The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

Isaac went through a regular cycle of cultivation. He spent 2 hours meditating to digest the pill and absorb the maximum benefits from it. Then he took a break to eat lunch. After that, he spent another 6 hours meditating to squeeze some remaining Qi out of the pill.

By the time he was done, it was already early evening. Isaac got up and stretched.

Normally he'd use this time to do swordsmanship practice, go to read, or just sleep if he was particularly exhausted. However, he had a very specific job to do today.

He left the Cultivation Pagoda and walked down the route he'd taken this morning. Soon he reached the spot where he'd hidden his stuff this morning, and he dug them out of the trash pile.

Isaac took the string and nails, then looked around the street to find a pair of empty glass bottles. He walked a short distance down the street, then tied the string around one of the bottles and put it on the roof of one of the houses.

He created a sword and used the flat of the blade as a makeshift hammer. He smashed a nail into the house's wall, right at the bottom near the ground. Then he stretched out a length of string and cut it. He threaded the string through the loop on the end of the nail, then pulled it across the street at shin-height.

Then he found a rather heavy rock, tied the string around it, and put the rock on the other side of the street.

The very thin string now stretched from one side of the street to the other at a low height, then passed through the eye hook nail and ran up the side of the house. It was tied around a glass bottle which teetered precariously on the edge of the house's roof.

Then Isaac walked down to the other end of the street and set up a similar contraption.

Anyone coming from either direction would trip on the string. That would pull the bottle off of the roof and Isaac would hear the shattering of glass. It was a primitive early-warning system to tell him somebody was coming.

After setting up these contraptions, Isaac walked back to the spot in the middle of them. He created a new sword, then pointed it downwards. The ground was covered in paving slabs but they weren't joined properly. There were small gaps between them which were filled with earth.

Isaac dug the tip of his blade into one of these gaps, then he pushed so that a fifth of the blade was buried in the ground. When the sword was firmly in, he used it like a lever. He pulled the sword handle towards him, and the tip of the blade created leverage on a paving slab.

Isaac gritted his teeth and pulled with all his strength. The paving slab was pulled up and Isaac's sword came free. He staggered backwards when the blade came loose, but quickly regained his balance.

He picked up the now-free paving slab and moved it out of the way. Then he went to retrieve the shovel.

With the paving slab gone, a large square of earth was exposed and Isaac dug his shovel into it.

The earth was frozen solid, so Isaac could barely push the shovel an inch into it. He had to stomp on the shovel to jam it into the ground.

Then he levered out a spadeful of earth and dumped it into one of the hemp bags he'd brought with him.

Heap after heap, soil was slowly deposited into the bag. Isaac's hole grew ever bigger, and he'd eventually excavated several bags of earth. After nearly 3 hours of digging, Isaac had created quite the sizeable pit. However, he decided to finish here for today.

He took the bags of earth and found various spots along the street to empty them; the street was already dirty, so some small heaps of dirt wouldn't stand out much. Then he went to dismantle his early warning systems. He untied the string around the rocks, took the bottles off the roof, and brought them with him.

Then Isaac ventured back to his hole. He stowed the shovel in the pit and put the bottles and string next to it. Then he heaved the paving slab back into place and kicked some dirt on top of it to make everything look natural.

When he was happy everything was as it should be, Isaac returned to the Cultivation Pagoda. He tiredly plodded up the stairs to his room and flopped onto his bed. He was asleep within seconds.

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Isaac repeated the same set of actions the next day: he cultivated for most of the day, then devoted some time to digging in the evening.

On the third day of seclusion, he did the same thing.

Now he had a complete tunnel under the wall which divided the Rank 1 and 2 districts.

On the 4th day, Isaac made a rather risky decision. He moved his operation into the Rank 2 district and began digging another hole. This time he was tunnelling into the Rank 3 district.

Of course, infiltrating the Rank 3 district was a much more serious offence than breaking into the Rank 2 district, so Isaac took extra care not to get caught.

By the end of day 6, Isaac had finished this tunnel as well. Then he spent a relaxed 7th day just cultivating and resting.

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Day 8: Isaac woke up in his own bed.

He'd left the Cultivation Pagoda last night, but he still had 1 reward point left. He wanted to use it now, but there was a more pressing job to do.

Isaac hopped out of bed and swept through his morning routine. Then he left his house, grabbing his coat on the way out.

He walked briskly down the street as he pulled the fur coat over his shoulders. Its thick layers of fur and leather helped shield against the blustering winds.

He made his way down empty alleys and ghosted through quiet streets with only a handful of people.

He didn't waste much time or draw much attention in reaching the wall to the Rank 2 district. He walked beside the wall with his face turned down and his hood pulled up. Suddenly, he stopped. He'd seen the small pile of trash which was adjacent to his hole.

He quickly located the loose paving slab and pulled it up. Then he crawled into his cramped tunnel, going backwards so he could pull the slab back into place behind him.

It was slightly awkward to go through the tunnel backwards, but Isaac managed. He shuffled to the end of the small tunnel and kicked backwards to move the slab away. It shifted to the side and he crawled out into the open air, emerging in the Sect's Rank 2 district.

He brushed himself down and ruffled his hair to get the dirt out. Then he put the slab back in place.

Of course, climbing over the wall might've been easier than tunnelling under it. However, Isaac had a sneaking suspicion that the walls were been equipped with some kind of alarm system. Of course, the Sect didn't disclose its security measures so Isaac might never know if he was correct or not. However, he always preferred to err on the side of caution.

Although it took a few days extra work, he was less likely to get caught tunnelling under the walls than he would be climbing over them, especially if the walls were alarmed like he suspected.

Isaac didn't second-guess his choice to dig under the walls. He simply pulled his hood up again (it had slipped down when he was in the tunnel) and started walking through the Rank 2 district.

He remained as nondescript as possible as he strolled through the streets. It didn't take much time to reach the wall around the Rank 3 district.

When he reached the wall, he located the spot he'd dug at, lifted the paving slab, and disappeared into his hole. Just like before, he pulled the slab back into place behind him.

A short crawl through the tunnel later, and Isaac was in the Rank 3 district. It was somewhere a Rank 1 like him had no place being.

Isaac took a quick glance around at the opulent surroundings which were incomparable to the Rank 1 district. He soaked in the atmosphere... he breathed the air of strong cultivators.

Then he composed himself and pulled a neatly folded map out of his pocket. It was a detailed map of the Sect which he'd traded his shovel for yesterday.

After picking out a certain location on the map, Isaac put it back in his coat pocket and set off.