101 Finding Home

Yun and Wuying spent an incredible amount of time testing and recovering from the myriad portals within the star chamber. They had seen everything from lush jungles with blood-sucking insects the size of their torso, grasslands with massive bovine creatures roaming about munching on grass and stomping on the annoying beasts that tried to take them down in packs for their next meal, empty star-fields, and even portal that was completely submerged underwater with a volcano exploding right next to it, spewing incredible amounts of lava directly over the exit of the portal.

These were all incredible, but they were less than helpful.

Many of the worlds they checked had Heavenly Qi even weaker than their own, or even a strange sort of Heavenly Qi that they couldn't seem to interact with much at all. In a few of the portals they saw what looked like the habitations of small tribes, and even a few massive cities made out of all sorts of stones and woods. The scenes they were seeing were incredibly alluring, but there was no way to know if these places were safe for them to travel to. Many of them were outright death if they were to travel through, and even some of the ones that were less dangerous were still an extremely high level of peril for these two young people.

As they neared the last few bays of portals Yun looked over at Wuying with a hint of despair. These final portals featured a total of four formations on them, and the next one Yun was going to check held the only formation of its kind in the entire space. They looked at each other for a moment before Yun reached forth and opened the portal for them to look through. As she did, a burst of frigid air impacted her palm as it passed through space.

On the other side of this portal was an arctic wasteland. Snow drifted and snowbanks rolled across the land like sand dunes in a desert. The only problem was that, in this arctic wasteland, every bit of snow was a light purple color. Yun sighed sadly, withdrawing her hand from the portal. There were three more symbols left to check.

Wuying tried the next door, one that had two more portals attached to it. Placing his hand on it he activated it and started looking through the passage. Within was another arctic wasteland, but this one was bordered incredibly strongly by what appeared to be a jungle.

With disappointment inherent on their faces they moved on to testing the next constellation's portal.

With two symbols left to check they each stepped up to one and prepared to test. Yun's portal began to shine with a pale blue light, while Wuying's portal shone with a gentle red.

Wuying looked through his portal and saw something that both excited and distressed him. In front of him was a large volcano that looked to be formed from the same type of stone that the Volcanoes on the Cradle were made of. Wuying nearly shouted from joy before he realized something. The view he had was thousands of meters above the caldera of the volcano. If they entered this space they would most certainly die from the fall before they burned up in the caldera.

Yun, however, was extremely excited by her doorway. Looking through it there was a large tree right in front of her, but it was the tree itself that was the most exciting to her. This was a giant Ironwood tree! These were quite common in the forests on the Cradle and were used for all sorts of tools. Once subjected to fire for a short period the wood of these trees would become as hard as iron.

She looked over at Wuying to see that he had a minor amount of excitement on his face as well.

"Wuying, what's up? Is there something about your portal?"

"It looks like it could be right, but this one is so far up in the air that we would die from the fall. Let me look into the other two portals for this symbol."

Yun looked a little puzzled, but decided to look at it as well.

They both took one of the other two portals and looked into them. Wuying's showed a sandy region full of enormous amounts of heat and multiple volcanoes. This one obviously wasn't any help, as it was clearly a land of death for two cultivators who were not yet self-sustaining.

He looked behind him to see Yun activate her portal as well. Within hers was the edge of a forest covered in ice and snow. The deciduous trees were all bowed with the weight of the snow in their boughs and the woods looked vaguely familiar.

They both knew that, even if this was their world, it was so far away from their home that they may never make it back alive. They sighed in despair again before they tested the last remaining portal, the one matching Yun's previous symbol.

On the other side was a strange view. It appeared to be a cave, but looking through the mouth of the cave you could see large tracts of forest and a large winding river. The forests in this region were largely conifers, well adapted to the cold, and the sluggish river looked to be splitting just to the right of their view. They sighed again, but as they did Yun had a thought and drew out what they were seeing on a piece of parchment.

"Wuying, come look at this with me..."

She called him over to look at the parchment, and when she showed him what was on it he looked back at the portal with his eyes wide.

"Could it be. . . ?"