"Relax relax, I don't bite." Ares flashed his growing fangs for a brief moment but apparently the joke was not appreciated as the other group, concerned he might actually just be stating his real intentions under the guise of sarcasm, subconsciously took a step back.
"Y... Y... You're Ares? Impossible! He's... inside... The barrier..." The young master stammered his way to the correct answer as his head swivelled on a dime between Ares and the barrier in question. He was seriously regretting not only his command to have Hugo attack Ares but also his confidence in stating that Ares... Couldn't possibly know or be related to... Ares! He couldn't have been more wrong and this revelation had blown his mind, wiping away any thought of continuing this fight. Worse still Ares' power was no joke. Beating Hugo with a mere finger, now that it was known this was probably actually Ares and he'd done that legitimately, didn't seem like a fluke anymore. Plus simultaneously supressing four transition realm cultivators while over a realm down in cultivation with one art... There were plenty of rumours about Ares' dominance, and this was but a mere fraction of it, and yet it was enough to terrify the group into submission on the spot.
It was known that Ares' cultivation would be low, what with being young and trapped inside Sheryashka, but evidently people didn't grasp how much strength he was capable of wielding even with a low cultivation base. If Ares showed these fools a Perish Armillary they might actually fall unconscious at the mere sight of it. Ares had to remind himself he was not normal and even Vraizon experts couldn't replicate an Armillary scale art on a whim. Sheryashka had become somewhat acquainted with Ares' antics, even if they were still justifiably and correctly horrified of him for the most part, but the outside world really didn't get it. Some people had experienced it in the pagoda but the impact was only really there in second hand form. Either A, Ares beat down his pagoda challengers with pressure and never showed his magic or, B, he used destruction against cheaters who were then reluctant to talk about their experience because they didn't want to admit it. Even if somebody was willing to talk about it everyone just assumed what they'd seen was overexaggerated or lies. Some people didn't even think pagoda Ares could cheat and use mana to begin with so stories about him were mostly limited to his talent with annihilation enhancement and even then he was still considered overbearing. Things like Garmr and the destruction pillar were 'known' but really underappreciated. That was still more knowledge than people had about something like Echo, though, so people seeing him for the first time had no idea what was coming.
"Yep, it's Ares in the flesh. Don't worry too much, I'm only out here for two days before the proverbial warden comes and locks me back up in my Sheryashkan jail cell. I won't be able to terrorise you lot for too too long so count yourselves lucky. Besides, you only have to show me around for a while, how bad can it be? I won't hear any complaints, though, not after you picked this fight. You should be grateful I didn't outright kill you like some of the other people that have been bothering me lately.
Let's keep this simple, I know nothing about the world outside the barrier and you four probably do. I want you to tell me what domain we're in, I want you to take me to the nearest planet, I want you to explain to me anything I don't understand once we get there, and I want to know more about the lifestyles and languages of people we come across. It's just two measly days so I'm sure you can handle it, right?" Ares was 'asking' 'politely' but there was an evil in his eyes that betrayed the consequences of disagreeing with him and was unmissable... Mostly because he wasn't trying to hide it. He was making his threat readily viewable by even the blindest and most obtuse of individuals. There was no way anyone could be oblivious to what would happen if his request was denied so none of the four cultivators opposite him shook their head or raised a fuss, silently agreeing with his every word. "Good good. I like co-operative people, really makes things go a lot smoother. Anyway I have two questions for now before we set off. First, like I said, I want to know what domain we're in. I'm guessing we're parallel to Sheryashka right now?" Ares had left Sheryashka by 'the side' so this domain should either be to the left or right of it. Military strength of his domain should be roughly equivalent and the peak of cultivation should also hover around transition realm or maybe a realm higher or lower given natural variance of mana in the air. There was a possibility Ares skipped a domain somehow and went diagonally as he came out of the barrier but it didn't seem likely as the spatial passage was broken but not to that extent. In essence, he was already certain he'd gone to the left of Sheryashka but he was asking for assurance and a guarantee.
"Milord..." The butler was the one to speak this time. The young master was too starstruck, and wallowing in self pity after the terrible introduction earlier, to speak. Hugo was dismayed at his overwhelming defeat and the father had yet to really say anything because he felt overwhelmed by Ares' presence. The father wasn't necessarily a big deal in the cultivator world but he wasn't a nobody either. He'd met with powerful clans and ancient cultivators a fair few times to conduct business and smooth over relations but the level of respect Ares commanded, even causally, was on a whole other level, especially when he got around to displaying his presence with any kind of seriousness. Thankfully the butler was well trained and could manage to speak in this situation without feeling burdened by the immense difference in status quo. The butler was inferior to everyone else here anyway so what did it matter if it was by a factor of one or one thousand? That was the way he saw it and it worked well enough for him which was impressive in its own way. "... We are currently in the 'Lowe' domain. Named after a one 'Jeremy Lowe' who was well known across the cosmos for his constant targeted derision towards the lower domains. His fall from grace in the upper domains brought him here many eras ago and he was subsequently treated like a sort of zoo animal by other higher domain cultivators that came to mock him much in the same way he mocked others. The cruel nickname of 'Lowe' domain, as in 'lowe-r domain' where the weak reside, persisted due to support ironically not from higher domain cultivators but, rather, the natives. They considered it to be a warning of sorts, an anecdotal reminder that anybody could wind up in dire straights if not careful. One shouldn't throw stones in glass houses. Nobody is invincible, not even you sir."
Ares nodded with a thoughtful expression. "Intriguing... But wrong! I'm a revenant so I'm actually immortal!" Ares laughed as the butler's eyes twitched. Evidently he wasn't too caught up on the latest hotness; the man, the myth, the legend, Ares, so this was news to him. His entire grand speech, in which he aimed to establish a bit of power amongst his own group with a brave remark, was brought crashing down because of his own lacking knowledge on the person he was facing. Technically Ares was immortal, not invincible, but the difference was negligible enough to shut the butler up. Ares had gotten a good answer out of him though, one that explained the history of the domain quite nicely. As such, he wouldn't bully the butler too much. He was just doing his job after all. His employers were lucky to have someone so dedicated, he was a devotee to their family and it wasn't even subtle. Picking a fight with someone like Ares, even if it was jsut a trivial passing comment, required some real guts. It's not even like Ares had really done anything to this lot so feeling slighted over this minor incident and verbally retorting him... This butler had probably been serving this family for many many years now. Maybe he liked them or maybe he was indebted, either way the butler's priorities were clear.
Ares didn't ask anyone this next question specifically, he just wanted to know why he was even in this situation to begin with. "Anyway, second question... And this is one I would really like an answer to. What on earth are those 'tryouts' you kept mentioning anyway? If you picked a fight with me over it I'm guessing it's not something small? If you tell me it's nothing I might actually kill you on the spot for wasting my time and patience. I'm not interested in keeping around lackies that brawl with strangers over scraps, that's beneath me."
"N... No! It's not like that!" The young master found some courage deep within and it seemed like he would be the one explaining this time. "The tryouts... They're!..."
Ring ring ring
Ring ring ring
"Hm?" Ares tilted his head like a confused dog. A treasure of some kind? An alarm talisman? Are they going to try and attack me with it? Is it dangerous? Are they calling backup? Ares' mind was running at breakneck pace to identify the strange object the young master pulled out and was placing next to his ear. It was literally just a phone but, well, Ares wasn't exactly familiar with such a concept. Or well, even if he was loosely aware of a communication device that functioned in a similar manner he'd never seen one like this before. The ringing was new to him, along with the sleek design and the ability for the phone to fold in half, so he was somewhat taken aback by this strange metal thing. It was all new and novel but, right now, he was concerned because he was starting to believe that ringing object was calling in an airstrike on his position or something! "The hell are you people up to over there?" Ares' wariness was not overlooked and this time the father spoke up because it seemed he was the only one who realised how much of a country bumpkin Ares was. The other three were unable to grasp why Ares was narrowing his eyes at the phone because they were too accustomed to living a modern life that they automatically assumed everyone else did too. The thought that Sheryashka wasn't technologically advanced never even crossed their minds. Thankfully the father was quick on the uptake. If he wasn't another fight might have broken out and Ares would not have been as lenient this time if he was convinced that phone was actually a weapon of some sort. The father nodded to his son, telling him to accept the call, while he explained it to Ares.
"Think of it as a remote communication device. I'm sure you have something like talismans in Sheryashka right? This device mimics that function and additionally..." The father gave a rough run down and Ares got the gist of it surprisingly quickly. The father didn't expect him to come to terms with a phone so fast but, actually, it reminded Ares of how Transmit worked. As long as you knew the other person's name, or in the case of a phone their 'number', you could get a hold of them any time, anywhere. Of course the former was to deliver an item, and the latter was to talk, but the idea behind it was translatable. Ares was actually really interested in phones now that he understood them because he would be able to talk to his wives and daughter, hear their voices and communicate in real time, if he owned one. They'd all need one too, actually, but the father mentioned phones were extremely common in the outside world which clued Ares in o how technologically advanced the world truly was. Such a thing being commonplace was actually really embarrassing for Ares because he felt like a caveman and luddite comparatively. As soon as the Redhome family escaped the barrier, down the line, the first order of business Ares was pursuing was buying everyone phones! Apparently the better ones could even work across multiple domains if you had the money to afford it which was a stark difference from the cheapest options which didn't even work if the other person was outside the same planet. There was serious variance in quality but that was to be expected from mass produced magically engineered products. Brands were seemingly a much bigger deal outside the Blade barrier than they were in it as prestige had been built up over a long course across multiple hundreds of domains. Ares didn't need to know these brands for now, he was merely visiting after all, but it would maybe matter later.
"Yes mother..." The young master's face as he answered the phone was... Quite something. He was incredibly subservient and struggling to get a word in edgewise while the person on the other end berated him endlessly while spewing orders at him.... "No we'll come back straight away!... It's just that there's been a small problem... But mother! It's not something that can be ignored! Mother!..." The flustered young master, now distraught, looked at his phone's screen but there was no use in doing so as his mother had already hung up on him after giving him his marching orders. The flow of the conversation looked to be that the mother, who wasn't with this group, was demanding they return immediately back to wherever they came from but also didn't yet know about Ares because she was being too bossy to giver her son a chance to speak. She must have figured he would come up with some sad and pathetic excuse for defying her so didn't even bother listening at all. Either the mother was a tyrant or, perhaps, there was a slim chance, it was the exact opposite. Ares had seen the way this group acted so maybe she was the only one who could keep them in line and she was just demanding they act like upstanding people, instead of bullying others, for five damn minutes. Either way, Ares could sympathise with everyone involved. The mother was probably sick of these four monkeying around, while these four had Ares breathing down their necks, so he sighed aloud and gave them an out.
"We can go to wherever your mother is and explain the situation to her in detail. I was looking for the nearest planet anyway so as long as this place you're heading to isn't far away I'll allow it."
"Thank you..." The father was smiling wryly and Ares instantly figured out who wore the pants in that relationship.
"Ah but, I still want to know about what we were discussing before. The tryouts, I mean. You were interrupted so why not start again?"
"Ah! The tryouts!..." The young master started but stopped soon after and contemplated something. "Maybe it would be faster to show you than explain it? If you wait until we get to the planet it might be easier to give you a rundown. There's plenty of information about it available on the internet so you can search for it yourself at your own discretion instead of taking our word for it..."
"Ok, cool... What's 'internet'?"" Ares didn't understand why the four cultivators in front of him collectively groaned but it seemed the journey to the nearest planet was going to be filled with plenty of long and tedious explanations about things Ares was blissfully unaware of... He felt like a moron already... In fact, during the trip, Hugo tried to explain to Ares what a fridge was... He already knew that! He used one daily in his Blade to store food! To be fair, Sheryashka did have a weird level of technological knowhow. It wasn't nothing but it wasn't great either and sat at a strange middle ground wherein things like guns existed but TVs were somehow even rarer than that...
Technology, inside the barrier, had advanced rapidly for the sake of warfare and that was probably due to the Neo Gear robos and the Legion clan in Vraizon. They commissioned the invention of new ways to, in the case of the former, evolve themselves or, in the case of the latter, subdue criminals and win wars... Against the Umbra clan no doubt. Someone like Bellona could get to watch films because she was the daughter of the matriarch and patriarch but, other than that, most pieces of technology in Legion territory were used for war and combat. Things like medical heartbeat monitors for the wounded or high-powered telescopes for scoping out ambushes from a distance.
Anyhow, point being, fridges existed and Ares had one! He wasn't that ignorant! The same was true of various appliances like ovens and light switches though, actually, Ares' current residence in the sect didn't have the latter. He just opened the curtains when he wanted more light and, at night, would have to put candles on or use a technical / talisman. Apparently the core area, and onwards, had light switches but Ares was skipping to the sect master's residence anyway so it didn't much matter. Though it did remind Ares he would have to remake the sect from the ground up with new technology once he got it outside of the barrier. Refitting countless buildings with new innovations that would become part of everyday life for the disciples... It was a big task but not doing it felt wrong. There was no good reason to be behind the times, stuck in the stone ages, and Ares was learning about a lot of conveniences that didn't exist in his homeland that would be pretty neat if he could get his hands on them.
Especially the 'internet'.
Apparently lots of cultivation techniques, arts, and general advice could be found for free just by browsing whatever topic you were interested in. A library, accessible at any time with no admission fee, contributed to by billions of experts over however many years... No wonder it was valuable. The group Ares was with called it the 'pinnacle of inventions since the dawn of mankind' and the more they spoke about it the more Ares started to agree with them. Sure there were miscellaneous functions, like listening to music or watching funny cat videos, that didn't seem as important but the fact it could do all of that, and so much more, was impressive. It was starting to sound like there was little one couldn't do with internet but, in a way, that was also troublesome. Ares mentioned wanting to add 'internet' to his sect one day but the young master smiled wryly and gave him a precautionary warning that Ares hadn't expected.
Apparently the first sect to ever give its disciple internet access crashed and burned because nobody wanted to do anything other than play around with the world wide web, exploring as many corners of it as the could. It sucked up all their time and was so fascinating the disciples forgot to cultivate because they grew lazy. They had a blood feud with another sect who simply out-cultivated them while they were all busy playing around with meaningless entertainment. Nowadays most serious sects put conditions on internet usage depending on the ranks of their disciples. Strong cultivators didn't need to be told how to behave themselves, and would use internet sparingly anyway because they still understood the value of cultivating, so outer court and inner court members of sects would be cut off from access to the internet for most of the day. Only when the sun went down could they mess around to their heart's content.
Of course some sects allowed free usage of internet too, again, it depended on the type of disciples and the type of sect. There was a lot to consider. Some sects had become more modern and only cultivated for the sake of extending lifespans. These sects were usually protected by various governments / powerful conglomerates and seen as a way of strengthening the population of any given area rather than being competitive entities that fought over cultivation resources and pushed to become dominant in the domain. It was more like a hobbyist / enthusiast get together for people who didn't want to fight but still wanted to live longer and experience the joys of cultivation. Obviously these sects didn't have as many resources or treasures, and rarely competed against normal sects in any meaningful way, but they were supported and could function well enough on the side lines. The atmosphere was considerably more friendly and laid back in these types of sects, and a lot more stuff like pets, recreational drug use even, and internet access were tolerated fairly loosely.
On top of that there were also sects dedicated to things like cooking or sports that had risen in recent years. Traditional sects still stood at the helm but there was variance that spawned as a result of modern technology and a desire to pursue personal interests. This was a natural cycle. All the warlike elders had already wont their battles and claimed their territories so the children didn't today really have to fight over anything. They grew up passive and had no interest in waging grand wars or conquests but would much rather do as they pleased and live life to the fullest. With so many new way so to entertain themselves the newer generations became less combative overall... Though people like this young master sill existed in the more typical sects and clans and Ares seemed doomed to keep running into them for the rest of his eternal life... Point being, there were a lot of cultivators in this world but a lot of them lived like mortals did, actually, they just lived considerably longer.
Also, as an aside, the number of mortals was declining rapidly with every year that passed. Thanks to the internet, it was entirely possible for many mortals to get information they otherwise wouldn't be able to. If one cultivation method didn't work for them they were no longer completely screwed as they could simply look up another that fit them better. There were numerous guides to get them kickstarted on their journey so even the most talentless mortal could find a way to sneak into the cultivation world if they tried hard enough. Previously, mortals were stuck to whatever opportunities existed on the planet they were born in but, now? Now they could communicate with people domains away on blogs and discuss how to escape the shackles of mortality with those who had been through their exact troubles. Only mortals in poorer domains and planets, without internet access, really struggled to become cultivators anymore.
Generally speaking, life was great out here for those not interested in the fierce nature of cultivation. Was it perfect? No. All these advances and changes gave rise to their own set of issues that Ares would come to understand one day as he grew accustomed to this world. Things like hacking and virus software that caused mass outages, as well as nuclear weapons and other such dangers, were also on the rise. It was a balance of risk and reward but one people tried to maintain because they genuinely liked this new direction for society. The old clans and sects could stick to their territories, explore unknown and harsh lands, and battle each other to the death in coliseums and arenas. These new cities, however, were like sanctuaries and heavily guarded for those who wanted peace of mind. Sometimes brawls took place when cultivators with enmity met one another on the streets but there were police forces to keep such disorderly conduct and riots in check. The cultivation world still existed out here, much like it did in Sheryashka, but there was another world budding right next to it that was wildly different and people were free to pick and choose which one they preferred. Ares had just arrived in front of one such new planet and it was time he got a closer look!