“Master, we will be arriving at the location in thirty minutes.”

Zhang Liu delivered the message to his master as he was glancing outside the window. After a moment of silence, Zhang Dong began to speak.

“Liu, if for some reason I don’t make it back, I’ll leave my family in your care.”

Liu was taken aback by his master’s words and he instantly started panicking.

“What do you mean master, of course, you will return and you will lead our sect to victory as you always do!”

The young man raised his fist and Zhang Dong could see that unreasonable amount of faith that Zhang Liu was putting into him. He would probably not get to him if he wanted to explain his system and that it was mostly just pure luck that he was alive at this moment of time.

It all started that fateful day in the secret ground. If he didn’t succumb to his own pride and inflated ego after gaining some strength that he didn’t work for they wouldn’t be here. His system went bonkers as he barely survived that encounter which in turn brought Wang Long over here.

If he managed to finish that test then he would have been able to live his life peacefully. Though he would be still quite ignorant to the real ways of this world. The cubes would have not been discovered and other disasters could have been triggered.

Now on the other hand the system bearer was Wang Long. The creator of this system and world was ignorant of his existence. The question now was if the watcher of this world would get involved if Wang Long went on a rampage.

‘I can’t really wait and see, god knows how many people would die before this character decided to show up.’

There was also the possibility of a world reset. The demon lord from the world his summoner friend was in almost went through it. If Wang Long caused a world upheaval the person watching this world could come to the decision of restarting it.

What that really meant was not something Zhang Dong knew but he was sure that the lives of his loved ones would be at stake. That was not something that he could allow, the problem was getting to a level above what this world was limited to. He saw it in that other world and he was lucky enough to come from one that had a higher ceiling.

Now with a new kind of cultivation, he was hoping to bust through that ceiling. When he did that he would probably not need to fear any of those overseers.

He had a little theory of why he was able to achieve this new breakthrough in power. One of the reasons was that he was able to increase the size of his soul which allowed him to fuel some of it. The other reason was his little expedition into the other worlds.

When tumbling through that connection through worlds he came in contact with some strange energies. These energies were purer than what he could see in this world or in the other. During his travels, he might have absorbed some of this energy which was now being focused in that white seed.

His body had been transformed through the years of cultivation as well as was his soul. It craved energy to grow stronger and even without him focusing on cultivation it would try to absorb ambient Qi from the area it was in. Some of that could have made it into his body and it had altered the cultivation he now had.

Now he only needed to foster and cultivate that seedling till it could sprout. What was inside this little seed was a mystery but it would certainly be something that put him above the nascent soul level, a new undiscovered cultivation realm.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Liu. I don’t intend to just lie down and die but you are the only person I can trust with this… I’d mention it to Qiang but he would never retreat from a fight.”

Zhang Liu wasn’t the strongest cultivator but he could trust him to follow his orders. Huo Qiang would probably go down faster in a fight than try to flee himself. His wife was already strong but she would also prioritize the children over fighting. That left a few other people that he wished to join them if push came to shove.

“Just follow the escape route that I prepared for you, at the safe house you’ll be able to survive for hundreds of years.”

The place that he prepared for his closest family was buried underground. After some testing, he was able to gather some samples from the wall that was blocking off the cube that he found under his sect.

He was then able to produce some small samples that would even block out his system. It wasn’t perfect but as long as the system user didn’t get too close, he would be unable to see anything.

The possibility of Wang Long flying around to look for things deep underground wasn’t that high. There they would be able to remain without the need to go outside for a very long time. Still, if the world was reset then his idea would only give his family some time before the unavoidable end.

For this reason, he had to go see the Azure Emperor. He needed some help, it was impossible for him to go around this giant empire to search for one man. Wang Long probably already had some kind of disguise that would make him hard to find.

The only thing he could look for would be the disappearance of young women. His counterpart would probably not be able to get over his sexual addiction so where there were beauties he would probably go there. This was also something that he wanted to bring up with the Emperor.

“But master…”

“No buts, I hope that you will follow your master’s wishes.”

Zhang Dong smiled at Zhang Liu who could only cup his fists together and bow. Luckily the master-disciple relationship was paramount here and he could trust Liu to honor his wishes. The young man was quite strong for his age, with time he would also be one of the most powerful cultivators in this whole empire. That is if he had enough time to spread his wings.

“Well then, let us not keep the Azure Emperor waiting. Tell the captain to remain on standby and not cross into the Long clan region under any circumstance!”

“Yes, master!”

When he was trapped and unable to teleport back into the ship, it would be unwise for his sect members to try to rescue him. Even with this large battleship, they wouldn’t make it far inside.

The ship’s large engines started to give out less of a hum as they started to power down. The flying ship that was cutting through the skies like a massive sword soon emerged. It descended and showed itself but was quickly halted.

“So those are the fabled Azure Gates? They sure like to build them big in this world…”

Before Zhang Dong stood a massive wall that stretched all the way up into the clouds. Even someone that was capable of flight would have a hard time getting over this barricade that was the entrance to the Long Clan’s lands.

The Long clan was more or less the equivalent of the royal line in this Empire. They would decide on every new Azure Emperor that would be trained to become the strongest cultivator here. With their superior techniques and cultivation materials, they were able to hold onto the crown for many millennia.

No one even remembered the time when someone other than a member of the Long clan was the Emperor. To them there would never come anyone close to the current Emperor, the two other large sects might change but the one leading the country would not.

“I will be off then…”

“Please be careful, master, we will remain here as you ordered!”

Zhang Dong nodded at his disciple while slowly rising up into the air. The walls that went up into the sky had strange depictions of some mythical beasts and dragons that were in a battle for dominance.

Now when he arrived there was a large gate. Below this gate was a whole bustling city filled with millions of people on this side and even more on the other. This was the border city through which he needed to get through first before he arrived at his true destination.

The massive ship that just appeared out of the clouds was sure to attract a lot of eyes. Even though this city was part of the Long Clan, the ship that Zhang Dong was able to produce with his sect was a marvel of engineering. The sight of the massive metal airship was something to behold and everyone down below could not avert their gazes from it.

‘That must be the welcoming committee.’

While the Argonaut started floating back to not scare the locals a group of cultivators approached him. There were five of them and they were all nascent soul cultivators of varying degrees of strength with the weakest being a middle stage one and the strongest at the late stage.

From the looks on their faces, they were a bit taken back by the large ship that emerged from the clouds. Zhang Dong made sure to use his technology to try to evade detection. This was not done out of malice, no.

He just wanted to see if the Azure Emperor troops would be able to detect his ship before it landed. Now he knew that their detection capabilities weren’t up to par with his sect’s technology which might boost his prestige during this coming debate.

There was no way of him knowing what they really wanted from him. Would they question him about Wang Long or would they just try to throw him into the dungeon if they deemed him too much of a threat?

“Honored Zhang Dong from the United Element’s Sect?”

“Yes, that's me.”

Zhang Dong nodded while clasping his hands. The five nascent soul elders looked at him with curiosity in their eyes. Even before they spoke out he noticed that they were trying to examine him with their spiritual sense.

Due to his strange cultivation realm now he would be hard to read. His aura was not of a nascent soul elder nor of a core formation master. It had changed since he entered this new transitional stage even if he allowed them to take a peek they would probably not be able to measure his true power.

They could only take his flying capabilities into consideration and think of him as a nascent soul master that was too strong for them to read.

“By the Emperor's decree we are to escort you to the Azure gates, there you will be escorted by the inner elders.”

‘Inner elders? I guess these guys are just some outer sect elders?’

This made him raise a brow as these people might have been weak for their cultivation realms but they were still very high for an outer sect elder.

“I will put myself in your hands then my fellow Daoists.”

He just nodded and followed without asking too many questions. This was also a good opportunity to see how the top clan in the empire operated, for now, they got some brownie points for being respectful.

‘I hope the inner clan elders will be just as cordial.’