For the next 2 days, Damien and Zara simply flew through the blue skies of the central continent as they looked out for any large cities near them.
Well, it wasn’t too hard like it was in Apeiron. They managed to find a port city only a few tens of kilometers away from their starting location, but it wasn’t what they were looking for.
Instead, Damien just took a quick stop there and used the meager amount of spirit stones he had acquired from Xiao Zhen to buy a map. He learned how expensive life in this world would be.
‘I’m going to have to figure out some way to make money here.’
He had used all 10 of his spirit stones on a map that wasn’t even detailed. However, it was enough for him. He only needed to know the location of the Celestial Star Palace, which, as the 2nd rank sect in the entire continent, was clearly outlined on the map.
But that wouldn’t suffice for his entire stay in this world. He had no plans for leaving anytime soon, so he needed a way to make money and sustain himself.
‘It’s going to be a pain in the ass.’
For now, he chose to ignore it and turned his focus back to the map in his hand.
With no surprise, the sect was located near the center of the continent where the mana density was thickest. Although the Jade Heavenly Palace had the privilege of taking the exact center, the Celestial Star Palace wasn’t too far from it.
In fact, both sects had a long-standing relationship as rivals. The Jade Heavenly Palace had a firm hold on its title as the top-ranked sect, but the Celestial Star Palace always stayed directly behind it, waiting for an opportunity to overtake it.
Their rivalry wasn’t something Damien knew the full extent of, but for them to be located within such a close range to each other, it had to run deep.
Being new, Damien also didn’t know the scale of the map, which correlated to the size of the entire central continent. He just assumed its size based on what he could see.
But in the following days, the world proved him wrong. In fact, the central continent was many times larger than he could have ever expected. Currently, he had spent an entire week traveling, and even at Zara’s speeds, he was just beginning to see the outline of the central region in front of him.
Thinking about it, this half of the continent was the same distance as the Cloud Sea that separated it from the western continent. He couldn’t imagine how big the entire thing was.
Damien thought to immerse himself in training to pass the time, but it was already too late for that. The mana density had been steadily increasing for the past day or so, and he felt it was reaching its peak soon.
In the distance, he saw a coiling mountain range that corresponded to a picture on his map. It was the point of separation between the central region and the rest of the continent.
Flying over these mountains, a new world was opened to Damien’s eyes. Even though it was blurry due to distance, he saw massive cities that spanned larger distances than some small states in America.
They were far from each other, but he was still able to see a few due to his current altitude. And even from this height, he could feel many strong auras radiating from these cities.
‘So many 3rd classes! And even 4th classes are appearing occasionally!’
If there was one thing he was supremely confident in, it was his aura-sensing abilities. They stemmed from his eyes, and with the kind of name they had, he was sure they wouldn’t fail him.
The vast difference in sheer manpower he sensed simply from this broad inspection was enough to shock him. After all, on Apeiron, there were very few 3rd classes and even fewer 4th classes.
‘Then why is Apeiron also considered a middle world?’
Frankly, he couldn’t compare the two in strength or mana density. The Cloud Plane was leagues better. But Damien had seen the mural on the temple walls that showed Apeiron in its prime. He knew the conditions had to be different back then.
‘Then, is it because of the war?’
He didn’t know how the war could have such a lasting adverse effect on the planet, but he could only think of this reason for its stasis. It had been 1000 years since its end, but the world wasn’t able to recover.
‘However, the Nox who attacked it…’
He knew for certain they had recovered. Not only were they targeting the Cloud Plane, but also earth and many other worlds by extension.
They were his first thought when he heard about vile cultivators, but he had suppressed this thought. He didn’t have enough faith in human nature to believe only Nox believers took such wicked cultivation paths.
‘And some of them could even be hiding in plain sight.’
He didn’t trust the righteous path purely based on its name either. From what he knew, the righteous path was simply where people schemed in the dark rather than in the open.
He didn’t want to discount the efforts of those truly good people that existed, but his worldview was pessimistic, to say the least.
He has never believed that people could act purely out of the good of their hearts. Everyone had selfish intentions, even the best of people. He despised people who acted innocent on the outside but were the worst monsters in reality.
Noticing that his thoughts had skewed, Damien focused once again on the scenery around him. By this point, Zara had already taken him close to the general location of the Celestial Star Palace.
“Hmm, from what the map says, the next city should be the closest to the sect. Let’s stop there and see if we can gather some information before we leave.” Damien said.
Zara complied happily. Whenever he wasn’t in his thoughts over the past week of travel, he had given her all the company she could ask for. Not only did they talk about various matters, but at one point they even landed and raced like they used to do in the past.
When they reached the periphery of the city, Damien noticed that there was a long queue to enter. “This reminds me of last time.” He said as he reminisced on their entrance to Archdale.
Unlike that time, though, the strength of the average person was much larger. Damien wouldn’t be able to trailblaze his way into the city. Even among these common people that he saw, there were plenty of 2nd classes.
Zara shrank to the size of a normal carriage before entering the line. Tamed beasts were much more common in this world, so there was no problem.
Or at least, that’s what Damien thought. As he calmly sat in meditation on Zara’s back, a commotion started taking place behind him.
“Make way! Make way! My young master has no need to stand in line with filth like you!” A booming voice resounded.
And the people did indeed make way. Seeing the symbol on the side of the cart, they didn’t dare to even make a sound to express their grievances.
“That’s the Wang Clan insignia.”
“That’s right, they are cemented in 3rd place among the 4 Great Clans.”
“I heard that they have the backing of the Jade Heavenly Palace.”
“I heard from my uncle that their young master is to be wedded to the Xue Clan young miss.”
The carriage moved unimpeded through the hordes of people, unbothered by their murmurs before the driver spotted a large black obstruction in the distance.
“Make way, or don’t blame this servant for trampling you!”
However, the obstruction didn’t move. Damien, who had just exited his meditation, sat calmly atop Zara’s back, suppressing the smile that was threatening to form on his lips.
‘Is this my first young master interaction?’
Zara had her own pride, so even without Damien’s instruction, she didn’t budge. As the carriage approached, the murmurs of the crowd became more prominent.
“Who is that?”
“I don’t recognize him, but his beast seems very powerful.”
“Maybe he’s a secluded young master?”
“To have a beast like that, he must have some status.”
“He’s quite handsome. Maybe this big sister can climb the social ladder through him.”
“Don’t dream, lady! If he has the guts to obstruct the Wang Clan carriage, why would he fall for an ugly hag like you?”
“What’d you say?!”
The carriage neared Zara, but as warned, it didn’t stop in the slightest. In fact, the driver slightly sped up in a bid to cleanly dispose of the ones barring his path.
The two lion-like beasts that were pulling the carriage ran at full speed with ferocious expressions, kicking up large gusts of wind that pushed back any cultivator it came in contact with
However, just as the beasts were going to collide with Zara, they stopped abruptly. It wasn’t that they wanted to, but their paws had been frozen to the ground below them, almost fusing the two surfaces into one. If the beasts pulled a little too hard, their paws might cleanly separate from their bodies.
From within the carriage, a massive thump was heard, followed by a billowing aura.
“Who dares stop this young master?!”