043: Flying Rumors 

After buying the things that interest her, she went straight to the transportation station to ride in a transportation artifact or tamed beast to reach the Rudd Village.

"Ride a White Feather Eagle to Teal Jade Town! Only one seat left!"

"Crescent Sail Ship! Ride a fast and stable flying ship with Crescent Sail Ship!"

The transportation station was much more lively than the one in the Teal River market. Here, the choices for transportation opened Zemirah's eyes. The most common flying ship is a Peak-Stage Grade 1 artifact whose quality is at least Rare. 

The passengers for every flight reached thousands. It was much more luxurious and safe compared to Verona's flying ship. 

Even the spiritual beasts and demonic beasts tamed by some people have high cultivation and rare bloodlines. The smallest beast is at the Late-Stage of Energy Refining Realm.

It was not a mutated beast who had thin bloodlines of the spiritual beast or demonic beasts that she had usually seen before.

Zemirah has already tried riding a flying ship from Verona and Roch during this past week. She was more curious about the beast transportation services since the spiritual beast she had contact with was only the Swamp Earth Tortoises who gave her a good impression.

The spiritual beast eggs she got were still in her space ring, unhatched. 

As for the demonic beasts, she was actually surprised that spiritual beasts and demonic beasts have almost no difference at first sight. Both looked extraordinary, with higher intelligence than normal beasts, and had cultivation.

The only difference is that the power of demonic beasts has a feeling of being wild and unbridled, which is the demonic energy, that affected their temperament to be worse than spiritual beasts who were relatively peaceful.

Zemirah was not familiar with demonic energy, but she could see that it was not the evil energy from those demonic cultivators she once met. A question arose in her heart, why are demonic beasts and demonic cultivators called the same when she can tell their differences clearly?

She watched a demonic bull snort with smoke from coming out of its nose, its hoof surrounded with a brown film of energy that is the earth element energy, before pulling the huge cart filled with goods under the guide of its owner.

Then a spiritual beast White Feathered Eagle used its spiritual energy, its wings were covered with cyan color, the color of wind element. Then waved its wide wings before flying to the sky with the passengers on its back.

This scene made her deeply understand that all beings in this world are in contact with extraordinary power coming from different energies. The spiritual energy and demonic energy is just the most common ones.

Zemirah bought a ticket to ride a land spiritual beast to Rudd Village in the booth. The spiritual beast is called Iron Armor Beast, a beast similar to Armadillo's in her previous life. It was more than three meters in height, eight meters in width, and almost ten meters in length.

It can easily carry a hundred of cultivators, with its outstanding defense, good endurance, and passable speed, many cultivators wanted to tame it as their spiritual pet.

She estimated that they would arrive at Rudd Village before the night falls as long as the journey was smooth and there were no long stopovers.

From the map she have, the Rudd Village was only three villages away from the Azure Oak City. It was a somewhat famous spiritual plant village in the surrounding place.

There are five families in the Rudd Village, all of them specializing in planting different spiritual plants, some plants the spiritual grains, trees, flowers, and herbs. She can go there and find the twins who are acquainted with Riya.

Besides, she hasn't forgotten the list of spiritual herbs that Riya gave her to buy after arriving at Rudd Village. Her friend must be needing it for her alchemy practice.

Zemirah was also planning to buy many seeds after arriving at the village, maybe some spiritual herbs and spiritual fruits too.

She's almost gone for a week, Zemirah guessed that her little disciple must be worried sick now. With the intention of not wasting time, she did not even visit other famous buildings and spots of Azure Oak City.

She handed the ticket in her hand to the beast tamer of the Iron Armor Beast who let her climb the back of the dozing beast. There are seats especially crafted in the back of the Iron Armor Beast for the passengers to sit comfortably.

Zemirah was impressed with their professional service.

She sat in the second row based on the seat number on her ticket. There are already quite a lot of cultivators in the back of the Iron Armor Beast, most of them look like casual cultivators with no background judging from their clothes and demeanor while she saw some cultivators of divine arts, with their artifacts in their bodies.

They also wear colorful and fancy clothes, with complete accessories to show their status.

She remembered that the beast tamer of the Iron Armor Beast had an azure wooden flute hanging on his neck, he should be a musical cultivator who specialized in taming beasts. 

Divine arts have many wonders in cultivation that they managed to build the Bright Light Dynasty that can rival all other powerful forces, be it the Aeros Empire in the north, the Elemental Spirit Sect in the east, the myriad beasts in the south, and the mysterious creatures of Endless Sea in the west.

Zemirah cultivates the way of the sword and talisman, her talent in both aspects is not bad with the support of her system. She also has an interest in learning divine arts after being with Roch.

Amongst all divine arts, she felt that the Calligraphy was similar to the talisman and her talent in musical instruments is quite good.

With the support of her system, Sia, and her lover, Roch, Zemirah have no worries about learning many paths of cultivation.

She never forgets her advantage.

This thought made her smile as she waited for the seats in the back of Iron Armor Beast to be filled. It did not take long since the Azure Oak City had no lack of people entering and leaving.

The beast tamer, whose name was Simon, sat on the head of the Iron Armor Beast. 

"Daoist Friends, please take your seat and we will now set off." He said with a serious face, the crowd fell silent. Then Simon finally put the wooden flute in his lips then started playing music to guide the Iron Armor Beast forward.

The music that contained the mysteries of wind and metal elements came from the azure flute that the man played. The two elements seem to have converged along with the sound, creating wonders and miracles.

Zemirah noticed that the music has the elements of wind and metal, with the tone lighthearted but vigilant. The Iron Armor Beast was affected by the music, letting it become more clearheaded and its pace was faster and lighter.

This scene made Zemirah raise a brow, knowing that this musical cultivator is different from Roch who uses his music to kill and not support.

The ride was silent with the music playing, Simon finally stopped after half an hour. They are halfway in their journey, the Iron Armor Beast walking in the explored path with tall trees on the sidewalk.

The place was already quite far from the Azure Oak City and she could no longer see the tall city walls or the Azure Oak Trees that are unique to the place.

With the good weather and pleasant sight, people finally started having conversations.

"It's quite peaceful here in the back of Azure Oak City. Who would have imagined that the border just a few hundred miles away is already so chaotic."

A man was quick to ask for more information, "Do you have news, brother? I heard that the border army and the sects were just in a stalemate."

Seeing that more people became interested, the man who spoke first rubbed his beard with complacency in his eyes before continuing, "Well, the stalemate only lasted for three days because various big forces finally reacted and came to the Blue Descent River."

"Elemental Spirit Sect and the Dynasty?" A man further at the back asked.

"Not just them, I heard even the nearby Aeros Empire was also planning to send people but was blocked outside by the two forces." It was a wealthy-looking woman who added.

The crowd was instantly immersed in the gossip that even Simon, who was resting after playing a musical technique for almost an hour, joined them.

"Many cultivators are going to the city, some even sneaked into the border since it was already ordered that no unrelated people can enter. I know some people who were caught by the army, no one knows if they're executed or imprisoned." An old man sighed as he vividly described the possible end of those people.

The silent art cultivators on the side immediately can't keep quiet as they have to clear the reputation of the army from the rumors.

A scholarly-looking man who held a calligraphy brush in his right hand spoke, "The dynasty would not execute innocent people, the ones who were executed must have done something to deserve it."

The man saw the eyes of the people around him as if they were looking at a brainless person, so he continued angrily, "In such a tense state, those people went to take advantage of the situation, its already lucky that they're just imprisoned by the army. Otherwise, hmph…"

The people went silent as they understood the unfinished words. 

The army stationed at the border area was all ruthless as it was their mission to guard the border from enemies and malicious people. Most of the time, their hands were stained with blood. They rarely imprisoned enemies, even if it was just suspicious people.

Just like his words, it was already fortunate for those people to be locked in this tense state that involved various forces

"Brother, do you know the people who were caught? What were they doing, anyway?" A burly man spoke with a flattering smile to the scholarly-looking man.

The man played with the calligraphy brush as he snorted proudly, "Hmph, isn't it to spy on the army? I heard that they are from those sects under the Elemental Spirit Sect."

His words were said casually but for the people listening, it was like a bombshell that contained important pieces of information in the current situation at the border.

"Those sects are so bold? They actually their to reach their hands to the dynasty's army." The people at the back of the Iron Armor Beast were in an uproar.

In their eyes, only the Elemental Spirit Sect have the power to confront the Dynasty, while those smaller sects can only stand aside.

This was the reaction of casual cultivators, not to mention the art cultivators that have deeper ties with the dynasty. They are more indignant that such existence was stirring trouble at this time.

Some even spoke that those spied caught should be executed immediately, they are not worthy of being left alive in prison.

Zemirah frowned as she pieced together the information she gathered from this exchange. The dynasty and elemental spirit sect are giant forces on this continent. What made the two giants in a confrontation is a secret realm. 

She guessed that this secret realm must be very precious, with something inside that could tempt these forces. The addition of the Aeros Empire that was watching on the side can already confirm her situation.

What made her worry was that the person she cared about seemed to be involved in this.

Her lover, Roch's background must be higher than she thought, she just doesn't know what exactly.

Zemirah only hoped that he would be safe, a Foundation Building Realm cultivator like him seems not so safe in this situation where giant forces fought.

"Oh, Roch, you better not die for me or else-" She sighed in her heart as she remembered the man wearing a white robe holding the white flute on his lips.

Just as Zemirah was immersed in her thoughts, her heart suddenly pounded along with her jade artifact that gave an alarming sound in her spiritual consciousness.

A soul-stirring roar of a beast overwhelmed her soul and consciousness.