Chapter 0566: Starry Sky City
On the deck stood three cultivators, two men and a woman; moreover, the female cultivator standing in the middle had a full circle Celestial Gatherer Cultivation and wore a light blue robe. However, the two male cultivators standing at each side of this female cultivator had at least an Undead Realm cultivation.
“May I ask what advice Senior Apprentice Sister has for me?” Ning Cheng stopped and spoke with his cupped fists. He could clearly make out that this female cultivator was the one in charge despite the lowest cultivation among the three.
The female cultivator looked Ning Cheng from top to bottom before she spoke with a sneer, “You sure have some self-awareness, even realising that I want to teach you a lesson. Did you know that your battleship had almost hit my battleship?”
Ning Cheng knew that he had lost control of his battleship; however, this party had also deliberately blown apart his warship. It is just that he knew that it was his fault, while also not caring much about the knockoff battleship; at the same time, he did not want to draw attention to himself. He never expected the other party to come looking for him even after destroying his battleship.
“I am very sorry for that matter. I had lost my train of thought, which caused me to lose control of my battleship. Although I lost my battleship, at least it did not hurt anyone. Fortunately, the explosion did not damage Senior Apprentice Sister’s battleship.” Ning Cheng spoke with clear words, stating that it was indeed his fault while also indicating that despite the loss of his battleship, the other party’s battleship did not suffer any damage. Which implied that they should also forget about this matter.
“So, what you mean to say is that since I destroyed your battleship, I should not find trouble with you?” As the female cultivator spoke those words, she flew out of the battleship and came to a stop in front of Ning Cheng.
“Doesn’t dare.” Ning Cheng had just arrived at this place and did not want to offend anyone right off the bat. What’s more, he was also in a hurry to find Shi Qionghua.
The female cultivator looked at Ning Cheng and spoke with a pride-filled voice, “I knew you were a poor sod from another starry sky. I’ll give you two choices, one would be to apologise to me, and the second one…..”
“This Senior Apprentice Sister, I had already apologised a moment ago. If Senior Apprentice Sister feels dissatisfied with it, I will apologise again. I really hadn’t noticed it, and I accept that it was my fault.” Ning Cheng spoke with a calm tone.
The female cultivator smiled, “You call this an apology? Apologise to me by kneeling on the ground. Moreover, how can you call those thoughtless words from before as an apology?”
Ning Cheng remained silent. He did not mind apologising for his mistake, but to kneel on the ground to apologise to a female cultivator who he met for the first time, it was something that he would never do without any compelling reason.
Seeing Ning Cheng silent, the female cultivator’s face immediately turned ice-cold and spoke, “If you don’t want to apologise, take out a million celestial coins. However, looking at your robes, I think it might be a bit too hard for you to take out a million celestial coins…..”
Ning Cheng knew that ‘celestial coins’ were a collective term used for the different currencies circulating within the starry skies. At the same time, the most valuable ‘celestial coins’ on his body were green coins. Therefore, without any hesitation, he took out one million green coins and handed it to the female cultivator. Facing this kind of a situation, he had no choice but to be patient. With two cultivators in the Undead Realm staring at him with full alertness, what could he do? Moreover, those two also served to highlight the extraordinary background of this female cultivator.
This female cultivator received the one million green coins but threw them into the sky, letting them scatter into the starry skies.
Just as Ning Cheng tried to make sense of her actions, the female cultivator’s grandeur soared as she spoke with an even colder voice, “Taking out one million green coins, did you take me for a beggar? This fairy said one million purple coins, which are 100 million green coins, bah!”
Ning Cheng simply did not wait for this female cultivator to say a second sentence, took out a 100 million green coin card, and put it in this female cultivator’s hand. Then without saying a word, he turned around, and with a flash, disappeared from that location.
The female cultivator looked at the 100 million green coin card in her hand and frowned before whispering to herself, “I didn’t expect a Celestial Novice Cultivator, even one without a celestial wheel, to really come up with 100 million green coins. Moreover, this fellow not only willingly took out 100 million green coins; he did not even give a courtesy bow. Interesting.”
Regardless of what she found interesting about his actions, Ning Cheng had complied with her request of taking out 100 million green coins as compensation. As such, she also could not continue to find trouble with this person.
……
An hour later, the huge blue-coloured starland still kept stretching out in front of Ning Cheng. Seeing many people flying in a particular direction, Ning Cheng speeded up and followed the many flying weapons to land at a large open area.
When Ning Cheng landed on the ground and saw the huge city in the distance, he felt astonished. This was not a ‘city with walls’ per se but a ‘city without any borders’; rather, it was better to refer it like a ‘starry sky city’.
This distant city had an extremely faint dreamlike blue layer of mist that shrouded it on all sides. As a Grade 3 Celestial Array Master, Ning Cheng could make out with a glance that it was a City-protecting Grand Array.
Ning Cheng had heavily pondered over such an issue in the past and concluded that when it came to establishing real top-tier cities, instead of fortifying it with refined walls, it was much better to use top-tier grand arrays for better protection. Today, he had finally validated that conclusion when he saw this city protected by a top-tier array.
Despite the seemingly vast grand array surrounding the city, one could still see a few huge characters suspended in the air just outside it, Eternal Heaven Starry Sky City.
A feeling of majesty, grandeur and magnificence oozed from these few characters. As Ning Cheng glanced at these words, he could not help but secretly praise the city within his heart; this was a real starry sky city.
This place even contained an extremely powerful Forbidden Space Restriction; moreover, even if one disregarded that, under the imposing majesty of this starry sky city, all the cultivators entering the Eternal Heaven Starry Sky City would subconsciously put away their respective flight-aiding apparatuses and walk inside on foot in an orderly fashion.
Ning Cheng followed the numerous cultivators and headed to the designated entrances to the Eternal Heaven Starry Sky City. In this place, not to mention that he could not sweep out with his Spiritual Consciousness, even if he could sweep out with it, Ning Cheng did not dare to bring it out casually.
The closer he got to the city entrance, the more Ning Cheng felt the richness of the starry skies’ Essence Qi inside. A kind of unreasonably respectful feeling emerged within his heart, which caused Ning Cheng to feel slightly surprised. He speculated that it should most likely be a result of the strong influence of the grand array’s workings combined with the aura of the master of this starry sky city.
This starry sky city did not have any city walls, nor did it have patrolling cultivator guards; however, the moment Ning Cheng walked near to this starry sky city’s entrance, he felt as if countless pairs of eyes had locked on to him. As such, he decided not to look around carelessly.
In was not until after he entered the city did the feeling disappear, which allowed Ning Cheng to feel slightly relaxed.
After stepping inside, this starry sky city looked exactly like he pictured it to be; rather, the only difference was that the scale of this city turned out slightly more extensive than what he had initially thought. Moreover, he also found Spiritual Consciousness Shielding Restrictions everywhere, which meant that he could not sweep out with his Spiritual Consciousness wantonly. At the same time, Ning Cheng had a hunch that this starry sky city was a lot larger than what it appeared on the surface.
With his cultivation, if Ning Cheng wanted to search for Shi Qionghua in this starry sky city, it would turn out even more challenging than finding a needle in a haystack. Ning Cheng sighed as he thought if one day, his Spiritual Consciousness cultivation reached the level of bypassing right through these Spiritual Consciousness Shielding Restrictions, he would never hesitate to sweep out with his Spiritual Consciousness.
As Ning Cheng thought of this, he immediately came to a stop. Why could his Spiritual Consciousness not bypass those restrictions? His starry skies’ Sea of Consciousness initially could ignore ordinary restrictions. Although the restrictions inundating this starry sky city looked powerful, there eventually would come a day where his Spiritual Consciousness could definitely sweep through them all.
Although these thoughts flashed through his mind, it also left behind a seed within Ning Cheng’s heart. Only by becoming stronger and more powerful would he be able to make others listen to his words, which in turn would allow him to handle all of his matters.
However, Ning Cheng was also painfully aware of his own strength. Although formidable within the same cultivation realm, his cultivation remained at the bottom of this starry sky city.
At the same time, Ning Cheng also knew that staying in this starry sky city was the best option; as long as he did not offend anyone, it would be 10,000 times safer than staying anywhere outside.
Entering the main street, which looked no different from an ordinary public square in size, Ning Cheng quickly mixed in with the many cultivators. At the same time, he kept a careful lookout for the familiar young girl with a veil covering her face, while looking for a merchant house dealing in weapons. He wanted to see if he could find a more suitable spear.
As his understanding of Sunset’s Twilight deepened, his Treasured Thunder Spear could no longer fully satisfy the requirements of his Spirit Technique, while his Nirvana Spear was still only an unprocessed material.
Elder Brother Cang Wei had mentioned that this unfinished material was not something simple, despite not being able to identify it. In the vast starry skies’ universe, there had to be at least one Artefact-crafting Master who could actually recognise it. Maybe he could find one in Grand Culmination Starry Skies. In any case, did the people not refer to this starry sky as the most formidable starry sky apart from being the central node of this plane? He just did not know if Elder Brother Cang Wei had also come here or not.
As Ning Cheng looked around, a loud noise emerged from somewhere. As he looked up, he then saw a large plaque, Transcending dao artefacts.
This was a merchant house specialising in weapons; moreover, Ning Cheng was also looking for a specialised weapons’ merchant house. Therefore, the moment he saw that sign, he did not hesitate to walk inside the building.
The moment he walked in, he saw two cultivators clamouring on the first floor of this merchant house. One was a red-faced cultivator with a completely fused Celestial Wheel behind him, most likely an expert in the Heaven’s Mandate Realm. While the other cultivator quarrelling with this fellow had a slightly bronze complexion, also with a fused Celestial Wheel behind him. However, he appeared somewhat less powerful compared to the red-faced cultivator, indicating that the later had most likely not stepped into the Heaven’s Mandate Realm or had just advanced to that realm.
Many cultivators within the merchant house had surrounded the two and looked at the scene in enjoyment. At the same time, the clamour between the two cultivators kept increasing in intensity; it looked like the two of them would break into a fight at any moment.
However, at this moment, a man standing not far from the two quarrelling cultivators stepped out and came forward, “Two friends, if you want to quarrel, please go outside and argue; don’t do it inside our merchant house. Our merchant house tastefully sides with the phrase ‘amiability makes you rich’, and would like to keep it that way.”
The red-faced cultivator seemed to have realised that he should not quarrel in this place and cupped his fists before speaking, “Dear friends, let me explain this matter to you all; you can ponder over it yourself and be the judge on what is reasonable and what is not.”
Sure enough, when the surrounding cultivators heard this fellow’s words, they all quieted down and showed interest in hearing this fellow’s words. The person, who most likely represented the merchant house, on seeing the red-faced cultivator calm down and speak with cordiality, also stopped talking and took a step back.
Following that, the red-faced cultivator started talking, “I had initially considered Brother Wan Xin a friend of mine, so I asked to borrow his middle-grade dao artefact, the Devil Cloud Net. However, I had not considered the dangers that I would face, which ended up causing some damage to the Devil Cloud Net. I initially offered to pay him in celestial coins, but he refused. The two of us then came here so that I could buy a similar middle-grade dao artefact for him as compensation. However, contrary to everything, he actually wants me to pay for a high-grade dao artefact…”
As the surrounding cultivators heard the explanation, they immediately felt that the bronze-faced cultivator was the one who acted unreasonably. Since someone damaged a middle-grade dao artefact, then it was more than reasonable to compensate for it with another middle-grade dao artefact of similar value.
Moreover, the price of a high-grade dao artefact differed by a huge margin compared to a middle-grade dao artefact. It would be at least several times the latter and could even go up to a hundred times. The price of the two grades of artefacts was not even on the same level.
The bronze-faced cultivator called Wan Xin raised his hand and interrupted this red-faced cultivator’s words, “It is true that I let him borrow a middle-grade dao artefact, my Devil Cloud Net; moreover, he also mentioned that he intended to use it to earn money through some mission. I did not expect that not only would he fail the mission, he could not even obtain any compensation for it; moreover, he also ended up severely damaging my Devil Cloud Net during that mission. The Devil Cloud Net was something that I had painstakingly crafted after going through a lot of hardships to obtain the materials…”
The surrounding cultivators immediately burst into talks. People could not help but think about this fellow’s words, which indicated that this cultivator called Wan Xin could actually design middle-grade dao artefacts. One had to know that anyone capable of creating middle-grade dao artefacts would definitely be someone quite remarkable.
“Please do not misunderstand, I cannot refine middle-grade dao artefacts on my own, even it were a low-grade dao artefact, I would not be able to craft them. I just happened to meet a top-tier Artefact-crafting Master by chance. It was under his guidance that I barely managed to finish designing this weapon successfully. Presently, I would not be able to craft this type of weapon even if I had all the materials.”
Wan Xin explained and continued, “He damaged my Devil Cloud Net, so I intended to add some more Celestial Coins and buy a high-grade dao artefact. What’s wrong with this?”
Just when Ning Cheng thought that Wan Xin might have taken to greed, an abrupt voice resounded, “This incident definitely shows Wan Xin to be on the side of reason, what else is there to argue about?”