1052 Sunborn Sanctuary

In front of Alex was a sprawling city, carved onto the side of the mountains itself, that cascaded down to the flatter lands. The city was full of houses and trees intermixed with more people than Alex could ever imagine.

As far as Alex could see, there were houses and open lands and rivers all around him. It was enough to say that the Sunborn Sanctuary by itself was about the size of a normal country.

With nearly a hundred kilometers in radius, the city was certainly not a small piece

Alex's eyes moved towards the mountain where the city seemed to end. There were 7 mountains in total that were like that and they all formed a rough circle where a massive piece of the metal dome was installed.

The dome was littered with runes and formations on it for various purposes, but for some reason, none of them seemed to be activated.

"That dome… is that where the Phoenix is currently?" Alex asked.

"That dome is the true Sanctuary as you seemed to have guessed, and yes that is where lord Phoenix is resting," the man said.

Just then, 9 different figures flew into the sky, 5 men and 4 women. Each one of them had a cultivation base that was definitely no longer in the Saint Soul realm.

'Damn,' Alex thought as he realized who was approaching.

The 9 figures stopped in front of them, all with a wide array of expressions on their faces. Some were surprised, some were confused, and some were just happy to see him arrive.

"You don't have to ask. Yes, he looks young, and yes, he is young. But he is definitely the alchemist," Qiu Jianhong said before anyone else could question Alex's legitimacy again.

"Of course, I knew that. I heard he was a young man, but I didn't expect him to be this young," one of the women said. "Hello little brother, I hope you are having a lovely day."

"My greetings to all seniors," Alex said as he cupped his hands and bowed slightly in front of everyone.

"Let me introduce you to everyone," Qiu Jianhong spoke as he pointed to the lady that just spoke.

"This is Ren Guanting, someone belonging to the Ren family of the Spiritsong city," he said. The woman wore a white robe with black floral patterns all over it. Her hair was fully black, and long that was tied at two parts in front of her.

"This is Gong Liuxian, an elder of the Cloud Fire sect." Gong Liuxian was a shorter man with two long mustaches that were black, contrasting the other white hair that was his beard and the remaining hair on his head. He wore light blue robes with white in many places.

"This is Huang Chen, an ancestor of the Huang family." Huang Chen looked like someone that was transitioning from being a middle-aged man to an elderly. He still had a head full of hair and wore purple robes.

"This is Hou Xinya, a previous sect leader of Dawn's Light sect." Hou Xinya was a tall and lean man, who surprisingly didn't look as old. He was one of the younger-looking people in the group. His clothes were yellow and orange with sun embroidery at various places.

"This is Kang Xuefeng, an ancestor of the Kang family in Sureheart city. If you ever need any ores for a cauldron or anything, this is the man you want to ask. His family owns the majority of the mountains in the Sunless lands and thus mines the most ores from there," Qiu Jianhong said.

"That's not really true," Kang Xuefeng said. "It's been ages since I had anything to do with the Kang family. I'm stuck here for so long that everyone that I ever knew is already dead."

The man's eyes were dull, so Alex believed that he truly was all alone. He wrote green robes and was the only one with such color, so he stood out.

"Yes, yes," Qiu Jianghong said and pointed towards one of the other 3 remaining women in the group.

"This is Liang Shufen, from the Liang family, and that is Yao Ning, from the Yao family."

Liang Shufen wore pink robes with frills all around them, making her look exceptionally pretty in that dress. Her face looked quite cute too, despite the clear age visible in them.

Yao Ning on the other hand was an old woman, through and through. Her hair was all white, and her face fully of wrinkles to the point where it was hard to distinguish which folds her eyes went to. She wore simple brown robes and was surprisingly the one who seemed the strongest to Alex.

"This is a previous elder of the Rising Phoenix sect, Tan Yang." Tan Yang was a clean-shaven man from head to chin. He had no outer expression on his face and his body itself wasn't of any note either. He wore normal black and white robe and was the most irremarkable person in the whole group.

"And finally, from the Jade Fire sect, we have Lei Zhong."

"Good to see you," the woman spoke. She wore a cloth that was cyan in color and looked slightly old as well.

Alex looked at each of the members of the council of 10 and bowed towards them once again. "It is a pleasure to meet you all, seniors," he said.

"Let's go somewhere else to talk," Qiu Jianhong said and the rest of them nodded before flying downwards.

Alex looked around at the massive city as he flew down and noticed many people looking up at them. Surprisingly, they all bowed down toward the 10 people that he was flying with.

'So they are popular enough that the normal civilians know of them, huh?' he thought.

They landed in front of a giant building that seemed to be built by the best mason from all around the continent. Every single piece of stone that went into making the mansion in front of him was immaculate.

"What is this place?" Alex asked as he looked at the giant building. "It looks like a palace."

"That's because it is a palace," Yao Ning said. "It's the Palace of the Vermilion Bird."

"Huh? Didn't he live in the Sunborn Sanctuary?" Alex asked.

"No, this is just a fake palace where lord Phoenix greets guests or makes proclamations for the continent, or used to," she said. "Sunborn Sanctuary is their true home though."

"I see," Alex said. He had been to a place like this before. The Palace of the White Tiger was similar as well.

There was a massive palace, a mansion built for accepting guests and other various people, but the real family members of the White Tiger lived underground in the place that was the actual Palace.

They walked inside and Alex saw that the place was kept clean despite the fact that no one should stay in the place.

He saw servants and maids walking by who would stop to bow toward the 10. Alex got curious and asked the council members, "Are you making these people keep the castle clean for no reason, or do you accept guests and other people?" he asked. "Or are you just keeping it clean for the day when the Phoenix comes out of hibernation?"

Ren Guanting released a peal of laughter when she heard that, and the rest chuckled a little as well.

"None of what you said was accurate at all," Huang Chen said. "The truth is, we all stay in this palace, which is why they keep it clean."

"Oh," Alex said with a surprised face as he looked around. "I should've guessed that. But it is still surprising to hear you all live together."

"This is a giant palace. Us living together just means we share this palace which still gives us plenty of privacy," Lei Zhong said.

"I see," Alex said. He checked the architecture of the palace and tried to compare it with the palace of the white tiger, but it was too different to compare.

While the White Tiger had a motif of Gold and White, the Phoenix seemed to have a motif of Purple and Red.

In the case of the White Tiger, the White denoted their names and the Gold denoted their supreme Metal roots. By the same logic, in the case of the Vermilion bird, its name should denote Purple and its supreme roots should denote Red.

Fire for red made sense to Alex, but then… Vermilion wasn't purple at all. In fact, it was red too. Then what did the purple denote?

It could be the color of the Pheonix flames, but Phoenix flames had other colors such as orange, blue, and yellow too.

'Am I wrong in trying to find a reason for the colors?' Alex wondered. It was very well possible that one of the first Phoenix that came to this world loved the color Purple which was why there was the color.

He shook his head and stopped thinking about it.

They arrived in the palace hall where there were seats along either side of the hall, leading to the end with the massive seat of purple and red, on which sat a golden crown with various different jewels embedded in it.

"Did the Phoenix wear a crown?" Alex asked.

"When dealing with matters as the ruler of the continent, yes," one of the council members said.

"Sit on any of the other seats," Liang Shufen said. "We can't wait to talk about the pills we want you to make."