"How do I get there?"
Mo Fan looked at the spoils covering his table and rubbed his chin.
After a full night of thinking,he pushed open his door early the next morning and went to find Senior Brother Ziwei.
Ziwei heard him out and couldn't help rolling his eyes.
"Have you gone stupid sitting around on Hundred Forging Peak?Our Azure Cloud Sect is a prestigious major sect,after all."
"How could we possibly make disciples cross several thousand miles on two legs?"
Zhao Ziwei stood up,brushed the dust off his hands,and explained:
"At regular intervals,the Sect runs large long-range spirit ships to and from Cangqing City,handling procurement,freight,and disciple travel."
"Sect disciples can trade contribution points for a ticket."
"The spirit ships also release a portion of their berths to outsiders.Rogue cultivators who want passage have to hand over spirit stones like everybody else."
"That said,to ride the spirit ship,you need to go to the Foreign Affairs Hall on the main peak and get approval from whoever's handling the Sect's external affairs."
Mo Fan thought about it.
He was only going to buy body-refinement materials and see a bit of the world along the way.
No real need to be sneaky about it.
After thanking Zhao Ziwei,Mo Fan set off straight for the main peak.
Main Peak,Foreign Affairs Hall.
This was Mo Fan's first real contact with the Azure Cloud Sect's core apparatus for handling"affairs beyond the Sect."
The hall was buzzing with voices.
Caravan handovers,reports from off-site holdings,disciple travel applications,spirit ship scheduling...
All manner of tangled business was being processed here in orderly fashion.
After roughly half an hour in line,Mo Fan's turn finally came.
"Identity token."
The steward behind the counter spoke without lifting his head.
Mo Fan handed over the crude wooden tag carved with"Hundred Forging Peak."
The steward took the tag,swept it with his divine sense,and his previously offhand expression visibly froze.
"Lu Xiaoqi,Hundred Forging Peak?"
The steward raised his head and gave Mo Fan a somewhat odd look.
"The older brother of the Sect Master's personal disciple?"
Still,this steward wasn't so lacking in tact.
Seeing that Mo Fan had no intention of explaining,he naturally saw no need to ask further.
A moment later,the steward returned to the counter with the approval and asked,purely as a matter of procedure:
"What business do you have in Cangqing City?"
Mo Fan answered honestly,his expression unchanged:
"I've hit a bottleneck in body refinement.I'm planning to purchase some high-quality spirit liquids,spirit marrow,and heavenly spiritual essences in Cangqing City to break through."
Hearing that answer,the steward glanced at him with some surprise.
After all,high-tier heavenly spirit materials like those came at exceedingly steep prices.
Hardly something an ordinary body cultivator could easily afford.
But on second thought...
The man before him was,after all,the older brother of Li Hansong,the Sect Master's personal disciple.
So there was no need to interrogate him any further.
"Approved."
The steward picked up his jade brush and swiftly filled in the formal departure record in the register:
[Name:Lu Xiaoqi]
[Affiliation:Hundred Forging Peak]
[Destination:Cangqing City]
[Purpose:Purchase of high-tier spirit materials]
With that done,the steward deducted a sum of contribution points and handed Mo Fan a temporary transit jade token that flowed with faint light.
Several days later.
The outskirts of the Azure Cloud Sect,at a vast airfield built specifically for launching and landing large artifacts.
The place was already packed,bustling with crowds.
Not just Azure Cloud Sect cultivators either.
Plenty of rogue cultivators and small caravans who'd paid spirit stones for tickets had gathered here as well,craning their necks in anticipation.
RRRUMBLE!
Accompanied by a low,deep roar...
A colossal object slowly descended from the cloud layer.
This was the first time Mo Fan had seen a cultivation transport of this scale.
The hull was exceedingly enormous,a good several hundred zhang long,constructed entirely from some tough spirit wood and black refined iron.
Its surface was covered in dense arrays of formation patterns,halos of light flowing endlessly across them.
Even just hanging silently in midair,it carried a vast,mountain-like pressure.
Standing in the crowd,Mo Fan instinctively activated[Death Vision LV.3].
The next moment...
The spirit ship before him took on an entirely different appearance.
Throughout the interior of the entire hull,countless streams of refined spiritual qi flowed and circulated along those exceedingly complex formation patterns...
Precise as blood vessels,finally pouring into power hubs and defensive nodes throughout the ship.
Mo Fan's pupils contracted slightly.
So real cultivation artifact forging and me bolting bones together really aren't the same thing at all...
Before,whether it was his[Pale Bone Scepter]or his various bone-based equipment,he'd relied more on the materials themselves,supplemented by necromantic magic for empowerment and control.
But the Mystic Realm's orthodox artifact forging techniques could use formation patterns to make spiritual power form a genuinely stable circuit inside a lifeless object.
A bold idea surfaced irrepressibly in Mo Fan's mind.
If someday...
I could combine these forging formation patterns with my undead bone equipment...
Mo Fan rubbed his chin,a flicker of interest in his eyes.
Looks like on this trip to Cangqing City,I might as well take a look at how the Mystic Realm's cultivators actually forge artifacts and inscribe these formation patterns.
As the crowd boarded...
The composition of the spirit ship's passengers gave Mo Fan his first genuine sense of the difference between this route and the area around the Azure Cloud Sect.
Foundation Establishment cultivators were everywhere.
Disciples from various sects out for field experience,weather-worn rogue cultivators,richly dressed scions of cultivation clans,and wary-faced caravan guards were all mixed together.
Occasionally,near the private cabins on the spirit ship's topmost level,one could glimpse a few Golden Core True Persons whose auras were deep as abysses,no one daring to approach them lightly.
Mo Fan found a spot near the rail and settled in.
Hummm...
The spirit ship trembled slightly.
The vast formation slowly activated,and the massive vessel lifted off the ground,driving into the sea of clouds.
Steadying himself on the rail,Mo Fan watched the familiar Azure Cloud mountains beneath his feet grow smaller and smaller,until they were gradually swallowed by the heavy clouds.
He didn't feel much in the way of parting sorrow.
Instead,he took a deep breath of the biting high-altitude gale,his heart filled mostly with a long-absent sense of novelty.
He'd been in the Mystic Realm for a good while now.
Yet his range of movement had actually stayed pitifully small.
The Azure Cloud Sect.
Qingmu Market.
And those few barren mountains and wild forests nearby.
That had been essentially the whole of the world as he knew it.
Until today.
Today was the first time he'd truly stepped out.
Over the next several days of the voyage...
Thousands of miles of mountains and rivers swept past beneath the spirit ship like a scroll unrolling endlessly.
Mo Fan saw mortal towns scattered across the land like stars...
Saw the territories of cultivation clans coiled among spiritual mountains and beautiful waters...
Saw stretches of wilderness where demonic qi surged into the sky and giant beasts roared from time to time.
He even caught distant glimpses of several other sects'mountain gates,imposing in bearing and not the least bit inferior to the Azure Cloud Sect.
Those few short days alone...
Made Mo Fan truly realize for the first time.
The Azure Cloud Sect was vast,certainly.
But set against this boundless map of the Mystic Realm...
It was merely one corner of it.
Several days later.
The spirit ship finally passed through layer upon layer of heavy cloud sea and began slowly dropping altitude.
On the distant horizon...
The silhouette of a city,so massive it utterly exceeded Mo Fan's imagination,gradually appeared in everyone's view...
Like a primordial behemoth crouched at the far end of the plain.
The city walls rose a hundred zhang high,built entirely from some kind of pitch-black boulders.
Their surfaces flowed with vast defensive formation patterns so exceedingly complex that a few extra glances left Mo Fan's eyes faintly aching.
In the sky...
Spirit ships of every kind,flying demon beasts,and cultivators riding swords rose,landed,and shuttled back and forth outside the city-protecting grand formation.
Mo Fan gripped the rail,wind rushing into his face,and watched that giant city draw closer and closer.
His eyes gradually lit up.
The true capital of Cangqing Province.
Governed directly by the Great Xia Dynasty.
Guarded year-round by a Nascent Soul realm powerhouse,no less.
This place...
Was Cangqing City.
The spirit ship docked steadily at the enormous open-air airfield outside the city.
Mo Fan followed the crowded flow of people down off the ship and was soon absorbed into the sea of humanity...
Joining a line that snaked far into the distance as everyone waited to enter the city.
Looking at the boundless mass of cultivators ahead,so many he couldn't see the end of the line,Mo Fan couldn't help clicking his tongue inwardly.
Most cultivators who could move about and trade in Cangqing City's core districts on their own had already stepped into Foundation Establishment.
Granted,there were still plenty of trading guild clerks,clan attendants,and low-tier Qi Condensation cultivators mixed in.
But those streams of spiritual power converging together were still enough to shake anyone visiting for the first time.
Everyone says cultivators are one in ten thousand.
Mo Fan mused inwardly as he shuffled forward with the crowd.
But there are just far too many people in this world.
Drop a Foundation Establishment cultivator in an ordinary place and he'd already be worth addressing as"senior."
But arrive at a provincial capital like this...
And he seemed to be nothing more than the most ordinary backbone of a colossal cultivator population.
As for what lay above...
Golden Core.
Nascent Soul.
Those who could genuinely reach that level were still rarer than phoenix feathers.
After a long wait...
Mo Fan's turn finally came.
He walked up to the towering city gate and produced the Azure Cloud Sect's travel jade token,handing it over.
The city guard responsible for checking identities was,astonishingly,an early Foundation Establishment cultivator.
The man took the token and gave it a casual sweep with his divine sense.
Then he looked Mo Fan over from head to toe.
There was almost no obvious spiritual fluctuation on this person.
Yet his qi and blood were unusually dense.
"Body cultivator?"
A brief flicker of surprise passed through the guard's eyes.
In this era,cultivators who truly devoted themselves single-mindedly to body tempering really weren't all that common anymore.
But that was the extent of it.
Cangqing City saw plenty of oddballs coming and going every day.
The guard soon withdrew his gaze and handed the token back.
"Entry fee."
"Twenty Low-grade Spirit Stones."
The corner of Mo Fan's eye twitched slightly.
Twenty Low-grade Spirit Stones just to walk into a city?
Big places...
Even the doorstep is expensive,apparently.
Still,with his current net worth,that much money was nothing.
Mo Fan readily produced the spirit stones and handed them over.
The guard accepted them and continued in the same expressionless tone:
"No flying within the city without authorization.No picking fights or dueling with techniques.No robbery or killing."
"Violators are handled according to Great Xia law.In severe cases,executed on the spot."
"Understood?"
Mo Fan nodded.
"Understood."
"Pass."
The guard waved a hand.
Mo Fan put the token away and,following the flow of people,stepped through that thick,deep,enormous city gate.
In that instant...
Sounds far more tangled and clamorous than anything outside the walls came rushing at him.
Mo Fan instinctively raised his head.
Streets of astonishing width.
Towering pavilions piercing the clouds.
Cultivators coming and going.
Enormous carriages drawn by spirit beasts.
And in the distance,trading guilds,pill pavilions,and artifact towers one after another,each radiating dense spiritual light...
None of it belonged to the same world as Qingmu Market.
Mo Fan stood in the crowd and watched quietly for a while.
Then the corners of his mouth slowly lifted.
He'd been in the Mystic Realm a long time now.
And he had finally,for the first time,set foot in the true premier city of Cangqing Province.
Cangqing City.