind her from the port in front of her— and what a pot it was!

  She’d it a few times in person before, and plenty of times on the networks, but it never ceased to entirely to awe— she’d heard it said that the port of East Saffron was the single largest on Aurelia now that Beixian Port was gone, and as she the massive complexes of concrete docks and metal scaffolding, and cartwarling sea-birds and horizon-eating profundity of just ships, she could believe it. How much stuff passed through the port of East Saffron? How much of the world connected itself at this one little place, here? In the distance, she could see the massive cargo ships that would head out to the ocean after they picked up whatever cargo they’d come from. Even further than that, she could see the gray-painted hulls of behemoth airships, resting dormant until they were needed.

  For a while, as she slipped into the long line for the ferry to Old Saffron, she simply… took it all in. The size of it— the grand scale of it, and the knowledge that one day— one day, as a part of the Bloody Saffron Sect, in some small way it would all be hers. Even if she knew that she’d still have to make her way through two years of university classes before the sect selection and that it was no guaranteed thing… she couldn’t wait.

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