Chapter 281 - The City On The Asteroid (Part 1)
Two days earlier on Daniel's planet.
"How much is it?" Daniel asked while rubbing his sore left palm with his right thumb.
Aeron was the first one to respond, and while shaking both of his hands, he said "I have my five hundred here. Want to take a look at them?" Both of his hands were in no better state that Daniel's left hand, which hurt due to the constant strain which they had to endure during the past couple of days.
"There is no need. How about you, Xargy?" responded Daniel while turning to look at the clearly embarrassed dragon in human-like form. He was sitting at a table above which were about a hundred written sheets of paper, and four times as many clean ones. From his nostrils, two columns of smoke came out in puffs, and his expression was one of exasperation.
"Do not even ask! I am not used to these tiny meat sticks." Despite Xargy's discouraged words, Daniel could see that he was making tremendous improvements in his writing skills, and he was getting used to his human form a lot faster than before. That, was mostly thanks to Daniel's group skill.
Instead of picking on him, and making him more irritated than he already was, Daniel waved his hand, and said "It's fine like this." before teleporting Xargy's and Aeron's written stacks of papers above his, and into a bigger pile. He then added "We are almost there anyway.."
Just as Daniel finished talking, Aeron and Xargy to look at the massive spatial station that at some point in time, had appeared in the field of view.
This station was built on a massive asteroid, and it worked as a moving city that dashed in between two separate, and yet close galaxies. Those who could not afford to teleport through galaxies, or that did not own a permission to, would usually pay for a long travel through ship, of which this station was common stop of.
The reason why there were no teleporting platforms that connected two different galaxies, was because galaxies would be constantly on the move, and trying to jump from one to another while the two moved away from each other at a speed faster than light, would cause problems without a doubt.
A few attempts had been made during the beginning of the age of exploration, but in the best cases, when somebody attempted to teleport to such a distance, they would end up in an area of space far away from the galaxy they were trying to reach.. while in the worst cases, the moving galaxy, the sudden teleportation, and the spatial anomalies that were created by the fast movement of the giant mass, would cause the space to shatter, and throw the unfortunate individual into the void.
What was needed for a stable teleportation to take place, was a massive amount of power, and the creation of a portal. With a portal, the elite cultivators were able to see through and know where they were going, and at the same time, they would not disturb the space directly, as what a portal did was a lot less invasive than a sudden shifting through space.
The station was home to many factions, and was what, if on a planet's ground, would have been called a city state. It wasn't important enough to be valued by the universal government and factions as a planet or justify the presence of a keeper of key, but since the faction's lower level warriors needed to travel through it, most of them had at least set a base on the asteroid.
This type of city was exactly what Daniel was looking for. Many factions, not one high level warrior, and a lot of people connected to the numerous powers within the universal government.
As they approached the moving asteroid, Daniel noticed a line of ships moving towards the city. This line was composed of at least fifty ships, and the size of each ship was dozens of times bigger than the ship which Daniel had boarded in order to reach his planet of origin.
Remembering how big the ship was, Daniel thought that the size of these ships was a little exaggerated, but after considering that the distance they needed to cross was millions of times longer, to use a bigger ship which could house more people and also had bigger propulsors, was the obvious choice. If the crossing was to be traveled with the ship which Daniel had boarded once, it would have taken hundreds of years, if not more.
The three were not sure whether there was someone that could spot them, so they hid in the long line of ships, and waited for the passengers to disembark. They then used their comprehension of dark essence to mix with the passengers, and pretended to be simple travelers.
What they were worried about was not being spotted by a powerful cultivator, but to be recognized, and be reported to someone strong enough to imprison them. If they were discovered, Xargy would be powerful enough to turn the entire asteroid into a mass of liquid rock, but their object was not to kill.
Due to the reason why they had come here, the three wanted to leave as quietly as they had arrived. So the moment they entered the city, they bought three ticket for the first ship that would leave the asteroid, which was set to depart two days later, and spent two days roaming the city.
Aside from a few quarries and mines, there was not much to see. Close to ninety-nine percent of the city's commerce was made through the visitors that would simply pass through before resuming their travel towards the next galaxy.. But since there weren't many resources to mine in the asteroid, the majority of the items exchanged for crystals and other valuables, were items like weapons, armors, artifact, and miscellaneous.
Forced to focus on the creation of objects for the purpose of not starving out, this city was into a permanent golden age of engineering. Massive machines fueled through combustibles, metallic carriages which moved without the help of any sort of beast, and much more filled the streets, and could be seen in the surface of he asteroid.
The sight was a marvel to behold. The city was made out of metal, and thousands of columns of smoke rose up from the top of most of the biggest buildings.. Leaving an eerie and desolate appearance to it. Large metallic wheels connected through external teeth, forced one another to spin, and activate, or keep in function, some sort of unknown mechanism of which the city was in desperate need of, and yet at the same time polluting the city further.
Daniel walked through the filth covered streets by himself. There were multiple alleys that were dimly lit by a few low level light spheres placed too far apart, and the constant sound of coughing, yelling, and screaming could be heard coming from every direction.
Since Daniel was wasting time, he decided to take a walk into one of those dark alleys. There was nobody that could be a threat to him, and if sickness, poverty, and strange mechanism was all that this city was able to offer, then that is what he would go looking for.
The alleys were beyond what the most practiced roads were. The trash covered most of the metallic ground, and by the sides of the alley, were hundreds of homeless individuals that slept covered by nothing but some sheets of paper, and the clothes they were wearing. Mixed with those people, Daniel saw at least three corpses which apparently, nobody bothered to remove.
After walking for more than two hundred meters, Daniel finally saw the first individuals that did not appear to be homeless. They were five low level cultivators, and wore the same type of beige clothes, with a gear pattern that covered their left sleeve completely.
Four of these five individuals were following the youngest one, curiously looking at the item that he was holding in his hands as if they were observing a treasure whose origin was unknown to them. The youngest one of these men, on the other hand, was trying touching this item around, pressing multiple times on the smooth surface, and trying to get it to work.. Although, based on the expression on his face, he was failing miserably.
The five immediately noticed the approaching Daniel, but after not being able to feel any sort of power from him, they forgot about him, and walked past him.
Daniel did not want to have anything to do with those five individuals, as all of them had a certain level of negative karma, so he graced them with their lives, for the simple fact that they did not attempt to cause trouble for him.
In a matter of seconds, he forgot about them, and kept walking forward.
About three hundred meters deeper into this alley, Daniel had decided that he had seen enough of this city's squallor, so as he started to emit enough immortal essence for him to be lifted in the air, he suddenly pushed himself back of about two meters.
In front of him, a small cascade of urine and human excrements were dumped from a window about ten meters above his head. Luckily, he had avoided it in time. The bucket of waste was not directed at him, but judging from the smell of this area, it seemed that this was the common way of disposing of any sort of trash or garbage. He only so happened to be under the line of fire when a mean looking old woman decided to empty her chamber pot.
Daniel threw an angered look at the old woman, which looked back at him with a hostile and unapologetic look, before moving back into her house, and closing her window shut.
Now angered, Daniel looked down at his clothes, and soon found a few stains of wetness on his pants.
It took all of his control not to bend forward, and vomit all he had eaten that very morning. Instead, he immediately ejected an intense flame from every part bit of his skin, and once his clothes were turned into particles thinner than dust, he morphed the flames into warm water, which quickly moved around his body, and cleaned him completely.
Finally, he took a few spare clothes out of his spatial ring, and with as much care as he could, he put them on.
Suddenly, just as he was about to put a clean shirt on, he heard a few noises come from a few meters deeper into the alley. *squish..frrr* *squish..frrr* *squish..frrr* The noises were extremely faint, as if a very light individual was stepping with bare feet over the disgusting filth that the old woman had just dumped all over the alley.
Daniel put his shirt on, and waited for whatever was making that sound to come forward.
A bit more than a couple of seconds later, a thin little arm appeared in the area enlightened by small light sphere. Following that little arm, was the little body of a nine or so years old kid covered in bruises and cuts. He was crawling over the urine and excrements that were splattered on the ground, with his visible wounds now covered in it, and an eye bulb that dangled down his left orbit.
Daniel slightly bent head suddenly straightened, and within a fraction of an instant, a small sphere of light came out of Daniel's head, and moved towards the crawling kid. Little did he know, that he hadn't witnessed to the worse part yet.
Being held by the little kid's second hand, was a smaller child.. The older one was dragging him, and probably trying to reach a more practiced road where he, and what from the hair color looked like his younger brother, could possibly seek for some help.
Unfortunately, thanks to his ability to see the karma of every living individual, Daniel was sure of the fact that the younger kid had already passed away.
Regardless of how badly injured the older kid was, he refused to let go of his younger brother, and dragged him as if that was the purpose of his short life.
With a knot growing on his throat, Daniel pushed a dense stream of immortal essence, and covered the kid with it. He then turned it into healing essence, and made it seep into the kid' injuries.