Chapter 130: Freedom - 130
After seeing the demon race, Zhou Fan went around to the other planets. There were many different species and some of them looked like species from earth. There were also species that weren't even humanoid like the bees.
Zhou Fan didn't bother with them for long as he had already seen most of the species. There would be no more evolutions or species that weren't already on the planet for a while since Zhou Fan had canceled the life Qi barrier.
After taking another look around the solar system and seeing that nothing had changed, Zhou Fan went to the grand hall. He arrived quickly and walked through the entrance, but there was nobody there.
With a single glance, Zhou Fan was able to tell that it had been explored, but not really used. The book was gone from its place on the throne and some of the couches had clearly been sat on. Whoever had visited had clearly been in humanoid form, or a celestial since the only couches that had been sat on were the small ones and not the huge ones.
Despite the size of the grand hall, it was designed for existences in humanoid form or existences simply small enough to walk around normally. Even the biggest furniture would only hold someone the size of a house. One issue was that the throne was too small for existences like the titanosaur that had huge humanoid forms.
It probably wouldn't matter since the only person with enough talent to maybe take the throne from Anna would be the mermaid boy, who was far too young. Overall, the grand hall was a comfortable and luxurious place, and Zhou Fan decided to rest there until enough time had passed for things to become interesting.
As of now, all the interesting people were either in seclusion or wandering around the solar system and talking to the new sentient species. To Zhou Fan, all of that was boring enough for him to want to enter seclusion himself, but all the interesting things would pass before he came out.
Anna would have broken through, the mermaid boy would have probably reached the 3rd level of void traversing, and the other rulers would have probably finished everything with the new species.
Therefore, Zhou Fan planned on relaxing in the grand hall for a year or two. Once that time passed, the mermaid boy would have started exploring the upper world and he could watch that.
Zhou Fan spent the next three years living in the grand hall. He would often look at the Zhou World and watch people go through their life journeys. Sometimes, he wished he hadn't been the first cultivator. If he hadn't, he may be able to work up from the bottom and eventually reach the peak instead of starting from the top and staying there.
Of course, Zhou Fan wouldn't actually prefer that. It was just a thought that crossed his mind every now and then.
At some point in the third year, Zhou Fan saw Jack at the entrance of the mermaid cave. He looked much more mature than before and only carried his trident with him as he left the mermaid cave for the first time. Not a single person followed him.
By now, Jack had reached the 9th level of soul formation. Despite Finley's persuasion, he decided that it was time for him to leave the cave and explore the world, and he wanted to do it alone. Zhou Fan teleported above Jack and started watching him on his journey.
As Jack left the cave, he started swimming around the bottom of the ocean. It was much darker than the mermaid cave that was lit up by many glowing stones and other light producing things. Luckily, Jack was at the soul formation realm and even if he didn't use his divine sense, he would be able to see just fine.
Jack spent a couple of days swimming around the bottom section of the ocean, seeing many species he had never even heard of and also many types of ores and rocks.
Despite the fact that he was a mermaid, Jack preferred to use legs. Therefore, instead of swimming up, he transformed his fins into legs and flew up. He broke through the bottom layer very quickly and arrived at the middle, then the top, and finally, Jack broke through the water and arrived in the air.
At first, he was completely unprepared and started to struggle to breathe. However, he soon got used to it and put his arms out, enjoying the air. Since he had been born, he had never once been out of water. To him, the air felt so free and peaceful. After relishing in the air for a bit, Jack started to actually look around. For thousands of miles, there was no land whatsoever, so Jack started flying in a random direction. He started off slow, but sped up faster and faster until he was going thousands of miles per hour.
Since he had never even left the cave before, he had never been able to move fast without running into a wall. Flying in the endless air gave him a feeling of freedom that was hard to describe. His initial homesickness was quickly replaced by happiness. With his speed, it didn't take long before Jack saw land.
What he saw was untouched land that was only occupied by roaming beasts, not to be confused with the beasts from the beast lands since most of the beasts at the place Jack arrived didn't have any real sentience, and those that did had very little of it.
Even so, Jack, who knew nothing of the world outside the cave, excitedly landed on the ground. He walked around the terrain, which was a forest, and looked at all the new things. The first thing he interacted with was the ground. The dirt was so dry and hard, unlike the little bit of dirt in the mermaid cave.
The next thing he was interested in was the trees.
Chapter 131: Exploration - 131
Jack flew to the trees and started to observe them. After he made sure they were safe to touch, he started to feel them.
Jack continued to explore the small area and felt excited with all the new things. He found plants and even bushes with fruits.
He ate a couple of them, but they didn't taste very good since they were all poisonous. Luckily, Jack was unaffected by them due to his strength.
Jack was only satisfied with his exploration after five hours passed and he had looked at everything, from the worms in the ground to the clouds in the sky.
Even the sun and the heat it gave off was new to Jack, since the sun didn't reach the bottom of the ocean. As the sun started going down, Jack began to move inwards, away from the ocean.
He walked for an hour until he looked up and saw the moon. He was in awe at it and looked for 5 minutes straight before he snapped out of it. To Jack, the moon was even more shocking than the sun because of the glow it gave off. He could also actually look at it while the sun just seemed like a ball of flames in the sky.
Just as he snapped out of his trance, he was caught in another trance when he saw the stars.
Eventually, Jack was able to regain his wits and continue his walk. After another three hours, Jack suddenly heard a branch snap. He stopped, but before he could release his divine sense, a tiger leaped at him from behind one of the trees.
Seeing a beast that he had never seen before, Jack instinctually pointed out with his trident and shot an extremely strong attack at it. The tiger didn't even have a chance to react as it disintegrated and the land behind it was turned into a crater.
When Jack saw the damage he had done, he was extremely surprised. Despite being so strong, he had never actually attacked anything or anyone. Therefore, when he saw the changes his power brought to the land and how quickly the tiger was erased, he was genuinely surprised.
The attack made him realize how strong he was, and how fun using his Qi to its fullest extent was. Jack flew up in the air and looked down upon the land. The crater he had made was a mile in diameter since he hadn't actually used his full power.
Now, however, Jack wanted to attack with all his strength to see just how strong he was. He held his trident out and pointed it towards another big piece of land with trees.
He then started to power up his trident with his favorite Qi. Gold Qi. It covered the golden trident and made it shine more than it already was.
He continued to power it up until he could tell that using any more Qi would cause him to suffer the effects of Qi exhaustion. He then released the attack.
The attack was a condensed golden beam that shot towards the ground at an extreme speed. It reached its target almost instantly and a huge explosion ensued.
Jack, who wasn't expecting such a thing, was unprepared and was hit by his own shockwave, causing him to fall out of the air. Luckily, he wasn't injured at all and was just a little shaken up.
Jack quickly got up from the ground and flew to the point of the explosion. He didn't fly for more than a second as he saw a huge crater up ahead. It was twenty miles in diameter and reached a mile down.
Jack's jaw fell to the floor when he saw the crater. He never once imagined that he could do such damage.
However, Jack was unaware just how strong his attack was. With the constant upgrades of the Zhou World, the ground got harder and the space shattered less easily. If Jack had done such an attack on earth, he had a good chance of blowing up a tenth of the planet.
After he had stopped staring at the attack, Jack continued to move inlands. After a while, Jack felt no progress and started to fly at very fast speeds. He eventually accelerated to his max speed, but he still wasn't really getting anywhere.
This time, Jack resigned to his fate and continued to fly. After a day of flying had passed, Jack saw a small village ahead. He was excited at first, but he then saw a giant palace floating in the skies near it.
The palace gave off an oppressive atmosphere that he had never felt before. It was floating in the sky as if nothing else was important. After Jack stared for a while, he looked down at the village near it. It was occupied by half beast-half humanoid creatures.
Although he had never seen such a species before, Jack quickly got used to them and assumed that they were the beings that ruled over the lands.
Instead of flying towards the floating palace, Jack decided to first stop at the village and hear what the people had to say about it. Since he had already transformed into his legs, Jack didn't even have to change his appearance before he entered the village.
Although he fit in perfectly, there were still a few people that looked at him since it was rare for newcomers to enter the village.
Jack walked around the village until he saw a friendly looking guy with the body of a humanoid creature, but the ears and nose of a wolf.
"Hello sir, do you mind if I ask you something?" Jack said.
Luckily for him, there was only one language in the Zhou world.
"Go ahead." The wolf-man said.
"What is that floating palace?" Jack asked.
As Jack and the old man started to talk, Zhou Fan was moving to the floating palace.
If Jack had the courage, Zhou Fan planned on lowering the difficulty of the stairs so that he could enter the palace. He was doing it both because he wanted to talk to Jack face to face, although he would be using a different face, and because Jack's talent and affinities fit the floating palace perfectly.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
121 Power
stone 
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