"Master, we've reached the Uranus' Cluster Cities."
Following Boo's words, three muffled voices sounded from the training room before its white doors opened.
Slowly, a silhouette walked out of the room.
Boo was gobsmacked as it stared at the person who seemed to be painted in red. A large part of his back was charred. His left arm dropped like it was disjointed and there were countless holes on his body, with pieces of missing flesh.
Even his breathing was ragged as he dragged himself out of the room and walked into the shower room.
"…" Varian didn't utter a word as he downed a high-quality healing potion under the shower and transformed into his half-tree state.
His hands grew into branches, his legs resembled a tree trunk and his feet were now close to roots.
The water from the shower slowly washed away the blood on his face, revealing a satisfied expression.
"…Monster! Battle Maniac!" Boo clutched its head and exclaimed. During the training, it was supposed to check on him.
But except for the emergency system—which automatically acts if he's in danger, Varian didn't grant Boo access to the training room.
Who knew he was training like this?
Boo wanted to lecture Varian.
Continuous battles like this would easily cause hidden injuries to accumulate. Once you reach high levels, these injuries would come back to bite you.
But then it remembered something.
Varian was…peculiar to put it nicely.
Could someone who broke something as fundamental as three divine paths per person really be held down by common sense stuff like hidden injuries?
"I don't know what kind of monster master is. Thankfully, only Sarah knows his other paths.
But hey, I was expecting way more reaction from her. Why did she accept it so simply?!" Boo was frustrated.
If Sarah was so utterly shocked that she couldn't speak a word for hours, then Boo would feel that someone else was also sharing its burden.
But no!
She just asked a few questions and let him off the hook!
Damn it! I even prepared popcorn to watch you interrogate him!
This cute ghost is disappointed in you, Sarah Albert!
"I'm team Sia! Unlike Sarah, she'll interrogate master well. Hehehe." Boo tried to chuckle in an evil manner.
"Hoho—"
"Sarah? Interrogate? Hmmm?" Varian's voice suddenly cut off its laughter.
As he just came out of training, he was exuding a scary killing intent. It was so severe that even Boo paled like it saw some ghost and blurted out.
"S-Sarah, I thought s-she'd i-interrogate, I mean, ask you more about your d-divine…paths." Boo didn't add that it wanted to see Varian interrogated.
Varian arched a brow at Boo's reaction. The noticing the situation, he pulled back his killing intent.
"Sorry about that, Boo."
"Y-yes, yes."
"And Sarah? She's not the type to pry into secrets." Varian shrugged. Even when he revealed to her that he was the dreamer, she didn't ask much about it.
It just wasn't in her personality to pry for secrets. If he revealed it, she'd listen. But she'd usually not take the initiative to ask.
'The academy should've begun already. Did she get a chance to meet master? They must be worried.'
Still, Varian wasn't too worried about it. They'd meet sooner or later.
"Boo, get to Valos City. This is the address." Varian tapped on his comm and displayed the solar coordinates.
Boo nodded and the ghost ship streaked towards one of the twenty cities in the cluster.
As they approached, the sight changed from a shining object in the space to a vast, disc-shaped city.
The first thing Varian observed was naturally the size of the city. It was huge.
"It's roughly 10,000 square miles, Master."
"Well." Varian nodded. As someone who studied a bit of history, he equated this to be approximately three times the size of Old Earth's largest city.
"Wait, what's that?" Varian raised a brow and peered through the glass window.
The city was built on a huge disc. But a disc had two sides.
On one side was a normal city with skylines, commercial complexes, residential areas, public spaces. Of course, there were also hallmarks of any human habitations of this era—tons and tons of hologram advertisements.
He could glimpse at a few of them even from space. Though it's because he had enhanced eyesight, those holograms were the proof that the city 'above' the disc was a normal city.
The problem was with the bottom city.
It too had skylines, but they weren't fancy or tall. They looked sturdy and exuded a rather heavy bearing.
Some of these buildings were just outright 'ugly' aesthetically. But there was no fashion police.
…There was only military.
This other city at the bottom of the disc was filled with rather familiar military facilities.
Military bases spanning miles.
Fortified buildings affixed with the latest defense weapons that could pulverize even level 7s.
Training halls filled with soldiers of all ranks practicing their asses off.
"I can't see more."
No matter how much he tried, he only saw a black fog.
"It's a protective treasure or a new technology, Master," Boo said nonchalantly. "Do you want us to sneak in?"
Varian thought for a moment and shook his head. "Forget it. Let's go to the address."
"Un."
Maintaining its stealth mode, the ghost ship moved towards the 'residential side' of Valos.
"I know space cities in clusters have huge military bases, but…this is just ridiculous." Varian sighed as the ghost ship entered the atmosphere of Valos.
It was a bright city or at least it seemed like one from the distance.
Up close, Varian saw that along with the skylines, there were a lot of 'slum-like areas' in the city.
From the height of a few miles, he saw the cityscape of almost a hundred miles. It was like a microcosm of the city.
There were uneven, and rusty apartments. And there were floating, shining complexes.
There were dirty streets filled with wary residents. And then there were spending neighborhoods filled with precious medical gardens, 24×7 security, and the best training facilities.
The strong contrast told Varian why Valos got its title.
"The City Of Depravity."