Arrival

By the time the Alpha Wolf was satisfied with what it had learned and Cifer had collected a dozen Azure, four Steel Blue, three Sapphire and a Striped Green Essence Oyster in addition to the Seafoam Green one it was predawn. The Alpha Wolf hurriedly led them away from the lake, and they saw the head of a serpent rise from the water as they did.

The black head stood out easily against the clear water, and a being of such size was hard to hide even if that wasn't the case. For the snake's head was nearly 20 feet wide and over 30 feet in length. Enough to swallow the Bear with shocking ease. It lazily eyed them before settling back into the water.

Cifer felt like he could breath again when it sank back down, and Momo fell to her knees in relief. The Alpha Wolf had knelt as if to royalty when the enormous serpent had surfaced, only rising after it had permitted them to leave. In the face of such a threat and a power, nobody could remain unmoved.

Because not only did the giant snake have unimaginable size that must reach several hundred feet long, if not over a thousand, it also released the aura which Cifer and Momo could only compare to Clan Leader Aoi's. This enormous predator was a Skeleton Foundation Beast! With such size and power, if it had speed and a Bloodline to match this snake alone might be capable of wiping out the entire Aoi Kani Clan they called home, just a couple days journey away from here.

Looking to each other, the two childhood friends were glad that they had been unaware of the monster's presence in the lake at the time of their arrival. Cifer helped Momo back to her feet and they went their separate way from the Alpha Wolf. Due to their encounters with the Bear and especially witnessing the Foundation Beast in the lake, they were far more cautious as they traveled this time.

For example, only one of them would Cultivate at a time while the other watched the camp and they would only travel during the day and close by the roads. They kept the Oysters hidden from sight, depending on the Essence Pearls they already brought with them to support their Cultivation. Neither Cifer or Momo would allow themselves to get too carried away in their talking, joking and roughhousing. Without a third party member to watch the area and to guard against overwhelming foes, they could not afford unwanted attention form the Origination Beasts.

Even like this they both made progress in their Cultivation over the week before arriving at the Skull Sect. Momo had made a great breakthrough with her Skull Smasher Technique when fighting the Bear, and she trained afterwords to solidify that. It still was a Technique that she had a success and failure rate on since she hadn't been able to immediately work on practicing while the feel of the hit that sent the Bear flying was fresh. The difference was that instead of mostly failing Momo now would mostly succeed and was quickly removing the exceptions where she missed the timing. In addition to this Momo was slowly advancing and solidifying her Cultivation in Tyranny, Famine, War, Death and Mercy. She still had a long way to go before anything was ready to breakthrough to Advanced Broken Origination.

Cifer continued to advance at a stunning rate. He did not breakthrough to Intermediate Broken Origination during the first or second time that Momo kept watch while he Cultivated, the first time due to inability and the second time due to a choice to wait a short period before making what he hoped would be a smoother breakthrough. After all, the first two times he had broken through he was aware that they had been loud and obvious events and Cifer theorized that it was because he'd broken through violently from the farthest away point within his ability. On his third night of Cultivation he smoothly broke the fragile wall to Intermediate Broken Origination and by the time they arrived at the Skull Sect he could feel the breakthrough to the Advanced Stage was already possible. Granted, it was at the extreme reaches of his ability even with the monstrous Potential that Cifer possessed and the the domineering Vortex Cultivation method, yet even so this speed was horrifying.

As a result, Momo and Cifer had agreed to pretend that Cifer was 15 instead of 14. While this level of progress was not impressive at all for a genius, they could use the prejudice of the Clan against him as explanation that his lack of progress was due to a crippling lack of resources. It wasn't exactly easy to believe, but Momo and Cifer were confident. After all, when they saw the Azure of his White Lily, which had connected the two joined petals to the stem now, it would be easy for them to see how such progress was made in a year even while suppressed.

Coming out of the woods on the last day of their trip, Cifer and Momo gawked at the massive city before them. It had to be at least 20 or 30 times as large as the small town they lived in, and obviously was far richer as well. Skull City, named after the Sect that ruled over it and over the vast western reaches of Zhou, was the seat of power for the southern half of the lands separated from the Royal Capital by the mountain range that ran down the spine of the nation. As such it was one of the largest and most well fortified cities in all of Zhou, and was a center for all manner of trade.

Coming into the city, they stared in amazement all around them as they passed through the huge stone wall that surrounded Skull City. It had an enormous height, some 200 feet tall, and was almost 30 feet thick with reinforcement by iron and steel beams inside the wall. Since only Skeleton Foundation experts were even capable of flight, the enormous height and thickness were an immensely valuable defense. Inside the city Momo and Cifer could see stonework houses everywhere, and several places of business that clearly dealt with Cultivation supplies, or Origination realm Pills and Weaponry, even areas that were belonged to the lesser Clans of Skull City.

The people they saw were dressed much more richly than Cifer, and while Momo could match or better most of them it was fair to say that the average person in Skull City was dressed more finely than the children of Elders and Deyons in the Aoi Kani Clan. But that was only the average. Every so often they would see someone dressed in a stark white uniform that were given great respect by the citizens. This uniform was easily as rich as Momo's finest apparel, and seemed to be a working uniform for them. It didn't take long for them to realize these people were members of the Skull Sect.

Approaching one, Cifer gave a small bow. "Excuse me sir, might I ask for directions to the Skull Sect? If they will take me, I have a desire to become one of their members."

The young man, about 18 or 19, glanced at Cifer and almost rejected him on the spot. But seeing Momo behind him, had a complete 180 in attitude. "Sure, I'll lead you both there myself. The Skull Sect is always willing to look at new applicants, but I will warn you that our standards can be very demanding."