Chương 113: Chapter 4

Ben spent his time exploring the ship and walking around on the outer decks. The ship's decks were so long if you were to run around the ship for times you would have run a mile.

As the sun set into the ocean Ben went back inside to his cabin and began to cultivate. During the night he slowly began to realize his cultivation felt stronger as the ship continued north.

He began to realize the amount of Qi may not be the same around this entire planet. Ben remembered from the cultivation novels stories he had read this also was true. Many stories described Ley Lines which emitted Qi and/or Mana.

'Athena I can feel my cultivation speeding up as if I were in the Qi Gathering Chamber on low levels. Are there Qi ley lines which provided stronger sources of Qi in this world.'

*Ding!* [There are not necessarily Ley Lines. They would be better described as hot zones where Qi and Mana are emitted. It may be this new landmass we are traveling toward has hot zones located on it. Remember how I told you monsters could be naturally created in this world? They are generally created from the epicenters of these hot zones.]

'This new continent may have monsters on it then if we find these hot zones. This new landmass might turn out to be quite different from the one we began on. I also found it strange how the naval crew spoke of a whole ship of cultivators trying to commandeer the yacht. I don't think there were even enough cultivators on the entire continent we just left and now this new land happened to have enough to fill an entire ship. I guess we will find out what is going on soon enough'

*Ding!* [We should reach our destination in approximately ten hours and we will then know the answer to these questions.]

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Ben received a call from the captain on the bridge in his cabin nine hours later. He was given an update that they should sight land within the next hour. He left his cabin and knocked on Mythia's cabin door which was located across the hall from his and they both went up to the bridge.

He knew she was excited to see this new land so he made sure to bring her along with him to watch for when it is first sighted. Mythia was once a simple farmer's daughter from a small little town. For her to travel across the ocean and see a new land would be like someone from Earth getting the chance to travel to Mars.

The sun had been up for a few hours now so they could see in every direction. They talked with the captain to see how everything was running with the ship and then went out onto the balcony that encircled the bridge.

Forty minutes later Athena spoke up and informed Ben a partition of her memory had just been unlocked. Ben was informed his map would be updated shortly and that she was currently sorting through a massive amount of data about the continent and its people.

It would seem whoever had created Athena kept the secrets of the world locked in her memory until Ben had traveled close enough to them. He would never know what was on the other side of Planet Victus unless he made the journey to find out.

This wasn't a bad arrangement because it made these new discoveries thrilling. One thing which had always depressed Ben about Earth is there aren't any lands which have not been discovered. Anyone could hop online and find information, photos, and videos on any part of the world.

Now he was living on a planet where each continent was like its own little world. They had no idea how many other people lived out there on this planet with them or where they might be living.

It was an exciting experience for a young man to get a chance to travel and discover new lands possibly never seen before by human eyes. In high school he had often daydreamed about how it must have been for earlier explorers who were the first to set foot on undiscovered lands.

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Finally, the ships many horns sounded out when a shadow of land was sighted in the distance. Ben opened his map and found he could finally view the new continent.

[New Landmass Map]: [https://i.postimg.cc/sxBKQfb1/Novel-2-Map.jpg]

The continent where his Avalon Kingdom was located is 1200 miles across from coast to coast. This new landmass is 2300 miles wide. It is over twice as big as the Avalon continent!

One of the first things that caught his attention was the diverse biome regions. Across the southern part of the continent, he saw rich grasslands and forests. The far southeast was what looked to be savannas or deserts and across the entire northern region was an elevated region with scattered patches of snow.

This continent reminded him of the northern located countries on Earth that would have snow for a large part of the year. This continent has a long mountain chain running from east to west. North of that mountain chain there were higher elevations than the lower southern region. From what he could see the further you travel north the higher you would climb in elevation.

If an area had a high enough elevation it would receive longer winters. It was the same in Arizona, the state Ben used to live. You could be down in the southern valley in comfortable shorts and shirt weather but if you drove north a few hours to Flagstaff you could actually go snow skiing. This was all possible due to the Mogollon Rim which was a much higher elevation than the southern part of the state.

Another thing that shocked Ben was the number of towns located on his map. The outlying towns of each kingdom or empire each held close to the same population levels the capitals held back on his original continent!

Mythia standing next to Ben looked up at him with a puzzled look and said, "It feels different here I feel...like...I am in my Qi Chamber right now."

Ben had been so preoccupied with reaching the new land and evaluating all the new information he didn't notice it until Mythia made and offhand comment about the Qi. It was dense here! Mythia was right it felt like the Qi chamber!

Did this mean the Qi was four or five times more dense here than the Qi on the Avalon continent? If so then the cultivators here should be stronger even if they have crappy cultivation techniques!

With enough time and being exposed to these high Qi levels any cultivator could make decent gains. They would need to be careful with this new land there were bound to be strong cultivators.

Just look at the Aregard Royal Cultivator if he had been exposed to this environment for the past one hundred years he could be a stage seven or eight cultivator by now!

Ben made a mental note to one day build a Qi chamber here to see if it will make the rich Qi density here five times stronger. If it did he might begin to make rapid advancements in his cultivation that has begun to slowly progress do to him getting higher in the stages and not having enough Qi.

He explained the situation to Mythia about the Qi and hotspots before going back to looking over the continent map.

As Ben familiarize himself with the map he noticed a smaller region named the Caegon Dynasty. It held four towns and one capital just like the Aregard Kingdom but the small towns populations were anywhere from 60k to 80k people. The capital of Goldcrest had just over 70k people living there and the small Aregard outer towns held only a couple a thousand people in each of them.

This new continent has millions of people living across it in each of these unfamiliar Dynasties, Kingdoms, and Empires. There were actually Empires here with nearly a million people living in each of them.

Ben found the southern island where the cultivators were spotted. The region was called the Zion Brotherhood and it sounded a lot like a cultivation sect. There is only one small settlement on the island with a population of five thousand people but if they are all cultivators then it would be a scary thing to discover.

For now, Ben decided to steer clear of that island and head toward the Caegon Dynasty. There are numerous small islands and bays south of it where they could anchor the ship out of sight.

If he were to just anchor this huge Cruiser off the coastline it would be discovered by passing trade ships or sighted from land.

He thought starting in the smallest region would be the best plan. They would be easier to investigate without standing out.

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The troops on board were left under the captain's authority. They were to patrol the decks of the ship and watch out for anyone who attempts to attack or board the ship.

The captain was given permission to use the guns to protect the ship and if they ran into cultivators he told them to head out into the ocean and return a few days later when the cultivators had left.

Ben, Mythia, and his two spies had the crew take them to shore aboard a small dinghy. The crew rowed the dinghy up onto shore and headed back to the ship after safely depositing Ben and his party ashore.

There was a town located only a few miles from where they were dropped off. They all walked to the town and before they entered Ben gave his spies five hundred gold coins each and purchased three interspatial rings.

He gave his spies each a ring to store their custom outfits they had made in Wolfmere and the money he gave them. Mythia also was given a ring and five hundred gold coins. If they were to somehow become separated he wanted her to have enough money to survive on until he could meet back up with her.

The two spies were left on their own to discreetly explore and investigate. They were unsure of how long they would be on this continent so he instructed them to head back to the dinghy landing spot after two weeks.

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Ben and Mythia entered the southernmost town called Greenlyn in the Caegon Dynasty. The two spies hung back and entered the town separate from them.

They were caught off guard as they entered the town of Greenlyn. It was called a town but it was more impressive than any capital in the eight kingdoms.

The of town Greenlyn has a smaller population than Goldcrest but the architecture and infrastructure made Goldcrest look like a backwater village. The roads were paved with stone bricks and most of the buildings were made of white painted stone blocks with red colored clay shingle roofs.

Even the height of the building stood out. Goldcrest was made up of one and two story buildings but here Ben spotted buildings which were up to five stories tall.

The streets were wide enough to allow foot and cart traffic to travel without causing delays. The people walking the streets spoke the same language used back home but with an accent.

Ben was so impressed with the town he decided he would open a store here. It was obvious this town would bring in the same profits as his other stores back home just by seeing how many people lived here.

Mythia followed Ben around for the rest of the day as they found out how to purchase property in Greenlyn. They looked at properties for sale until the sun began to set.

Before it got too late they found an inn and rented a room with two double size beds for the night.

The next morning Ben continued looking at properties and purchased one he wanted before noon. The property was a little bigger than he needed but he liked the location. This property currently had a business that had gone out of business on it so Ben would need to demolish it before he could begin.

The next few days he worked during the night to deconstruct the old building and to recreate a copy of the stores he made back home. He set his store back about a hundred feet from the main road and created a nice park with lawns, gardens, and fountains out front.

The front park had benches placed around to allow people to sit and relax in front of his store. The interior of the store was a three-story copy of his other stores with a large community apartment a Restaurant on the third floor.

Ben had built a huge multi-level basement with workshops and farms under the property so that the store would be self-reliant. Once his newly recruited Merchants were trained on how to run the store and operate the Market menus, Ben and Mythia left town to travel north toward the capital.

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As they traveled to Woodford the capital city of the Caegon Dynasty they passed by quite a few travelers. Ben and Mythia used their Whirlwind Techniques to shorten the time it took to reach the capital.

They had spent a week and most of Ben's money in Greenlyn so they wanted to reach the capital before it was time to head back and check in with the spies and the ship.

Woodford City looked similar to Greenlyn. The main differences are it is bigger and has a larger population. The main street was huge and it was lined with impressive businesses.

Ben wanted to open another store here along with other establishments but he did not have the time or money to attempt it yet. He had also kept Mythia cooped up in his new store for a week as he built and stocked it so, he wanted to let her have some fun.

They rented a cart and driver and went for a tour of the city and stayed in an expensive inn overnight. They went shopping and bought custom tailored female clothes for Mythia in the style popular within the city and ate at the best of restaurants.

The two of them had fun just being tourists for a few days in the Caegon Dynasty capital.

They spent three days in Woodford City and then had to leave to meet up with everyone. They traveled south to the beach they were originally dropped off on and met up with the male and female spies.

Ben talked with his spies about their experiences as they all waited an hour for the Cruiser to send out a dinghy at the designated pickup time. Without delay the sailors rowed back to the ship with Ben's regrouped party.

Ben and Mythia were both thrilled after their two-week journey and were excitedly talking about what the other kingdoms would be like as they drew closer the huge Warship anchored in the distance hidden bay.