Graham, Ronron, and the Older Alex flew on the small boat that Alex had lent them. They flew through the air, not fast or slow, following the pathway on the ground.
There were not many people flying on boats like theirs, but even the ones that did couldn't help but look at them as they easily passed by each and every one of them.
Their boat was just too fast even when it was not flying at its fastest speed. Graham was surprised at how slow everything was around him.
Ronron wasn't really surprised as she didn't yet know much about the world outside of her own to judge the difference. Alex had told her this was one of the worst places to be in if one wanted to cultivate, but that didn't help her understand much of the place.
The older Alex was simply shocked at how fast his own boat was. He looked around as the world zoomed past him in a blur. The flashes of trees nearby made him dizzy from how fast they went by.
He had to focus on the land far away or on the ship itself so he didn't get a headache.
"Do you know where to stop, Uncle Whisker?" Ronron asked.
Whisker thought for a moment and shook his head. He looked toward the older Alex for an answer, but the old man simply wasn't paying attention at all.
Ronron giggled a bit. "Uncle Whisker, you should slow down or we will never know if we got there or not," she said.
Whisker nodded and slowed down the ship a bit, enough so that even the older Alex could tell what he was looking at.
"Can you tell where we are, papa?" she asked.
The older Alex finally looked around, but he only saw trees and maybe a few villages along the way. "Uhh… I don't remember any of this," he said. "We should reach a city or something so I can tell where I am exactly."
The group nodded and followed the road as they waited for the first city on their journey to show up.
The older Alex looked around, wondering how nothing seemed to have changed at all and even then it all looked so… foreign to him.
Graham looked around as well, but he was nowhere nearly as fascinated as Alex was. He was used to the cultivation world. The only difference between the places he had been to and this one was the fact that this one had weaker Qi in the air.
"Grandpa, why didn't you go to find grandma with father? Isn't that why you came here?" Ronron asked.
"I wanted to, but… I got a feeling that if I went there, I still wouldn't see her for a long time. Alex has been talking about Pearl, so I'm afraid he will spend a lot of his time there and won't get to go find grandma soon enough. Without him, I wouldn't even know where to go and be stuck with him."
"Since I was going to have to come here anyway, I decided to come and meet with the people that Alex considers as close as family," Graham said.
"I see," Ronron said. "I wonder if father and the rest reached their destination by now. They said it was close by, so with their speed, it should have taken them no time at all."
"Who knows," Graham said and looked ahead. "Oh, there's a city there. Whisker, slow down by that city, okay?"
Whisker did as was asked of him and slowed down as they got closer. Old Alex looked at the city and shook his head. "I don't remember this city and it's far away from the forest. Scarlet City is pretty much attached to the forest. Let's keep going," he said.
Whisker sped up the boat once again and flew until they reached the next city and the city after that.
2 hours and a few cities later, they arrived in another city that gave the old Alex a feeling that he had been here before. "Wait… this might be… what was its name?" the old Alex tried to remember the name of the city.
"Do you know this one, papa?" Ronron asked.
"I do, it's the city right before the Scarlet city. I remember this city's sect's sect leader being present in my first-ever auction house," the old Alex said.
"Oh, then we are close by," Ronron said.
The boat continued and soon they passed by a massive patch of open land that didn't seem natural at all.
"The Gap," the old Alex remembered. "This was where I was taken away by the beasts to their realm."
The old memories were coming back to him in bits and pieces. "We're close by," he said. He got more and more anxious as they got closer and closer to the city.
Then, finally, in the distance, they all saw the massive walls of a massive city right next to the Southern Forest.
The group had arrived at Scarlet city.
Whisker slowed down the ship until it came to a halt right outside the city gates. The three of them got off the ship and finally, Whisker jumped out as well.
The ground was wet from the rain that had only just stopped and the smell of rain hadn't left the air either. The green trees and grass followed by a massive gray wall was a contrast that the old Alex only ever remembered in his memories.
"I never realized how big this was," he spoke softly.
Ronron took the ship into her bag and looked at her father. "Are you alright, papa? You seem nervous," she asked.
"I am nervous," the older Alex said as he breathed in a little. He looked around at the many people that were gathered outside. Were there always this many people?
He saw flashes of yellow and green robes coming in and out of the gates, making him feel more nervous and anxious about it all.
"Let's go in," Graham said and walked up to the line of people that were there to go into the city.
After a while, they arrived at the gate and the person by the gate asked for some identifications or some silver coins in exchange for going in.
The older Alex remembered the time he had to kill a beast to try and afford those coins. Now, his daughter simply took out a spirit stone and handed it over.
"Don't worry about the change," Ronron said and walked ahead. "Come on, let's go."
Graham and old Alex walked in behind her.
"Woah!" the older Alex couldn't help but say when he saw the inside. Not only was the inside completely different from his memories, but it also seemed to be quite developed as well.
So many things had changed that he couldn't even tell which road he was supposed to do.
"Where do we go now?" Graham asked while looking around the place as well. Ronron did so too, and so did Whisker who was standing on her head.
"Have you been here before, uncle Whisker?" Ronron asked.
Whisker nodded. "I was very young back then so I don't remember anything," he spoke in her ears.
Old Alex thought for a bit. There were two different places he could go to. He decided to go first to the one where he would be happy rather than sad.
"Let's take this road," he said. "We should go to the Tiger sect first. If we follow the wall south, we should arrive by the sect."
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