Penglai Island was far from Fangshan Island. In the past, Hero Yan would have needed several stops along the way to fly there. But having successfully advanced to the Soul Formation stage, his dantian had expanded, his spiritual energy was abundant, and such trouble was no longer necessary.
...
"...Daoist Masters... please slow down," Hero Yan called out breathlessly, staring helplessly at the five figures flying ahead of him.
Hero Yan sat atop a scroll painting that wobbled and swayed, looking as though it might plunge into the sea at any moment.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that, as a Soul Formation cultivator, his spiritual reserves would still fall short of those five. Having just finished his breakthrough, he lacked Soul Formation-grade Qi-replenishing pills on hand.
Standing atop his flying sword, Lu Yang pivoted smoothly, kicking up two lines of spray across the water's surface before coming to a dashing halt in front of Hero Yan.
"Hero Yan, are you all right?"
"S-slower..."
Seeing that Hero Yan had run out of strength, the five took the initiative to ease their pace.
Just then, a hundred-meter-long whale surfaced, its blowhole blasting a spout of water a hundred zhang high that shimmered in rainbow hues under the sunlight.
"Why does it feel like we keep seeing these whales along the way?"
"These are whales domesticated by the alliance. Their bellies hold an inner dimension capable of carrying passengers. It’s quite expensive—Qi Refinement cultivators can't even afford it. Back in my Golden Core days, I rode them a few times, but as my cultivation progressed, the whales couldn't swim as fast as I could fly, so I stopped taking them."
"This sea route leads to Penglai Island, which is why they appear so frequently."
Lu Yang nodded. It seemed these whales served as the East Sea's equivalent of Great Xia's flying boats.
"Hero Yan, if you truly have no energy left, how about riding inside the whale's belly for a stretch?" Man Gu kindly suggested.
Hero Yan nodded helplessly. Nowadays he didn't lack the spare coins; it was just that recalling his soaring ambition when they first set out, he felt rather embarrassed.
The journey was completely uneventful, and the six arrived smoothly at Penglai Island.
Except for when they first entered the whale's belly and happened to run into marauder cultivators hijacking the beast, demanding that the passengers hand over everything, after which Lu Yang and the others stepped in out of righteousness, only to discover that a group of escort guards disguised as ordinary cultivators had been transporting cargo, which was the marauders' true target, and robbing everyone had merely been a cover.
And when the whale took a wrong turn into a sea eye and was teleported into an uncharted secret realm sealing a Body Integration-level demon, which turned out to be the work of a passenger long bewitched by the demon, who had deliberately plotted to lure everyone into the secret realm as a sacrifice, though fortunately among the passengers was the only daughter of a Body Integration True Monarch, who had snuck out disguised as a man and had been chatting and laughing with Lu Yang and his companions, and when she fell into danger, her father came to her rescue, dispatched the demon, and returned everyone and the whale to their original sea route, forcing the daughter to bid farewell to Lu Yang and the group.
And when Hero Yan regained his strength and left the whale, only for them to run into a clash between the Sea Hare Clan and the Clam Clan during their flight, triggered by the Clam Clan losing a supreme treasure and pointing the finger at the Sea Hare Clan, after which Lu Yang discovered that the Clam Clan's lost treasure was none other than the cargo the escort guards had been transporting earlier, and once the treasure was found and the fighting ceased, Lu Yang unraveled the mystery, deducing that the culprit was the daughter of the Clam Clan chief, who confessed that she had fallen in love with an outsider, a union forbidden by her clan, so out of spite she had stolen the clam pearl to provoke a war, while the earlier gang of marauders had been arranged by her lover.
"We're finally at Penglai Island. Public security in the East Sea is awful; even riding a whale brings this much trouble," Lu Yang grumbled under his breath.
Meng Jingzhou and the other three nodded in agreement, saying the environment in the East Sea was far worse than Great Xia.
Hero Yan gave the five a bizarre look. *I rode those whales countless times back during Foundation Establishment and Golden Core, and I never ran into a single incident!*
*Is it too late to cut ties with them?*
*If all else fails, I can cripple my own cultivation, and the spiritual vein can be downgraded too.*
Chapter 809