9. To the capital

The journey continued, Kai and his family reached the next village before sunset. The village was very similar to their village, but the people here focused on crafting. There are no cultivators in this village, and they have no protection from the wild beasts. If there was a cultivator in this village, he would be like a guardian for this village.

Like how Kai's parents will guard the village if there is any possible danger, and this village doesn't have any protection. But they are close to the capital, so they can get protection from the empire if any crisis arises, but timely assistance may not be possible.

Kai's family spent a night in the village because traveling at night will be inconvenient, and after a night of rest, they started their journey earlier in the morning.

While traveling, Kai started to miss traveling by train or flight because the mode of transport here is very slow. The advanced way of traveling is only available in major cities since it will be easy to trade or for any important matter.

The villages didn't have any kind of advanced travel method. But every major city has a teleportation formation, and with the help of the formation, it is possible to travel to almost all the places in the Dragon Empire.

The sects and top-tier families also have their own traveling methods, and a casual cultivator can subdue a flying beast and use it as a mount, but the point is that the cultivator needs to be strong enough.

Then, after two days of travel, they reached the capital.

"Kai, this is the capital," Alex said as he pointed to a huge gate.

Kai turned and saw a very huge gate with the name of Dragon Soul on it, and some fully armed guards were patrolling there. He was amazed by how big the entrance to the capital was, and since the royal family lives here, the guards are here to maintain order.

The reason for Dragon Soul to be the name of the capital is because it was considered to be the soul of the entire Dragon Empire, and the main reason was that the royal family lives here. The Long family has been ruling the Dragon Empire for countless generations. They had dragon blood in their bodies. They also had two emperors and several supreme-tier power houses.

So the Long family having two emperors means they are considered strong all over the Enlightenment world. Because there are trillions of people who are trying to become emperors in every generation, and there will also be people from previous generations who lost the battle.

The surname or family name has a very big impact in this world. There will be only one family with the same surname because it was related to the fate of their clan. There was only one Long family in the entire Enlightenment World, and the others cannot use the same surname if they want to name their family. It was not only with the Long family, as it was the same all over the world.

The powerful family won't accept outsiders having the same surname as them. They can feel the change in the fate of their family, and after they find out someone was using their surname, they will definitely annihilate them.

That is the reason Kai's family didn't have a surname. They already have the qualifications to choose a surname for themselves, but what if a powerful cultivator suddenly wants to start a family and he happens to choose the same surname as them? Then he will definitely get rid of Kai's family and choose his desired family name. It may sound unreasonable, and in fact it is unreasonable, but here the strong people are rules, and people who don't follow the rules have only one end, and that is death.

"The capital was truly prosperous." Kai muttered after seeing the magnificent gate and the large number of people.

The capital is divided into an outer circle, an inner circle, and finally the core area. The outer circle can be visited by anyone, and the inner circle is the residence of the emperor's nobles. The inner circle can only be visited by cultivators, and for the core area, all people are eligible to visit, but no one would go to that place without anyone's invitation.

Kai always believed that a civilization governed by cultivation would differ significantly from ancient Earth. In fact, it surpasses the advancements made on Earth. As cultivators possess the ability to travel at supersonic speeds, there is no need for advancements in vehicle technology.

Similarly, there had been minimal progress in weaponry, with cultivators relying on traditional cold weapons. However, it is worth noting that a cultivator has the power to effortlessly eradicate an entire country or city at will, rendering the need for conventional firearms obsolete.

But the entertainment here has developed very well, and the communication is also well developed, because if it were compared to the size of Earth, the scale of communication would be at the intergalactic level.

"Mom, what is it?" Kai asked as he saw some people standing in a fighting pose.

"It was a fighting game between people using illusion, and it was developed by the empire," Riya answered to his question.

Kai was surprised by how people developed illusion in such a way; it was like they developed an advanced version of the VR box that can interact with people in real time by using illusion.

"Since people can develop this much just by using illusions, it is also available to everyone. It means it was considered common sense. From the looks of it, the technology is developed very well in a different manner, and I am not the only one with unique ideas." Kai realized this after seeing the capital.

In the beginning, Kai was always proud of himself for developing illusion formation through training. But from the looks of it, the people of this world already know it and have developed it to a very high level.

From this, a conclusion can be drawn: the top-notch family has very deep knowledge that Kai can't even imagine and has a lot of ways of developing their children. This only meant his ideas from Earth wouldn't be unique to himself, as they had already researched them for themselves.

From this, Kai can conclude that people here won't be as ignorant as he thought, and he needs to see the real situation for himself before making a conclusion.

This isn't a novel, and Kai is not the protagonist; instead, it is a real world with countless people living in it, so there will be a lot of geniuses who can develop different things. Kai decided to change his mindset and stopped underestimating people.

Given how long the lifespan is given to the cultivator, they can easily develop things that are beneficial to themselves.

"Mom, I also need to play in the formation," Kai asked, and he decided to think about the problem after the vacation.

"Okay, baby, you can go and play. I will pay the money," Riya replied with a smile on her face.

Then Kai got into the formation and started fighting with a guy very similar to his age. The result is obviously that Kai won the match easily because after he hit the guy in the face, he started to scream, so Kai took the chance and knocked him out of the ring.

Then Kai basically won all the matches with people in the same age group as him and started to challenge the guys around 11 years old. The result was disappointing since he lost, and the reason for that was that he didn't have any experience in fighting. He fought the match without any coordination, so he lost the match.

This gave him the idea to use the illusion formation and to hone his fighting experience with some experienced fighters, but it was not time for that. So he quit the game and started to go around with his parents to see more things about the capital.

They started to visit other prosperous places in the outer circle and decided not to visit the inner circle and core area.

"Mom, can you buy me that?" Kai asked as he saw something similar to a candy cane.

"Yeah, baby, but it will be very sweet. So we buy one and share it among ourselves."

"But I wanted to eat them fully for myself; I can eat them." He really loves sweet things, and on Earth, he always eats them whenever he has a chance, so Kai wanted to try the candy cane of this world.

But Riya didn't hear, so she bought one and divided it into three. After tasting it a bit from his share, he understood how sweet it was. It was completely overwhelming, and he was curious about how it was made.

"Mom, how is this so sweet?" Kai asked Riya about his doubt.

"Well, it was made by using the honey of tier 2 bees. So it will definitely be sweet for you since you had no cultivation,"

After that, they tried a lot of food in the outer circle and decided to end the trip for the day before going to other places.

They booked a room in an inn and finished the complimentary dinner that the hotel management provided. After that, Kai laid down on his bed and realized how much effort was required for him to have the same starting line as people with a powerful background. If just the outer circle is developed, how much will the Long family have developed for countless generations? They even had two emperors among their ancestors. They are not the only emperor family because the central continent has a lot of emperor tier families and emperor tier sects, not to mention the whole world.

'I think I need to finish this trip earlier and start preparing for my cultivation journey earlier to have an advantage over my peers.'

Kai thought about this in bed and slowly fell asleep.