1152 Enter the Dome

Alex took his father to one of the guest rooms in the palace and called for some servants to bring some food for his father.

"You're going somewhere?" Graham asked.

"Yeah, I'll be with Scarlet for a bit," Alex said. "Just eat what they bring you and rest. I will make some pills for your friends later on, and after everything is over, I will teach you about cultivation and whatnot. You will have to start on that journey."

Graham nodded. "Alright, I will rest," he said and lay on the bed.

Alex smiled and turned around to leave. He arrived in the palace hall where Scarlet was with the elders.

"Oh, you're here," Scarlet said, making everyone stop talking. "Let's go."

"But lady Phoenix, we have to—"

"Fine, fine, do it tomorrow. I'm tired and would like to go rest," she said as she flew away from the hall.

"Understood," the elders bowed toward her and said nothing more.

"What was that about?" Alex asked.

"A pain in the butt, if you ask me," Scarlet said. "Damn, I didn't realize how annoying it was being a ruler. Probably because I never really understood what it felt like not having to work at all. Ah, it was so good."

"Hey, you don't get to slack off," Alex said.

"Everyone else does," Scarlet said as she flew away. "Anyway, let's go to my home."

"You don't consider this your home, huh?" Alex asked.

"Of course not," Scarlet said. "This is just a front for the people that want to see a proper palace for a proper ruler. At least that was what my senior told me before leaving. Anyway, let's leave."

Alex nodded and walked to the massive garden in the back. His pill swine were still here, which reminded him that he still had one more pill to make for them.

"Sigh, that dao pill is going to be very annoying to figure out," he said.

"The what?" Scarlet turned around.

"Nothing, just thinking about some pills I will have to make in the near future," Alex said.

"I see," Scarlet said. "Forget about that though, let's go in."

The dome shuddered suddenly, and the massive gate that Alex had seen before started sliding open. The gate was about 10 meters tall and 10 meters wide, and from what Alex could see, nearly a meter thick.

He could also notice formations drawn directly onto the metal gate, which had now slid away entirely.

Scarlet entered through the gate, and Alex walked in too. From the outside, he could not see anything inside at all. It was as if all light was blocked from coming out of the dome.

As he passed through the veil of darkness, he arrived in the light. A brilliant, red light that seemed to give off so much heat that had Alex's body not been attuned to withstanding heat, he would've had to start using his Dao.

"Woah!" he said as he saw the green landscape that surrounded molten lava that went from one side of the dome to the other.

There were no houses to stay in, no buildings to work in. Everything was out in the open, and that surprised Alex very much. Even so, he couldn't voice it as he was stunned by the land inside the dome.

He looked up at the dome itself, which seemed very translucent, with barely any light passing through. That was enough for Alex to see the world, however.

There was a lake in the forest to his left, one that was at the base of a waterfall. The middle area that was full of lava was nothing more than a single line of land, confusing him with how it even came to be.

His best guess was a formation of some sort.

He looked at the bed of flowers to the other side of the magma line, and then at the center where a massive piece of rock stood directly in the molten lava, not affected by the heat at all.

"Is that where you stay?" Alex asked when he saw the rock.

"That's where I go to cultivate, yes," Scarlet said. "You want a tour of the place?"

"Absolutely," Alex said. "But, shouldn't you first open the dome up, and let in some light?"

"Oh, the dome is already open," Scarlet said.

Alex looked up once more. "No, it isn't," he said.

"Well, not like that," Scarlet said. "The dome can't be opened as the gate did. I say openly because it's letting all the light through without stopping almost all of it.

Alex was still confused. "Then why isn't it as bright?" he asked.

"Uh… there," Scarlet pointed to one side of the place, that was the starting line where the magma was.

When Alex looked in the direction she pointed at, he saw something rather curious. A small area in the magma was glowing very brightly as if a flashlight was shining in that area.

When Alex looked carefully, he realized that sunlight from all around the dome was hitting that place.

"Oh," he said as he quickly looked up. Now that he was looking more carefully and was actually searching for it, he could see most of the sunlight had actually bent after they entered through the dome and were converging onto a very, very small area, heating that place to a high temperature.

'All that energy in one place,' Alex thought as he looked at the 50-kilometer-wide dome in shock. 'No wonder it is all molten.'

"You like staying around magma, is it?" he asked.

"Sunlight is good for our body," Scarlet said. "Not only is it good sustenance, if we can have enough of it, but we can also actually improve our physical body too. Although, it's not as easy as those damn tigers, it's still quite good."

"That's a common trait of the Phoenix? Surviving off of sunlight?" Alex asked.

"Common in the Phoenixes at least," Scarlet said. "There are others with phoenix blood that may necessarily be a phoenix, who can also have that trait."

"I see," Alex said. "That's quite a good trait to have."

"Alright. Come on. Let me take you on that tour," Scarlet said and the two of them moved toward the forest.

They toured for a short time, going through most of the locations inside this location. There were actually some buildings on the very another side of the dome, along with another gate that led directly to the Intercontinental Teleportation formations.

After being done with it all, Scarlet brought Alex to the massive rock on the magma.

Alex looked to one side and saw that the converging sunlight had come halfway to the stone they were on already. He wondered just how hot it was going to be if it actually fell on them.

"Okay, now that we are done, you can start explaining," Scarlet said.

"Where do I start?" Alex asked as he sat beside her.

"Hmm, start with what you know about why you think I was tempted to bond with you," Scarlet said.

"Alright," Alex said. "I'm not sure about this so this is just a guess, but I believe it has something to do with my body's constitution."

"Hmm? Explain," Scarlet said.

"I got the idea after hearing about your attack and now your own physical trait," Alex said. "Phoenixes seem to be connected with the sun somehow. Do you have any idea why that is?"

Scarlet thought for a bit and answered. "There is a belief in the Phoenix clan that when we were blessed with our powers, the god that blessed us broke off a part of the sun and put it in our body."

"Our bodies were too weak to handle it, so we lost most of the sun, which later turned into the moon, but we still remain a shard of the sun," Scarlet said. "Of course, that's complete bull crap, but that is what is believed."

"I see," Alex said. "Well, I believe the connection I have found is that I have the Sun God's Div— no, Celestial Yang body."

"Okay," Scarlet said while nodding her head. "What's that?"

Alex hesitated a bit. "Have you never heard of the Sun God either?" he asked.

Scarlet shook her head. "I don't think such a god exists," she said.

"I told you before kid, Sun God doesn't exist," Godslayer said from his mental space.

"But that is my body," Alex said. "It has something to do with the sun, which is why I thought you were tempted to bond with me."

"Ah, I see. I can see how it would make sense," Scarlet said. "So your body is related to the sun huh?"

Alex nodded.

"What can it do?" Scarlet asked.

"Uhh, quite a few things," Alex said. "Let's see… I can devour any pill or poison or even beast cores and completely get rid of everything but the energy in it. Meaning, I can never be poisoned either. I can… collect yang to improve my Qi, which is why my current Qi is so much stronger than my cultivation base. My Yang Qi can also activate any formation or script as well. I can also consume someone's spirit and improve my mental strength."

Alex wondered if there was something else that he could do because of his constitution that others couldn't. "Oh right, weirdly enough, I can read the human language, without having ever learned or even seen it before in my life. That is the weirdest of all surely."

Scarlet looked at him with narrowed eyes for a full minute, unnerving Alex in the process, before finally speaking. "None of those sound like they have anything to do with the sun though."

"What exactly can your body do that is related to the sun?"