Blueprint for Immortality: a Crafting Xianxia

Quest: Conquer the Stone

Goal: Break 1 (0/1) of the practice stones used by the cultivators to test their strength.

Reward: Karmic Pill

The practice stones sat in a courtyard by themselves, a courtyard where full disciplines would frequently train. Each practice stone was a pillar of granite two feet across and six feet tall. To graduate from the lowest grade of disciple to the next, you had to demonstrate the power to break one of these stones with your fist.

Even at this hour, there were disciples practicing, throwing phantom punches that stopped just before they collided with the pillar’s stone surface. Sweat ran down their backs and their eyes were closed in concentration, faint auras of martial intent kindling around them.

I don’t have any idea how I’ll do that. A berserking pill? But a berserking pill can only bring out the most of your body’s strength… At least at my level of alchemy, you can’t actually multiply someone’s strengths, only bring them out to their fullest extent.

— — —

Breaking out of the Sect was much easier than sneaking in. He simply climbed up a bendy willow tree, let his weight drag him down in an arc towards the wall, and jumped off. He landed on all fours.

They really don’t care about keeping me in the Sect…

Standing up, he gazed through the narrow eye-slits of his mask. The city was a sea of lights. Even now, candles were burning in windows, lanterns were being lit on strings over the public streets, cookfires and kilns were sending up greasy columns of smoke into the dusk air, a stain of firelight rooted underneath each climbing column of soot.

The city was different without his Sect robes and his cripple’s brand. People didn’t hesitate to brush or jostle against him, and he had to adapt to the rhythm of the streets, rather than have it make way for him. There was a rude art to squeezing through people and dodging past others doing the same, or a resilience to holding your own place and walking slowly, like an island.

At night, the rules relaxed. A dozen night markets sprung up, spreading out their goods on woven rugs. People sold jewelry, candles, soaps, incenses, spices, charms of the gods and cultivation books. Everywhere he looked there were sellers calling out their wares, and most of them were selling cheap paper pamphlets or slips of bamboo with supposed cultivation-techniques.

After all, wasn’t this the gate of the Mantis Sect? Holy land of cultivation?

For the people of the mountains and valleys, this was as close as they could hope to come to the Mantis Sect. If they could pass the onerous Entrance Exam, they could hope to pass between the massive gates, but until then, they gathered here and waited.

Even at this hour there were people sitting on reed meditation mats kowtowing towards the Sect in hopes their dedication would be noticed. There were people cutting branches into little statues of the guards, and setting them down for children to buy, wooden soldier-men who represented the mighty Mantis Sect.

And where young warriors congregated, there was guaranteed to be drinking. A huge number of public houses and inns served the various strangers who came to do business with the Mantis Sect or seek entrance as disciples, and all of them were serving alcohol at a furious pace.

The fact was, Booker had been out drinking two times, and he’d let himself be completely knocked down both times. The drinking culture of the Mantis Sect was utterly brutal, and being regarded as a man required drinking until you could truly no longer stand, and then fighting your way up to drink again.

Considering the city was stockpiling young and fragile egos like tinder, and dumping high expectations over them like gasoline, was it any wonder there was brawling in the streets?

Ahead of him, a pair of youths crashed through the open doors of a tavern, getting hauled out by a thug. As he threw them down, one grabbed for his sheathed weapon and drew out the sword, a long hiss of steel echoing through the alley.

“You don’t wanna do that.” The thug smiled, taking out a much smaller knife.

“What are you going to do with that?” The boy demanded. “It’s no sword. I am the Blade of the Valley, and you won’t disgrace me. Yield! Lest I rip…”

The thug threw the knife cleanly into his gut. The boy made a sound like a hiccup, breath rising and finding itself interrupted by the presence of the knife.

Booker lunged forward and caught him before he fell.

The thug chuckled. “I didn’ kill him.”

Booker lowered the boy to the ground. “Still… He’ll remember this lesson better if he doesn’t hit his head.”

The boy’s companion looked down uncertainty, then reached for the knife. Booker stopped him.

“No, leave the knife in. It’s plugging the wound. Take him to the hospital in the Estuary District.” Booker said. His voice, as always when he wore the mask, was disguised by an herb he chewed that made his throat unpleasantly stiff and turned his words into a croak.

The companion nodded and lifted the boy onto his shoulder.

The thug glanced at Booker’s mask, and asked, “What, you ugly or something?”

“So hideous even the whores make me keep it on.” Booker answered.

“Heh.” The men stepped back inside, and the small crowd who’d gathered around dispersed, going off into the night.

Booker continued on to the Porkbelly Inn, pushing his way into a restaurant bustling with activity. A waitress brushed past bearing a heavy tray, loaded down with steaming bowls of lobster and prawn stir fried into a sticky slurry of green onions, ginger, and sesame sauce, then piled onto beds of white rice. As he moved through a packed floor and pushed up to the bar, a round-faced man with a damp ragged tossed over his shoulder appeared. “Friend, wine is cheap and friendship is free here. Welcome to my illustrious Porkbelly Inn, where flavor finds itself at home.”

“You certainly have a fragrant aroma. I smelled your cooking and had to come in.” Booker put an overgenerous five liang on the table and added, “I’m a friend of Gong Zhang. He said you could cook something delicious.”

“Ahhh, it’s just a little vegetable and rice medley, but we can make it delicious with some pork belly on top.”

“No no, listen. It must be made with only the special things Gong Zhang has given you. I’ll know if anything is amiss, even one grain. This isn’t a threat, but only the truth: I have a very sensitive need for spiritual food. And I’ll pay you well any time you can prepare it. Have you heard what happened to Gong Zhang?”

The man nodded. “I heard he was whipped…”

“He’s survived, but he won’t come around here anymore. Name a fair price for what he left behind.”

The man grimaced, and said, “Twenty liang.”

Booker said, “Eighteen.” and the man nodded. It’s better to bargain a little, otherwise he’d think he’s given a low starting bid… Which he probably has.

Stacking nineteen coins on the counter, he said, “And the five before are for storing it a little longer for me, and I’ll pay you one more, nineteen, for cooking. Nothing, not even sauces or cooking wines or oils, can be used that didn’t come from Gong Zhang’s stash.”

“You can really tell?” The round-faced man asked, looking at him dubiously.

“Yes.” Booker replied.

“Hmm.” He turned and bustled down a small flight of steps, coming back up with a crate of rice and a few withered greens. He pushed into the kitchen and there was yelling beyond the door, during which time Booker glanced around the inn surrounding him.

All around him were young men and women who bloomed with excitement. Calm faces were rare, people without weapons rarer. Everybody here wore swords on their hip, or carried spears, bows, or other tools of warfare. Some wore rich silks. Others wore wolfstooth pendants and hide jackets. The two groups roughly split the tavern in half, and where they collided, tempers bristled.

People coming down from the north, where the Hu Clan controls territory…

And people from the valleys below, the locals…

Booker could only shake his head at Rain’s memories of deep-seated hatred towards the Hu people.

Minutes later the man returned, bringing Booker a plate of rice with steamed cabbage, green onions, and bright red and green peppers. By anyone’s account a pauper’s meal, but Booker’s stomached growled at the sight.

He grabbed his chopsticks and lifted up a clump of rice…

And paused. Sniffed. Put it back down.

Bright red and green peppers. All the vegetables in the crate were withered.

“This isn’t the rice Gong Zhang brought, is it?”

“Haaaa.” The man chuckled, taking the bowl back. “What a strange oversight. I’ll take this back and get you the right one.” He didn’t seem shamed at all for being caught in his prank.

Ducking back into the kitchen, he came back out with the right bowl, this one having much sadder and less vibrant vegetables.

He has no idea what he almost cost me.

“You’ll forgive the mistake, young master. Obviously your sense of smell is really what you say.” The man said, setting it down.

“If I couldn’t tell the difference, why waste good rice?” Booker asked, acknowledging the half-logic.

“Exactly, young sir.” The innkeeper agreed, nodding his head. “My thoughts exactly. You’ll be storing it for how long exactly?”

“Should be less than a week.” Taking his bowl, he made his way out on the balcony to eat, where less people might see the exposed portion of the tattoo when he lifted his mask.

As he walked, a weasel-faced man knocked against his shoulder, and drink was splashed against his cloak. As the man stepped back and apologized – Booker grabbed his wrist. Yanking it aside, he revealed a bag of his coins in the man’s hand.

“I ah…”

“Save it for the tourists.” Booker snatched his money back.

Out on the balcony, he took a quiet corner, lifted his mask partway and began to eat. Plain rice cooked without any more fat that had been lingering in the pan…

It tasted so good after six days of starvation that he began to shovel it into his mouth, enjoying the lingering hints of grease, the starchiness of the rice, the clumped texture of the slightly-gooey rice, and the snap and sudden milky sweetness of snow peas mixed in. He’d soon shoveled the lot down his mouth, and he felt blissfully full.

Taking the bowl back to the bar, he set it down and asked the innkeeper, “Which way to the Pearl Gambling House?” got his directions, and stepped out into the night.

Quest: Purification of the Body.

Goal: Eat nothing but spiritual food for 7 (6/7) days.

Reward: 10-Hour Practice Token.

— — —

The gambling house shook with the stomp of boots. It was on a raised wooden foundation that felt like it would come down any second now as the people at the front of the ring, pushed up to the rope barriers surrounding the pit in the floor, stomped their boots down in rhythm with their chants and cries of encouragement. In the middle of the ring, in a dusty pit, two spirits beasts fought a desperate war of extinction.

A mongoose lept and danced on its paws, evading the attacks of a large serpent by twisting its body and jumping straight back. The serpent kept its head up, diving down for sharp, snapping attacks.

The mongoose had an armor of quills to protect itself with, while the serpent had a lotus flower blooming atop its skull.

All at once the fight turned upside-down as the serpent extended a little too far and the mongoose darted around it and clamped its jaws into the serpent’s neck.

Their bodies twisted and tossed around the arena, but the mongoose held on, tearing out the serpent’s throat through its bodyweight.

“Enough!” On two platforms that extended out partially over the ring, the commanders of the spirit beasts could see each other. The one commanding the snake had clearly had his fill. “Twenty liang to end the fight now!”

The other just sneered. “You think I’ll stop? I want to see your scrawny beast torn to shreds. I like the bloodshed, I’m a motherfucker!”

Sweet lord. He is not here to make friends. Booker thought as the voices carried to the edge of the crowd. But the crowd– good god they loved it! They roared, pressing forth to lean over the ropes and see the bloodshed first hand.

He edged around the crowd and went to a window in the wall, heavily reinforced by iron bars with a thin slot to pass money through. “I want to enquire about buying something from you!” He said, lifting his voice to be heard. “The deed to a hospital!”

“Ahhh, how did you hear about that?” The teller, a wrinkled old vulture, said. He had all of two teeth and his mouth was mostly gums. “Yes we have the item, but it isn’t for sale. It’s up as the prize for our next big night!”

Oh for…

“What price.” Booker demanded.

“Three hundred liang.” The old man said. “Not a bit less.”

I’m past my capacity… I’m already eating into my six-hundred liang from Wild Swan… But I have to get back to the market in the daytime if I want to keep making money.

If I intend to make any headway at the auction…

The book is clearly telling me what to do. Gamble, and if I win, ride to the auction with a flood of money.

He turned back towards the ring.

Two heavyset porters dragged a clay jar forward, the size of a small dog. As one tipped the jar onto its side, the other lifted a hammer and swung down, breaking open the top. Fluid gushed out, and something slimy poured free and flopped out.

It was a long, slippery lamprey, a type of eel with no eyes and a massive round mouth that yawned open to reveal row after row of pink-white teeth. But it was sick and wrong. Massive, swollen veins covered its body, a thunderbolt purple color, and it had six legs, completely wrong for an eel. They were the legs of a gecko, with the white underbelly and green top layer of scales, and big, sucker-tipped fingers.

It thrashed onto its feet, and the ring’s referee beat a gong with a hammer. “BEGIN!”

The lamprey’s tongue shot out in a blur of pink, stabbing for the mongoose. The mongoose wasn’t injured, but it was exhausted from one hard fight, and its leap back lacked the same strength as its previous acrobatic dodges.

The lamprey barreled forward, slithering fast in serpentine tracks along the ground. One, two, three times its tongue stabbed out, chasing the mongoose across the ring until –

Until it landed in the sticky trail the lamprey had left behind. Its feet stuck fast, and although it immediately recoiled in shock, it was too late. The sticky mucus had adhered. It screeched defiance as the fat lamprey loomed up above it, rearing onto its hind four legs – but the tongue shot out again and pierced it like an arrow through the throat.

As the crowd groaned, the lamprey wrapped its mucus-coated body around the corpse and began to feed. It was gruesome.

“Hurry up!” The lamprey’s owner shouted. “Bring out your next, immediately.”

Why he was in such a hurry, Booker didn’t know. His creature could use the time between rounds and smear the floor with more sticky mucus.

But the next beast was hauled forward. Like the lamprey, it was in a massive clay jar covered by a netting of ropes by which it could be carried.

It was a miniature boar with a sagging, swollen belly. Something stretched and deformed the surface of the pig’s stomach, pulsating, and as it breathed, dozens of wasps emerged from its mouth. Even before it had climbed onto its legs a swarm of wasps surrounded it like a buzzing crown.

As the gong rang – “BEGIN!”

The pig charged headfirst and the lamprey’s tongue flashed out, aimed between its eyes. The blow struck true – but the pig still slammed into the lamprey, lifting it off the ground and flinging it against the boards of the arena walls. It stuck there, dripping sludge, and slowly gathered its feet underneath it before it slid back down.

The pig, below, was in trouble. It bleeted and brayed as it tried to yank its feet out of the mucus, and found itself stuck fast.

The lamprey’s mouth yawned open– its tongue shot out–

The pig’s skull deflected the killing blow again, but the beast was dazed. It let out a piggish squeal and more wasps burst from its mouth, its stomach deflating. They swarmed up and began to sting the lamprey, stabbing it with their needle stings until it fell off the wall and hit the ground. Tearing itself free, the pig slammed its horns down into the lamprey and crushed it…

But the fight had been a slow one, and now the audience was waiting, waiting–

“Bring it out! Bring it out now damn you!” The pig’s owner was calling.

The pig was looking weaker and weaker…

It was no good. No matter how much the pig’s owner yelled, the men bringing the clay jar with the next spirit beast out didn’t hurry at all. As they struck the clay jar open, and a spiky flat fish creature spilled out, the pig had flopped over onto its side. Black tar poured from its eyes and mouth, and steam hissed up from its flesh. The lamprey had already completely dissolved — and now the pig was collapsing as well.

So these are unstable spirit beasts, then. No wonder whoever wins wants the next fight started without delay – their beasts have only minutes to live and fight…

It’s… sad.

It’s infuriating.

This place has an evil aura.

He looked away as the next and final fight began.

The book might want me to win here. And it would let me maybe double or triple my money for the auction. But I don’t want to kill hapless creatures for money…

Is there another way?

Pushing his way around the crowd, Booker left, head buzzing with thoughts.

Quest: Recover the Hospital Deed

The hospital’s land rights have been lost on a wager at the Pearl Gambling House. Recover them.

Reward: Master Page

— — —

The last place on Booker’s tour of the city was the Golden Moon Auction House, which stood alone at the height of a hill, bonfires burning in the expansive courtyards where wine-sotted parties were being held. As he approached the main gates, rickshaws and carriages rode past up the hill, parking themselves in a wide and manicured lawn.

It was clearly an expensive place. As Booker approached, the gate guards paid him no attention. He wasn’t the only masked attendant by a long shot.

People gathered together in the main hall, showing tickets or putting down money to make their way past a chokepoint where their weapons were taken.

Booker filtered through, paying a ten liang entrance fee for a paper fan on which was written a one-time ticket into the lowest levels of the stands. It was also a ticket to the numerous amusements of the venue, where they held stage-shows, gambles, and musical theaters, and rented the courtyards out to private parties. This was clearly where the rich people of the city went for entertainment. The auctions were merely one small part of the operation.

But as he set foot in the auction house proper, it was also clear that this was a place of pride.

The chairs were carved from dark mahogany wood, the room set up like an amphitheater with ascending rows of chairs and then, extending out from the rounded back wall, balcony boxes with the angles set so that the people inside would be invisible except to the people on stage, chiefly the auctioneer.

On stage were beautiful marble pedestals decorated by coiling golden serpents, holding up cushioned glass boxes where precious ingredients were on display. In the farthest left, there was a branch of light green wood covered by glowing white flower buds. To the right of that, a bell-shaped ingot of silver metal that seemed to radiate a crackling stormcloud in a ring orbit around it. In the third box on the left hand side of the stage, there was a small black pill. On the right side of the stage were two more glass boxes, one holding a collection of brilliant blue feathers and one holding a jar of pearlescent dust, but Booker’s attention was totally taken by the pill.

Pillar Body Pill (Sky)

37% Potency // 16% Toxicity

Effect:

Hardens the body and grants an earth-attuned physiology. A complete body transformation pill.

Ingredients:

Thousand Year Geode’s Milk

6-Times Refined Earth Essence

Seven-Year Flower Syrup

6-Times Refined Cyclopean Owl Eye

It was his first time seeing a Sky-grade pill. And from the description, it was his first time seeing alchemy of real power. A complete body transformation pill…

Would that cure a cripple? Probably.

But it would do much more than just that. This kind of treasure… It’s the kind of thing the Sect itself couldn’t bring out on a whim. If I assume the other four items are just as valuable, this collection of wealth is enormous, and sending a clear message about the auction house.

As is…

Sitting outside the lights illuminating the stage, almost invisible against the back wall, were seven ornate suits of armor with closed faceplates. Stranger still, there was no point in their bodies not covered by armor, not a single gap or opening. Even the fingers of their gauntlets were articulated, grasping spears with the agility of real hands.

They were golems.

Since the auction house makes a show of its wealth, why not make a show of its ability to defend that wealth? And the golems are at least as valuable as all of the items on stage combined.

A hush fell over the house as people took their seats.

A gorgeous woman stepped out from behind the curtain and bowed. She was dressed in tribal robes, white furs patterned at their fringes with bright red beads, and stitched with delicate embroidered flowers of a light blue color. Her hair was lifted into horns by a crown of antlers, through which her braided white hair was woven.

“Welcome to the House of the Golden Moon Sect. For as long as the memory of the earth extends, the Gold Moon has shone in our sky, casting down its benevolence and generosity. We of the Golden Moon Sect seek to bring word of this generosity to all, and collect the treasures of the land, so the moon’s gifts can be seen. Please be silent and use the paper fans given to you to bid, as we display the treasures of the moon.”

The lights dimmed everywhere except for the stage. Two orderlies brought out a long wooden case, turning it onto its side so that everyone could see through the glass lid, displaying a long double-edged sword inside. The grip was banded yellow and black, and bore a design like a serpent curling around the crossguard.

“This is the Krait-Tooth Sword. Forged from special alloys that absorb deadly properties from poisons they touch, and quenched in a bucket of poison from the banded krait. It will only grow deadlier as you season it with poisons of your own, making it an ideal weapon, one that can kill a cultivator in a matter of minutes from a single sting. Bidding begins at three hundred liang.”

Booker straightened up in his seat. That’s really a hell of a sales pitch. Obviously they’ll bring something good out to get people bidding at the start, but still… If the stuff they bring out for a normal auction is already this good, the stuff at the special monthly auction won’t be cheap.

One by one, fans were raised, the auctioneer calling out the rising price… “Three-hundred-eighty! Three-hundred-ninety! Four hundred! Four-hundred-fifty!”

For a moment the price stalled, before someone spoke from the box seats. “Five hundred!”

“Oh my! The generous lord in the box seats! Five hundred!”

There were no more bids. The Krait-Tooth Sword was taken away.

Next up was a stained bronze compass, the Blood-Sense Compass, which would sense the strongest beast within 1 mile, and could be tuned to point the way towards a specific beast if sprinkled with that beast’s blood.

These are good treasures. Shame I can’t afford to participate. I really need more money…

He watched the Blood-Sense Compass go for three-hundred with a sense of dread.

If even things like that go for three hundred… How am I going to compete in the main auction? I have to hope they don’t know what it’s worth, but the fact they put it in the main monthly auction says they have an idea.

“Next up, from the eastern jungles, fossilized moon monkey brain!” The next case was tall and skinny, containing a fat-bellied and slender-necked jar sealed by a stopper in the shape of a monkey’s head. “A rare treat that can enhance your natural mental faculties. Be aware, after 100 years the diseases it contains will completely devour your mind, unless you ascend to the ranks of true cultivation before that time is up.”

Immediately the beginning began racing upwards, even as Booker wondered who would stomach such a bargain. The idea of gambling death by ingesting poison was wild to him – but to a cultivator, risking death must feel natural.

But what made him sit forward in his seat was the next offer.

“As we cannot name these herbs or explain their purpose, they are presented here as a single item, a lot of unidentified medicines and herbs! Those of you who wish to gamble, try your luck!”

But… I don’t need to gamble…

Booker leaned forward and gazed at the display case full of strangely shaped roots, grasses, bright flowers, and herbaceous leaves. He knew each and every ingredient, the book seamlessly filling his mind with the knowledge of all of them.

That bundle of odds and ends was worth easily three or four hundred liang to him!

Writing on his fan, he lifted it almost before she had finished saying:

“Bidding to begin at fifty! – Oh!” She paused mid-speech and corrected, “One hundred right out the gate!”

A chuckle ran through the crowd. People looked over.

“I suppose we know something is good in this bunch, but not what. Trusting this masked man’s expertise, we clearly undervalued this lot!”

Yeah, it figures this would cause a splash. But since my end-goal with this persona is to become a doctor to the upper-classes, and using that money to fund both myself and the hospital… I need to impress them somehow.

Booker had decided that he needed to continue the masked man persona to maintain access to the world outside the cult, since his book clearly wasn’t going to pause giving him quests beyond the Sect’s walls.

Before, he had made good returns in the market by dealing in petty medicines, but if he could raise his station and become a doctor to the rich, he could fund the hospital quite easily on top of providing for himself. It was one of the issues where he could do the most good simply by making money and spending it to help people – a strategy enabled by the book, which could practically print money by enabling him to make medicines as effectively as he did.

But since he could never reveal how he was an infinite source of pills without being enslaved, he would need to find ways of doing it without drawing too much attention. A doctor to the rich could be overlooked by the cult but still draw a huge amount of legitimate money.

If I bid for every mystery lot for a few days, that’s a good way of signaling I know something important.

After a few seconds where nobody bid, she declared, “To the masked man! One hundred!”

Even if I signaled I knew something valuable was inside, they wouldn’t know what to do with it to unlock that value.

He rose and left the auction room, returning to the lobby, where a clerk directed him with a bow. “This way, sir.”

He was taken to a small counter at the end of a corridor, with a carved wooden screen over a lacquer-polished black oak desk. There a woman who could have been the twin of the one onstage, minus the ridiculously fancy tribal garb, took a brief look at him. She had bowl-cut hair with a single braid that was tied in a butterfly-shaped knot atop her head, and bangs that hung down in gathered braids.

“Congratulations. We always enjoy seeing someone find fortune in our mystery herbs lots. If you don’t mind the impudence, there is an additional reward we can share if you share your knowledge with us. In short, we will refund the box and give you a fair price in silver if you can identify any of the herbs for us.”

“How much?” Booker asked, curious.

“Between ten and a hundred liang, depending on the quality of your information.”

So the question is…

How famous do I want to be, how quickly. Since these people aren’t the Mantis Sect, they’ll have trouble moving against me without explaining to the Mantis Sect what they’re after – in which case the Mantis Sect would take me from them. So it’s safer to risk exposure with them than with the Mantis Sect.

“I can identify four.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “My, how generous. Let me invite you to sit down, and I’ll fetch the master of the auction house, my father.”

A door clicked open in the wall, and she invited him through a beaded curtain into a small lounge with a low table and reed sitting mats. Traveling upstairs, she soon returned with a handsome elderly man who walked with a pronounced limp.

“I see, I see.” He said. “Traveling incognito? We understand such things here at the house of the Golden Moon. Let me assure you, I have no care to discover your identity. We are brokers, go-betweens, and integrity is something our business would die without.”

“I don’t doubt it. That’s why I chose to see you.” Booker bowed his head as he sat down. I can’t let on that I want the amulet before the auction, or no doubt they’ll bleed me to the bone. “I wanted to sell you my services as an identifier.” Assuming I can get the full hundred liang pay for each identified herb, I’ll make more money this way, while exposing myself to less scrutiny.

“I can sense you know the value of information.” The old man said, sighing as he fought the weakness of his knees to sit slowly down.

The value of information indeed. This is a far better way to make money in the short term, and to row my reputation, than just working the market.

“I was actually wondering if you could help me with that.” Booker said carefully. As an obvious foreigner, I want to create the false impression I have strong powers backing me from far away… In short, it doesn’t hurt me to be ignorant of local goings-on. Act like this is beneath me.

“Could you inform me a little of the Mantis Sect and it’s history?”