White Cliff Town

Xilian got up, washed, dressed, and stepped out into the chilly morning breeze.

He entered the Torchlight Lighthouse and climbed its long ladder. It took him several minutes to reach the top.

An extraordinarily complex lens system filled the top of the tower. Countless lenses etched with concentric circles were arranged in layers, opening like flower petals. Gears and machinery meshed precisely, rising, falling, and swaying in small motions like a complex ecosystem sustaining itself.

The system was called the Beacon Array. Xilian knew little more than its name, and no mechanic in White Cliff Town knew how to repair it.

He could never stop worrying about what they would do if the Beacon Array broke.

Nuen insisted that the Spirit Artisans of the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms had built it. As long as their equipment was properly maintained, it could run on its own for centuries.

The Torchlight Lighthouse could burn for a long time yet. It was nowhere near the end of its service life.

As usual, Xilian checked everything. The furnace was running at normal power, and the reserve souls were sealed away in ample supply.

Once he was sure all was well, he leaned against the observation window and looked down on the town where he had lived for nearly ten years.

White Cliff Town lived up to its name: it stood beside a white cliff.

Beyond the cliff, after a little more travel, lay the Dark World, a place ordinary people could not enter. Even in the harsh Outer Flame Frontier, White Cliff Town was remarkably remote.

That was why the town had seen no new visitors in nearly twenty years.

Even the most reckless caravan would not venture this far out. One wrong turn into the Dark World, and the journey would have no return.

In the Dark World, the Grey Fog, filled with the power of Chaos, spilled across the surface even by day. Sunlight did nothing to it. Day and night, the place remained an inferno.

Simply approaching the Dark World could drive an ordinary person mad and turn them into a bloodthirsty Demon. Even a Transcendent like Nuen could not last long inside it.

"Teacher, have you ever entered the Dark World?"

Xilian had once asked him that. Nuen had stared into the darkness beyond the cliff without a word.

Xilian suspected Nuen had definitely been there.

"What a deadly world..."

The Outer Flame Frontier was no place for humans to live.

Realizing that made Xilian wonder why White Cliff Town had been founded at all.

Who would build a town in such a remote place, complete with a Torchlight Lighthouse packed with complex technology?

Because of his "past life," Xilian had always been far more curious than others his age.

He wanted to know more about this world, but the library held no answers. The mayor knew nothing of White Cliff Town's history, and neither did the townspeople.

They were born here, then died here. The cycle went on.

Nuen had to know something. He was not only White Cliff Town's protector, but also its most learned resident.

A flash atop the dimly lit wall caught Xilian's eye.

He stopped letting his thoughts wander and studied it. Mick was signaling that the night was over.

"Another day survived. Wonder when this will end."

Xilian stretched carefully, making sure not to pull at his wound.

He lowered the furnace's power, reduced the flow of Soul Marrow, and shut down the Beacon Array step by step. At last, the pure white flame that had burned all night faded out.

Warm sunlight spread across the earth, lighting White Cliff Town's shadowed corners.

Xilian took in the town where he had lived so long. The first thing he saw was the Armory near the Torchlight Lighthouse.

It was Nuen's residence. Beside the Armory stood a handsome two-story house.

Tim had told him that one of Nuen's students had lived there more than ten years ago. One night, a Demon had attacked and killed him.

In accordance with that student's last wish, the mayor had given the house to Nuen. It had since become a student residence, though now only the Soflova Brothers lived there.

Downhill from the Armory stood the Town Hall, where the annual celebrations were held. Beyond it lay the town square, the residential district, and the high wall...

Xilian climbed briskly down the Torchlight Lighthouse and returned to the two-story house. He smelled something delicious as soon as he opened the door.

In the modest living room, Ava was busy making breakfast. Food and tableware were already laid out, and even the chairs had been pulled into place.

"Good morning, Xilian."

Seeing him return, Ava greeted him warmly.

Xilian was deeply moved. "Holy Mother in the flesh! How would we survive without you?"

Ava picked up a soup ladle and said playfully,

"Well, I suppose I'll just have to keep looking after you."

Footsteps sounded outside. Tim and Mick were back.

"Hey, morning, everyone."

Tim rubbed his sleepy eyes. He glanced at Ava, then gave Xilian a knowing smile.

"Thank you so much, Ava."

At the sight of the breakfast spread, Tim could not thank her enough.

Night patrol drained all three Soflova brothers of their energy. After a shift, they usually grabbed a quick bite or went straight to bed.

Hot mushroom soup and freshly baked bread were a rare comfort for them.

"I'll eat in my room."

Mick, the youngest, yawned, picked up several plates, and headed upstairs.

Tim devoured most of the remaining food at remarkable speed and finished his breakfast.

"See you this afternoon."

Tim waved to them both and went upstairs too. Soon came the thud of a body dropping onto a mattress, followed by an irritating snore.

Xilian picked up his spoon and was about to try the mushroom soup when Ava quietly brought over a plate of roast meat.

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Go on, try it. A little something for the patient."

"My Holy Mother Ava..."

Xilian's stomach growled. He pressed his palms together in reverent praise.

"Oh, you!"

Ava shook her head helplessly.

Though White Cliff Town had been cut off from the outside world for nearly twenty years, it had abundant supplies.

Vast underground storage spaces held stockpiles of goods, while tiered farms sustained the town's fragile cycle of production.

Xilian had been full of questions when he first saw those facilities. Nuen had answered casually,

"The Court of a Thousand Mechanisms left all this behind."

Xilian's thoughts returned to the present.

"Go ahead and eat. I got it from the livestock farm." Ava raised an arm to show off muscles she did not have. "I don't volunteer there for nothing."

"Thanks be to divine grace!"

With that, Xilian dug in.

"This is your blood."

He took a long drink of juice.

"And this is your flesh... Here, have half."

Xilian cut the roast meat in two, transferred half to an empty plate, and pushed it toward Ava.

When she tried to refuse, Xilian asked,

"What's wrong, my Holy Mother Ava? Think of it as a tax from one of your faithful."

Ava knew she could not outtalk Xilian. She bit into the meat, and the rich flavor of its fat burst across her tongue.

As White Cliff Town's protectors, the townspeople treated the Soflova Brothers well. They received first claim on supplies.

But under Nuen's teaching, the brothers rarely indulged themselves. They were like ascetics, forever wrestling with desire.

Once he had eaten his fill, Xilian poured himself a full glass of milk.

He preferred it to juice or beer.

After breakfast, Xilian put the clean plates back in the cupboard, tidied the kitchenware, and cleaned the living room.

Tim and Mick lived upstairs, while Xilian lived on the ground floor. His room was spacious, but it held only a bed and a bookcase. Illustrations, maps, and clipped passages covered the walls.

A black-and-white group photograph was pinned in an upper corner.

The Soflova Brothers and Ava stood in the front row. Nuen stood behind them without a smile, like a stern statue.

Books filled the remaining space. Some were about geography, others about culture and art, but most were fantasy novels.

Since the Noonday Calamity, human history and civilization had suffered a devastating rupture. It took millennium after millennium and the rise of three sages to recover the lost knowledge from beneath the heavy sands.

That recovered knowledge did not include fantasy novels. They could neither produce anything nor teach anyone a useful skill. They existed only as entertainment.

In an age of madness, entertainment was an unnecessary luxury.

Worse, because civilization had been broken apart, many books had a first volume but no second. Their stories simply stopped halfway through.

Xilian searched through the piles and found a Mechanical Repair Manual. He had read it until it was falling apart, and every page was covered in notes.

He opened the other door in his room and entered his workshop—or rather, his storeroom.

The air smelled of rust, as though a heap of metal carcasses had been rotting there for years... which was not far from the truth.

The shelves were stacked with rusty parts of every kind. In the center hung a motorcycle covered in scars and makeshift repairs.

He had spent years gathering it all.

"The outside world..."

Xilian murmured the words, his eyes full of longing.

To reach the outside world, he needed, above all, a vehicle that could cross the wilderness.

White Cliff Town had no vehicles capable of long-distance travel, and no professional mechanics.

After Xilian questioned him time and again, Nuen had admitted helplessly that he knew nothing about machines. Only the Spirit Artisans of the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms had that expertise.

But there were no Spirit Artisans in remote White Cliff Town.

Xilian had not let that stop him. He had chosen to learn from scratch, using discarded parts hauled back from the wilderness to restore most of the motorcycle.