Celestial Lands - 81

After laying out a future path for the residents of the Zhou World, Zhou Fan went into the palace he had created and got ready to cultivate.

The inside of the palace didn't have much at first, but Zhou Fan put a few pieces of furniture around and then some mystical looking things in case anybody ever made it up the stairs.

He would also have to make some prizes so that their journey wasn't fruitless, but he would do that later.

Zhou Fan sat in the middle of the back of the palace and started to cultivate. Along with himself, he could also feel his mortal Dao growing in power.

As he cultivated, Zhou Fan realized that his cultivation speed had become terribly slow. It was as if he was taking a step every minute and his destination was the other side of the world.

Although his breakthrough speed had slowed down every realm, it had never had such an exaggerated decrease. Without a doubt, the lesser Dao creation realm was the hardest realm he had encountered.

Despite the slow speed, Zhou Fan had no idea how to increase his pace. Therefore, he simply sucked it up and kept cultivating.

Ten thousand years passed by.

Zhou Fan, who was sitting in the floating palace, stood up for the first time in ten thousand years.

For the first time in a long time, Zhou Fan frowned. His cultivation speed couldn't even be called slow anymore. It was as if it was frozen.

It took him ten thousand years to break into the second level of the Lesser Dao Creation realm. Ten thousand years for a single increase.

That was an astronomical amount of time. He couldn't even estimate the changes that had happened in that time.

Zhou Fan briskly walked to the exit of the palace. He soon arrived and sneakily exited without opening the doors or making any noticeable movements.

The sight he saw as he left was something he had never expected to see. The once empty area was now filled with structures and celestials.

It seemed that they had built a city directly under the floating palace. At the start of the stairs, there was a palace blocking the way. He couldn't be sure, but it was likely that one would need the permission of whoever owned that palace to attempt to climb the stairs.

As for why people didn't try to fly up and enter the building that way, Zhou Fan had set up a defense formation that would heavily injure anyone who tried. They had likely learned their lesson very quickly.

Zhou Fan took a glance at the city below and was able to tell how many people were there. In total, there were ten thousand people. Within that population, there were 100 core formation cultivators and five nascent soul cultivators.

The strongest of them was at the fifth level of nascent soul. Such an amount wasn't strange at all. Although the celestials were born with bodies at core formation, they still had to start cultivating at Qi gathering. Not to mention, their talents on average were just barely above humans. If one in a thousand humans had the talent to reach core formation, then one in five hundred celestials would have the talent to do the same.

That difference wasn't only because they were born from Zhou Fan, but also because of the density of Qi in the world. As time passed, talent would increase proportionate to the amount of Qi.

When Zhou Fan broke through, the size and Qi density of the Zhou World started to slowly increase. It would keep increasing until it reached the limit of his current realm.

That was another reason why Zhou Fan left seclusion so early. He decided to let the world grow before he broke through again.

After looking around, Zhou Fan sneakily descended to the entrance of the city. Above the entrance, there was a plaque that read 'Floating Palace City.'

It was a basic name, but it fit the city perfectly. After changing his appearance to that of a celestial male, Zhou Fan walked in without any obstruction.

He walked around the city that was eerily similar to a human city. There were markets lining the sides and buildings with architecture barely different from humans. There were kids playing around and fresh food being sold.

One thing he didn't see was crime. It was likely that the celestial race had gotten rid of most of it. The only criminals would be powerful cultivators.

After walking around for a bit, Zhou Fan stopped at a stall. It was selling freshly cooked buns. Zhou Fan's hand sneakily traveled through space and took a couple of coins from the city bank.

"That will be 4 copper." The owner said. Zhou Fan nodded and took them out. The material that coins were made out of was almost exactly like humans, but the engraving was different.

Each of the coins were marked with an oddly familiar face. While eating the bun he bought, Zhou Fan stared at the coin. After a couple of minutes, it clicked.

The face on the coin belonged to Anna! Or at least her descendant. Although it was much more grown up, there was no doubt it was her or someone related to her.

Curious, Zhou Fan stood up and walked towards a random passerby.

"Who is this girl?" He asked him while pointing towards the coin.

"Are you an idiot?" The man asked with a genuinely confused look on his face. "That is the emperor of the celestial lands. Were you born in a forest?"

Zhou Fan chuckled and asked him another question. "Is her name Anna?"

"Of course!" The man answered. "Legend says that she was one of the first celestials ever born."

Zhou Fan thanked the man and walked away after giving him a silver coin for his trouble. The man was confused at first, but then thankful for Zhou Fan's kindness.

Zhou Fan started to walk towards the palace under the floating palace. He decided to meet the leader of the city and ask him some questions about the current world.