Chapter 2633: Shangri-La (Part 1)

Shangri-La, a timeless and mystical legend from the East, represents a distant land of purity both in the ancient and modern times, an Eastern version of Utopia.

Unlike mere wealth, influenced by religion, Shangri-La embodies the sanctity of a flawless heart, a pearl on the Snowy Plateau, symbolizing vastness, peace, and a mind free of distractions.

The tale, passed down by high monks, has endured over time, inspiring many novels. Countless adventurers, carrying their faith, have found their own tranquility here after overcoming numerous hardships.

In fact, there is a real basis to these legends, unknown to many. At an altitude of four thousand meters, not only barren mountains and perpetual snow exist. On the southern slopes of the Himalayan Mountains, under the feet of Mount Everest, warm and humid currents from the Indian Ocean create an oasis known as Mini Jiangnan of Mount Everest.

Besides the lush vegetation and verdant trees, a human community has resided here for generations, known as the Sherpa people.

Sherpa essentially means people from the East. They mainly live along the China-Nepal border, predominantly within Nepal, but there are also more than a thousand in China.

Further up from the Sherpa villages, deeper into the Himalayan ranges, several villages nestle within the subtropical jungle. They are unaccounted for in demographic data, merely because they are the descendants of the Guardians of Shambhala and are, by the Chinese dynastic timeline, people of the Ming Dynasty.

The Shambhala of legends is none other than Kamar-Taj led by The Ancient One. The mysterious villagers, who have not contacted the outside world since the Ming Dynasty, are compatriots of The Ancient One, having their village transformed by The Ancient One and Kaecilius since they started their journey.

Under the influence of magic, hunger and poverty were eradicated in the village, by Ming Dynasty's standards, of course.

The villagers here hardly worry about food and clothing, most still follow the natural rhythm of working at sunrise and resting at sunset, having avoided numerous wars till today, still living a contented agrarian life.

Of course, with the passage of time, they naturally began to exchange with the outside world, mainly trading with the Sherpa people at the foot of the mountains, mostly through the barter system.

The residents within Shambhala, nourished by magic for generations, mastered magical arts beyond the grasp of the average person, producing small quantities of precious medicinal herbs, leather, and ores. Their medical practices were richer than ordinary folks, basically reviving anyone as long as they still breathed.

To avoid inbreeding, they also intermarried with people outside of Shambhala, mainly with the Sherpa people, and occasionally with magicians or foreigners who found their way here, especially adventurers who stumbled in, because reaching this place after so many trials proved not only their resolve but also their robust health and superior genes.

This situation continued until the modern era. Many of the beautiful tales about Shambhala were spread by adventurers who had visited, and the residents neither confirmed nor denied these stories. Far from considering outsiders an intrusion, they welcomed more to help them improve their gene pool.

Of course, even to the inhabitants of Shambhala, the more profound domain of Kamar-Taj was beyond easy reach. However, a number of children born in Shambhala were gifted with magic talent. The Ancient One couldn't possibly stop them from visiting their homes, so for many years, the mages of Kamar-Taj lived harmoniously with the residents of Shambhala.

Mages could generally sustain themselves, but they also needed to buy certain things from the Shambhala villages. Although the villagers longed for magic, they knew it was a double-edged sword. Delving too deep would only bring misfortune to ordinary people.

For hundreds of years, they lived peacefully, maintaining a pattern of trade where mages exchanged goods with Shambhala residents, who in turn traded with the Sherpa people. Everyone obtained what they desired, and life was pleasant.

However, after the foundation of the New China, this scenario gradually began to change. The Sherpa within China's borders saw their villages electrified, roads built, and the green vans of China Post began to bring all the necessary supplies for every resident's needs.

From village to small town, schools and hospitals were gradually established, and severely ill patients could be transported by car to major cities for treatment. People's reliance on barefoot doctors and magical medicine decreased.

With the development of the times, tourism also began to flourish. Establishments like teahouses, guesthouses, and theaters that did not produce essentials began to emerge, signaling the town's escape from its previous isolation and march towards modernity, just like most other small towns in the country.

This led to a problem: the townspeople were no longer as reliant on the remote inhabitants of Shambhala nestled deep within the Himalayan ranges. The elderly who once witnessed the miraculous appearances of the Shambhala Guardians were learning to flick electric switches and turn on taps.

Newly built roads allowed modern cars to drive in, unlike the old days of carrying loads by hand and shoulder. Younger generations ceased doing heavy labor, with most engaging in live streaming or rehearsing Sherpa songs and dances for national tours.

Improved sanitation reduced disease rates, lightened workload benefitted lifespan, and with widespread education, everyone knew to take fever reducers for a fever, antibiotics for serious illness, disbelieving in the arcane herbs most had never seen.

As for trinkets like tools, animal hides, and amulets, they were readily available in the shops along the tourist routes, considered nothing special. Neither the sellers nor buyers expected to get the real deal for such small change, so nobody cared about authenticity.

The tales of Shambhala residents left behind began to fade. The youth were more concerned with revitalizing their hometown, earning money through tourism for themselves and their peers, while the elderly enjoyed the full benefits of modernized life. Aside from recounting legends of Shambhala to their grandchildren, they remained silent about the magical wonders they had once witnessed.

But the number of residents in Shangri-La was too few; all three villages combined didn't even number five hundred people. Although they had enough land to grow sufficient food for themselves, the absence of any constructed roads, coupled with the severed trade traditions with the Sherpa people, meant that some necessities that they couldn't produce on their own were now unreachable, significantly impacting their lives.

But don't get it wrong—although they lived deeper in the mountains, the place where the Sherpa people resided was already remote enough, and if roads could be built there, then Shangri-La wasn't impossible either.

The land they were on and the country they belonged to had a kind of strange fervor for road construction. The Sherpas often said that the little green car would eventually make its way to the top of Mount Everest one day.

The problem was that Shangri-La was shrouded by the protective shield of Kamar-Taj. This was the main reason why only a handful of lucky individuals had stumbled upon this Utopia over the past several hundred years. No one else had discovered it. With this protective shield in place, it was impossible for people to even realize its existence, let alone build roads to it.

Yet, after Supreme Magician Strange assumed his position, there was a boom of infrastructure projects at Kamar-Taj. He first established the Kamar-Taj Magic Academy, followed by the Kamar-Taj Magic Research Institute, the Magic Experimental Zone, and the Magic High-tech Cooperation Zone.

Although the majority of building materials were transported through teleportation portals, there were still some sundries and living supplies that were traded with the congenial residents of Shangri-La.

After the Kamar-Taj Magic Academy was established, it took in students from around the world. The needs of these students were extremely varied.

The students from America needed party supplies for their gatherings, those from Nepal required Buddhist ritual items for their devotions, the Chinese students were constantly experimenting with cooking in their dorms and needed countless ingredients and spices, and even the students from India were searching everywhere for spices.

It was an unavoidable situation; Kamar-Taj indeed had a great environment that was thoroughly primal, where the quality of ingredients was decent. But a bunch of kids raised in modern families, spoiled with no internet connection, were full of energy with nowhere to vent, causing the Grand Mages much distress.

To release their energy, Strange had no choice but to follow the example of regular schools by granting them holidays based on the festive calendar.

The problem was that the Himalayan Mountains were far too distant from their homelands. Even the nearby villages of Nepal were troublesome enough to visit, and Strange could not simply arrange a teleportation door for each person to go home. Thus, the students still stayed near the Himalayas.

Keeping them confined to the school wouldn't serve the purpose of releasing their energy and reducing stress, naturally leaving them to venture into the villages. It's only fair to say that Kamar-Taj had its own Hogsmeade.

But Shangri-La simply couldn't supply what the students wanted. They were there to relax, not to farm. Consequently, the Sherpa town became their first choice.

Although it was indeed a bit far from the school, it was still at the foot of the Himalayas. Except for the younger students who couldn't perform the Teleportation magic, most preferred to travel farther to enjoy themselves in the Sherpa town.

This place was a completely different world compared to Kamar-Taj, with cafés, internet cafes, love hotels, and they could even join travel groups on the Sichuan-Tibet route—it was the best place for the students to spend and have fun.

A few years after the popularization of the sky transportation routes, this small town became one of the endpoints of the Sichuan-Tibet Sky Train transportation line. Sky trains started running here one and a half years ago, and despite needing to make a few stops, it took only two and a half hours to reach Chengdu.

Thus, during long vacations, the students preferred to queue for the sky train to the big cities for leisure, while during shorter holidays, they would stay in town to collect packages, invite a few friends to the internet cafe for a few rounds, or while away the time at a café.

Many of the town's residents recognized these students. They thought the students were studying at universities in Nepal, a tale that the students themselves propagated. They were young and willing to spend money on food and drink, becoming the main source of consumer spending during the off-season for tourism, and were very popular with the townspeople.

The students spent money for entertainment and the townspeople earned money; it should have been a win-win situation. But the people of Shangri-La played an awkward role in this, resembling an elder left behind by time.

These three villages couldn't provide the students modern amenities nor could they maintain self-sufficiency with their traditional bartering system as they used to. Life was becoming increasingly difficult.

About half a year ago, the head of one of the villages found his daughter who had married out and summoned the census worker who was visiting the Sherpa town to his own village.

The worker was young and unaware of the relationship between these towns and villages, merely assuming that there were fewer people living here and they had been overlooked in previous censuses, so he casually added these few hundred people to the count.

Now, the head of Tingri County, to which the town belonged, suddenly discovered that he had three extra villages within his administrative jurisdiction.

What caused his blood pressure to soar instantly was that these three villages had no access to water, no electricity, and not even a single road.