Two days later Nick saw a large city on the horizon. The city"s walls extended tens of meters in the air, preventing travelers from looking inside. But Nick didn"t face such a problem since Silver was flying hundreds of meters in the air. Nick could see how majestic the city was, every building ancient yet immaculate, the roads paved with energy engraved tiles allowing the city to contain five times the energy density than any other city in the Empire!
And, situated right in the middle, surrounded by towering walls and statues was a gorgeous palace, the palace was giving off a graceful yet fierce air, letting one know that its position wasn"t to be trifled with, and this was because the one and only Emperor of Nova resided there!!!
The most terrifying thing about this city though, was that all the things Nick observed were only a tiny portion of the city"s power, after all, Nick made all these observations from far away, and even though Nick"s eyesight was monstrously strengthened by the Dragon eyes, it still was impossible to fully grasp the city"s power or wealth from there.
Nick then had Silver land a few miles away, he wouldn"t have minded bringing his pet along to the city since it was common for cultivators to travel with their pets, but Nick"s pet wasn"t any ordinary pet, it was a beast at the peak of the Transcendence realm, and if people saw some lowly Origin realm expert riding it, it would attract a lot of unwanted attention.
After Silver landed, Nick casually brought out their carriage from his storage s.p.a.ce and had Peter and the kids leave first, telling them that he would catch up to them soon. And only after he was certain he was truly alone did he store Silver into the pet s.p.a.ce.
Silver was exhausted from all the traveling and was happy to enter that heavenly s.p.a.ce once more because the last time it entered it found that the s.p.a.ce was incredibly helpful for its cultivation, in fact, it had even felt a slight inkling of a breakthrough!
Nick didn"t even need to use any speed techniques to catch up to the carriage, and by just using his speed he caught up only a few seconds later, the carriages in this world were a little different from the ones back on earth since the ones here operated almost like a car requiring no horses to pull them, only needing to be supplied with a couple of energy stones a month!
And although there were still carriages that used beasts, they were only used either by commoners or by powerful cultivators. Commoners used horses or low-level herbivorous beasts to travel long distances, and powerful cultivators caught high-level beasts to drag their carriage since it would be many times faster than using the energy stone supplied carriages.
After Nick rejoined the group, they traveled for about an hour before they finally reached the city gates. The guards posted at the gates were accepting entrance fees and conducting security checks thoroughly, so there was a long line ahead of Nick"s carriage.
Around this time a luxurious carriage appeared behind Nick"s, the carriage wasn"t the kind that ran on spirit stone though as there was a large powerful beast pulling it, the driver of this particular carriage seemed really impatient since he kept on yelling and screaming.
Honk!
"Hey!!! What"s the holdup?!"
"s.h.i.+t, you!! Yes, you the one who is driving the carriage in front of me!! Yes, you the weakling, can you let me through, I have important business!!" The impatient driver hollered at Peter.
Peter of course heard the man the first time, but since the man really got on his nerves he kept on looking behind him and pointing at himself repeatedly as if asking the man if he was talking to him.
Nick was startled by the honk, since when did carriages in this world have horns, but when Nick poked his head out to see, he found the noise was coming from the large beast! Whenever the driver kicked the beasts ball it would make that sound!!
And so, the driver kept on showing his dissatisfaction...
Honk!
Honk!
Honk!
Honk!
Nick, of course, heard the loud-mouthed driver yelling, but he was in no mood to deal with him so he gave Peter a bottle of something and gave him instructions to hand it over respectfully to the driver as a piece offering!
Although Peter was grumbling he still followed Nick"s orders, jumping off the carriage he walked over to the loud-mouthed driver and handed him the large bottle.
"Sir, please accept this as a form of apology from my master, you see, we are also in a hurry, so my master has gifted you this wine to entertain you while you wait." Peter spoke every word with poise and grace.
Then, after handing over the bottle of wine, Peter hurried back to his driver seat on the carriage and moved the carriage forward a few paces.
The loud-mouthed driver looked at the bottle in his hand with amazement, he had never seen wine like this before, but after thinking for a while, the driver gritted his teeth and jumped off the carriage before he entered into the pa.s.senger side.
Inside the carriage, sitting cross-legged was a handsome young man, the man was obviously cultivating and had an air of dignity about him, and after the driver entered, the handsome young man only opened his eyes and stared at his driver questioningly.
"Sorry Third prince for disturbing your cultivation, but I have just received something good and so I wanted to give it to you!" After saying all this the man handed over the bottle of wine with two hands.
The prince calmly received the wine and said, " Alex, you should really stop yelling so loud, remember we don"t want the other princes to know that I"ve arrived! Besides, it is only recommended to use the beast siren twice day. None of the beast taming stores even rent us beasts anymore because you keep returning the beasts after busting their ball!"
The Third prince was really annoyed at this useless driver of his, and if it weren"t for his absolute loyalty he would have hired someone new long ago.
After reprimanding Alex the prince told him to leave and began inspecting the wine bottle. the prince had never seen such an amazing wine bottle before, this was because the bottle wasn"t made of gla.s.s, but some rubbery material instead!
On the bottle was a large word, which also seemed to be the name of this amazing wine, but try as he may, the prince felt that he had never heard this name before, in fact, he didn"t even know what the name meant.
Unable to control his curiosity the prince donned on some light disguise before exiting his carriage and heading over to Nick"s.
Alex saw his lightly disguised prince heading over to the carriage upfront and grew curious, why would the price head over there, the people were obviously not n.o.bles, so the prince didn"t need to curry their favor, and they had just met, so there was no animosity between them, Alex just couldn"t understand.
Nick saw some stranger walking up to his carriage so he immediately closed the curtain, unwilling to talk to the stranger. But then he heard the person speaking outside.
"Could I ask this friend to let me in, I just want to ask this friend something." The man said courteously.
Nick sighed deeply before he opened a tiny gap through the curtains and said, "Sorry brother, I left my wallet at home, but you can go beg the carriage behind me, the driver is my close friend, and I know for a fact that the pa.s.senger of that carriage is a rich n.o.bel!!!"
After saying this Nick closed the curtains and played deaf.
The third prince was stunned, did he just get mistaken for a beggar?!! And that Alex, wasn"t his loyalty his only good quality, how could he tell this man his ident.i.ty when he was trying so hard to maintain a low profile?!!
Angry and feeling betrayed the prince headed back to his carriage not forgetting to glare at Alex the whole way!
Soon Nick"s carriage was up for inspection but was done quickly due to it being a small one. Then one of the guards walked up to the carriage and said, "You have four people on board including the driver, that will be four Origin stones!"
Dean and Maggi, traumatized by their previous experience, both hid their stones behind them, Nick had given it to them to aid their cultivation but there was no telling what this crazy brother of theirs will do.
Nick was touched when he saw how the kids were hiding their energy stones, because this meant the kids were starting to know him well, and wasn"t that a good thing...
"Here you go." Nick handed over the origin stones to the guard, but when the guard tried taking the stones he found that Nick"s hands were like an iron clamp, refusing to let go.
"Sir, could you please let go?" The flushed guard asked.
"Ahh, sorry, I just remembered, I"m at the Origin realm, so I don"t need to pay." Nick did this on purpose, last time in the city he had gone through all the trouble only to find out that he didn"t need to pay, so he was taking his revenge here.
"Oh, sorry sir, that only applies to other cities, in this city only a transcendence realm expert gets a free pa.s.s, so, if you could let go of the stones." The guard patiently explained but found that Nick still refused to let go.
Nick was stunned, didn"t this mean he would still have to pay, no, he couldn"t just give away his hard-earned stones just for entering a city!
"Okay, you"re right, but you calculated wrong, those kids are twins, so they can be considered as one person, but due to their age they can only still be considered as half a person, then you see my driver, he is a half-wit, so if you add him to the kids that will equal one person, then with me, that"s two people, so two Origin stones!" Nick corrected.
Peter and the kids were so ashamed that all of them covered their faces at the same time.
The guard was speechless.