Few ships tended to go deep into the Crystal Sea. For purposes of trade, they might head east along the coast from the Wuthering Steppes to the Glass Hills, but with the Deadfields to the west there wasn’t much else immediately nearby. There wouldn’t be many ships going on deep sea fishing expeditions either, as that tended to come with other dangers.
That was why plans had been made well in advance, so that John and the others didn’t have to wait for someone going in the right direction. Nor would they have to swim- and while they could potentially swim for days or purchase a smaller boat to man themselves, neither option was terribly efficient.
The ship was no Wavecutter, but neither were they dealing with as many storms as within the Shimmering Islands. They moved forward at a decent pace, and it wasn’t long before John spotted one of the Sky Islands on the horizon.
The only problem was… it hardly seemed closer a day later. Since the ship they were on was anything but slow, that meant the sky island had to be particularly high. John wasn’t sure if it was actually larger than he imagined, but it made him realize how much they actually didn’t know about the Sky Islands.
In his head, he had placed them somewhere around a few hundred meters in the air- plus some amount to account for the mass of earth below. That was also different than he’d imagined. Rather than masses of earth dangling down from a relatively flat surface, he saw mountains with relatively flat bases. Rather than loosely held together dirt, his eyes picked out solid stone with speckles of something within it. That something, at least, he had some understanding of.
The Crystal Sea wasn’t called that simply because it was beautiful. Instead, it was said to occasionally have crystals floating on the surface, quite valuable for any lucky sailor. Those same crystals seemed to hold up the Sky Islands, though he didn’t have any reliable information on how except for that it involved air element.
“How high would you say that is?” John asked Viriato. “The nearest island, I mean.” He could just spot a few more, even further in the distance.
“It’s hard to get a good sense of scale,” Viriato admitted. “I can’t make out any trees or buildings. It could easily be… five, ten kilometers? Perhaps as high as the Blustering Peaks.”
“According to the captain,” John said. “We should be passing close tomorrow. I suppose we’ll have to figure it out then.”
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When he’d first begun to fly, John had believed flying upward to be more difficult than moving horizontally, and there were indeed factors that influenced that. He could create lift with wings when moving horizontally, lowering the force he had to directly create to lift himself. However, when considering direct application of spiritual energy he already had to balance out his weight. From there, vertical and horizontal movements were quite similar if not exactly the same.
The parts of vertical flight that made going higher more difficult were a drop in air density- a problem when using air elemental spiritual energy to manipulate it- and the consequences of success itself.
In theory, it took no spiritual energy to move downward. Indeed, he would gain energy when falling. And that would have worked just fine if he didn’t care about the part where he’d be crushed against the ground at the end. In short, when considering longer flights he had to think about conserving energy to get down, as he had to maintain his speed.
And so, though he would be at least half carrying several others with him, as long as he properly landed on the sky island it wouldn’t be particularly different from flying a similar distance horizontally. Friction based on his orientation might be the deciding factor there.
John had previously tested whether the four of them could fly together. Viriato wasn’t much help, with his elements not providing any benefit, but Ayhan and Lir could do at least a good portion of the work for themselves. With high air element density in the area, they should be able to last long enough to reach their destination, an island that was now nearly straight above them.
As they had drawn closer to it over the course of the next day, they were better able to make judgments about its size and height. The island itself was relatively small, barely a few kilometers across. Yet in a way, that was also quite large- even in a world full of spiritual energy, islands floating in the air didn’t happen easily. The sheer mass floating in the sky was astounding.
Finally, when they got close enough, the four of them left the ship behind, flying into the skies. The angle of approach was chosen to be a reasonable approach that didn’t require flying a terribly long distance while still allowing potential residents of the island to spot their approach. If they seemed like they were sneaking towards the island, the potential results could be far more negative than approaching openly. And if someone decided to attack, them doing so before John and the others got close was better.
Winds swirled around them, carrying them into the sky. Flying was still as exhilarating as ever, and with others involved it took more concentration and effort. The islands stood perhaps ten kilometers in the sky- perhaps a bit lower, but somewhere the atmosphere would have thinned. That also made flight more difficult, but John was confident he had more than sufficient energy.
From sea level, it was difficult to feel anything particular about the spiritual energy surrounding the island- except that it had concentrations of both air and earth. John and the others hadn’t been able to sense individual cultivators at such a distance, but he reached out his senses to learn what he could as they approached.
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He gathered there was a sect or clan inhabiting the island, at least several hundred individuals. Notable among them were a few Consolidated Soul Phase cultivators, but that was nothing that worried John. The plan wasn’t ever to engage in a fight- if they threatened danger, retreat was the best option.
When approaching closer, John learned more detailed information. Unsurprisingly given the natural levels of spiritual energy there were earth and air cultivators among them, but not everyone used both nor did they necessarily fit into the same style. That indicated something other than a sect or clan, though the whole population still appeared to consist of cultivators.
Though their flight wasn’t particularly fast, it also only took twenty minutes or so to reach the height of the sky island. There were no winding switchbacks like climbing a mountain, though the relatively rapid change in air pressure was uncomfortable on the eardrums.
The structures on the island seemed to be built into the gentle slopes, with terraced fields lower down. John didn’t see any walls around what he decided was a city- or perhaps a town. Not that walls would do much good when the only enemies that could approach had to be able to fly.
Flight had become rather difficult as they approached, the thin air being less useful for propulsion. John had to gather far more to provide the same force required to counteract gravity, but they weren’t far from their destination. Then something odd happened, with the island seeming to pull him towards it. Not like gravity, but rather the air itself.
His flight suddenly eased up as air density increased, and the chill air of the high atmosphere decreased. It never got close to sea level, but it was much more manageable.
John set down with the rest near the edge of the island. He spotted several workers in the fields- a mix of cultivators of the four core elements. They gave appraising looks to the new group, but neither approached nor turned to run.
He could see why cultivators of all sorts would be needed to tend the fields. He wasn’t sure how much natural rain would fall on them, as they had already passed through some of the clouds. Likewise, there wouldn’t be enough heat or air for most plants to grow normally. Earth element was helpful for growth in general.
The group approached the town itself, walking along a dirt path that turned into a more formal street when it reached the proper buildings. John had a decent sense of the entire island at once, as it was smaller than the grounds of most clans or sects he’d been to. For the total population, it was quite spacious.
They took their time approaching, so as to not cause too much concern to the locals. John did feel several of the Consolidated Soul Phase cultivators gathering together, and they soon encountered each other. The group was led by an old man at the peak of the Consolidated Soul Phase.
The old man bowed. “Greetings, senior,” the man said politely. Even if John wasn’t actually older, the acknowledgement of his power was traditional. “I am Deepak. We here on Seta have not heard tales of your name. Might you enlighten us?”
In short, they wanted to know who he was and why he was there. And John had no reason to be impolite, since he would be asking many things of them in the near future. “My name is John Miller, sect head of the Six Elements Crossroads. The reason you haven’t heard of me is that I am from the lands below.”
He wasn’t certain what their reaction would be to that. Clearly some members of the Sky Islands had a sense of superiority, but the news would come out at some point so there was no point in dragging it out and causing a fuss later.
Deepak stood in silence for a few moments. “Visitors from below are rare, as you might imagine,” he finally said. “It is not so easy to reach us. Your strength speaks for itself.”
Flattery, even if the man meant it. Not that John was terribly concerned. He knew how social things tended to go, even if he didn’t usually enjoy politics. Time for him to continue answering half-stated questions. “Visitors from the Sky Islands to us are also rare. That is why I am here, so that we might learn more about each other. Somewhat more than a decade and a half ago, I made the acquaintance of a senior by the name of Sitora. I had hoped to speak to her again.”
The man nodded slowly. “You must speak of Sitora of the Second Peak. We have heard of her, though she has never had any reason to visit a place such as this. Seta is an island of few means.”
They didn’t look poor to John, but he supposed they didn’t really have many opportunities for growth, either. They would mostly have to rely on the natural density of spiritual energy.
“I know little of the Second Peak or the arrangement of the Sky Islands as a whole,” John admitted. Asking for a map was a bit awkward, as someone that might be a foreign spy, but he couldn’t avoid asking anything. “I am curious about the restrictions on travel. Obviously, we were not able to ask for permission to land here before our arrival, but we don’t intend to cause any disturbances here.”
“Well, the restrictions are more based on ability. Only air cultivators can easily fly along the paths between islands. Otherwise, one must possess a suitable spirit beast. Both require a certain measure of power.” Deepak shrugged. “I am an air cultivator myself, but I rarely make the trip. Though it is generally acceptable to move as you please among the rest of our lands, you need an invitation from above or permission of the island masters to move to a higher level. Thus, you need to seek out the Fifth Peak to relay your message.”
“I see,” John nodded. “And how might I find them?”
Deepak explained how John could travel between the nearby islands, with several routes he could take to reach one of the larger islands. John thought he could just about pick it out, though cloud cover and not actually knowing what he was looking for were problematic. He did, however, sense the ‘paths’ Deepak spoke of. A connection between the islands that John felt would make flight easier. He didn’t know how they were formed, but it did seem it would have been impossible to have much of a society if only Consolidated Soul Phase Cultivators or greater could feasibly travel.
“The Fifth Peak,” Deepak eventually explained. “Is the lowest of the Great Peaks. You can seek permission there.”
“How does one gain permission?”
“If they favor you for some reason, it can easily be granted. Otherwise, you must pass certain tests,” Deepak concluded.
So power or nepotism, basically. Even if one could actually fly to the highest peak, they wouldn’t be allowed. Then again, it wasn’t as if sects generally allowed people to wander about on their land- and where land was more limited that might be even more important.
John was satisfied with the initial interactions in the Sky Islands, and hoped that they would remain relatively peaceful. There would be matters of politics of course, and while he wasn’t exactly presenting himself as a friend of Sitora, people might construe it that way and she doubtless had enemies. Nobody would become as strong as Sitora without accumulating any enemies, even if she’d been generally successful in wiping them out.