At best, Atem only could interact with ordinary, unaffiliated low-level cultivators, and even then, he treated them with extreme respect. Anything beyond that was simply a world he had no right to step into.
"Tsk… I should go out and cool my head before I die from frustration."
With a strange, forced smile, he pushed the door open and stepped out of the shop.
Tide Line wasn't complicated. It was divided into four areas: Stone Street, where the Twin Shores Shop stood; Merchant Square, the heart of trade; the Old Docks; and finally, the Iron Yards.
As he walked, Atem casually asked a few shop owners if the authorities had visited them too, just to make sure he wasn't being singled out. To his relief, several of them mentioned that a man named Merin had also stopped by their stores.
"So I really was overthinking it," he muttered as he reached the end of the street, letting out a small sigh.
"That Merin fellow works fast though… visiting almost every shop on the street in one day?" He couldn't help laughing at the thought before turning toward the carriage station.
A carriage arrived soon after.
From a distance, it looked like the taxis he remembered from old Earth documentaries: a boxy frame, two lantern-like lights at the front, a compact passenger cabin, and a driver seated behind a narrow console.
But the illusion ended the moment it stopped in front of him.
The faint hum rising from beneath the carriage wasn't mechanical, nor was it spiritual. It was something entirely different.
Aetherline Drive.
That was the name mortals gave to this new technology sweeping across the Vitara—engines that ran on Aether Residue, the faint, diffuse traces of Heaven-and-earth energy that lingered everywhere but were too thin for cultivation.
Cultivators ignored it, but mortals learned to trap it.
On Vitara, where Ka was precious and restricted for mortals, the Aetherline Drive became the pride of mortal innovation.
Street lamps, lifts in tall harbor buildings, warehouses, and even small fishing trawlers had begun adopting it.
The driver leaned out of the window.
"Twin Shores Shop, right? Need a ride, Shopkeeper Atem?"
Atem nodded. "Just heading to Iron Yards ."
Atem stepped in and settled into the seat.
"Funny... We mortals can't cultivate, yet we still found a way to ride the breath of heaven and earth."
The driver shrugged. "Cultivators ignore anything too small for them. Good thing we don't."
Atem allowed himself a faint smile.
Years ago, the Oceanic Highlands experienced a winter so violent that even cultivators recorded it in their sect annals. Froststorms ripped through the mountains, and entire mortal cities froze in a single night.
When the season finally broke, veins of a strange ore were discovered beneath the melted snow.
They called it Hollowstar Iron.
It was lighter than copper, stronger than ordinary steel, and—most importantly—its crystalline interior was riddled with microscopic hollows, as though stars had pierced tiny tunnels through it.
Those hollows strangely were able to trap a small amount of Ka, although they were even to small for even the weakest cultivator , nonless they were suitable for mortal to use, they called it Aether Residue.
For a time, Hollowstar Iron was dismissed as a curiosity. Then a scholar-smith from the Vel River Coalition developed a method of shaping it:
The Resonant Forging Technique
A mortal forging process involving, alternating bursts of low-heat hammering, rhythmic tapping to align the inner hollows, and a cooling method using circulating riverwater, it was just… brilliantly precise.
When forged with this technique, Hollowstar Iron could hold Aether Residue and channels it easily.
The moment the first prototype engine hummed to life, the world changed, at least for ordinary people like him.
The carriage rumbled forward into the busier paths leading toward the Iron Yards. Atem leaned his head against the window, watching the shifting patterns of lantern light playing across the buildings outside.
For a moment, he simply let the sound steady his thoughts.
Back in his village, the elders always said that the world never stayed still, that mortals had to run twice as fast just to keep up with the cultivators who thought nothing of crossing mountains in a single breath.
Atem never really believed those words before he left home. But here in Azure Harbor, those old sayings suddenly felt true.
The driver steered around a line of small freight carts and let out a small chuckle. "People complain about these Aetherline carriages being noisy, but it's still better than walking everywhere. Look at the harbor—everything's faster now."
Atem could not deny that. Even the shopkeepers on his own street relied on Aetherline tools every day. Mortals had found a way to stand a little taller, even in a world where cultivators dominated everything. It wasn't cultivation, and it wasn't true power, but it was something that belonged to ordinary people alone.
That small thought made him feel both comforted and strangely uneasy.
"You alright back there, Shopkeeper? You look like you're planning to wrestle a sea beast."
Atem blinked before letting out a small laugh."Just thinking too much. Happens sometimes."
The driver chuckled. "Happens to everyone. Even cultivators, I bet—though they would deny it."
Atem smiled at that as the tension in his shoulders eased little by little.
The road widened as they approached the more industrial stretch of Azure Harbor.
Warehouses with reinforced walls lined the sides, and tall cranes made of Hollowstar Iron slowly shifted along tracks, lifting crates of processed ore and crates of preserved fish from the docks.
Mortals worked beneath them with careful movements, guiding operations with practiced skill. It was a sight Atem always found strangely comforting: people like him shaping a corner of the world with their own hands.
He relaxed into the seat, letting the hum of the engine blend with the distant clanging of metal against metal.
The carriage slowed as they turned toward the last stretch before the Iron Yards. A few dockworkers moved aside, waving casually at the driver.
Atem sat straighter and rubbed the corner of his pendant without thinking.
"You heading to meet someone at Oron Street, right? It's a bit early for business there."