Chapter 333: Teleported! Now What?
RUMBLE
[YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE RULES, THIEF!! YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED BY THE EMISSARIES OF LIU CLAN!]
As Miaomiao began storing items in the vault in his spatial rings and his system inventory, the vault guardian's thunderous voice echoed in the enclosed space, and the exit portal was closed.
Everything went according to plan. The guardian trapped Miaomiao inside this space. Now, he had to battle against time.
Miaomiao had been prepared - He had already gathered everything in one place before he started storing items in his spatial rings. The looting took only 5 seconds to complete.
However, five seconds were enough for the vault guardian to summon strange spirits into the vault.
A hundred semi-transparent wraiths entered the vault and rushed Miaomiao!
Calmly, Miaomiao took out OG-Buddha's teleportation talisman and tore it. At the same time, he paid Dion 5,000 luck points, aka plot armor points, to limit his teleportation destination to the Aves Continent of Heavenly Goose Planet.
His body faded to nothingness before the wraiths got to him. Still, he had officially offended the Liu Clan.
[I HAVE REMEMBERED YOUR FACE, THIEF!! YOU SHALL BE HUNTED DOWN NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO!!]
The vault guardian immediately relayed the record of recent events to every Liu Clan member in the Aves Continent and the Holy Land Continent. Soon, more people would learn about Miaomiao's existence, his deed, and the wealth that he had taken.
Soon, Liu's greedy clansmen would learn about this incident.
…
By the time that Miaomiao reopened his eyes again, he found himself laying on a riverbank. The ground, made of small black rocks and dark soil, reeked the smell of fresh sea fishes. Faint strands of water element Qi were in the area, but it was as polluted as the Qi from Blood Sea.
Miaomiao stood up and scanned his surroundings.
The river was unusually wide and long as if it was a main river on the continent. From a brief estimation, the other side of the shore should be about one or two kilometers away.
The river water was transparent and clear, and small fishes could be seen in the river. Still, the appearance of this serene river contradicted with the polluted water element Qi around here.
Something was wrong with the river, and Miaomiao didn't want to pry into it since he might awaken a hidden monster around here. Again, he was not a fate-changing protagonist that could defeat every adversary with his absolute luck and plot armor. Miaomiao kept reminding himself that he could be killed by a common mob had he been careless.
Miaomiao turned away from the river bank. Behind him, a dark meadow with black grass, dark trees, and black sheep with unicorn horns was everywhere.
The animals were moving in a large horde of over 1,000 sheep. Each of them had the cultivation base of 6th-stage, and their dark eyes didn't hide their killing intent as they stared at Miaomiao.
He kept his distance from the weird beasts, trying not to provoke them. Only when he showed respect to the sheep, the beasts ignored him and returned their attention to the rich black grass.
Miaomiao heaved a sigh of relief after the sheep ignored him. He walked away from the beast horde and the river to secure a safer place to rest and plan his next moves.
After walking a kilometer away from the beast horde and the riverbank, Miaomiao found a four-lane stone road, paved with stone bricks.
Seeing the road, Miaomiao felt a lot safer. He sat at the side of the road and looked at his system menu.
"Dion. Where am I?"
Ding
[Scanning…]
[You are currently on Aves Continent, 9,000km southwest of Siren City.]
It was double the distance between LA to New York. It felt like he needed to fly half of the world to get home.
"T-That's… quite a distance. By the way, what is this place?"
[From the database that I got from the devil, this place is in the Jiangdong Province, aka the most southeast of Aves Continent. It's the second most prosperous region in the southern area, and it is under the jurisdiction of the Sun Clan.]
"Jiangdong Province? Sun Clan?"
Miaomiao's face was solemn as he recalled a certain sect and a famous family. He recited the name of a historical warlord.
"Sun Jian… Sun Wentai."
In Miaomiao's world, Sun Jian was the father of Sun Ce and Sun Quan, who became famous during the late Eastern Han Period and the Three Kingdoms Period in China. He was nicknamed the Tiger of Jiangdong because of his fierceness in battle.
Sun Jian's counterpart in this world, Sun Wentai, was the sect master of Jiangdong White Tiger Sect. If Miaomiao remembered correctly, he heard that the eldest son of Sun Wentai was called [Sun Bofu], which was the same as Sun Ce's style name.
Since getting entangled with this clan might spell complications, Miaomiao stood up and psyched himself, preparing his mind for the long flight home to leave this place.
As Miaomiao was about to take flight, shadows of a massive flock of griffins, colossus hawks, ferry ships, and flying battleships covered the sky as they flew past him.
Miaomiao looked up to see what above him was. Then, he saw the fleet of battleships and flying beasts, heading from west to east.
It was odd. As Miaomiao had discovered about Yuan Shaoqing's movements, he knew that the Sun Clan would join Yuan Shaoqing in this coalition against Siren City. They should have gathered their forces and flown northwest, but they traveled east.
Interested in this movement, Miaomiao wrote a note to Wei Yuan and allocated important items from his spatial rings to system inventory, giving his wife more homework to do.
As soon as Miaomiao finished sorting a portion of his items, he followed the warships to the east.
…
Flying at a low altitude for 10 minutes, Miaomiao reached a gathering place for battleships and tamed beasts.
The wide black meadow had been transformed into a parking lot for cultivators. Various families and rich merchants flaunted their family banners to compare their wealth with the others.
20 wooden medieval carracks, five steel battle cruisers, 500 ferry yachts, thousands of winged beasts, and 100 giant hawks captured this field, but they kept their distance away from other clans and organizations. Many youngsters left the parking lot with their guardians and walked further north while many strong cultivators stayed behind to guard their ships and beasts.
The sight reminded Miaomiao of Xuan City's auction. Although he hadn't seen the parking lot when many powerful experts had arrived, he heard that the gathering was chaotic. After seeing the real thing, Miaomiao could imagine how Xu Lanying and the Sun Clan tried to mess with each other at that place.
Since it was too dangerous for Miaomiao to get closer, he followed the crowd and headed north, wondering where they were going.
After walking two kilometers north, Miaomiao finally saw a city.
The 20-meter-tall brick walls stretched several kilometers, covering the entire horizon from Miaomiao's point of view. Many archer towers had been built on top of the walls, and red energy fences formed another layer of wall array, covering 100 meters in height.
Behind the tall walls, a thousand soldiers in metal armor carried their longbows as if they were ready to shoot something in the sky. None of them hid their element Qi, showing their cultivation of the foundation establishment realm.
Although it was a city, the defensive arrays and their sentries were tight. Miaomiao doubted that anyone could fly over this city without being shot down by the sentry guards in the archer towers or on the walls.
Being cautious of this city wall and its defense, Miaomiao stood still, watching the crowd of people flocking toward the city entrance.
More people arrived after Miaomiao had stopped walking. They were the people from the parking lots, who had finished securing their parking site. They ignored Miaomiao and continued to enter the city.
Miaomiao had the urge to enter the city as well, but he recalled that there was something more important to do. He turned around to leave.
"Excuse me, you there."
As Miaomiao was about to walk away, a half-naked young man in crimson pants and a red bandana approached him. He seemed to be younger and shorter than Miaomiao, but his cultivation base was at the same level.
The guy had tattoos all over his chest and his back. His toned muscle was the same as professional boxers, who had about 10% of their body fat. Even his square jaw was similar to modern martial arts, who got punched a lot in their career.
Noteworthy enough, he had short trimmed hair, which was unusual for the locals. He carried a large bastard sword on his shoulder as if it was as light as feather. Nobody bothered picking a fight or calling him a slave either.
'He looks young, but he has a high cultivation base. Is this place a high-level zone? Am I in an advanced area or am I hanging around the strongest sect's area?'
In most wuxia novels, protagonists usually traveled the world and encountered stronger people, stronger sects, and stronger rivals as they progressed. They started from the weakest area first, after which they advanced to a higher stage as if they were playing games.
Miaomiao suspected that he was in an advanced area, which was stronger than the Mountain Goose City's newbie zone. This would explain why this red-bandana teenager was this strong despite being younger than him.
"Yes? Can I help you?"
The teenager put his bastard sword down and cupped his fist to salute Miaomiao, "Haha! Hello. For a moment there, I thought you would have lost your cool and left without trying. I'm glad I've stopped you in time."
"???"
Miaomiao tilted his head, wondering what the teenager was on about.
"Oh, excuse me. My name is Gan Xingba, the FORMER youngest son of Gan Clan. Meh, I'm an outcast, though. I'm here for the Jiangdong White Tiger Sect's annual examination. Are you here to take the exam, too?"
"Exam?"
Miaomiao sensed a déjà vu. He felt like something similar to this event had happened in the past.
Although confused, Miaomiao pretended to get along with the teenager. After all, Gan Xingba's name was not something that he could ignore.
As this place was like a counterpart world of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, many famous historical characters roamed the land as cultivators. This teenager, too, was the counterpart of the Sun Clan's elite general, Gan Ning, who had the style name Gan Xingba.
It wouldn't hurt making friends with a promising youth.
"I'm Cao Mao. I'm a rogue cultivator," Being cautious of the potential conflict, Miaomiao used his alias again. "So, what are they testing this year? I'm kinda intimidated after seeing so many people here."
"Hahaha! You're overthinking! You know, not many guys can have a strong cultivation base and physique like us! Most of them are just pushover weaklings that can't even reach the 4th-stage before they become 18! Look at us, we're about to advance to the 5th-stage soon, and we're not even 20! Hey, since we're strong, let's be friends, okay?"
"Err…"
This guy talked a lot. Still, he was somewhat honest.
"Sure. Do you think you can handle some wine?"
"Duh! Dude, you're looking down on me. Wine? Pfft! I've grown enough to down 10 vodkas a day!"
"… Okay," Miaomiao was not impressed due to the teenager's age. He was too young to be an alcoholic. "Sorry to ask, how old are you anyway?"
"15. You?"
"… Almost 20, I guess."
"You look 18 to me. Anyway, who cares about age? Come on, bro. Let's enter the city and find a good tavern to drink! It's hard to find a bro, so let's party!"
"…"
Miaomiao started to regret befriending Gan Ning now. This guy seemed like an alcoholic simpleton, and he might cause a lot of trouble. He didn't even show respect to his senior!
While Miaomiao was queuing to enter the city, he continued to allocate more items from his spatial rings to his inventory slots in secret.
Wei Yuan was a fast worker. It only took a minute for her to empty his system inventory slots, and he needed to refill them with more items.
30 minutes later, Miaomiao and Gan Ning were in front of the checkpoint, where a dozen city guards inspected foreigners before they could enter the city.
"Name and affiliation?" One of the guards in a red lamellar armor asked Gan Ning and Miaomiao.
"Gan Xingba, former Gan Clan's most handsome young master!" Gan Ning went first.
"Gan Xingba? You again? Isn't this your third attempt?"
"Bah! Who cares if I failed twice!? As long as I'm not 20 yet, I can keep trying! Look at my cultivation base and my muscle! I've worked so hard this year, and I'm going to top the scoreboard!"
"Pfft. Hadn't you drown yourself with wine before the exams, you could have done that on your first run. Anyway, you can pass. Next!"
Gan Xingba seemed like a regular here. Miaomiao wondered how he failed the exams when his strength and potential were this exceptional.
Miaomiao approached the guard and stated his name, "Cao Mao, a rogue cultivator."
"No affiliation?" The guard frowned. Then, he turned around and called his supervisor.
The guard captain walked over and looked at Miaomiao, "Where is your birthplace?"
"Red Sun City."
"Oh, the capital city? Can I see your official name token?"
"I ran into a monster beast horde, and I lost it somewhere in the dark meadow. Sorry."
"…"
The guard captain stared at Miaomiao for a moment. Only when he noticed the latter's cultivation base, the captain waved his hand and shooed Miaomiao away.
"You may enter. Don't cause any trouble here."
"Huh? I can enter?"
"Do you want to take the exam or not!? I'm being lenient here since you're strong! Go on, we're busy!"
Miaomiao couldn't believe that his bullshit story worked. Sometimes, he wondered if he was actually a genius.
After Miaomiao walked past the checkpoint, he looked at Gan Ning, who had been waiting for him.
"Say, Xingba. What's this city name?"
"Dafuq? How come you didn't know!? It's so famous around here!"
"I'm illiterate. I can't fucking read!"
It was another excuse and a ploy to make himself look stupid, so Gan Ning wouldn't suspect a thing.
"Ah, I understand," Gan Ning placed his arm around Miaomiao's neck and shed a tear. "I've been through that period as well. I ended up spending half a year trying to remember 3,000 words at once. I know it's hard for you, but I can teach you. Now, have faith in your senior, and I shall give you tricks on how I learned to read!!"
"… Okay. What about the city name?"
"Bah, you're no fun. It's Jianye, the headquarter of Jiangdong White Tiger Sect!"
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