As I was blasting forward like a shooting star, I took out a small jade that was embedded on the side of the pod.
I placed it against my head and a map of the locations I needed to visit showed up in front of me.
First things first, I needed to get to a nearby city called White Winds.
The city is not that far away, and with my current speed, I should arrive in less than three hours.
Considering the fact that I was about half a day worth of late, I'm glad that I can catch up thanks to the improvements I added on my pod. Though I'm very concerned about the durability of this flying coffin after upgrading it.
It was made so that it can harness the cultivator's Qi and use it to power through the terrain with the thought of limiting the Qi so that no one with an incredible cultivation base can abuse it. However, for me, I'm using Top Grade Spirit stones which will help in powering this thing disregarding its fragility.
If I were to be hit, it'll create a dent, and if I were to get attacked while flying at this speed, a coffin is probably the best description of this tool of death I'm flying in.
My speed was definitely not even comparable to when I used the hoverboard, but this was still very fast.
I continued tracking the map which I memorized and flew through the night skies.
It was a lonely and quiet flight, minus the sound of the pod blasting through the wind and clouds. But it felt a bit quiet.
And since I didn't have anything else to do, and I have already set the autopilot to follow a certain destination, I made sure to exploit the free time I had to its fullest.
I began by channeling my own poison Qi, healing up the wounds that I was unable to heal back before. The few hours I have left before arriving at the first city won't be much in healing, but at least I can fix a few veins.
And I did just that, making sure to keep track of my location lest I fall into a trance, and at the same time I was actively healing my wounds.
I couldn't do much to my Nascent Soul and the damage on it, but for the rest, and especially my ruptured spiritual veins, I began by staunching the leakage.
Starting from my arms, I slowly repaired, vein per vein as I went up from the palms of my hands, up to my wrist.
There were a lot of spiritual veins in the hand area, mostly the veins used to emit the cultivator's Qi. And they were the most complicated to fix and also the ones with the most damage.
I couldn't even feel time as I barely was about ten percent done when my pod began slowing down.
In the distance, a fully lit city was grad and magnificent in size, resting on the top of a massive cliff overlooking a steep ocean.
The city itself wasn't the most impressive, but it was a giant ring that seemed to be hosting houses and people, in the middle of it.
I got closer and noticed a cultivator waving a red flare.
I approached the cultivator who said, "You're pretty slow, do you wish to give up?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"Good, here is your flag, your next destination is White Reeds across the lake. You'll get your next flag there, good luck," he said.
"How long ago was it, since another participant departed?" I asked.
"About three hours, give or take," he said.
Good, I'm making progress, I already cut half the time needed, but the slowest cultivator isn't a definitive judgment of my speed.
I took the first flag, thanked him, and checked the map.
I needed to continue moving forward. The White Reeds city is across what apparently seemed to be a lake, which looked like a damn ocean.
I blasted my pod forward and shot into the depth of the night, flying low this time since it seemed that test wasn't just a test of speed.
There seemed to be some sort of jellyfish that can float above this lake, and thankfully at night, you can see them glowing.
I couldn't use maximum speed, in case I crash into one of these jellyfish, contact at high speeds will make something even as soft as a jellyfish as hard as concrete.
Dashing, dodging, and maneuvering through the massive hoards of jellyfish was a tall order.
They were just too many of them, and they didn't seem to have an end, their purpose was to not only slow people down but to outright eliminate them from the competition if one were to move too rashly into them.
Thankfully, the concentration of these jellyfish is far too focused the higher you go above sea level, so I was right in going low and moving at just a few meters above lake level.
My pod blasted above the lake waters, splitting the water in two and creating rippling waves that parted away, creating a magnificent wave in my wake that continued on moving all over the calm lake, ruining the calmness of the lake.
I continued actively dodging the few jellyfish that were in my way, but I knew for a fact that I can't avoid everything. So a few of them made contact with my pod rattling it with every hit.
I must slow down, but if I do, I'll end up even more delayed.
I grit my teeth and continued on. The damage on my pod would have been far more severe if I flew higher, so I'm thankful for that, but this doesn't mean that this pod will survive more of this crap.
Suddenly, something huge came out of the lake, and here and then I knew that I was blessed by the gods.
What appeared from the lake was a jellyfish that would make the one-eyed Kraken look like a toddler in front of it. But I managed to somehow move right between a few of its legs.
Looking at the massive creature, I noticed that it had a couple of dozen pods embedded into its jelly form.
They were pods of participants that were ambushed and captured by this creature.
I blasted my pod to maximum output and flew away dodging an incoming grab from the massive jellyfish and thankfully was out of danger in no time.
From then onwards, the concentration of the jellyfish grew less and less, until none of them were in the atmosphere anymore.
I pulled up my pod and flew higher than sea level, to gain the most of my speed.
I soon was able to see the shore and flew past it at incredible speed.
There was still a long distance to cross before getting to White Reeds, and I had nothing but time.
Looking at the open prairies in front of me and the lack of any creatures or monsters was a good respite. I took advantage of it and continued healing my wounds.
After a couple of hours of flight, I noticed that my overall speed began decreasing.
I was still far from the next city, but I knew what's the reason for this.
I immediately pulled the now dim-looking Top Grade Spirit Stone and placed another one instead.
The first spirit stone had several cracks on it, and with a mere squeeze, it turned to dust.
I still have a hundred more, and they'll be more than enough to last me through the race, hopefully.
Sooner than I thought, I realized that in the distance, there was something other than the stars.
It was the thruster of another pod.
But for some reason, it seemed far too slow.
And the thruster on it seemed to be flickering on and out.
As I got closer I realized what this was, it was someone who crossed the lake, but received heavy damage on his way, recklessly crossing the lake, causing his pod to take ungodly amounts of damage.
Bents and cracks were all over the pod, and sludge and slime on the bodies of jellyfish painted the pod in a disgusting color.
The cultivator seemed to be frustrated at me for overtaking him, he even opened his pod and decided to attack me with a spiritual sword wave. Only for it to die out never able to reach me.
This pissed me off but woke me up to a very ugly reality. People will attack me if I get too close, there is no such thing as a safe race. This is a race to get admitted to the Heavenly Academy, and if you can take down the competition by just one, you'll have a chance at being admitted.
I ignored the petty cultivator and continued my way forward.
It didn't take time before I arrived at the next city, and luckily for me. It seems that I was doing some really good progress.
