It was surprisingly easy to arrange for a long trip out of the country. Even a regular cultivator wouldn’t have much trouble, though of course John had the advantage of money. That meant he could ride in a carriage and bring more than just the necessities along with him. Sure, a storage bag could hold quite a few things, but if he was on a trip he wouldn’t normally bring along extra sets of formal clothes. They would just get wrinkled, and trying to unwrinkle clothes with just spiritual energy was a pain. Having the room to store them properly was quite nice.

John finally had the chance to see more of the Stone Conglomerate with his own eyes. Though he wasn’t much into tourism, he found himself impressed by some of the cities they passed by. Great stone walls a dozen or more meters high protected cities. John wondered if they were actually practical, but he supposed they would serve well enough to slow down weaker cultivators. Even at the Foundation Phase he would find it difficult to scale the walls. He just hoped that the walls weren’t filled with bodies of workers who died building them. He didn’t actually know how they were built, but their sheer size actually made it less likely that slaves were the primary source of labor. It would require strong cultivators to perform the labor… and attempting to keep strong cultivators as slaves was a foolish endeavor. Unless the average cultivation of a nation was beyond the Foundation Phase, or had most of its leadership in the Soul Expansion Phase… it would just be asking for trouble. Not that John approved of slaves regardless. He might not think that all of the same morals applied the same way as on Earth, but slavery was quite unacceptable. He was glad the Tenebach clan only had paid servants- who were treated well. Better, now that the old Fortkran wasn’t around.

John took stock of his uncle Aydan as he listened to the sound of wheels on stone. It wasn’t a surprise that the Earth Conglomerate had abundant access to stone and those who could work it, so even roads between cities were mostly made out of stone- smoothly paved and not just cobble, either. Aydan was in the mid Foundation Phase. Well, he had been. The fifteenth rank overall and the sixth rank of the Foundation Phase was just on the edge of late Foundation Phase… and now he was one rank higher than that. His experience and rewards from the Crystal Caverns had been quite beneficial. John’s own parents were only slightly higher in cultivation, though it had to be noted they didn’t focus on cultivation as much as some of the clan. There were many political affairs to deal with, though they cultivated enough to be among the higher ranking people in Marble County.

Fortkran had spent about a decade to nearly reach Foundation Phase- though only four of five of those years had any true dedication to cultivation. John had recovered that cultivation in just under a year total. His parents were fairly young, but with another twenty years they were only eight ranks ahead. Yet he could already feel why that might be the case. Despite access to resources and plentiful spiritual energy in the area, cultivating at the Foundation Phase was more difficult. It didn’t help that John had no previous experience doing so, and that his totems were somewhat weak. However… he couldn’t complain. Most people in the Stone Conglomerate didn’t have the chance to enter the Foundation Phase. A majority of people weren’t cultivators- or would eternally be in the early or mid Spiritual Collection Phase- and of those who passed that point less than half made it past early Foundation Phase. The rates were higher in certain areas, and some countries had more spiritual energy which increased the overall level of cultivation.

Though John felt strong, he was just reaching the level of actual effective power in Marble County. He needed to continue to focus on his growth… especially since his totems were still weaker than they should be. He was able to cultivate on the road to a certain extent, but it wasn’t as if he would increase in rank in just a couple weeks. The journey was actually so long… indicating how large the Stone Conglomerate actually was. Of course, riding in a carriage wasn’t the fastest method of transport for a cultivator, but with decent horses it wasn’t slow either.

When they arrived at the border, there was little delay. Cultivators were generally free to travel as they wished, and the Stone Conglomerate and the Green Sands had no recent conflicts. Not as entire regions, at least. Individual clans or sects might fight, but nobody was interested in maintaining borders against them. Making it more difficult for criminals to move in and out of the country was all that the border guards really did.

The border was mostly arbitrary- outside of what the Stone Conglomerate cared about and likewise for those in the Green Sands. Stony hills with anything of value in them long since mined out. However, the hills gradually flattened out… and John was able to see in the distance his first sight of the Green Sands.

John had seen green sand on earth. In little bottles, it was sort of cool. However, on the horizon, sparkling in the sun… it was quite an impressive sight. Nearby it was merely a mix between dirt and stone with a bit of dull green, but further on the horizon it was like sparkling emeralds. Even though it merely turned into sandy hills of green sand and occasional strange plants, John found the scenery quite beautiful. He liked the country already.

That lasted until sometime before noon. “It’s hot…” he said. Of course, Aydan already knew that. He wasn’t sweating, but John had felt him resisting the heat with his energy. The entire energy was suffused with fire elemental spiritual energy… and that meant heat. The opposite wasn’t necessarily true, though usually heat came with spiritual energy as well.

“Of course it is. Did you not hear about it?”

“I just thought it would be… like a normal desert.” Sweat dripped down his brow despite his best efforts to insulate himself from the heat.

Aydan smiled, “I don’t think ‘normal’ deserts are full of cultivators. So when it is said to be hot…”

“It’s hot for cultivators,” John melted into the seat under him. “I wish we had air… blowers.” Aydan knew of John’s true past, at least in general. And bringing up the idea of air conditioning was reasonable anyway.

“Unfortunately, air elemental treasures- natural or artificial- are quite rare in the Earth Conglomerate. They don’t last as well, even if they are brought over. Still, you should be able to protect yourself well enough with your energy.”

John had been trying. He couldn’t use too much, because he had to maintain the effect all day. It just seeped into him in a way he couldn’t control. “... I think I’m weak to fire,” John concluded.

“Of course. You have earth elemental spiritual energy, after all. Not that darkness is well suited to resist fire either.”

If John were to be honest… his discomfort was exaggerated somewhat. It was just that everything had been so comfortable up to that point it threw him off. A little bit of sweating wasn’t too bad, though he wondered what their driver must have felt. Perhaps the open air was better.

Later in the afternoon was better, and John supposed he should just consider it training. If he let himself be defeated by the environment before even fighting beasts or sparring with cultivators, what good would he be? But complacency was easy.

They came to a proper city in the evening, where they stopped at an inn. John knew it was stupid to think that they would be camping in the sand or stopping at an oasis, but that was what he had imagined. The buildings were even made of familiar stone- they weren’t too far to transport it from the Stone Conglomerate. The city was actually built around a large oasis, but they weren’t setting up little tents next to caravans with camels. They’d also been traveling along a road- not quite what the Stone Conglomerate had, but it was clearly maintained and wasn’t just covered in mounds of sand.

John was glad they could afford to stay somewhere nice, with thin silk sheets that weren’t too hot. Because while he could tough it out, he was going to save his toughness for when it was actually important.

-----

They set out early before dawn, something John completely understood. For the sake of the horses, they would be stopping at midday now that they were fully inside the border of the Green Sands. John was surprised to see mesas- not at all made of the same green material as the sand, but a normal light brown. Sandy brown, or sometimes reddish. Once he thought about it, it made sense. The green sands weren’t a natural part of the terrain, at least not as much as the rest. Somewhere in the center of the green sands was a giant volcano. While it rarely had true eruptions, it produced a large amount of olivine which eroded off to form the green sands in the region.

An hour after dawn, Aydan frowned. He knocked on the front of the carriage. “Stop the carriage. I need to check something.”

“What is it?” John asked.

“I feel agitated spiritual energy. Combat, most likely.” He stood up. “Come, let’s see if we can take a look. We may want to get involved… or specifically avoid doing so.”