1092 The First Shadow

Even as Alex arrived at one of the eastern cities of the Southern continent, he couldn't help but wonder if he had made some sort of mistake.

He had left on what could only be taken as an impulse and had not thought of how it would affect other people's lives.

He had left a letter behind explaining that the council members shouldn't try and find him and keep the illusion that he was still hidden in his room.

He hoped that would keep unnecessary people from trying to find him.

The city he was in currently was named the Sundering city, also known as the First Shadow.

Alex looked at the massive tower-like spire that rose to the sky at the east and understood why the city was called what it was called.

Due to how tall the spire was, before the sunlight even fell on this city, it would fall on the spire and its shadow would fall into these lands that wouldn't leave until the sun was really high in the sky.

It was already late in the day so there was enough sunlight for him to use.

"Are you new here, uhh… senior?" a woman spoke from the side. Alex could see that she was aged and had a bit of cultivation base, but not much.

'Organ tempering realm… 9th realm at that,' Alex thought.

"I am new," Alex said. "What is your name?"

"Hm, it's Chu Pinqing," the woman said, surprised that he was asking her name suddenly.

"Is that your real name?" Alex asked.

The woman gave a surprised look but did not answer.

"Don't worry, I'm just trying to learn if you are a player or not," Alex said.

"I… am," she said with a curious look on her face. "How did you know, senior?"

"I have my way," Alex said. "You don't have to call me senior, just call me little brother."

"Okay," the woman said. "Then little brother, do you need a tour of the town? I know a lot about this place and can give you a thorough tour of it. It will only cost you 3 True spirit stones an hour."

Alex couldn't help but smile. "Sure, go on ahead," he said and went along with her as he handed a single True spirit stone to her.

The woman was excited and started telling him about the city.

At first, he was just happy to help a player, but he wasn't expecting him to have so much information about the city, especially with her cultivation base.

His first shock came not even 3 minutes later after the woman started explaining stuff.

The tall spire to the east had surprised Alex sure, but what shocked him more was when he learned the name of the thing he was looking at.

He was looking at the Sundering Sanctum.

"That's the Sundering Sanctum? No wonder the city is called what it is," Alex said. Sundering City was a good name for a place that held the Sundering Sanctum.

Although, one thing didn't make sense at all. Sundering Sanctum was a secret realm, so why was he looking at it outside?

The woman had an answer for that too. "While that is the Sundering Sanctum, it's only a part of it," she said. "I don't know much about the mechanics behind what is happening there, but I've heard seniors say that the space inside is crumbling and things are either being destroyed or being sent out here."

"This spire is said to belong to the main tower in the sanctum and is just an upper half of it, while the main rooms of the tower itself are hidden inside the secret realm," she said.

"I see…" Alex said as he watched the spire. The woman was really coming in handy to understand what was going on. "Do you know when this is going to open up?"

"531 days," she said without any hesitation.

Alex was a little taken aback. "Are you sure? That's a very specific number," he said.

"I am sure," she said. "The experts know how to check the date of the sanctum's opening. While the number might be vague at the start, it becomes increasingly certain as it closes in and by now they are absolutely certain."

"However, if by any chance the number I've said is wrong, please take it up with those experts who gave us that guarantee," she said.

Alex couldn't help but chuckle when he heard that.

The woman took him through the market area, letting him know which store sold what and what did not. Alex looked through the stores and ended up going into an Alchemy store to buy a few ingredients.

Once he was done, he walked back out and went along with the woman as she took him through more of the city.

The woman took him through some bizarre pieces of land, mostly a garden that apparently belonged to a past mayor of this city that was split up into multiple pieces of land.

Many thousand years ago, when the Sundering sanctum was still fine, the mayor of this city at the time had made his residence next to the sanctum's entrance and had made a garden around it.

Years later, when the sanctum started bleeding out space, the spire appeared, separating the garden into various many parts that were suddenly far away from each other.

Although it had created a bit of terror at the time, the ruler from that time had deemed this normal and had told the people to preserve this garden as a reminder.

Now, this was a tourist attraction of sorts.

Alex looked at the spire from up close, even though it was still hundreds of meters away. '531 days' he thought. 'Will I be here then?'

That was a question the answer to which he did not have. He would love to be here, but the situation with the assassins made it so that he would definitely have to skip it.

That was a shame for certain.

"After it opens and closes, do you have any idea on when it opens again?" he asked.

"10 years? 12? You cannot be certain, but it is around that time," the woman said.

"I see," Alex said. 'Guess I'll have to go in at that time then. Although, hopefully, I will already find a way out of this place by then.'

They went around the city for a little while longer and Alex came across a massive, almost industrial building towards the southern part of the city.

"Kang Mega Workshop?" Alex read the name of the building. "Kang… Ah, the one that mines that metals."

It had been a while since he had thought about the metals from the Sunless lands. He had thought of going there to mine some metals for himself but had later planned against it.

'Although, now should be a perfect time for that,' he thought. However, he quickly got rid of the idea. The last thing he should be doing right now is being in places where he would have to be around strong people all the time.

'They own those lands, right? It's not like the Endless tunnel where you could mine as much as you wanted to,' he thought.

He was quickly disillusioned with the idea of mining more. Besides, what was he even going to do with them? Make some more swords? He already had them.

After that, there wasn't much to look at in the city, so he let the woman go. It was getting quite late anyway.

"Here, for your services," Alex handed her a few spirit stones.

The woman thanked him but she could feel her hands bulge a little while holding them. She looked down at the amount and was shocked.

There should have been about 8 spirit stones for the 3 hours she had spent showing around the city, but instead, there were about 20-something.

"Little brother, you—"

She looked up to tell him, but Alex was already mixed with the crowd, nowhere to be seen anymore.

She still looked for him for a minute or two, but seeing that he was gone, a small smile appeared on her face as she pocketed that money.

She decided to go buy some of those tasty dishes from the restaurant that she wouldn't normally buy due to how little she made.

Today she had received a hefty tip, and she was going to use it to feed her children.

Alex walked out of the Sundering city. He was only there to buy some alchemy ingredients but had ended up spending a few more hours than necessary to go on a tour led by that woman.

Now that the tour was over, it was time for him to go back on track.

He left the Sundering City and flew north. He sat on his boat as he spent his time improving his ingredients while waiting to see the Eastwatch city in the distance.

He reached the city around midnight and continued flying. The city was just a milestone for him to know where he was going after all.

He reached the Hiddenbay city that he had been to so many times and then went out of it into the ocean.

He hid the boat and flew on his own, being alert at every step. Even if he was close to the coast, there was nothing that said the stronger sea beasts wouldn't come here.

Just as he expected, a gigantic fish with tentacles for a beard flew out.

Alex looked at the beast with a Saint Core 4th realm cultivation base and smiled. His first fight in a long time had arrived.