Chapter 1063 - Up

The blue sky grew dark and the air grew thin, but then the light brightened as he left the atmosphere. The planet beneath him started to curve in the distance. The size of it was just as insane as he’d theorized in the past and even now it filled most of his sight in one direction. He would have thought a planet this size was impossible, but somehow it was here. Using the Adjutor, his powerful eyesight, and the research teams to take references, the planet seemed to be nearly 5 million miles in diameter.

Impossible!

Of course, he was no stranger to the impossible. Many things Cultivators did on a daily basis would be considered impossible on Earth. It didn’t seem possible for planets to even be this large and was more of a size that would be associated with stars. He was no astrophysicist, nor was he a space enthusiast, but he did remember that somewhere around 100 thousand miles wide, a planet would be large enough to cause nuclear fusion in its core and transform into a star. It was actually a matter of mass and density, but it was a rough number he could easily remember unlike all the exacting references to planetary bodies, specifically their mass and area that was often used to describe them in comparison to each other. So, a planet made of gas would be much larger before it formed a star while one made of rock could be smaller. Whatever the case, this planet being fifty times larger should put it handily within the range of not just stars, but larger stars.

There’s no way, right?

While looking down at the planet from above, Sage felt a surge of power in the distance. It didn’t feel dangerous, drawing his attention due to its strangeness rather than its pure intensity. He felt the wave of energy wash over his Spiritual Sense and turned his gaze towards it. Despite the control over his features, his eyes still widened. If the size of the planet was shocking, what he saw in the distance beside it completely stunned him. A gray hoop floated above the planet, it had a square cross section giving it a monolithic feel, rather than the smooth roundness of a hoop earring, or the glowing disc that would make it look even more like a halo.

So, the Cultivator world has a halo floating over it. Wait a minute.

Without the atmosphere of the planet around him, Sage’s flying speed increased and he shot towards the huge ring as he approached the energy that had been calling out to him. The stories had said an Immortal ascends to a higher world, but he hadn’t imagined it would be something like this. Of course, for the people of this world moving to a giant ring in space could indeed seem like ascending to a higher world. Especially if this huge ring was what he thought it was. The distance he had to cover would have taken months if it was down on the surface, but up here in space he didn’t run into a maximum speed limitation and could continue to constantly accelerate. That said, he also used the Adjutor to calculate the distance and his speed so that when he was almost at the halfway point he started to decelerate instead. It would not look good to go flying past the ring, or even worse smash into it.

As he got near the ring, he had to speed up again, this time moving at a slower rate to close the last of the distance and also taking his time to give it a better look. The ring might have looked like a halo over the planet, but from his calculations it was around a million miles in diameter. From afar it looked pretty smooth, but from up close he could see it was anything but. Instead it was like an ocean of rectangular metal plates overlapping each other like scales, all flowing in one direction, facing away from the direction that the huge ring was rotating. The motion was barely noticeable from where he’d been in the distance but up close it was moving quite quickly. There was another pulse of energy and this time, Sage felt a voice transmission up against his Spiritual Sense and listened in.

“Match speeds with the ring.”

Sage flew to the side, matching speed with the rotating ring which then made it look like it was standing still beside him. Then there was another pulse of energy and he flew towards it, now moving over the surface of the ring like it was solid ground, it took him a few minutes to narrow down the source of the energy pulse and there was a wide circular pit which he flew into. Then an iris slid closed over the top of the pit and Sage touched down upon the ‘floor’ while he sensed air pouring into the chamber. Such an experience would probably be very disorienting for a local to this world, but Sage immediately determined this was an airlock and waited patiently for the process to finish.

Then there was a soft tone and a door sized iris opened up on the wall, which he flew into. Then he saw a partially translucent blue barrier in front of him and a person standing behind it. Noticing them standing, Sage also lowered to the floor and felt a pull of gravity so he relaxed, no longer worrying about maneuvering with his flight ability. Thinking of something he had the Adjutor do a series of calculations and realized the rotation of the ring was being used to create this ‘standard’ level of gravity. The signal had come from the inner wall of the ring, which he had instinctively turned to treat as ‘down’ when he matched speeds with it. Now that he was inside, the spinning ring constantly pulled him down with its centrifugal force which meant it felt just like back down on the planet’s surface.

So, I’m basically on a planet 30,000 miles wide and 30,000 miles tall that stretches over 3 million miles long, it’s just the curvature that’s backwards, going upwards instead of downwards. The horizon will be a mountain instead of dropping out of view.

Only, at this point he was in a hallway and not a wide open area. The person behind the blue barrier watched as he landed on the ground and then he heard a voice coming from the wall. The sound had a boxy tone to it and he wondered if it was a hidden speaker.

“Very impressive. Your first time here and you didn’t fly by or have to get caught by our safety net formations. It’s not often we get such naturals at navigating the void. What is your name, and where do you come from?”

“Lang Sheng, from the Tianxia Empire.”

“Oh good, you also know about the Empires. That saves me some time. It’s so annoying to have to figure out which Empire some of those tiny little towns and cities are from. Alright, come inside I’ll lead you to your orientation.”

Sage theorized this little interaction was to give them time to see how unreasonable he might be. There were probably a few people who would be angry or confused by the events he’d just experienced and would try to lash out at the first people they see to blame them for the strangeness of space. They would probably also be upset if they got caught up in a formation that stopped them from crashing or pulled him in after they bumbled around outside for too long. Sage was not foolish enough to think he was already at the peak of power and it was likely there were people up here who could deal with him like a child so there was no reason for him not to continue being humble, but he didn’t expect everyone else to be as cautious. Getting to this level required comprehension of a Law, which did not equate to intelligence. Certainly, the power of a Cultivator’s brain continued to improve as they advanced, thinking faster and having more powerful memories, but that didn’t mean they always made better decisions or spent any time filling their minds with useful things.

The blue barrier disappeared and the blurry person beyond it was no longer obscured. Sage found an older woman holding a clipboard or tablet style device, except it looked like it was made of a reddish stone. She also seemed slightly on edge, likely waiting to see if he was only pretending to be civilized. Sage merely nodded to her and stepped forward, ready for her to lead the way.