Chapter 1583: Cloud City
"This is Cloud City?" Han Li hovered in mid-air as he looked up into the sky with a peculiar look on his face.
"Indeed. As the name suggests, Cloud City is one of two floating inhabitable lands in the Spirit Realm alongside Sky Island. It can't drift with the wind like Sky Island does, but it's able to adjust its own altitude as the seasons change during the year," Jia Tianmu introduced in a proud manner.
At this moment, the two of them were situated on the summit of a small mountain, and several hundred kilometers in the air above them was a giant floating city.
The city was hundreds of thousands of feet up in the air, and not only were there white clouds swirling all around it, the entirety of the island was constructed from some kind of unknown white material.
For a city of such a massive size to be hovering so high up in the air was truly quite awe-inspiring to anyone witnessing such a spectacle for the first time.
Another noteworthy feature as the dozen or so massive pristine white balls around the entire city. The balls didn't appear to be very large from afar, but if one were to draw closer, they'd discover that these were colossal objects that were over 100,000 feet in diameter.
As for the exact number of these massive balls, that was something that Han Li couldn't yet ascertain as he could only see one side of Cloud City.
"What are those things?" Following his initial stunned stupor, Han Li pointed up at the massive balls up above with an expression of awe and curiosity on his face.
"Those are one of the city's defensive trump cards, and they were constructed by our Myriad Ancient Race in conjunction with the Stone Cocoon Race after much painstaking effort. You'll be able to learn the specific details about them once you ask around a little in Cloud City. For now, allow me to keep you in the dark!" Jia Tianmu chuckled with a mysterious smile.
Han Li was rather speechless upon hearing this.
However, he had no intention of trying to force an answer out of Jia Tianmu. As such, he rose up into the air, flying toward Cloud City with a hint of curiosity in his heart.
Jia Tianmu also followed close behind him as a streak of white light.
From several hundred kilometers, one couldn't develop an accurate grasp of just how massive Cloud City was. However, after reaching within 50 kilometers of the city, even Han Li was flabbergasted by its gargantuan size despite his vast wealth of experience.
At such close quarters, Cloud City seemed to have obscured most of the entire sky, and along the way, they began to witness foreign beings flying through the air as streaks of light, or aboard carriages, arks, and all types of flying treasures.
As they approached the city, the number of foreign cultivators they encountered also steadily increased.
When Han Li was close enough to catch a clear glimpse of the giant ball directly up ahead of him, the surrounding area was already filled with countless foreign beings traveling in all directions.
For some reason, all of them skirted around the giant balls, resigning themselves to traveling a larger distance rather than passing by close to them.
Han Li narrowed his eyes upon seeing this, and blue light flashed deep within his pupils, allowing him to inspect the giant balls in greater detail.
The colossal balls seemed to have been constructed from the same material as Cloud City itself, but upon closer inspection, he discovered that there were faint cracks running all over the seemingly smooth surfaces of these balls.
It was as if they were three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles that had been created using countless pieces of material fragments. Almost every single piece of materials had golden and silver runes shimmering on their surfaces, giving the balls an extremely mysterious appearance.
Han Li's brows furrowed as he swept his spiritual sense toward the massive ball up ahead, only for it to be repelled by a powerful restrictive power as soon as it came into contact with the ball.
Han Li didn't find this to be strange. Instead, he'd be quite surprised if he could glean the internal structure of such a mysterious object so easily.
"If you're carrying any metallic treasures or materials, make sure not to go within a 10,000 feet distance of those balls. Otherwise, everything of a metallic nature that you're carrying will be forcibly taken and devoured by those things. On top of that, Cloud City won't hand out any reparations for the losses incurred as a result of this," Jia Tianmu cautioned.
"Is that so?" Han Li was quite surprised to hear this. He glanced at the beings around him who were cautiously avoiding the giant balls, and he was already almost fully convinced that Jia Tianmu was telling the truth.
Shifting his gaze elsewhere, Han Li discovered that there were many beings flying toward a massive city gate of Cloud City.
There were several tens of guards wearing the suits of armor at the city gate, and all of them were standing on either side of the gate with serious expressions on their faces, conducting examinations on all beings that intended to enter the city.
These thorough examinations were only aimed at cultivators looking to enter the city, while those leaving the city were completely ignored.
All of the guards were covered head to toe in suits of armor, but it was quite apparent that they were all of different shapes and sizes, and seemed to hail from different races.
Han Li's eyes narrowed upon seeing this, but he continued onward, and after a short while, he arrived at the city gate along with Jia Tianmu.
There were a dozen or so other beings that also descended at this moment, and all of them seemed to be preparing to undergo examination.
The so-called examination merely consisted of several guards holding strange-looking disks and scanning them over the unfamiliar faces that were trying to enter the city. At the same time, another being was holding another object, recording some things into that object while listening to the verdicts delivered by his companions.
No light barriers or restrictions of that nature could be seen in the air above Cloud City. However, the sky was completely clear without anyone daring to try and fly over the city walls that were thousands of feet tall.
On this occasion, Jia Tianmu didn't explain anything. Instead, he merely smiled and suddenly made his way directly toward the guards at the city gate.
In the process, he was jumping the line, and all of the beings ahead of him were naturally quite displeased by his actions.
However, most of these beings were only at the Foundation Establishment Stage or Core Formation Stage. Hence, all of them hurriedly put away their enraged expressions after discovering with their spiritual sense that Jia Tianmu was an upper race being.
The beings in the line didn't dare to do anything, but that didn't apply to the guards at the city gates, and all of them immediately turned to Jia Tianmu with cold expressions on their faces.
These guards all possessed comparable or even superior cultivation bases to Jia Tianmu, yet he remained completely unflustered as he swept a sleeve through the air. A palm-sized black badge instantly flew forth from within, heading directly toward one of the guards.
The guard faltered initially upon seeing this, but he quickly recomposed himself before catching the badge and focusing his gaze on it.
At the same time, Jia Tianmu's lips tremored slightly, and even though he wasn't saying anything, it was quite clear that he was using a voice transmission technique.
The scenes that unfolded next left all of the beings in the line completely flabbergasted. After catching a clear glimpse of the badge in his hand, an astonished look appeared on the guard's face, and after hearing Jia Tianmu's voice transmission, he hurriedly stepped forward to return Jia Tianmu's badge to him with both hands. He then extended a respectful bow, and said, "Greetings, Master Jia of the Myriad Ancient Race; please come in. The elders of the Myriad Ancient Race have instructed us well in advance to take you to the Heavenly Dawn Pavilion to see them as soon as you arrive. Seeing as we can't eliminate the possibility that there could be Jiao Chi Race spies in the city, we'll be sending a few guards to accompany you to the Heavenly Dawn Pavilion."
"Oh? The elders are already in the Heavenly Dawn Pavilion? I was going to go and see them anyway. As for guards, don't worry about it; with Fellow Daoist Han to accompany me, I'll be fine as long as I don't get attacked by Body Integration Stage beings. Fellow Daoist Han isn't a Heavenly Cloud being, so prepare a free identity badge of the highest level for him. I can personally vouch for him," Jia Tianmu commanded as he accepted his badge from the guard.
"Yes, Master Jia!" The guard faltered slightly upon hearing this before immediately nodding in response.
At this moment, Han Li also strode over in an unhurried manner.
The guards instantly waved the disks in their hands toward him, and Han Li sensed a burst of extremely faint spiritual pressure erupt from the strange round disks. Immediately thereafter, several bursts of spiritual sense emanated from the guards' bodies before combining as one, then sweeping toward Han Li's body.
A hint of surprise appeared in Han Li's eyes. This was the first time that he had seen a technique that allowed the spiritual sense of several people to be combined as one.
As expected of one of the core cities of the 13 Heavenly Cloud Races; even the guards at the city gates were capable of using such an incredible secret technique.
After examining Han Li's cultivation base, all of the guards were filled with a sense of awe and veneration.
Seventh-tier upper race beings were quite rare, even among the 13 Heavenly Cloud Races.
The guards were all quite relieved after verifying that their disks hadn't detected any Jiao Chi Race bloodline within Han Li's body, and one of them said, "Senior, seeing as Master Jiao is vouching for you and you've passed our preliminary examination, we'll be issuing you a high-grade identity badge right away. With this badge, you'll be able to go anywhere in Cloud City aside from a few secret and forbidden areas."
"Thanks for your hard work," Han Li replied in a benevolent manner.
The Deity Transformation Stage guard hurried waved his hands in response and no longer mentioned anything about sending guards to accompany Jia Tianmu.
It was quite clear that in his mind, a seventh-tier upper race being like Han Li was more than enough to ensure Jia Tianmu's safety.
Moments later, the guards refined a jade badge that contained some basic information about Han Li before handing it over to him. After that, the guards all stepped aside to open up a path between them, and Jia Tianmu strode into the city with Han Li following behind him in an unhurried manner.
"Fellow Daoist Jia, what kind of secret technique did they use just then to combine their spiritual sense as one? Wouldn't such an extraordinary technique be extremely effective in battle?" Han Li suddenly asked after they'd entered the city.