“Truly, masters can be found from everywhere,” Thel-Da mused out loud. “One truly cannot discount age and appearance.”

“You sound experienced in this,” said Gaius, who had finished retelling an adaptation of how he learnt to sculpt. Naturally, he had hidden things like the existence of Orb, the fact that the great teacher he spoke of was actually his little sister and the like.

“The largest families all have stories like this,” she replied. “An aged senior, who repays a kind-hearted act with generations of prosperity by teaching them secrets. Or a child, picked up and saved by kind people, turning into a pillar of a large clan and a powerhouse of an era.”

Gaius nodded along, and then frowned. Powerhouse of an era? These words should only appear in Orb, right?

Intrigued, the boy asked, “What do you mean by ‘powerhouse of an era’?”

“Oh. Ah. It’s a figure of speech. Apparently, the old ancestors of every clan were apparently capable of insane, mind-boggling feats of strength,” she explained. “Their so-called marital might are but fanciful embellishments, but no one can deny their incredible intelligence and wisdom.”

“I see,” Gaius replied, somewhat disappointed.

“Still, there are apparently legends about how these superhumans were able to take on a hundred men on their own,” she replied. “Most of us have gone through a phase where we try to do things like that after hearing about those feats.”

“Did anyone succeed?”

“If they did, we wouldn’t know,” Thel-Da replied. “But I suppose the master athletes are the closest to such people.”

Gaius knew who she was talking about. Those athletes were truly astounding, capable of putting even gold medallists of Earth to shame, but when he thought about it, it actually made sense. Unlike the people of Earth, the people here were essentially souls that were modelled on the human body. There had to be some extraordinary actions possible; if someone truly believed that they didn’t need sleep…

Well, that was a rabbit hole that Gaius wasn’t going to go pry into any time soon. Weiwu would probably provide a better answer, but even the great god wasn’t omnipotent. He would need to pry into the very construction of Cybral itself if Gaius was to understand how it worked, but the boy really had no business doing that.

“What’s the record for a kilometre sprint anyway?” Gaius asked.

“The current record is thirty-two seconds, give or take a few moments, by Jul-Li,” she replied. “Unfortunately, she was already hired by the Phi clan, so no one outside knows how she trained herself for this. The Jul family name is also too common for us to track down any possibility of an inheritance, so — what’s wrong?”

“No, nothing,” Gaius replied. “Thirty-two seconds…”

“Oh, it’s a rather shocking time, I agree. The previous record was forty seconds, so no one saw such a time coming.” Thel-Da rubbed her nose. “Even for me, the most talented of my current generation, I’m only hitting forty-four. I really want to know how she did it.”

For a moment, Gaius wanted to ask if the definition of his second and their second was different, but he gave up on it after a while. Even if there were minor differences, running a kilometre under a minute was nothing short of superhuman by Earth’s standards.

With a wry smile, he led La-Ti, whose eyes were glowing, and the musing Thel-Da into a smaller street in the heart of 2588. The sounds of machinery and men shouting filled the air, and Gaius could smell the familiar scent of wood shavings. Bundles of logs were already stacked up, and workmen ran around with a facsimile of Earth’s own woodcutting equipment in their hands.

“Hey, boss!” A gruff man standing at the gates waved at Gaius, who waved back. “Need more wood?”

“Need some logs too,” Gaius replied. “Special commission.”

“Alright!” He whistled, and a slightly smaller man took up his place. “Lemme show you around again!”

Gaius motioned at the others to follow him into the woodmill, where dozens of different logs were piled up. Most of them, however, had a striking resemblance to Earth’s and Orb’s trees, although some, like a particular tree with red polka dots, were clearly an outlier. Without much ado, Gaius dived into the topic of selecting the best woods to carve with.

It didn’t take long for him to list out the properties of an ideal wood type, and with Thel-Da busily taking notes with La-Ti, Gaius couldn’t help but feel like a teacher. Expounding on the importance of the wood’s softness and the grain inside, Gaius moved on to introducing the tools craftsmen without the support of mystical energies used.

He had gotten a rather good range of chisels and whittling knives for his little apprentice, but that didn’t stop the latter from looking around. In the past few days, La-Ti had earned some energy salts on his own through selling his works, so it was understandable that he would want to spend them somehow.

While the two were looking through the tools together, Gaius suddenly thought of the little wooden cube he obtained, and then showed it to the gruff man. His rough exterior gave way to a curious expression as he examined the little curio closely, and before long, a puzzled look surfaced.

“Where didja get this from?”

“Not sure either, Mu-Ting,” Gaius replied. “Someone gave it to me.”

“Looks like one of them exotic wood,” Mu-Ting replied. “Never seen this one before, no. Seems to be rather special too.”

The boy grunted.

“It’s made of some kinda hardwood, but it’s harder than the ones we have here too.” The gruff man poked it with a knife experimentally. “Real hard, real tough.”

“Is it possible for this box to have something inside?” Gaius asked.

“Maybe, but you’ll need a better knife than the ones we have ‘ere. In fact, I think even my axes won’t work,” said Mu-Ting.”

“I-I see.” Nodding his thanks, Gaius finalised his order, and got the others to leave. There wasn’t any point in getting new tools for La-Ti until he mastered his current ones, after all, but Thel-Da did get her own set and some small blocks of good wood.

“We still have some time, so should we look around town?” Thel-Da asked.

La-Ti blinked twice. “Yes!”

Gaius was about to reject her offer, but since his apprentice looked really enthusiastic, the boy decided to go with it after all. It wasn’t like there was anything that needed immediate tending to, anyway. Life in Cybral was idyllic, easy…there wasn’t any looming threat of the great gods.

The only thing he was worried about was the three he left behind.