Over the next two hours, everyone who was going prepared. Sam did not need to bring anything save for his armor and his weapon, so he waited by the north gate for the others to come. At the end of the two hour period, the four others, Rax, Claude, Ava and Jane, arrived. The three humans were carrying large packs, with their weapons and food inside. Rax had nothing with him, as he could find food in the corpses of the monsters that they slew.
“Are you ready?” Sam asked. As he received a series of nods, he signaled for the gate sentry to open the gate. As it slid up, they walked out and through the force field. As soon as they were a good distance from the city, Sam set down his ship, and pumped mana into it. It quickly expanded outwards, eliciting a gasp from Ava.
‘It’s quite something, isn't it?” Sam said, smiling. “Too bad it’s a duplicitous bastard,” he added at the end, in a low tone.
“What?” Claude asked.
“Nothing.”
The ramp slid down, and Sam walked up and into the ship. The simian controller sat in its tank of liquid, with a shifty look on its face.
“If there is any sort of deception this time, this ship is never going to see the light of day again. You hear me?” Sam said to the creature before anyone else got inside. It nodded languidly, but did not say a word. Sam would not actually destroy the ship, as he needed it for transport, but the alien did not know that. Sam sat down and strapped himself in as the others entered the ship.
“This is quite a ship,” Jane signed, the System translating her motions.
“Yeah. I got it from some Teruvarian contraband dealer. I didn't know that it was stolen property until it was too late. It all worked out in the end though.” Turning to the alien, Sam told it where to go. “You remember that pillar of light from the last trip? Well, we need to find another one of those. This one is in China.”
“I do. Prepare for takeoff.”
The ship shuddered as it lifted off the ground, and it quickly accelerated, almost knocking Claude off his feet. The man quickly strapped himself in, and when the ship leveled off, he started meditating. Sam did the same, and lost himself in the world of his Dao. As usual, his Dao hovered in the darkness of his soul, with the long tendrils of light extending outwards to all corners of his body. Sam followed one of them to his latest node, and compared it to the first. It was slightly larger than the first one, and as he looked around the rest of his body, he realized that they were organized in a spiral pattern. If it continued like that, then the final, and largest, one would be right in the middle of his chest, roughly where his core was. Right now they all were the same size, but as he opened the ones requiring more essence, naturally they would become larger as a result.
Sam exited his nodes, and went back to his Dao, hovering in the center of his body. There was no point in trying to break through to another level of it., but he could still contemplate it. Sam flew around the orb, skimming insights off of the top as he went. As he thought about what exactly the path of Righteous Anger meant for him, the rate at which he picked up insights increased. He started to speed up as he went, and soon he was flashing along the walls of his Dao like a lightning bolt, covering vast distances, at least within his mind, in the blink of an eye. The actual progress he was making was minimal, but it was progress nonetheless. He might have had an unfair advantage in the world of the Dao, but a long time divided by a few times was still a long time. In the end, he still would be cultivating for eons to reach his full potential.
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His mind slipped away into a timeless trance as he completed his motions, and eventually he was jolted to awareness by the ship landing. Sam exited his core, and stretched slightly. Holding one’s mind captive within oneself led to a very tired body.
Sam unbuckled his safety belt, and got out of the chair, seeing that the others were already up and about. The ramp slid down, and Rax bounded down it, eager to see what was outside. The others kept a bit more sedate pace, but they still moved rather quickly as they descended the ramp. Outside was a verdant expanse of bamboo and short trees, what Sam would have imagined as the subject of a postcard. There were no monsters nearby, but a few noises could be heard from the distance, meaning that there were most definitely threats within this wilderness.
Sam jumped up over one of the trees, and got a brief look. The forest stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see, culminating in a tiny speck in the distance, which Sam could just about make out as a mountain. As before, flying monsters surrounded the mountain and its environs, which has prevented the ship from coming near. They looked like long lines in the air, and Sam recognized them as Chinese dragons, which lacked wings. That mountain was most likely their goal, as the thin pillar of light coming out of the mountain was visible, even from here. The only problem was getting there. Sam turned the ship back into its portable form, and turned to the others.
“Right. I just took a look at what is ahead of us, and it seems that we have quite some distance to cover. There will likely be many monsters ahead, so watch out. I judged the distance as about 150 miles, or maybe a bit more, so it might take a while if we are staying vigilant for monsters.”
“That much of a distance? Why didn't the ship drop us off closer?” Claude asked, confused.
“There are many flying monsters ahead, and the ship would have been torn apart if it had tried to fly there,” Sam explained. “You can take a look for yourself if you want. Just climb up one of those trees.” Claude followed Sam’s advice, and scaled the nearest tree, a wrinkled cherry tree. As he reached the top, he let out a small gasp. Dropping down from the tree and landing on the forest floor, Claude raised an eyebrow.
“That’s a lot of dragons. How are we supposed to get by them?”
“Don’t you see that the majority of the forest is covered by trees? There is no way that they would be able to see us down here. As long as we remain quiet, it shouldn't be a problem,” Ava answered. “Right, Sam?”
"Yeah, that sounds about right. It’s a bit different than what we had to deal with finding Mjolnir. There were these titanic eagles circling overhead, and there was barely any cover. This will probably be a breeze in comparison,” Sam responded. What he did not mention was the fact that to compensate for the rarity of encountering the dragons, they were likely extremely powerful. In any case, they had a clear path forward, and the dragons were an unfortunate obstacle.