Shortly after entering Lord Mandakh’s territory, I passed an invisible line, and the rows of broken, abandoned houses were replaced by expansive fields of wheat, with stalks so tall they blocked my view of the surrounding landscape. This was almost enough to make me believe that I had somehow been teleported out of the city and into the countryside.

Passing through this wheat field, I didn’t see any signs of whoever had planted it, and I didn’t run into any more patrols. But, about two hours later, I passed another invisible line, and the fields of wheat were replaced with fields of mixed vegetables.

This gave me a better view of my surroundings, and off in the distance, I could now see dozens of peasants working the fields in worn-out hemp work clothes. This was where I ran into a second pair of black-robed soldiers, who also happened to be interested in a sparring lesson.

I, of course, obliged them, but once they were lying on the ground, recuperating, I decided that it would be best for me to maintain a low profile. After all, if word got out that a skilled user of the moon spade was offering combat lessons for only a few copper coins, I would be flooded with requests from eager students. So, I pulled a Rank 3 Shadowed Soul Pill out of my inner world and faded from view.

This, again, somewhat defeated the original purpose of my Return. I was supposed to be relying on nothing but my moon spade, yet I kept dipping into my stash of pills. Part of me felt bad about this, but ultimately, I couldn’t see any value in beating up a bunch of weak, untrained mortals.

Now invisible, I veered off the road and went over to check out one of the peasant work crews.

This first group consisted of over 30 men and women of all different ages, each wearing dirty, tan rags and a conical, bamboo hat. Their skin was darkly tanned from long days under the harsh sun, and half-healed bruises poked out from beneath the clothing of nearly everyone I inspected.

As this group worked, planting seedlings in long, straight furrows, they were being constantly watched by a group of five black-robed guards. Any time one of the farmers slacked off for even a moment, one of these guards walked over and thwacked them with the haft of their spear.

Climbing to the top of a nearby hill, I looked around and found that there were currently five different crews working in this field. At the center of these crews, a temporary pavilion had been set up, where a red-robed man was relaxing in a plush chair, surrounded by yet another team of black-robed guards.

This gave me a basic idea of how the village was organized: peasant farmers at the bottom, black-clothed guards in the middle, and red-robed overseers at the top.

I hung around this pavilion for a few minutes, hoping that one of the guards would leak valuable intelligence, but all I heard was idle chatter. So, I returned to the road and headed over to check out the village that these work crews had come from.

The sight that greeted me was… depressing.

A thick wall of rubble separated the village from the fields that surrounded it. However, nothing about this wall suggested that it would be overly helpful in defending against attackers. The side of the wall facing the fields was gently sloped, but the side facing the village was sheer.

This was a wall for keeping people in, not out. Moreover, it seemed to have been intentionally designed to broadcast this fact to the village’s inhabitants.

Beyond this wall, the small, stone houses that I had seen throughout the city had returned, and they were crammed tightly together, providing the villagers with little in the way of space or privacy. With everyone out working in the fields, the village was mostly empty when I arrived, but there were a few elderly people mending clothes and taking care of the young.

As I explored further, I found that a major road ran through this village, splitting it east-to-west, and a small river ran through it, splitting it north-to-south. This rundown area, which housed the peasant farmers, encompassed the village’s northwestern quadrant and was the only section surrounded by a wall.

The black-robed guards were housed across the road, in the northeastern quadrant. The guards’ section was slightly nicer than the farmers’, with homes spaced a little further apart and the building in better repair, but the difference was somewhat minimal.

Unsurprisingly, the guards’ section of the village was just as empty as the farmers’ section. Most were either watching the farmers out in the fields or patrolling the roads, but a fair number of them were also in a large, dirt field next to the village. There, a pair of red-robed overseers was walking a group of guards through basic spear drills.

Not seeing anything of particular importance in this, I followed the road across the river to check out the rest of the village.

In the southeast, I found a group of well-dressed men and women in green robes, who looked to be living a rather comfortable life. Like the peasants in the northwest, these people were also farmers, but instead of growing mortal foodstuffs, they were growing low-level herbs. None of these farmers were proper herbalists, so none of their crops were particularly impressive, but they would still be worth quite a bit more than ordinary wheat.

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In the southwest, I found where the red-robed overseers lived. Like the black-robed soldiers, a number of the overseers were gathered in a training yard right outside the village. However, instead of being guided through basic spear drills, they were engaged in high-intensity sparring.

On a raised platform, overseeing this sparring was a middle-aged man in a cyan robe. A check in energy vision showed that this man had an inactive karmic core where his dantian should have been, but more importantly, the spear strapped to his back was awash in deadly energy.

Was this Lord Mandakh? Possibly, but this man had the tanned skin of a standard Nine Rivers human. ‘Mandakh’ sounded more like the name of an urgamal.

The final place I wanted to check out was the mansion that sat at the center of the overseers’ quadrant, but when I approached, I found the place protected by a series of Rank 1 formations. Bypassing these wards wouldn’t have been too difficult, but I wasn’t confident that I could do it without alerting whoever might be inside, so I decided to hold back.

With my exploration complete, I headed back across the river.

This village was far from idyllic, but did I really want to step in and interfere with it? And, if so, how?

The answer to the first question had to be ‘yes.’ I had to do something during this Return, and ending the brutal suppression of hundreds of peasants seemed like a good start. Answering the second question, however, was far more complicated.

What could I do to help these people? What was I willing to do?

I could walk in and slaughter Lord Mandakh and all of his red-robed overseers, but even ignoring the potential fallout from killing a Returnee, this would mean killing one group to prevent a different group from being brutalized.

Even if I could justify such a path, it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Simply taking out the village’s leadership would only create a dangerous power vacuum that would lead to even more pain and suffering.

I could just drive Mandakh away while leaving the red-robes in place. With their strongest support gone, the overseers would then need to tone down their brutality to avoid a revolt.

This seemed overly optimistic, however. The more likely outcome was that the red-robes would split into factions as they fought over who would become the village’s next leader, causing the village to devolve into chaos.

The real problem was one of leadership. If this village had a capable leader, then the people wouldn’t need to worry about being controlled by outsiders. Even the strongest of Returnees was still mortal, and as long as cultivators didn’t get involved, there was little that even the most powerful of mortals could do against a force of hundreds.

I nodded to myself. I had my answer. I didn’t need to fight Lord Mandakh. I needed to raise a leader.

Surrounded by plants and located right next to a river, this village was not nearly as rich in earth qi as the Cross Slope Inn had been, but there was still more than enough for me to do what I needed to do.

After finding a secluded spot near the center of the northwestern section of the village, I channeled environmental qi and used it to create a hole directly beneath me, allowing me to sink deep into the earth. Then, once I was several meters down, I used the energy that I was channeling to push away the walls surrounding me.

Without any qi of my own to draw upon, my initial progress was slow, and it slowed down even more when I hit bedrock. Thankfully, though, nothing in the area qualified as more than a Rank 1 stone, so I didn’t need to draw upon the resources of my inner world.

Time passed, and the tight hole that I had started with turned into a small cave. Then, this cave turned into a cavern.

There, several meters below the earth, with no light to illuminate my surroundings and nothing to do but constantly move and reshape stone, I finally started to understand the value of a Return to Simplicity.

I didn’t need to worry about things like qi purity or cultivating properly. I wasn’t trying to create intricate inscriptions that maximized the flow of energy. And, I didn’t need to worry about detecting or deflecting attacks.

All I needed to do was breathe. Pull qi in, letting it settle onto my outstretched palms. Push qi out, shoving away the stones around me.

As I worked, I fell into a flow state. Days came and went, but I barely noticed. When I was hungry, I snuck above ground and stole food from the red-robes, and when I needed to relieve myself, I used a spirit fire to burn away the waste. When I was tired, I slept, but with almost no light in my cave, I never knew if it was day or night.

Eventually, my cavern was nearly four meters tall and stretched across the entirety of the northwestern section of the village, with only a few pillars holding up the houses above.

Part of me was loath to give up the Zen-like state that I had found, but I knew it was time to move on. Creating this cavern had allowed me to deepen my connection to earth qi, but my gains had slowed to a crawl. It was time to advance in a different direction.

Before leaving, however, I took several granite plates out of my inner world and attached them to the walls of the cavern, inscribing a series of formations for things such as ventilation, lighting, and temperature control. While I was alone down there, these things hadn’t been overly important, but in the coming days, they would be vital.

Walking through the fields that surrounded the village, I searched for someone I could turn into a leader.

I needed someone young. Someone who wasn’t already resigned to the way the world worked. Someone who felt indignant and wanted to fight back against their oppressors.

At the same time, I didn’t just want someone with a belly full of anger. I wanted to find someone whose anger was directed at the injustices that were committed against them. Someone who, hopefully, wouldn’t turn right around and start inflicting those same injustices on others.

This was a tall order, but after searching through all the work crews, I found a handful of young men and women who I felt might be suitable.

After the sun went down and everyone in the village was fast asleep, I snuck into the homes of everyone I had identified and stuffed them into my inner world. Then, I opened up a hole and sank down into my cavern.