"Yeah. Nobody's going to go looking. They might not believe you have actual backing but it's not falsifiable and won't offend."

Rebecca nods.

If there are no other items on the agenda, then they can finish up breakfast and set off.

Wen asks a few questions about her overnight progress and declares it good, but nothing else major. They set off.

The outside of the walled neighborhood they've rented a villa in appears to be the rich part of town. Gardens, fresh paint, fancy signs, well-dressed shoppers, the odd mural.

Are they going to diffuse out from here or is there a more central cultivator's market—or more than one, if they want to split up? If there's a map handy Rebecca will memorize it; otherwise, she can take names and directions and acquire a map in her own time.

"I'm going to go introduce myself at the sect gates, I know all the courtesies. You should just go shopping, I think. The cultivator-focused markets will be near each other just to leech off each others' customer bases, though there might be hidden emporiums elsewhere- There are a number of smaller schools with branches or compounds in the city."

Then Rebecca will be off once she has a direction.

In the rich part of town, obvious cultivators don't stand out as much. Her ears and beauty still make her stand out a lot, though. Tea houses and other sorts of restaurants. A Master Calligrapher's place. A branch of the White Lotus Sect. A theater and a fighting arena. A variety of smithies, armories, fletchers, bowyers, and the like. A chopping block for public executions, currently empty and clean. Places selling fancy robes, perfume, fancy furniture, jewelry. A brothel only fig-leaflingly disguised as a massage place. A Beast Core wholesaler. A Formation Master's office. Very fancy hairdresser and makeup type places. A branch of the Mist Sailor Sect. A courier office.

Sects and offices she'll skip for now, though she discreetly checks out the foot traffic in and out of them to get a feel for attire, bearing and demographics. Politicking is normally her comparative advantage, but she's a fish out of water and Wen's handling that. Honestly she would have liked the opportunity to watch Wen on her errands, but Rebecca would be distracting, and this has faster short-term yields.

Once she's done with an initial survey, she'll check in first at the Master Calligrapher. She's aware of more than one fictional setting where scribing is important to magic, and a person simply good at mundane writing wouldn't warrant an entire shop dedicated to him back on Earth Bet. Maybe that's where talismans come from. She'll look in through the window appraisingly as she passes by. What's on display, and what is the clientele doing?

Wall scrolls with poetry or wise sayings in a variety of styles, sometimes on top of a watercolor, are on display. A few of them have faint qi in them- And those are universally the best quality ones. Not the most striking or prettiest, but the most - whole seeming. The clientele are quietly admiring the decorations, talking with an apprentice-looking type, or in one case being ushered to a back room immediately and taking that treatment as a given.

Or it's just very nice calligraphy. Maybe the qi-infused ones do something, or maybe it's just to impart a certain ineffable feel to them. She will not linger.

Armories and smithies, next. What's the most upscale-looking weapon smithy nearby? She'll take a few seconds to observe any existing shoppers, and then stride in, carrying herself a mix of natural confidence and curiosity—an untempered scion in an unfamiliar place, used to being important but not so much trying to project herself.

The one that's almost a whole city block and has gratuitous amounts of monster trophies and built-in fighting arenas with faintly shimmering shields to protect bystanders is the most upscale!

"Welcome to the Five Ways Forge, honored cultivator. As a patron of our residences, we will be happy to have an intermediate level smith show you the finest weapons available in this city, should you be interested."

How did they tell? The key card, probably. Can anyone tell that she's a patron of the the Five Ways Forge?

"I would be pleased to recieve such an introduction," she answers. This is perfect: personal service and quality goods without coming to the specific attention of anyone important. She would only have preferred not being immediately identified, but she's aware it's a bit of a lost cause in the long term.

Is anyone using the fighting arenas? She was planning to stop by the other arenas she saw to get a feel for the different ways of combat here, but she can get a preview while she's here. The demonstrations here might have a narrower focus on weapons and technique, so it's worth a wide sample.

"Of course. I'll show you over to our greeting room, or you can feel free to browse for now. It should only be a few moments."

Sales guy passes a message to a runner, who bows and heads off.

There's a trio of men trying out a rack of different swords against each other and laughing, under the watchful eye of some sort of official. Probably a combination of sales and making sure they don't just run off with the stock. Two favor flashy moves, one favors simple sweeps and footwork. The latter has a faint glimmer of qi forming on the edge of his sword for a moment during the swings.

"Ah, our Barrier Stages are a major feature. They allow you to try out equipment up to the end of the foundation establishment phase right here in our hall, with a minor fee of course."

"Do you have practice dummies or automatons to test against if I don't have a partner?"

Can she tell if the qi is coming from the sword or coming from the man himself? She wishes she had a better qi sense so she could tell what level those men are at.

"We have quite durable targets and dummies available, but sophisticated training partners are much more available in human form. If it comes to that, perhaps you could demonstrate your form so I do not waste your time with an unworthy foe." Or one that would easily crush her, causing offense, either.

The qi appears on every sword the least flashy one tries, and doesn't appear on the same swords when his friends try them.

One of them shouts out between rounds of banter that they'd be glad to give her pointers, having overheard the exchange. A variety of opponents is better training, after all!

The problem is that she doesn't know weapons. For a brief duration of her career she used a padded quarterstaff, so she'd likely go with that for a test match—fists are probably a bad idea, too obvious that there's something wrong with her—but she used it for fast, nonlethal takedowns against much weaker foes. She doesn't know how to fight, weapon to weapon.

She does have Battle Demon and Lightfoot, and maybe Battle Maiden helps. If she plays herself as talented but with limited combat training... Not with random people, definitely. Maybe with the staff, after some independent testing. It'll be easier to understand her options with some live practice. She doesn't want to pigeonhole herself into one option just because she's used it before, and she has cultivation synergies to think of as well.

She shouts back at the man that she wouldn't want to waste their time, leaving it unspecific what she means by that.

They seem to take it good-naturedly. The guide backs off and lets her browse for a bit, and then introduces Intermediate Smith Sun Ken, who just nods rather than bowing. (Bowing in return would be the right thing for a nobody to do, but nodding would be right for a clan heir.)

"I'm always glad to see our crafts go to those who can fully appreciate them, miss Reb Ka. What were you looking for today? A good reliable sword is something every Daoist needs, but there are many more options."

She nods back.

"I seek to invest in my martial studies, which I have for a while neglected. I used a staff in the past, but did not keep up with its practice, so I may be open to change. I favor aggressive strength and speed. I need a weapon which is durable, and weight is not an issue. Do you have recommendations?"

"To take advantage of high strength my recommendation is a war axe, but the simple metal staff has many proponents as well. The disadvantage of such weapons is that sword cultivators oft find it difficult to use sword qi, even on the edge of the blade. After all, an axe is not a sword." The last sentence has the ring of a common-sense saying. "Come this way and we can show you some of the common designs for such weapons from our displays. Should any of them call to you, we can have one created out of appropriate metal."

Lethality is not as much of a concern here, it seems. Natural, with how much of their work must strike to kill. She'll need to investigate how they spar with deadly weapons.

She nods and follows.

Sun Ken talks confidently about how different sorts of metal and alloy affect the weapons, and of course about the designs. They don't use mortal metals for any but apprentice creations, naturally, but much can be learned from observations of mortal metallurgy anyway- The difference between hardness and strength, elasticity and ductility... For a staff you want something that sits comfortably in your hand in terms of width, balanced weight, and height by taste. She might prefer a long one with more reach and less concern about the strength required to move it quickly. Polearms are characterized by their head, usually optimized for either piercing tough hide and scale, slashing heads which can channel sword qi moderately well, or pure mass in a hammer head for battering through tough objects. Glaives, guisarmes, bardiche, pike, halberd, warhammer, war axe, naginata... There are infinitely many combinations. Sun Ken's usual recommendation is to pick one aspect of one weapon - piercing, slashing, or blunt force - and maximize it as much as possible, so you can come to a full appreciation of the weapon's Dao.

There's a wide variety of implements of violence on the walls. She is invited to pick them up and handle them.

Is she planning to go wide or go deep, is the question.

Blunt force is her forte right now, but does she want to double down on it or branch out? By what she understands, it'll take a long time for her cultivation to reach parity with her Brute powers, but the eventual ceiling is much higher. If she's looking long-term, she shouldn't make her decision too much based on her current advantages. There's something missing in Sun Ken's introduction, and she tries to pin it down.

"Perhaps this is a premature question: are there particular weapons and elements that extrapolate well to higher stages of cultivation? For example, the mass in a hammer head sounds only useful until the raw force the wielder can flatly exert with their muscles far exceeds the momentum which can be stored in the moving head. Sword qi, for another example: does it become more or less relevant in combat as one advances in power, such that one with high ambitions might wish to adjust expectations of its value when selecting their style?

"Or is it easy enough to retrain from one path to another that the question isn't relevant?"

...Something seems to have been vaguely wrong or naïve about this question, going by the politely befuddled look the smith gives her.

"Of course one should follow the martial path that most resonates with them. The way of the sword may be the most well explored, but the crushing weight of a hammer or the merciless bite of an axe is no less true a Dao. But equally, it is good to have a wide foundation. I would say... The spirituality of a weapon can only assist the wielder, not stand on its own. True masterworks meant for higher realm experts are more channels for the Dao and their auras and techniques, than brute metal cutting against metal."

She is unperturbed by the befuddled look.

So it all bleeds into something more conceptual and personalized, at the higher levels. Resonance... not an axe. Too crude, too slow. She could spin the heaviest axe around like it's weightless, but she guesses that's not what the "merciless bite of an axe" is about. She doesn't know much about swords, but it doesn't feel right either.

"I want something fast," she decides. "Something suitable for precise and powerful thrusts. With reach, but not overly sacrificing defensive options in close quarters—able to deflect and swipe. Perhaps some type of polearm. What are the differences between the types?"

Sun Ken will patiently go around trying different sorts of spear, pike, and other pointy-bit-on-stick options, and demonstrate basic forms with them. More advanced creations can size-change, sometimes in a way that's useful in combat, but these are not that fancy.