Henry sneezed violently as his left eye twitched, some asshole was talking about him, and he did not appreciate that.

  Since he got to Crucible City, Henry has had this weird feeling of being watched or talked about. He couldn’t shake it, so he chose to ignore it. Henry chalked it all up to being in a crazy xianxia world. Henry had more significant, more pressing concerns to deal with currently.

  He had been walking around for an hour now, lost in the proverbial sauce of this place. Luckily, an average-enough-looking guy offered a free guided tour; he said his name was Ting Ding and that this was a service provided by the city for tourists. Ting Ding told Henry to look around a bit and that he would let him know when he was ready.

  Henry roamed, killing time for a bit, until he noticed a vendor selling novelty shirts and trousers. Henry was a sucker for kitsch, and his cobbled-together clothing was disintegrating at this point. He needed some new threads. Luckily, the clothing vendor said they would buy his outfit. Henry guessed the material must have been high quality and could be reused.

  The chipper salesperson gave him a tee shirt and linen trousers in exchange for his rags. The shirt was surprisingly good quality if not for the garish words “I came to Crucible City, and all I got was this shirt” painted in bright red. The pants even had pockets, and Henry’s estimation of the xianxia world increased slightly.

  Henry changed in the middle of the street, eliciting many lecherous eyes from passersby; one lady even winked at him flirtatiously. From what he remembered, Henry was never attractive in his past life, and Peng was the opposite of handsome. This was a welcome change, so Henry ran with it.

  He started to flex and pose like those bodybuilders in his past world. A crowd began to form around him; most of them looked to be women of middling attractiveness. Henry blew them kisses as he proceeded to curl one of his arms to show off his bicep.

  Someone threw a coin at him, then another, and soon enough, there was a little pile on the floor around him. Henry bent down to gather them all up, giving the crowd a view of his rock-hard buns. Whoops and cheers came from the thirsty middle-aged ladies; one particularly aggressive lady even shouted for Henry to take it off.

  “Everyone here for the free guided tour, please line up next to me, “ cried Ting Ding in a clear, booming voice.

  Henry put all his gold coins into his burlap sack and bowed to the crowd. They didn’t want him to leave, but he just smiled and jogged off to join the queue of people following the tour guide.

  The guy was wearing a big, goofy red hat now. This made it next to impossible to lose him in the crowd. Henry was increasingly impressed by the management of Crucible City; they had thought of everything.

  “Alright, folks, my name is Ting Ding, and I will be your guide today. If you are here with me, you will be a newcomer to our fair city. A word of warning before we start.”

  Ting paused to make sure everyone was following along.

  “There are places that are strictly off-limits to visitors. You will know what these places are like by the dangerous guards outside them. The Crucible City leadership will not be liable for bodily harm or death if you violate these rules. Now that I've gotten that grim piece of information out of the way let us start the tour.”

  Henry had a nagging suspicion that Crucible City hid the excellent loot in those off-limits places.

  “Crucible City started as a sleepy little village where the founder of the Dividing Heaven Sword Sect was born. This was roughly four thousand years ago. It is now one of the biggest cities in the southern half of the Martial Alliance.”

  Henry appreciated this info dump since he knew fuck all about who ran things on this continent.

  “Every one of the twelve sects in the Martial Alliance has their criteria for choosing new disciples, but they all agree that combat is the best way to test for talent. Steel sharpens steel, so Crucible City has always been where the Rookie Tournament is held to weed out the undesirables.

  Ting Ding paused as the crowd of tourists oohed appropriately.

  “Crucible City will swell to the millions in the coming days as hopefuls pour in to fight for the right to join a prestigious sect. I am going to assume most of you will be here to watch the spectacle; I suggest you get your lodgings in order.”

  This was news to Henry. Peng's memories didn’t have anything about a tournament. He guessed that must have been because the poor guy just gave up after being deemed unworthy.

  “That brings us to the first stop in our tour,” Ting Ding said, motioning towards a multi-storied building. “This is the Rising Star Inn.”

  The crowd of people looked at the building in awe. Henry was perplexed about the big deal with this place. As if sensing the confusion, Ting Ding pointed at him.

  “You, sir, that's right, the big strapping gentleman,” Ting Ding said.

  Henry gave him the universal gesture of who me?

  “Yes, sir, you seem confused about why we are making a big fuss about this building. You must be a foreigner to these lands, so let me expound on the history of The Rising Star Inn.”

  Henry nodded and gave him a double thumbs up.

  “Lady Pale Moon, a Golden Core cultivator of great renown, owns the inn. It offers free room and board to all cultivators who can prove themselves worthy. Since its inception six hundred years ago, without fail, every single guest has gone on to be a rising star of their generation.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Ting Ding let the crowd gawk for a bit and even helped a tourist take a picture in front of the inn with what looked like a crystal shard.

  Henry looked at the inn and knew he had to get there. Free room and board was just too good to pass up.

  “Let's move on, folks; we got much more to see," Ting said as he herded the stragglers.

  “Another famous feature of Crucible City is the Eternal Forge in the merchant quarters.”

  The group moved swiftly through the crowds as Ting pointed out different buildings and shops. This one had the best dumplings, and that one brewed the most potent elixirs. It wasn’t long until they pulled up to what Henry knew was the merchant district.

  The merchant district had a vibe to it. Something intangible that spoke to Henry’s soul. The pulse of commerce and mercantilism sufficed the place. Henry's ki hungered for the potential energy in this place. Henry couldn’t control himself; something primal took him over, and he booked it into an alley when Ting Ding wasn’t looking.

  Ting Ding felt one ki's presence flee from his flock. He looked around and noticed the big foreigner was missing. That was fine, Ting thought. Every year, at least one got away.

  The rest of the group had been entranced by his words this whole time.

  Ting Ding was a waste demon. He took care of the refuse and undesirables of Crucible City. He had an agreement with the founder of the Heaven Splitting Sword Sect that he would keep the city clean, and, in exchange, he could add to his flock.

  Every long-time resident of Crucible City knew that you never took the free guided tour or ate from Ting Ding’s Meat Buns.

  Ting Ding provided a service for the city, and in return, the leadership paid no heed to his antics besides who was more undesirable and unwanted than tourists.

  “Next, we will visit the meatpacking district, where we will stop for lunch. It just so happens that my family has the best meat buns in town. I know that sounds like nepotism but wait till you try some, they are to die for.”

  ****

  Henry peeked his head out of the alley, making sure the coast was clear, and the tour guide was gone. That guy gave Henry the heebee jeebees. Maybe it was his plastic smile or the weird kid that seemed to trickle off of him, but something just felt off. However, Henry could rationalize the need to immerse himself in the merchant district. The place was a menagerie of sights and sounds.

  Henry walked for a while, marveling at the different stalls and shops. Some shops sold cultivation regents like beast cores and cultivation pills. Other shops sold more esoteric things like leapers skin and babies' breath. Some of the shops seemed legit, while others were scammers.

  Henry passed by a vendor who claimed he sold actual virgin tears, and as proof, he would wheel out a woman, and she would cry on command. Now, if this woman was a virgin, then Henry was an aardvark. Hell, she even winked at Henry as he walked away, making lewd motions with her finger and tongue.

  This was the xianxia world that Henry had always seen in his head when he read his novels. Henry knew he could spend all day just window shopping. Unfortunately, Henry could feel his stomach and ki roiling with hunger. He had about eight gold coins from his earlier antics but needed more. He had to pawn his goods, and he had to do it quickly.

  Henry saw the smoke in the air and could only assume that was where the forges were. Henry knew he would draw too much unwanted attention if he tried to pawn his swords off at a weapon shop. He felt that selling it for scraps, like he did with his clothes, would be the safer option.

  Henry could hear the clang of metals before he saw the forges. Big, burly boys glistened with sweat and bashed hunks of metals into weapons of death. It was a pretty manly setting, so it was to his surprise that a little girl came grumbling over when he asked to talk to someone about selling the swords.

  “Heard you wanted to sell some swords?” the little girl said as she spit some chewing tobacco on the floor before Henry.

  “Oh, you're a big fucker aren’t ya.”

  Henry held his tongue and just proffered the swords for her to inspect.

  The little girl handled the blades expertly, swishing them around the air increasingly complexly. She then brought them to her face, sniffed them, licked them, and handed them to her aide.

  “Who’d you kill for these?” the little girl asked Henry with no expression betraying her youthful appearance.

  Henry kept silent; he was learning that the more he talked, the more likely he would involve himself in some shit he didn’t want any part of.

  “Strong silent type huh? Ok, I'll give you one hundred and fifty gold for each. That's my only offer.”

  She motioned her assistant to bring over a ki stone, at which point Henry raised his hand to stop her.

  He then grabbed a coin from his sack and held it in front of her face.

  “Oh, you are one of those weird foreigners that want payment in coins,” she said as she pulled a ring out of her vest pocket.

  “You’re a handsome fucker so I'll do you a favor, I'll sell you this spatial ring for fifty gold, that's quiet a steal you know.”

  Henry understood the logic of this as walking around with three hundred gold coins would have been quite cumbersome. Henry offered her a hand to shake, but the little girl just stared at him like he was some idiot.

  “The fuck do you want me to do with that? Just take the ring and get out of here, you big doofus.”

  With that last insult, she chucked the ring and a bag of two hundred and fifty gold coins at him.

  Henry had used spatial items in his past life, so he knew he needed to feed it a little of his ki to activate it. A little black hole appeared above the ring when he did. Henry threw the whole bag of gold inside and strolled out of the forge, feeling like a whole new man.

  ****

  The first thing Henry did was go straight to a food stall. Majestic Fatties Hand Pulled Noodles certainly lived up to its name. The Fatty in question was Fatty Chen, the owner/chef of the establishment, a middle-aged, jovial fat man who had a way with all things noodles. Henry watched, mesmerized, as Fatty Chen pulled him a fresh bowl of noodles and ladled a clear broth over it.

  “Best in all of Crucible City, eat up stranger,” Fatty Chen said, jiggling his corpulent stomach.

  The food stall was packed with people enjoying their food or gossiping about the day's events. Henry slurped his noodles and listened. One conversation interested him immensely as he eavesdropped.

  “I lost it all, man; my wife is going to kill me,” a man cried, slamming down a glass of liquor.

  “I told you, Nam, you gotta stop gambling on payday; at least wait till after you paid your rent.” said another man trying to counsel his friend.

  “I can’t help it, Shao; they give you free drinks, and the girls were so pretty,” cried Nam as he drank another shot.

  “There, there, it's ok. You can sleep at my place tonight,” Shao said.

  Henry couldn’t help himself; he tried, but that feeling came over him again. He bought a bottle of wine and walked over to Nam and Shao’s table.

  Five bottles of Fatty Chen’s house hooch, and Shao was asleep while Nam had one hand over Henry’s shoulder.

  “Henry, you’re a good dude, so I have to warn you,” Nam said with a hiccup. “ You shouldn’t go to the Dragon's Horde; that place will ruin you.”

  “I know, Nam, but I got this itch, and I got to scratch it,” Henry said, faking being drunk.

  “It's your funeral, man; it's like four streets down. Big ugly building with a big ass golden dragon on the sign in the front; you can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks, Nam, you’re a real pal,” Henry said as he got up and paid for both his and Nam’s bills.

  Henry was full of delicious food, but his ki was still roiling. Henry could not fight the siren call of the gold madness any longer. He had thought he had the gold madness under control, but when Nam told him that The Dragon’s Hoard was the Southern Land's largest casino, he could resist no more. He wanted to, no, he needed to get more loot, a gigantic amount, and where was the best place for that?

  The big ass ugly building with the even bigger golden dragon sign beckoned to Henry. It took him like a lover to its bosom and a knife to the back.

  Help a Bro Out!