Cthulhu Gonfalon

“Is this Cloud Pagoda City?” Steele asked when she walked past the foot of a mountain, and saw a prosperous city in the distance. She had changed back to human form a few days before. “Where is the cloud pagoda then?”

Most of the names of the cities in the Mifata Federation contained the word ‘pagoda;’ for example, Green Tree City was famous for the green tree magic pagoda; Golden Pagoda City was famous for the golden magic pagoda; and as for the capital city, it was named the ‘Highest Pagoda.’ Since this city was called Cloud Pagoda City, it must have also had a pagoda, which was probably named the cloud pagoda, or had the characteristics of a cloud.

But Steele failed to see any magic pagoda after looking around.

“The pagoda in this city is not on the ground,” Ray said and pointed at the sky. “It is in the air.”

Steele looked at the sky. It was cloudy, and she couldn’t see the sun or the magic pagoda.

Ray then realized that it was impossible for one to see the pagoda that was floating in the sky on a cloudy day like this. He then smiled and began to explain to Steele.

The so-called ‘cloud pagoda’ was actually a floating magic pagoda. The wizard who built it had always wanted to fly from a young age. Later, when he grew to be a wizard, he started to study flying spells, and managed to create a special and legendary magic spell. This spell could make a certain areas become anti-gravity for long periods of time. When he began to build this pagoda, he practiced this spell.

But he made some mistakes in his calculation. When he activated the spell, the foundation bed of the magic pagoda flew to the sky, and when he finally corrected his mistake, the foundation bed was already high in the sky, and anyone who had a bad vision would not be able to see it.

The wizard thought a while and then felt that this might not be that bad, and decided to build the magic pagoda high up in the sky.

It was the ‘tallest’ man-made structure in this world, and it was estimated that it was even higher than the few temples and pagodas in the Broken Cloud Mountains. To withstand the wild wind in the sky and the flying beasts, this magic pagoda was shrouded by a protection spell array. Looking from the ground, this magic array was just like a cloud surrounding it; that was why this pagoda was called the cloud pagoda.

Hearing this story, Steele was very surprised. Even Liv, Ranke and young Nice were shocked. Although they were the local people of the Mifata Federation, they only knew that fact that there was a magic pagoda in the cloud in Cloud Pagoda City. They never knew where this pagoda came from until then.

“Teacher Ray, you are really very knowledgeable!” Ranke exclaimed. “It is true that if a warrior wants to be a strong figure, he will also have to master a lot of knowledge!”

Ray was stunned, and realized that this was what he told his students not long ago. He coughed a bit and put on a serious expression.

“You really meant it when you told them that? One needs to learn a lot of knowledge to become an advanced warrior?” Sui Xiong asked Ray curiously, with telepathy.

Ray didn’t dare to lie to Sui Xiong, and he said, “Actually, when I was studying here, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to pay a visit to the owner of this magical pagoda, Master Yibuwei. He told me, ‘You said you aim to be a great knight, but one needs learn a lot of knowledge, no matter what he wants to become. So even if you are not a wizard, you still need to study hard!'”

Sui Xiong nodded, and asked him with interest, “It seems that this Master is a erudite person. Can I pay a visit to him?”

“Not now, I think. Over a hundred years ago, he had already gone to the Highest Pagoda with a few other of the strongest masters, and has been living there ever since. They are protecting the Master Imia Lampros, who is analyzing the God’s power and is going to be apotheosized. If you really want to see him, you’d better go to the Highest Pagoda.

Sui Xiong nodded and decided that once he finished building his holy manor, he would pay a visit to the Master Yibuwei, as well as the Master Imia Lampros, who was going to become the God of Wizard.

They then said goodbye to the huge ape that had been freed, as they had promised they would let him go, and walked toward Cloud Pagoda City. When they were saying goodbye to the huge ape, Sui Xiong gave it a big wood stick that had been enhanced by magic as a present. During this journey, the ape always used a big branch as its weapon, and Sui Xiong felt that maybe every monkey or ape would like to use a stick, so he specially made this for it.

As for that Copper Crown Dragon, it was locked into the specially-made magic space bag again, since it was too conspicuous.

When they finally walked into the city gate and disappeared, the huge ape that had been watching them all the time exclaimed like a human, turned around, and left.

Cloud Pagoda City was very prosperous; few cities in the Mifata Federation was as prosperous as it was. The city was also a good port in the Federation, since the city was low-lying, and the concentration of the magic power was rather low. So one would rarely see a monster there. There were many civilians living there as well.

Maybe it was because this place was so low-lying that Master Yibuwei had made the decision to build the pagoda in the air.

Ray spotted a kind and young soldier and asked him where were the shop that was worth going and the restaurant that served the best dishes, and who was well-informed about this city.

Ray paid the soldier and the soldier told him where he should go. Ray didn’t go to the “shop that was worth going” or the “restaurant that served the best dishes”, instead he went straight to a grocery store–as that soldier had told him, the owner, Randolph, of this grocery, which was built in the port area, was seemingly managing a grocery store, in fact, his real job were the exploration and the research, he was a real adventurer. He knew quiet a lot about both the general knowledge and the secret messages.

Ray quickly found this grocery store, which was a rather ordinary one and it seemed that there were not many guests here. He asked the other to stay outside and went into the store alone–of course, Sui Xiong was still resting on his head like a hat.

Randolph looked like around forty years old, he was wearing a glass, in a word, he was just an ordinary middle-aged man. But both Sui Xiong and Ray could tell he was really powerful although he looked very ordinary. Randolph was a marvellous warrior and was able to practice the spell, and he had got more than one magic tool with himself, his glass was one, for example.

Maybe that was why he manage to stay alive after so many times of exploration.

When he knew Ray’s intention, he didn’t respond immediately, instead he began to contemplate.

“I have my own principles.” after thinking for a while, he said in a very low voice, “the business of selling the information is in fact very dangerous, those who casually sell the information to others always ends bad. So I have to abide by principles–if the information is about some trivial things, I shall give you happily, but if the information is very important, I would sell it only to the person who has got some decent reasons or is proved to be a decent man either in a court or in front of a God.”

“If you want to get the information about that ship incident, please give me your decent reasons!”

He stared at Ray and his glass began to shine in blue light.

“Be careful, his glass is a very powerful magic tool and is ‘detecting if what you are going to say is a lie or not’.” Sui Xiong warned.

Ray thought for a while and said: “I want to help a family, whose family member died in that ship incident, they are in a very difficult situation. I think there is a conspiracy behind this whole incident, so I come to find the truth.”

Hearing this, Randolph adjusted his glass a little bit and smiled.

“You are telling the truth.” he said, “I am so happy to be able to meet a warm-hearted person, I will tell you everything I know.”

“Before the ship made its sail, the son of the castellan of the Garth City of the Blue Moon Kingdom, Sean Riley came to the Cloud Pagoda City, he mentioned he wanted to create a sea route and do a business of selling some monsters’ body parts and spices of the middle and low class. Soon, many people came to negotiate with him, among them, there was a rich businessman whose parents were the advanced wizards.”

“But Sean Riley didn’t make a deal with any of them, instead he secretly kept in contact with a strange businessman who didn’t have any social connections, and many people were angry about this and tried to make some trouble, but they gave up the idea when they had some talks with Sean Riley.”

“Soon, Sean’s commercial corp made their departure, but strangely, Sean was not in the boat. Instead, he even began to make the preparation for the next sailing, and it seemed like he thought there was a big chance that this first sailing would be a failure, while he was still confident about creating a new sea route.”

“Then came the news that this boat was attacked by the ‘dark tide’ Thom Sal and suffered a great loss.”

“While Sean Riley was not much bothered by this incident, still, he was steadily preparing for the next sailing, and it seemed that the he had a very successful sailing in the recent and he benefited a lot.”

“Now, he is preparing for the next sailing, it is said that he want to take this opportunity to leave the Federation and go back to his hometown.”

Hearing this, Ray nodded and asked: “then…have you found any clue that can prove that this ship incident has something to do with the church of Noble Maids?”

Randolph was stunned, he thought for a while and became a bit doubtful, then he said: “I never thought about this really, a principle of the church of Noble Maids ever paid a visit to Sean and had a conversation with him–I thought that principle just came to preach his religion, so I didn’t pay much attention, besides, that principle also died in that ship incident…do you think there is anything strange about this?”

Ray didn’t reply and shrugged, then he said: “you will find it out later.”

Then, he turned around and left this grocery store.

Randolph indeed knew a lot about this incident, which was totally out of Ray’s expectation.

This information…were already enough!