Chapter 606 - The Palace
The palace was sitting on top of a large floating island and took up ninety percent of its surface. Only the very front where a river flowed across the floating island before raining down on the grounds below was free of the palace walls. Kana was curious as to where the water was coming from since the river flowed outwards in both directions leading to two waterfalls on each side of the floating island. Over this river was a larger white stone bridge that had guards lined up standing there keeping guard.
It was here that Lord Yong landed and let the two girls" feet touch the ground. And it was also here that Liu Na finally felt relaxed as she felt she had control of her body once more. "You two follow me."
Kana nodded and pulled on Liu Na"s hand as they followed behind the old man. The guards all respectfully bowed to him as he walked by. They walked across the bridge and down a stone path before standing before two large white gates. Lord Yong turned to the girls and handed over two jade tokens. "The gates up ahead can not be entered by just anyone. Without a special token, one is not allowed to enter, so take these two tokens."
Kana and Liu Na took them and looked at these so called tokens. Other than having a strange rune carved into it, there was nothing else strange about them. Pursing her lips, Kana stored it away inside her robes as she watched Lord Yong push on the gates. The gates lit up, then began to liquify and swirl like the portal that Eie had created to traverse worlds. "Let"s go."
The two girls followed Lord Yong as he pa.s.sed through what seemed like a portal of sorts. But after pa.s.sing through, they found that what they were seeing on the outside was much different from what was on the inside of the gates. A lush gra.s.sy field and towering mountains filled their eyes. The sky was a light blue and had fluffy white clouds slowly floating by. There was no sign of an end to the horizon. There was no floating island edge or walls to be seen anywhere. "Surprised, right? This whole place is its own mystic realm. It was created by the kingdom"s founder and was made in a way to allow the royal family to live without walls. The main palace is on that mountain peak over there. As flying is restricted here, we will use the portal up ahead that will take us to the palace."
Kana looked in the direction that Lord Yong was pointing, and beside the stone path they were on, she did see a small stone platform off to the side a little ways down. The group walked for five minutes until they arrived at the platform where Lord Yong ushered them on. With a flash of light, the three disappeared from the path. The next thing Kana and Liu Na knew, they were standing on another platform high in the mountains on a path that led up to the palace above.
"This platform was placed here to give the royal family time to prepare if any attackers who might have gotten in used these portals. Up ahead are a series of arrays that will scan a person to see if they have evil intentions towards the royal family. If they are deemed dangerous, they will trigger a rank ten array that can kill even a golden core cultivator instantly." Lord Yong explained.
Kana was surprised that arrays were able to do such things. The more she heard about this world"s way of doing things, the more interested she became and wanted to learn all she could while she was here. Since she figured it would take a long time before she could leave this place, she did not want to waste any chance to learn a new skill that may help later on. She found the wide range of uses for arrays to be very interesting.
They made their way up the mountain path until they finally reached the top. The path leading up to the palace was wide open and was well kept. There were even people out front sweeping the path of any dirt and debris. "The place we are going is under the palace deep in the mountain. We will be using another portal to get there."
Kana and Liu Na looked at each other before continuing along the way. Besides guards, they did not see anyone else as they traveled through the palace. There were lavish pillars made of different colors of jade and different pottery and paintings lining the interior walls. There were also different plants scattered here and there as well. Surprisingly besides the jade pillars, there were no gems or gold to be seen. Kana figured this world did not see these things as a form of currency or extravagance. It could be that those kinds of things were only for those of lower status and people without cultivation. She did know that Moon Crest City used spirit stones of different quality as their currency to buy things. In a way, this was no different than gold or silver, but spirit stones from what she learned were also important for cultivation and things like arrays and other crafts that she had not learned much about yet.
After walking through the palace for a little while, they arrived at a small side room that had a platform like the others they had used before. They stood on it and quickly found themselves in a dimly lit room with rocky walls, ceiling, and floor. "The entrance to the dreaded grounds is through here."
They exited the small room to find themselves in a ma.s.sive cavern, and within this cavern was a large ancient looking door that stood out in the open with many runes carved into its surface. But what drew Kana"s attention was the handsome young man standing in front of the door. She felt like she had seen this young man somewhere before. It was not until they were finally standing in front of him that Kana remembered: "Ahh! You"re the stinky breath man that kept trying to disturb my cultivation!"
"Pfft!" Lord Yong couldn"t back his laughter when he heard Kana yell out. He really had to hand it to her as she was the only girl willing to say such things to the prince of this kingdom!