Night had never experienced a space ring before, so the initial feeling of his soul perception sinking into the ring felt very weird. Night took a minute to reset the soul inscription, so that he could access the ring easier. Then he quickly started to review the ring's contents. Once his perception reached inside the ring, Night was thoroughly disappointed. With a swipe of his hand, Night began to dump out the contents of the ring on top of the rug in his tent.

Looking at the spread, there didn't seem to be much excitement from Night anymore. The contents of the ring consisted of about 30 stones, two heavenly stones, a few pieces of metal that looked like gold, and a map. Overall, the storage area inside the ring was roughly the same size as his backpack. The space was only big enough to fit these items, Night's knives and other trinkets. It couldn't store much , but Night was happy. He would now have a place to keep his stuff besides a backpack.

Brushing the stones aside, Night looked at the heavenly stones. One was actually a rare Stone of Thought that could help mental focus when training. Night was a little excited over the stone since it could give him a little boost during future concept cultivation. The second stone was something Night was very familiar with....a soul root stone. He had first been introduced to one of these back in the Carmine residence on Earth when they tested his talent. Night no longer needed the test, but he realized that this stone may give him the chance to speak with his godmother again.

However, this stone was only half the size of the one in the Carmine's place. He would need to cycle a few of his thoughts through his head before using the stone. He had a few things related to cultivation that he was uncertain about and would really like to talk with her about. He also had simple questions that plagued him like why could he understand everyone even though he knew they were talking a different language. He also had questions about his dream world and soul perception. He could really use a bit of clarification and he knew that that mysterious woman would have some answers.

Although Night had the opportunity now, he realized that now was not the time to try to use the soul root stone. He really needed to really make the opportunity of speaking with the woman count. So, he sat the two heavenly stones aside and looked at the three fist size pieces of gold metal. They didn't look that special but Night could feel that they had a bit of weight to them for something so small. He tried to review the information he had on stones and metals but didn't have any luck in determining what they are.

'I guess that I will have to find some place that can tell me what this metal is,' Night thought. He new that his journey to the City of Setting Sun was in its final stretch. The caravan should arrive in the next two months, so he didn't have much time left before he got to see the big city.

Then, Night looked at the final item from the space ring. It was a pretty detailed map that looked a bit unlike others that Night had seen. The one thing that really caught Night off guard with the map was the mountains. A mountainous terrain was depicted for over half of the map with the remainder showing a few desert oasis and other desert features. Night hadn't seen any terrain besides sand dunes and oasis since he had came to this planet. The thought of seeing something different excited Night.

'It sure would be great to finally get away from this sand,' Night thought as he folded up the map and put it back into the space ring.

Although the ring and its contents were a bit of a disappointment, Night was still happy. It was better than what he had before.

________________________________

The journey continued for two more months before the caravan started to come across several other traveling caravans. It seemed like the closer they got to the city, then the busier the desert became. Then on one day, Night started to hear a commotion throughout the usually peaceful caravan. Going over to Enok to see what the fuss was about, Night was caught off guard by the shear size of the city that he could see in the distance.

"It's huge isn't it," Enok said seeing the look on Night's face, "It is the largest of the four capital cities of the desert. Since it houses so many powerful clans, how can it not be this huge?"

"Yes," Night replied, "that makes sense." He was still somewhat amazed. Most of the demon civilization he had seen up until now was small oasis towns and camps. The City that was sitting on the horizon was enormous. It rose up out of the desert for almost his entire field of vision despite the fact that they were still miles away. By his guess, the City had to be at least quadruple the size of Houston or one of those other sprawling cities on Earth.

'How am I going to find Lili in a place this big?,' Night thought to himself before feeling a tingle in his soul. To his surprise the tingle was slightly stronger than before. 'That is weird,' Night thought before brushing the thought of the woman aside and going about his business.

The entire caravan was at the pinnacle of excitement. As night sat back down on his scorpion mount, he couldn't help but be excited too. However, he realized that he needed to prepare himself for this next stage of his adventure in this desert.

Night started to cycle though all of the information that he had gathered in his months of journey with the caravan. While he had picked up some of the culture from hanging out with the commoners during travel, Night was mostly interested in the power structure of the City of Setting Sun.

One of his main areas of interest during his travels had been the demon clans of the capital. Actually, it took him quite a bit of talking with caravan members to learn the general gist of how the city's clans function. The capital of the western desert was controlled by eleven families. These families included the ten Baron Families and the Countess' Clan, the Limim Clan. According to caravan leader, the capital's ruling clans hadn't changed in thousands of years and the power structure was quite stable. Since Enok had been living in caravans most of his life, the man had a pretty good understanding of how the western desert functioned and even had some knowledge of the other deserts. Most of the fighting between clans was done between the lower two levels of nomadic clans and mid-size town clan. The larger clans rarely fought.....but when they did......the wars were worthy of something that happens once every thousand years.

The Limim Clan was feared throughout the entire desert based on these historically large wars.......and not only in the western desert. The clan's ability to affect souls made them almost unstoppable among the demons. Soul skills were not common in the world and were hard to fight against.

However, it wasn't only the power to influence souls that gave the Limim Clan its power. The succubus were strong on their own, but because of their beauty and strength...they were able to lure in many strong men into their ranks. These various demon men contributed greatly to the clan's power. When Night had recollected this party of the story, he thought of Lili and felt another ring in his soul. The whole situation involving the demon woman felt fishy to Night, so he needed to be a bit careful going forward.

From what Enok had heard in some places, the only Clan that could rival the Limim Clan in influence over the soul was the Incubus Clan of the eastern desert. The Incubus clan were essentially the Limim Clan's male counterpart in the City of Rising Sun and could compete based on their sheer numbers. Apparently, they breed like crazy and had a large number of warriors.

Other than the Limim Clan, the City of Setting Sun was mostly run by ten Baron Clans. These ten Baron demon clans were an assortment of warrior and tradesman specialists. Over his journey, Night had gotten an array of descriptions about the Baron Clans of the city.

For the warrior clans, these five clans all specialized in some aspect of battle. When Night was talking, he had trouble understanding just why specialized battle clans were needed. He understood the threat from the humans coming to this world, but he kept getting hints that there was some bigger battle underway. He couldn't keep from thinking about the once in a thousand years wars......maybe they really were on a whole different level.

The Abeze Clan were characterized by a pair of red wings and slightly red tinted skin. These winged warriors functioned as the the aerial combat specialists of the western desert. The odd thing about this clan was that its battle strength relied on the entire clan. For example, when going to battle, the men, women and children would all take to the battlefield. It was like a family event.

The Baal Clan were known to be expert assassins that could easily camouflage themselves into their surroundings. One old man in the caravan said that he had lived in the capital before and never saw a member of the Baal Clan for his entire five years there. They were very secretive but no one wished to get added to their extermination list. Getting put on their extermination list seemed to spell almost certain death.

The Gaki Clan, with their shark-like teeth, were also known as the eaters of flesh. The clan was known for its very viscous foot soldiers on the battlefield. Their soldiers were not the strongest.....but were more plentiful than any other Baron Clan. They were also somewhat lacking in intelligence. About half way into the trip, a young demon child had even pointed out two of the clan members sitting on a large beetle mount in the front of the caravan. They were one of the acting guards for this caravan.

The Raum Clan were scouting specialists that can shape shift into beasts. Apparently, the Raum Clan members looked just like normal people. However, Night was warned by several members of the caravan to never attack a beast with green eyes. Apparently, when the Raum would shift into beasts.....their eyes would maintain the family's blue green eye color.

The Kimaris Clan specializes in hand to hand combat and had impressive physical stature and strength. They had a reputation of ripping apart enemies when enraged. The clan also had two bullish horns on top of their heads.

Then, there were the four workman type clans of the capital. While these clans typically manufactured goods, they each had a special trait that allowed them to command power within the Baron Clans.

The Shax Clan were a family that focused on inscribing weapons, stones and gems. They actually specialized in making mirror stones that isolated areas for various purposes and explosive elemental gem bombs. When Night heard of their crafting, he couldn't help but think of the green orb that he had swiped from Mr. Harver in Manco Oasis.

Sabnock Clan were blacksmith experts that crafted weapons for the demons. The way that the Sabnock Clan was described was quite comical to Night. A demon explaining the clan to him said that the clan members are noticeable by having arms as big as their legs. The mental image was hilarious to Night but he understood that their powerful arms were needed for their level of forging. They were also known for carrying large hammers strapped to their backs at all times.

Phene Clan that practice medicine and healing. They were described as almost elfen-like with fair appearances. When Night first heard about the clan, he was confused about how a healing clan was able to become one of the Baron Clans. However, his confusion was quickly cleared when he found out that the clan's medical practice also specialized in poison. An woman recalled how one of the people in a mid-sized clan had skipped out on medical bills with the Phene Clan. The entire clan had turned up dead when their oasis water supply had contained a mysterious toxin that spread throughout the entire oasis.

Bathin Clan specializes in crafting elemental gems. While the clan wasn't super strong, they had very close ties to the Shax and Sabnock clans. Both clans relied heavily on their abilities with elemental gems. The other clans also relied on Bathin Clan because they had an abnormal ability to see out treasures. Most of this was related to their extremely high affinity in the metal and earth elements. Night was warned several times to 'Never shake hands with a Bathin'...apparently that wouldn't end well.

And the last Baron Clan of the capital was an oddball group called the Valac Clan. Valac Clan were known to be the treasure hunters of the demon world and were high powered merchants. Surprisingly, the Valac Clan didn't have any desire for power and only wanted riches. In each of the four portions of the desert, the Valac Clan existed within the ten Baron Clans of that region. Their financial power in the demon community was quite scary.

After speaking with the caravan members during the months of travel, Night had a lot of bits of information to remember about the capital and life inside. But seeing the city getting increasingly larger in his view, Night's own excitement grew. He was ready to see such a large city in person.