Two snow white birds were traveling at an amazing speed in the skies. A group of youngsters were sitting on one of the birds while the other had four people on it. The youngsters were all extremely nervous as they looked down at the landscape flashing by at a rapid pace. But among the group of them, a 12 – year – old boy was sitting calmly and his eyes were staring forward.

Unlike the other 9 candidates with him, he was accustomed to air travel. Compared to the advanced third generation auto jets that the Society had designed and manufactured back on Earth, these birds were as slow as a snail when compared with a rocket! Those jets could travel around the Earth twice in 10 minutes! They were designed to be first generation prototypes of the First Stage for the Deep Space Exploration Ships as the final goal!

He turned his head to see a small figure waving at him from the other bird. Nina was incomparably excited that she was flying and she looked around with boundless interest. Even LILY couldn’t compare with this little girl.

It came down to Hank to bear with the headache of restraining with this deer – like girl and her enthusiastic excitement.

It had been 2 days since they left the Blue Wind City behind. They were flying around 500 feet off ground and traveling at nearly 200 Mph. Below them the Wilderness stretched out in all directions till the very edge of their visions and still continued on!

By Azalon’s calculations, they should have traveled over a distance of 9600 Miles! That’s nearly three times the radius of Earth! What scared him was that this distance was just the distance they had to travel to reach the Academy Selection Grounds and not even to another continent! He sub – consciously feared the number that would just be the radius of this World! And don’t even talk about the concepts like circumference, area or volume!

It was only now that Azalon really got an idea about how vast this World really was! And by what he could see, almost all of was covered by the Wilderness, or the Desolate Forests as it was officially called.

“No wonder, the Spirit Beasts thrive in this world. This kind of nourishing and natural environment will make their race extremely flourishing with great possibilities and varieties! And they would hold a massive advantage over other races with their overwhelming numbers. It could be said that if all the Spirit Beasts completely co – ordinated with each other, humans as a species would have already been completely wiped out and became extinct a long time ago!” Azalon exclaimed in a low voice as he saw the seemingly border – less Wilderness that completely covered the ground giving it a thick green cover.

But he wouldn’t underestimate the tenacity of the humans. The situation here had been the same as it was on Earth. They evolved based on the requirements and understandings of the World they live in. Humans on Earth moved towards the scientific way of advancement while this World walked on the path of Spirit Cultivation that made the inherently weak humans powerful enough to preserve their lives within the Spirit Beasts.

“Are there other Worlds out there in the boundless Cosmos like this World and Earth, that took a different path than these two Worlds? Another Way of Evolution and development? We couldn’t manage to perform that feat on Earth even with all the technical and technological advancements we achieved. Did anyone from this World visit other Worlds?” Azalon wondered as he gradually became lost in thought. His palm stroked the soft fur of Raka as he thought over the question that went unanswered for countless millennia on Earth, “Are We Alone?” Now that he found another World that was similar to Earth in many ways but diverse in an equal number of ways, he was convinced that there should be other Worlds out there. It’s just that the Level of power he had right now couldn’t even let him traverse this Kingdom let alone the Cosmos.

“Don’t you think so, LILY?” Azalon communicated with LILY in his mind.

“Master, my memory have the vague recollection of finding some inhabitable planets when I was searching the Cosmos for me to take you to after I managed to save you from the experiment failure. But midway, the Cosmic Radiation corrupted my hardware and my core processor shut down. That was also the reason why I was initially surprised that you reached this World safely.” LILY responded with some uncertainty.

“Don’t think about it too much. As grandpa said, what will be mine will become mine. We will get that data soon enough when you Evolve to a higher Stage and have your functions fully unlocked. Now, LILY, render a detailed simulation with the Cosmic Radiation and my current body fitness levels and their effects on my body. Also calculate to the extent my cultivation should progress for me to travel in Space unharmed.” He gave her a task with some after thought. May be LILY could answer her question for him! He decided to make more use of the powerful processing speed of LILY in a much better way.

“Task Established, Master. Rendering in process. Rendering Complete. Should I transfer it to your memory, Master? Or should I just project it in your vision?” LILY established a task and her processing system whirred into work. She went silent for a while as her priority declared her to concentrate on the task assigned to her and responded.

“Save it in your memory banks for now, LILY. Make necessary changes when necessary and keep rendering it with the new inputs. As for now, project it as I am only interested in viewing.” Azalon thought for a while and replied.

“Command Accepted, Master.” LILY responded and suddenly Azalon’s eyes swam for a while as a 3D model of his own body was projected directly on his retina. It was a perfect replica of his body and it even contained the projection of his Soul Root with the Energy Vortex in it and its movement synchronized with the original.

Threads of different kinds of Energy started bombarding his body and it was instantly destroyed! The Energy Vortex within the projection continuously changed forms from the present gas to a lake then to a sea. Then it condensed to form a Solid Core, and even then the body was destroyed. There was not even a single second of difference between the destruction time of his body in Spirit Sense Realm and Spirit Core Realm!

“Rendering stopped because of insufficient and ambiguous data, Master.” Right when he was wondering how the next Realms of cultivation will look like, LILY spoke in his mind.

“*Sigh* I have no choice but to get strong and only then can I venture out in not only this World but to other Worlds as well. May be I could even find Earth!” Azalon chuckled and he closed his eyes and stabilized his breathing as he went into the training mode. Thick Purple Energy was continuously drawn into his body before being refined and integrated into his Energy Vortex.

With the Awakening of Merup, he found that he could cultivate this Purple Energy as well. Right now he didn’t know what this Purple Energy signified, but he could feel terrifying force within this Energy. He had to further explore this to find out more about this Purple Energy. But right now, he had cultivate this Energy to the 2nd Level but he had to cultivate this Energy quickly to the 7th Level to balance his Energy Vortex.

Time passed by and Azalon calculated that they should be tens of thousands of miles from the Blue Wind City. By this time, their two birds became a flock as the candidates from all over the Kingdom were picked up and to be gathered for the Academy Selection Grounds. He tried to observe them but at this height and the mode of transport made it hard to make out any distinguishing features.

A small group of birds were flying at the front leading them. The birds carried the various Elders that were sent to all corners to pick up the candidates and assemble them at the Academy Selection Grounds.

They came across several large cities and towns during these days that stood out like sore thumbs in the green patch on the ground called the Desolate Forest. But they didn’t stop. The birds continued to fly like tireless machines and the land continued to zoom past blow them.

The youngsters all calmed down and the initial panic subsided after getting used to the flight these past days. They were either conversing with each other or silently cultivating by themselves. Azalon on the other hand tried to communicate with the white bird like he did back at the Blue Wind City between breaks in his cultivation. But he couldn’t find that mysterious feeling he had and the bird completely ignored his attempts to communicate with it.

So, he gave up after a few attempts. He stabilized his original cultivation at the 7th Level and his Purple Energy broke through to the 3rd Level Spirit Sense Realm. He didn’t take out any Spirit Cores for cultivation and only relied on the Energy in the atmosphere because his method of swallowing the Spirit Cores and extract their Energy would be a bit too much for the people around him and he would be treated as a freak.

Moreover, that was one of his secrets and he was not the one who goes around showing off his secrets for everyone to see!

He knew what the costs for maintaining a secret were, but he did know that in this World, the more secrets one has, the more are his chances of survival. This World is not like Earth where your every move would be under constant scrutiny! He could move about as he wished as long as he had enough power behind his fists or his words! That is all that is needed to live in this World!

And since he couldn’t obtain the latter any time recently, he decided to concentrate on the former. But right now, Azalon was facing another problem!

Cultivators wouldn’t need to regularly eat and sleep like normal people. With Azalon’s cultivation he could stay normal for at least a month before his body starts craving food and water. But he was accustomed to having meals three times a day and now that he had gone without food for a week now, he was deliberating on taking the meat out of his [Void Ring] and eat!

“Ah, if only I had stored the grilled meat grandpa made that day from the Thunder Horned Stag’s meat.” Azalon muttered as he rubbed his grumbling stomach and parched tongue.

But suddenly excited cries came from the people on the birds startling Azalon. Everyone on his bird were also looking puzzled at this change in the environment.

Azalon narrowed his eyes and looked to the distance. What came into his view was only a large chain of massive mountains that ran to either sides like a god made wall!

The birds suddenly flapped their wings hard and Azalon felt that familiar vertigo that could be felt when there is a sudden change in altitude. He looked sown and the reason for the excited cries from the other candidates.

From this height, Azalon saw two chains of mountains that crossed with each other at a single location forming a ‘X’ on a global scale. He concentrated his vision and he could see a small patch of land between the mountains right at the place where the two chains of mountains intersected.

“Welcome to the Seven Profound Martial Grounds. This is a very important location of the Continent. See the mountains intersecting each other? Those are the mountain chains that spread through the entire continent dividing it into four parts! This Seven Profound Martial Grounds you are looking at is the very center of this continent!” A loud voice came from the small group of birds flying at the front of their flock. “This location will be the Academy Selections Grounds this time. Now, for the preliminary test!” The birds reached the pinnacle of height they were capable of reaching and dived down!