"That's it?" Liang Shufen couldn't help but ask as the old man disappeared somewhere in the horizon.
The whole thing felt very surreal, with the old man coming out of nowhere, demanding something so outrageous, and then leaving all of a sudden.
"I don't think we need to stay here any longer," Alex said. "Commander, we should leave before any other trouble arises."
"Yes," the commander said and quickly put back all the defenses and flew the ship.
Even as they flew away, the group couldn't help but think of how weird the experience had been.
"That must've been one of the hidden masters you were talking about that cultivates outside in these islands," Alex said.
"Maybe," the commander said.
"Do you know who he is by any chance?" Alex asked. "Have you recognized him now that he's been here so close?"
"No," the commander said. "I'm trying to think of old men that are equally as strong, but its hard to say. Especially given the fact that this man could've been hiding here for centuries and may have even faked his death to come here."
"Under those circumstances, it's pretty much impossible to tell anything," the commander said.
"Hmm," Alex gave the statement some thought. He could see that the commander was just as confused as anyone else, so he didn't suspect that he was hiding anything. "Oh, does the ship have secret compartments? Or does your ship hold some treasure?"
"Umm… no, none," the commander said. "I dropped all the defenses as he asked, so there was nothing I could hide in here even if I wanted to."
"That's true," Alex said. "I'll go talk with my people then. They seem plenty scared by the encounter."
"I apologize that you had to go through something like this again, your majesty," the commander said as Alex left.
Something was bugging Alex about the whole ordeal. What was the old man looking for exactly?
There were some hints, but not enough for Alex to go on at the moment. He returned back to his assistants who were all calming themselves down. Some had even taken a pill to remove their anxiety.
"Are you guys alright?" Alex asked the group, most of whom nodded, but there were some who shook their head.
"It's alright," Alex said. "He's gone. You guys can relax."
After talking to the alchemists for a while, he returned to the bow of the ship where he looked out for any other such instance.
As the ship got closer and closer to its destination, the number of islands was slowly increasing as well. Larger and larger islands passed by the group, all of whom looked down with great curiosity.
Someone of the islands was even inhabited by humans, surprising the group. They had built giant cities and were a full-fledged society.
The sun had started to come up, making it more clear for everyone to see the things below. The number of cities increased by a significant number, with some islands having more than just one.
There were other islands that were close enough that they had a bridge forming between them, connecting every single island in that archipelago.
As the ship continued flying forward, Alex could see a giant island on the horizon. He could see the continent. He waited patiently for the ship to reach there, but there was something to cross beforehand.
A line of soldiers stayed in floating ships that were there to check any ships that went in and out of the continent. And they were dense enough to cover the entire shoreline.
The ship moved forward confidently and the commander came up to the front before slowly bringing the ship to a half in front of them.
A man flew out of the ship from the other side, a man with a clean-shaven face and his hair tied in a ponytail.
"Commander Jianyu, you've finally arrived," the man said.
"Commander Beiquan," the commander greeted back. "Have you been waiting for us?"
"For two days," the man named Beiquan said. "Why were you so late?"
"We had some trouble in the ocean. A couple of beasts decided to fight us, we had to take a bit of detour, and one man even stopped us for something," the commander said. "This was more troublesome than most other times."
"I see," the man said before looking beyond the commander toward Alex and the others. "Ah, those must be the people from the Southern Continent."
"Ah, yes. Let me introduce you to him," the commander said and brought the man over to Alex and the rest.
The man was called Jin Beiquan and was one of the commanders of the Scale Legion. The Scale Legions' task was to deal with things outside of the continent, so they mostly stayed guard around the perimeter to make sure no one sneaked in without letting them know who they were.
Alex and the rest greeted the man and finally, they were let sent on their way with more soldiers added for protection.
"Welcome to the Eastern Continent, your Majesty," the commander said as they entered the air space of the continent itself.
The massive continent showed its face to them. The flat lands in front of them, the mountain range in the distance. Everywhere their eyes reached, they could see tiny hints of civilization at each instance.
"We're in the Silver Kingdom right now, the Greatwind region within it," the commander explained where they were. "It covers a vast land on the western side of it and is named after the strong winds that flow in from the ocean to the west in summer."
"Within it, we're going to the Blightwind City. You will see a patch of land soon that is completely deserted because of a plague that was blown in by the wind that caused all the plants to die. Fortunately, people still managed to change the tide against the plague in time and formed a city here, and named it after that."
He gave some trivia knowledge about where they were going. As the man had told him, there was indeed a path of land in front that looked like it belonged to the desert.
A bit further away, Alex saw the city in the distance. Past the deserted-looking region was a city full of rivers and ponds all around it.
There were many people fishing in the rivers and ponds, and many bridges going past them. There were children playing in the water, cultivators flying on top of it all.
There was no wall surrounding anything as the city simply began at one place and went on as far as it could.
There was a massive building at the center, which the Commander said most likely belonged to the mayor of the city.
If Alex was not wrong, that house was better than either palace he had been to in the Western Continent.
'Amazing,' he couldn't help but say.
The people watched as the ship arrived and landed outside of their city. Everyone noticed who the ship belonged to and made sure to not cause any problems.
As the ship landed, the formations were shut down one by one. As the barriers started to disappear, the atmosphere of the Eastern Continent finally entered the ship.
And only then were the people from the Southern Continent introduced to the dense Qi that was everywhere in the Eastern Continent.
