“Took you long enough.”
“Sorry for making you worry.”
“Hmph.”
Zhang Dong flew over to his wife that at the moment was clad in the emerald armor that was created for her. During the trip here he was able to pinpoint their location after she activated her prestige unit skill to make her more powerful. With it, she was able to easily destroy the being made from lava and all the fake cores along with it.
“Isn’t that cure, little Liena is blushing.”
“Shut your mouth if you don’t want me to make you into a woman old man!”
One of the blades that were flying in the sky aimed itself at Zhang Jin’s crotch after he made the comment. Then it actually flew toward the old man’s crotch and would have connected with his tool if he didn’t dodge to the side. Zhang Dong started scratching his head while watching his wife chasing after his grandfather. It was quite surprising to see Zhang Jin dodge those high-speed attacks without getting scratched.
“D-dong’er please help me! She has gone crazy!”
“... Should I? Hm…”
“What if she damages it? How could you be so cruel to your grandfather!”
“Ugh, fine…”
Even though it was fun to see his perverted grandfather being chased around by his angry wife, this was not the time to waste their energy. While the huge mountain-sized lava creature had been defeated, it was not the only one out here. When he was flying towards this place where the Golden Palace was parked he saw another of its kind moving to this area. They were probably attracted to either the sounds of battle or the massive amounts of Qi being wasted during it.
“Liena, think that’s enough, the other sect members are looking at you… Do you want to be known as the mad Matriarch in the future?”
He played it off as a joke and it worked like a charm. The people in this world like to keep an image and his wife wasn’t different. The moment she saw some of the juniors and elders glancing her way with confused expressions she managed to return to her old self. The armor that she was wearing vanished into green particles of light and her lovely figure along with her flowy robe was revealed underneath.
“No one saw anything, understood?”
She covered half of her face with one of her battle fans while glaring at the people down below. With haste, all of the sect members started bowing with approval while shouting.
“Yes, Matriarch!”
“Good…”
It was hard for Zhang Dong not to smile in this situation. All the stress and fear of having his sect members along with his wife slaughtered was gone. The palace was there and along with it everyone that had gone out for this trip. While he wasn’t sure if there were no casualties, the palace was in good shape which probably meant that they were all fine.
“I think she grazed it a bit… is it still there?”
Zhang Jin on the other hand started looking down at his robe which had been slightly nicked in a few places. Luckily he discovered that his little gentleman down below had not been damaged. This allowed him to release a sigh of relief while also fleeing from the sky to not get poked at again.
“We should return inside.”
“Yes we should and don’t forget to tell me where you vanished to, I thought that teleportation technique was supposed to be perfect?”
“About that…”
Now that he was flying down to the golden palace along with his wife he had some explaining to do. Previously she was assured by him that nothing could go wrong. Even if they were lost somewhere with the help of his system there would be no way of him finding everyone back.
“It seems that my technique doesn’t work that well if I get stuck in a pocket dimension.”
This was the crux of the problem, these miniaturized worlds that were inside of this fish. For one reason or another, his system was bugging out and Bob couldn’t do anything about it. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the separate dimensions as he would be able to teleport himself into the Dimensional Regalia with the help of his faction system. But this could be due to it being a treasure that he was the master of. Perhaps other similar ones would be able to block out his system which now he needed to account for.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Does this mean that we won’t be able to escape from here?”
“I don’t think so, if I can’t use my technique then I probably won’t be able to use it on the whole palace like I intended to.”
“Then are we stuck in this place?”
“No, there are ways of getting out of these pocket dimensions, we just need to find the correct area.”
The two continued their conversation while returning to the hidden control room in the golden palace. Zhang Dong could use the system’s or the palace’s teleportation feature to get them out of there but this wasn’t the end of it. He had already managed to assemble a teleportation array to transfer himself and the group of cultivators to the lava dimension. This meant that it was possible to use the old method of traversing through these pocket dimensions and to do that he just needed to pinpoint the correct one.
“So, we need to find the right place?”
“Yes, I don’t think this fish that swallowed us is a sentient being, it’s more like a gateway to other smaller dimensions, like a very complex treasure.”
“Then if it’s a treasure, then it has to have a master!”
“Yes, if we find whoever is controlling this thing, then we’ll be able to leave.”
“Could it be the Cerulean Empress?”
“It might be but I’m not sure how this place works yet, the dimensions are thin in a few places and they also connect to one another.”
“But how will we find such a place? These lands are filled with those creatures, I don’t think they will make it easy for us to pass.”
“The longer it takes us to find the exit the least amount of power will the palace have…”
Zhang Dong knew that there was a way out of this place. In the cold region he was able to find a gate that would allow him to travel to a different area. There he found his grandfather and the other cultivators. He knew that a place like that should be here as well.
‘Bob, if I find another gate like the previous one, could you figure out how this place works?’
‘More data is required for travel, more sources of input are required to calculate the quarry, the possibility is at 24,56%.’
‘I see, so if I give you more time then it could work.’
The previous time he encountered a gate to another pocket dimension he had Bob store the data from it. If he was able to find a secondary gate like the last one, the data that his Ai received could be enough to triangulate other locations. What he was looking were not the ones that brought them to dangerous zones like this one but to the one that the leader of the underwater people resided in.
“It could work.”
“Have you figured out something, husband?”
“Yes, we need to find a certain location first and I think it won’t even be that hard.”
Liena smiled at Zhang Dong who started to go to work. The golden palace needed to take off and head to the next location. The spot that they were occupying was already known by the enemies. They couldn’t just blindly fly through the volcanic area, sooner or later their engines would lose power and he would need to turn himself into a battery to keep everything running.
‘Bob, find the wavelength similar to the gate that I traveled through, there is probably at least one exit like that which connects to another pocket dimension, use the golden palace as a magnifier for the signal if you have to.’
‘Affirmative…’
‘Calculating…’
‘Signal found, 94,23% match, sending over coordinates…’
It took a few minutes but Bob was able to find a spot with a strong enough signature. Soon enough the Golden Palace was starting to take off and flying in that direction. On the many screens that were in the control room, he could see the volcanic creatures following after them. They were all over the place, it didn’t seem that this volcanic area had any safe locations devoid of conflict.
Without the giant base that could hold so many people, it would have probably not been possible to minimize the casualties this much. It was the correct choice to wait for enough system points for the upgrade. If he took the previous version of the Golden Dong Palace into these depths, then it would not have been such a smooth ride.
Even with him knowing the way the road was a bumpy one. The monsters were on to them and continued to chase them throughout the entire journey. Getting their shields pelted with lava-filled rocks was an hourly occurrence. Their ship wasn’t the fastest one and as they were trying to conserve power, they couldn’t move at full capacity.
It took a few days but they made it to the location that Bob pinpointed. It was another giant structure but this time instead of a tower it looked like a mountain stretching above the heavens.
‘This one clearly connects somewhere as well but I’m not sure if we should just cross through it. Then there is the problem of taking the palace with us…’
It didn’t seem that it would be possible for the whole golden palace would fit through the dimensional door that was hidden within this mountain. At the bottom was a similar-sized gate that could probably only fit people through it. Leaving the flying fortress that was their main weapon wasn’t really an option so another way needed to be found to get through here.
‘Bob begin the analysis.’
‘Affirmative.’
Zhang Dong gave the order as his intention was to figure out the pattern between these connectors. If he could map them out then it would be possible to just teleport to the source without the need of jumping through hoops. Yet to his surprise, this wouldn’t be as easy as he hoped for.
‘Warning…warning… threat detected.’
‘Huh? What is it now?’
The moment Bob began analyzing the pathway forward some type of defensive system was triggered. It was similar to the time he attempted to bust his way through the sky and with it triggered more of the lava monsters would be coming to this location.