Chương 26: 18.1. The Imperial Capital

The flying ship did eventually arrive. An hour late. Leaving everyone stewing under the blazing sun. Faust looked around. People were grumbling all around him. Mostly Qi Refining cultivators and mortals. A few Meridian opening and Open Palace cultivators were scattered around.

Several people had gone to complain to the clerks manning the gates, but after more workers arrived to unload cargo, the clerks were freed and the crowd waited until the people on board had begun exiting before walking through the boarding gate where a bridge was lowered from the deck. Faust waited a while for the crowd trying to squeeze up the bridge to thin, listening to the clammer of footsteps knocking against the wood among shouts and grunts.

The flying ship was massive, Faust guessed it was several hundred meters long. Three masts pierced the sky, with massive black arrays embroidered across yellow sails that sprawled above the deck and even over the sides. Golden threads connected the sails, looping around masts and piercing the corners of sails before all going to the raised deck at the back. Several Meridian Opening guards kept people off the stairs leading up the raised section.

Looking at the sails and the arrays embroidered across them, Faust stroked his chin. He had been somewhat interested in flying ships during his flying sword obsession. Economy class ships like this one used massive, sail like devices made of a specialised cloth, that combined with the array formed a formation that caught only the right types of Qi as they moved. The caught Qi was then filtered into the various arrays and formations inside the ship's engine room. Faust snorted with amusement.

He remembered stumbling upon a long transcription of someone arguing it should be called the Formia room rather than Engine room, inspired by the ancient character for Formation rather than Ingenius. Personally, from what Faust remembered about how flight arrays and formations worked — he would call it an engine room. It deserved the title. The rabbit hole of flight arrays and formations was deep.

The commonly sold flying sword allowed even a late stage Qi Refining cultivator to traverse over a thousand kilometers in a day despite the trifling amount of Spirit Qi they could store in their physical body alone. As the bridge up the boarding gate cleared up, Faust walked up while idly wondering how many spirit stones a ship of this size burned through despite the efforts to gather Qi from elsewhere.

It probably used vast amounts of low grade stones since arrays and formations cared less for the purity of Qi than people did. The rooms were still blocked off by a red ribbon for cleaning, but the ship amenities were still open. There were seats now at least. Faust thought, scanning the deck.

"This is your captain. We will be departing for the Imperial Capital shortly. Rooms are now open for the passengers who bought silver tickets or higher." A voice spread around the ship. Faust listened to the announcement for a few moments before going under deck and finding his room, opening it with the silver ticket before closing the door behind himself.

He would spend the two day journey consolidating his foundation, clearing the remnant toxins and waste Qi that liked to build up and cling to the channels and spirit body. His use of Containment pills had let him lay the rest of his inner palace foundation without having to pause, but they only delayed the buildup until later. Faust took a cursory glance at the waste and toxic qi that had built up and gave a small sigh.

There was a lot already and he imagined more would appear as the pills wore off in over the 3 months or so. He would have to make some time during his study to clean and consolidate his current cultivation. Soon, the ship lurched. Faust opened one eye while mediating on his cultivation, looking out the small porthole his room had to the outside. The ship had finally started moving.

"Bye Senior brothers! Senior Sisters!" Sirius waved while skipping, to Satheon, Yue Zong and Dan Chen as the group split up outside the mission hall.

"Haaah…" A little away, Sirius let herself sigh a bit, letting her cheer dull a bit as she stopped skipping and fell into a more ordinary walk. She rubbed the back of her neck, massaging it. Satheon had made them stop and fight. Every. Single. Thing. They came across while Yue Zong wouldn't stop complaining. Sirius made some mental notes to herself. Don't go on missions to beast infested areas with Satheon— unless there was another person whose strength he respected enough to not shut down their opinions.

For Yue Zong, don't go on long missions with her, period. Stick to short missions. Reaching her mansion, Sirius opened the door and threw herself onto a soft couch sent by her family on her last birthday, when she had turned 28.

"Urgghhh… Sleepy…" Sirius mumbled. She wouldn't be afraid to admit she fell asleep for a bit either. Some time later, when the evening sun was casting the mansion in orange hues. Showing through the open layout of the mansion, with the whole rear courtyard facing wall being opened doors, letting the chilling breeze of early spring through as well as the gentle sounds of swaying leaves and various spirit herbs planted in the garden.

"Krrr… Huh? Huh." Sirius woke up, suddenly sitting up with one eye droopy and looking around. She rubbed her eyes before stretching her arms and yawning. She got up and went out to check her spirit herbs. The Fire Ferns, glowing gold looking wheat, was drooping a bit, but Sirius didn't think it would be much of a problem. She would fix them with a stick if they got worse. Some of the Golden Beans were developing dull spots.

Sirius pruned them, harvesting the ones she could, then poisoned that area of the soil to get rid of whatever parasites had buried there. The other plants seemed fine. Sirius yawned and stretched some more. She had been unusually tired for a cultivator. Ever since… Maybe it was when she was about 20? Faust suspected it was some kind of physique that was too hard to identify until it was awakened. But they could only wait for it to awaken to prove that hypothesis.

After caring for the garden, Sirius went to the kitchen, where she found her note flipped over. She picked it up.

"Then, I'll head out without you.:)" The note read in Faust's handwriting.

"Haah…" Sirius sighed. He really didn't wait at all. He even forgot to tell her if she needed to prepare anything to regress her realm back to early Open Palace and reinforce her foundation further. Sirius lit the kitchen's hearth, starting by boiling some water. While waiting for the rice to cook, she ran out and checked Faust's mansion. The mansion was empty. Not cleaned to a polish but still relatively clean.

Countless shelves had been shoved into almost every corner to hold all the technique manuals, scrolls and other books Faust had collected. It was like a small library. Looking through the shelves, Sirius eventually found the right book. One labeled,"Notes on Sirius Cultivation II" Sirius bet Faust was the only one who had notes on other people's cultivation.

There were also books for Mue Dian and Persius, but they were noticeably less worn, with only one volume and less Qi infused into them due to Faust's —in Sirius's opinion, excessive — use of Qi based telekinesis. Flipping through the pages, Sirius found the latest one.

"Section Summary. Spirit Body already solidified. No room for Essence Qi based reinforcement. Will have to use arrays and formations or heaven and earth treasures. Possible use of beast taming for dual spirit body solidification and entanglement. More research is required. Postpone until after studying at the Grand Archive. Research topics around Spirit Body, Spirit Qi Solidification, Spirit Expansion, Spirit Domains."

"Huh." Sirius found it curious. Faust didn't have a good answer already. Then again, if reinforcing the spirit body after the fact was so easy, Sirius supposed there wouldn't be so many people eternally stuck in the Open Palace realm. There was no way to un-solidify the spirit body and without already having a certain level of toughness, there were also few options to reinforce it after the fact. Sirius put the book back with the other notes Faust kept on other peoples Cultivation.

There were books on herself, Mue Dian, Persius and obviously for Foria, who already had 2 volumes. Curiously though, there were also books for Long Tao, Satheon, Damarius, Rozaline and Aneroze— There was also one on Wu Jie, the Sect Master. Out of curiosity, Sirius picked up the one on Wu Jie. Rather than notes detailing what should be done like in her own book, Wu Jie's was a bunch of hypotheses on how the sect master had cultivated. It had an incredibly well detailed recounting of Wu Jie's entire life so far.

It then had research notes on what Wu Jie did with his cultivation throughout. If not for the rice she still had cooking, Sirius would have read through the whole thing, but she put it back and locked Faust's mansion again as she left, running back down the stairs under the moonlight to her own mansion. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The rice was almost done, so Sirius got to cutting vegetables and mashing beans, adding various spices and powders until she had a dish with a nice orange curry and fluffy white rice, with a side of fresh vegetables from her garden. It was kind of lonely cooking and eating by herself. Sirius thought idly. The next morning, Sirius woke up and decided to do some solo missions. Fast, nearby ones, to get her mission count up since she had done a series of long and dangerous missions recently.

Sirius headed down the mountain.

"Morning, junior sister Sue Jane! Senior brother Damarius!" Sirius called out to the two people, one atop their signature boulder and the other… Not present? Sirius stopped. The sect's number one Damarius Galzer wasn't around him?

"I don't know where she is." Damarius answered before Sirius could even ask.

"Ohhh…." Sirius on the other hand, suddenly remembered where she would be. It was just after winter after all.

"Bye!" Sirius sprinted off down to Diamond Mountain. Soon, Sirius arrived in front of a large restaurant on Diamond Mountain. She bounced straight to the back and stopped at a curtain under the watch of a burly female disciple with a scar running down one eye. Sirius was allowed in, but this time she just wanted to take a peak. Inside, a group of female disciples and younger deacons were huddled around several portraits.

Behind them were several wooden leaderboards, filled with wooden slits that held various names on them.

"How could senior Satheon make a better companion than senior Damarius!?" Sue Jane scoffed, slapping her hands against the table.

"Even if he's a bit stupid don't you think that he would be incredibly caring which is charming?" An older woman, one of many sect deacons responded. The leaderboard rankings that had permeated Clear Mirror sect had long expanded from just the combat ranking list to several others. Some of which were… less productive. It all started with some boys making the Heavenly Beauty leaderboard, ranking the top hundred most beautiful women in the sect.

Naturally, some girls got together and made a Handsome Immortals leaderboard in retaliation. Then the boys came up with the "Heart Bound" leaderboard that ranked who the best person to marry was. The girls had responded with the "Hearts Sovereign" leaderboard, which was the current topic of debate. Sirius peeked in at the meeting progress of the Handsome Immortals and Hearts Sovereign leaderboard committee. It was a meeting held once every three or so months, depending on how busy the sect was at the time.

So far, Senior Fluren held the number one spot of the Hearts Sovereign list, while holding only the 12th position on the Handsome immortals list. To absolutely no surprise for Sirius, Faust held the number 2 rank on the Hearts Sovereign list. The two hadn't moved from spot 1 or 2 almost ever since they joined the sect. On the Handsome Immortals list, Faust held 45th place, the committee could never agree whether demeanor should count as a part of how handsome and attractive someone was.

As such, Faust moved around a lot on the Handsome immortals list. The new addition to the top ten on the Handsome Immortals leaderboard was Long Tao, who was competing at the 9th place, only short a few spots probably due to his demeanor. Ho Jinyou held the undisputed first place on the Handsome immortals leaderboard, closely followed by Bu Yuanzhi in second place. A notorious womaniser in Sirius's opinion, but that's why he didn't even make the Hearts Sovereign leaderboard. Sirius nodded at the current rankings.

The leaderboards had changed a lot due to the most recent generation of disciples having a lot of handsome heirs from major clans. But from her current knowledge she could agree with the way the rankings were being done so far. Leaving the restaurant, Sirius then quickly ran further through the Diamond Mountain Markets to the definitely-not-a-brothel, tucked into a corner. To an entrance hidden in an alley between two permanent shops in the market.

A textile stall with countless draped fabrics occupied the alley, making the entrance even harder to spot. Of course, the definitely-not-a-brothel was an open secret and every sect administrator knew about it. But with some creative interpretation, it was perfectly within the bounds of the sect rules and imperial law. Technically it was classified as a high end restaurant. Sirius opened the intricate carved wooden door at the alley's end, leading into a small cliffside of Diamond Mountain.

One of the waitresses near the door quickly approached Sirius as she entered.

"How can I be—""Wheres Amaria?" Sirius asked, looking around the definitely-not-a-brothel's hall, filled with velvet couches and carpets, with dim lighting and countless red curtains blocking lines of sight. Both handsome men and beautiful women in scandalous clothes entertained guests, sitting a knife's edge away from violating the imperial standard of what was defined as being modest.

"Ah." The waitress was startled for a moment before recovering.

"Should I call her?" Sirius nodded her head rapidly. The waitress obliged, leaving for a moment before a long black haired woman with a golden hairpin and wearing a skimpy red and gold dress appeared. The cloth covering her bountiful chest seemed only a minute mistake away from slipping down to show something immodest, while her shoulders were revealed until just above the elbows.

"Junior sister Sirius!" The woman, Amaria practically pounced on Sirius, pulling her into a hug.

"Senior Sister!" Sirius hugged her back. Amaria was the only other person in the sect hailing from the same home town as her. After a few moments of embrace, Amaria retreated a bit, leading the way.

"So, what did you come today for?"

"I just checked the Handsome Immortal's leaderboard and wanted to know how the combat leaderboard is going! Faust is at 45th, Long tao is 9th…" Sirius listed out the main differences from the last leaderboard. Amaria giggled and answered in kind.

"The committee on the top floor has been arguing for hours now. Based on past records of near transformed flood dragon intelligence, they scoffed at Satheon defeating one. They don't believe you or sister Phalecia could do it either based on 'past performance' as they put it. So they're arguing about where Faust would go given he has some kind of attack capable of taking down a near transformed Flood Dragon near the peak of the Open Palace realm." She explained.

"Senior brother Faust had some crazy lightning attack. But it took too long to prepare, so he only used it to finish the dragon off." Sirius nodded as the two walked a bit to a nearby couch while whispering to each other. She wished she could speak in on that meeting as well. Compared to the decorative Handsome Immortals and Heavenly Beauty lists, the combat leaderboard was far more objective and the arguments were far fiercer.

It was determined by a group of crazy disciples Sirius remembered Faust was good friends with. Unfortunately, they weren't the type to care about family or friendship connections. They would sooner die than manipulate the board out of greed. There was a reason other combat leaderboards had failed, ones where the committee making them would take bribes to inflate peoples rank. They just became decorative.

"What about the rest of the list?" Serius urged.

"They put a new disciple, Long Tao in 4th place."

"Eh? You mean Iron Shell Long Tao?" Sirius asked. Now that she thought about it, she remembered Faust mentioning him around when he was talking about his sister. The combat rankings also took the realm into account to compare people with others in the same realm rather than each other directly. Amaria nodded.

"Since he's been consistently going on missions against higher realm beasts and demonic cultivators. There's also Aneroze, who's been butchering demonic cultivators and beasts through the mission hall for the last few months." The two went back and forth for a bit before moving onto more mundane things. The leaderboards would be updated for everyone to see soon, but knowing them in advance meant you could make a connection with someone before others did.

Or it could mean disposing of an enemy before they gained influence. Sirius parted ways with Amaria, leaving the restaurant. The clammer of voices and hollow of merchants filled the air. She had nearly forgotten that the scoreboards were updated around this time.

"New stock of fireball talisman! Second level fireball talisman!"

"Spirit Rice! Spirit Rice! Matured for 2 years in good conditions! Equal to 5 years! Only 5 gold pieces a bag!"

"Fresh fish! Flown from Clear Mirror Lake early this morning!" Sirius stopped at a section of the markets selling various foodstuffs. She licked her lips at some of the offers and bought a bag of 5 year spirit rice, which sounded interesting, as well as a fresh fish for tonight's dinner. Sirius walked back up the market —stowing the items into the spatial pouch Faust had given her with a smile— heading towards the market square and Clear Jade bridge, then stopped. She saw a handsome blue haired boy with a glaive.

Long Tao? She thought. She was about to pass by when Long Tao stepped forward, right into the path of Bu Bachaun, who was waving his fan while strolling through the market. People saw the duo and stopped to look. The Iron Shell versus the Bu clan's most recent heir. Chatter quickly began spreading as people felt the tension in the heir.

"What's Long Tao doing now?"

"He looks like he's waiting for Bu Bachuan?"

"Does he really want to die?"

"Maybe he's planning to apologise." Despite standing around out of curiosity, people moved a distance away, giving space to the two known enemies. In the distance, coming from the market square, Sirius saw Aneroze and Foria approaching as well. Bu Bachaun paused as he neared the center of the impromptu clearing of people, his face darkening as he grimaced and glared at Long Tao, ignoring the murmurs of gossipers around him.

"Bu Bachuan." Long Tao spoke. Aneroze froze in the distance, her eyes going wide.

"Send better assassins. I didn't even notice they were trying to kill me, they were so weak." Tao spoke confidently, stamping his glaive against the ground. The murmurs stopped. The wind stilled. Clack! Aneroze fan fell out of her hand and clattered against the ground. Bu Bachuan's face twisted into rage and he slowly raised his finger, his whole body trembling, as he pointed at Long Tao.

"Y-you—" He began. Aneroze flashed in from the side. Long Tao turned his head to look at her. Sirius quickly shot forward.

"THATS NOT WHAT I F#CKING MEANT!?!?!?" Aneroze screeched with veins bulging across her forehead, while orange light coated her hand, all fingers straight like a blade, turning it into a burning knife as she cut at Long Tao's neck. Sirius grabbed Aneroze by her other arm. Aneroze's hand fell short slightly, cutting a third the way through Long Tao's neck. Long Tao only just realised what was happening and looked down at his chest where blood was ceaselessly pouring out. He looked up, eyes wide.

Sirius was holding Aneroze back.

"LET ME GO! I'M GOING TO END THIS MORONS BLOODLINE!" Aneroze kept shouting, thrashing against Sirius and eventually Foria, who finally arrived beside them and helped hold back Aneroze. Long Tao fainted and fell on the ground.

"Someone take him to the Medicine Hall!" Sirius shouted. Two disciples quickly ran forward, grabbing Long Tao and rushing to the market square. Bu Bachuan was looking at the scene, Frozen. A finger still extended in rage. Then, his eyes rolled back and he fainted.

"Young master!" Someone yelled, quickly grabbing him and rushing off towards the Medical Hall as well.

"Calm down!" Fora shouted to the madly thrashing Aneroze, who was still cursing Long Tao's stupidity. Faust opened his eyes.

"This is your captain. Please ensure you don't leave any items behind on the ship. They will be thrown out. You may exit from the disembarking gate on the first level below deck. Welcome to the Imperial Capital. The Heart of the Golden Dragon, Zentrum." Rolling his shoulders a bit after meditating, Faust stood up front in the room he had purchased. It was going to be his first time in the capital. Most of his knowledge was centered on the area around the Grand Archive and its procedures.

He had gotten a glimpse of the sprawling capital when his mediation got interrupted by the ship constantly changing directions and making adjustments. The capital had simply looked like a sprawl of what appeared to be a line of sky pagodas across the horizon.

"Huuu…" Faust took a deep breath before opening the room's door and joining the sea of people towards the nearest stairs up from the second under deck level, towards the disembarking gate.