Star Gate

Chapter 296: First Visit To White Moon City (I)

Some books introduced savage territory as places where the natives ate raw meat and drank blood! So that was the primitive state that those of the central region assigned to Silver Moon!

“Silver Moon’s martial world was indeed mighty twenty years ago,” He Yong announced loudly. “But with the speed of supernatural development, Silver Moon is now so far behind the times that it cannot be seen. Other than Hou Xiaochen, there’s only a few Solars barely propping up the province.

“Novas might be the premier existence in the central region today, but they might be replaced tomorrow! Anyone or any organization might discover the mysteries of the next level! There are even supernatural cities in the central region!”

“What are supernatural cities?” Wang Ming asked blankly. He didn’t understand.

Or rather, he did, but he refused to believe it.

“Cities that are made wholly of supernaturals!” He Yong yelled. “Supernaturals are very mysterious in your eyes, are they not? But do you know how many provinces and people make up the central region? More than two billion! Silver Moon is a barren land for supernaturals, but one appears out of every one thousand in the central region...”

Wang Ming made some quick calculations. One out of every thousand meant ten thousand out of every ten million, meaning one hundred thousand out of every hundred million...

So there were more than two million supernaturals in the central region?!

Two million!

His jaw dropped and the look in his eyes was dazed. He knew a bit about the central region, but he’d never been himself. He’d learned a little about it through those who’d visited. Two million supernaturals?!

That... wasn’t possible! How was it possible?

There weren’t many Night Watchers in Silver Moon’s entire Night Watcher system, including the various branches in cities. There were at most one thousand, and many of them were just Starlight.

The three great organizations, Sword Sect, Light Island, and some other smaller organizations had amounted to one or two thousand at most. That made for a maximum total of five thousand supernaturals in Silver Moon!

This was a number that included the military, Inspectorate, and provincial government. There was a population in the hundreds of millions in Silver Moon. The central region saw one out of a thousand being supernatural, Silver Moon saw one out of twenty thousand. It was a twenty times difference!

“Why is this?” Li Hao was also surprised. “Other than the Heaven Favored, supernaturals need to induct energy into their body. Not everyone can make the crossover. Perhaps Silver Moon does lag behind the times, but a difference of twenty times is too much! Why are there so many more supernaturals in the central region?”

Two million didn’t seem like much when compared to the size of the population, but two million supernaturals was more than the combined population of two Silver Cities.

Li Hao had dismissed the concept of a supernatural city. But now that he thought about it more, was it hard to construct a city for supernaturals to gather?

Supernaturals were domineering and ran the gamut from metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. If they were truly of a mind to, they could instantly forge a city in the wilderness. There were so many talents they could draw upon.

“First,” He Yong laughed to see the other two stunned speechless. “Silver Moon avoids the topic of supernaturals. Barely any mundanes know about the domain. In the central region, everyone knows about it due to the continued war. The supernatural world is not shrouded in mystery and everyone wishes to become part of it.

“Second, the key limitation to energy induction is reserve of mysterious power. The various organizations, nine ministries, and heart of the royal family are all in the central region. There is no shortage of mysterious power there and supernatural deaths are a constant occurrence due to endless battles. Mysterious power emanates from their bodies upon death and many mundanes find themselves accidentally making the crossover.

“Third, the central region has excavated numerous ancient ruins and even discovered a few unpublicized caches of mysterious power stones. Some strategic locales in the ancient civilization were filled with stores of stones!

“Fourth, news travels extremely fast there. Supernatural technology is swiftly disseminated once it is invented, including new variations of the induction method. Silver Moon is still stuck on the method that you invented yourselves, the one that has yet to depart from the system of martial masters!”

Silver Moon’s Energy Induction Method was a revision of a breathing method. The central region used a wholly different method that was more suited for inducting energy!

“Fifth, that area is the heart of the entire Stellar World. Mysterious power is more densely concentrated in the central region. Silver Moon is a border territory, after all.”

“......” Li Hao and Wang Ming sank into prolonged silence with the senior’s explanation. Was the central region... truly that strong?

“If they’re so strong, how come their representatives aren’t worth much?” Wang Ming quickly refuted. “Look at that Nova, he was stabbed to death in one move by our director! You martial masters are still less than Teacher Yuan!”

Stop running your mouth! You may have two million supernaturals, countless geniuses, endless powerhouses, but you still die in one move!

“Pipsqueak, you should know that Yuan Shuo is the essence of all martial masters from the previous generation. That’s why he’s so strong. There are so many Dominators in the central region and some have shut themselves away in closed door cultivation to search for the next step forward. All I can say is that Yuan Shuo enjoys first mover advantage, but he’s not necessarily invincible among his peers!

“As for supernaturals, someone like Hou Xiaochen is one in hundreds of millions. He might’ve been a Dominator in his early days and been a martial dao genius. He benefits from many years of accumulation as the supernatural has developed for only twenty years. However, this doesn’t mean that he’ll always be this strong!

“There will be geniuses or perverse talents in any place, but we can’t draw conclusions from them that an entire region is strong. We can only say that those ones are beyond the ordinary, do you understand?

“The geniuses and powerhouses of the central region think that the border territory is beneath them. They’re unwilling to come here. Keep in mind that some Heaven Favored start as Sunflare and they quickly set foot into Solar. They’re Novas before long. A portion of Heaven Favored have walked far down the path of being a Nova and are within reach of breaking their sixth supernatural lock. They’ll soon be the next level of powerhouse beyond Nova!”

Li Hao smiled. He Yong might be speaking the truth, but what was he saying all this and so much for?

“Senior, since the central region is strong, why care about Silver Moon? The three great organizations have stationed many people here and so are you also present. There are a lot of others assigned to the province, and now they’re afraid of Hou Xiaochen’s next steps. If the central region is so confident of swiftly resolving all issues, would it still care about Hou Xiaochen—a powerhouse of an uncivilized waste?”

Why be afraid of this if you’re as strong as you say?

“It’s not fear...” He Yong grinned. “Forget it, there’s no need to belittle Silver Moon. It’s our home, after all. Hou Xiaochen and the others are indeed remarkably extraordinary. I say all this just so you youngsters will understand that it is not a good thing to look at the sky from the bottom of a well!

“To put things bluntly, I might still only be a half step Dominator if I hadn’t left Silver Moon. My horizons have broadened after I left, so while I haven't set foot into Summoner of Spirit, I still have some of my own unique experiences on the path of Dominator!”

Li Hao didn’t say anything; perhaps the man was right. Seeing more of the world and advancing one’s outlook could indeed make one more open-minded. Take himself, for example, he’d become the strongest person around a long time ago if he compared himself to the Demon Hunters. But after witnessing that stroke, seeing the back of that figure, and watching that bloodthirsty fiend...

The young man suddenly felt that even Hou Xiaochen wasn’t worth speaking of despite being so strong that he shook the world. What of it?

Nothing of it.

Li Hao wasn’t moved, he was just astounded at how deeply Hou Xiaochen hid himself. The man was indeed pretty strong, but to say that he was invincible? That was an enormous joke.

Whether it was his ancestor’s stroke or the ancients he saw, any of them would easily crush Hou Xiaochen beneath their fingers. If such a person appeared right now to slap the director to death with one palm, Wang Ming and the others might lose their minds with shock. But all Li Hao would think was that okay, so powerhouses like these exist in this day and age as well.

Therefore, he thought it to be a good idea to go out and see the world like He Yong said. However, was the world they saw so much more vast than Silver Moon?

Not necessarily!

Silver Moon possessed some very special ruins that Li Hao thought even the central region might lack. The stone door, for example, and the city of Battle Heaven. Were the ruins in the central region as impressive?

......

Three motorcycles sped over the land. Though he operated a car clumsily, Li Hao was as if a fish in water when it came to this mode of transportation. Wang Ming couldn’t extract himself from the world that He Yong had painted and was beginning to stew in self reproach.

Li Hao had forgotten their conversation long ago. So what about the central region?

He Yong kept an eye on them after his speech and grinned when he saw Li Hao drive on without a change in expression, as if the young man hadn’t been affected at all by his words. “Li Hao, do you want to take a look around the central region? You don’t have to go to White Moon City, you can come with me directly to Skystar City if you want.

“You should know that Skystar is the center of the world! There will be plenty of inventions that you’ve never seen before. Something you find utterly precious today might be a trinket there...

“There are many martial masters in Skystar and even more supernaturals. It’s a gathering point of countless powerhouses. There’s the famous Royal Institute of the Supernatural, as well as academies by the nine ministries. Endless Heaven Favored and representatives from the various large factions spar and exchange moves with each other, advancing the development of the supernatural domain...”

“Nah, I’m from a small place and have never seen a society like this,” Li Hao replied calmly. “I might go in the future, but right now, I’m just a country bumpkin who hasn’t seen the world even in Silver Moon. I’ve never been to White Moon City. Visiting the provincial capital is enough to broaden my worldviews.”

He was a country bumpkin, a bumpkin of bumpkins! He’d only been to two other cities in his life, both of which were similar to Silver City. He’d never even been to White Moon City, a metropolis of thirty million people.

Was it very prosperous there?

He didn’t know.

What was a place of thirty million like?

He didn’t know either.