Chapter 10 - Creating a city

Jack and Jessica have continued down the road with their posse of several horses and a large grey wolf. The rest of Fenrir's pack is off in the distance so as to not draw too much attention to them, they roughly managed to recover about 30 wolves all of whom are much weaker and smaller than Fenrir who is looking much better after resting several hours.

Jack managed to find some clothes to purchase from one of the less annoying merchants while Jessica stocked up on various herbs and medical supplies. They had to escape from Feather Town without purchasing any provisions and while Arwen did give them some healing herbs, they're rather precious and not to be used outside of emergencies.

They're both riding on their own horses giving Sleipner who is looking rather ragged and weary, a rest from carrying anyone. Jack is alone with his thoughts wondering about how he's going to balance essentially living within the game world while maintaining a healthy real-world life. Jessica is also in her own world, chatting with the Horse in front of her.

"You don't think the name Sleipner is very good, do you? What's that you want to be called Purple Sparkles? No, you don't think that sounds majestic enough? What about…. Violet Sunny boy? No, that's stupid…." Jessica says with the horse, not noticing or caring that the horse is shaking its head.

Jack notices the horse shaking its head in response to Jessica and laughs to himself. He's worried that these animals are far too smart for what they seem, for some horses and wolves they all seem to have a rather good handle on human speech and emotions. It could be explained that they're King level animals and also S+ rank but that doesn't explain the smaller ones.

Unable to really make any headway into those thoughts he just drops the subject and faces forward where some people have blocked the path ahead of them. There's seven people, 4 of them look like tough body guard, equipped with leather Armor, a sword hanging by their side and a spear standing tall next to them. Stepped in front of those guards are 3 genial looking men with smiles on their face but a cunning glint in their eyes.

"Friends please stop we have something to discuss with you" one of them men yells.

Jack raises his hand to signal for the group to slow down, coming to a stop 5 metres or so from the group blocking the road. Jack can tell what this merchant is going to ask because they've been stopped several times like this before, albeit without the guards standing to attention like this.

"What do you have to discuss friend?" Jack asks while squinting his eye, enunciating his words slowly. His eyes darting between each of the people standing before them, taking in all of their movements.

Upon hearing his words the merchant puts a big smile on his face, "These roads are treacherous these days, what with all the heavenly tribulations falling down, mountains being destroyed and there are even rumours of a dragon appearing close by, I believe we would all feel relieved to travel in groups" the man explains keeping his eyes on the horses but also Jessica, not losing the cunning glint in his eyes.

"Sorry not interested, please make way" Jack says while signalling for his group to attempt to go around the people blocking the road. They take a few steps off the road and one of the guards steps forward.

"Boy, don't make this harder than it needs to be, people without stage 1 cultivation should know the immensity of heaven and earth" the guard lets out a gruff voice, releasing an invisible pressure from his body.

Jack narrows his eyes and places a hand on the sword sitting by his waist, he has no practise with using a sword on horse back and right now he is in an incredibly weak position with many treasures on his body. If he were to be killed, he'd just respawn at the nearest system city but he would lose everything on him, even the legacy items he got from the trials.

*rustle rustle*

Some noises come from all angles around causing the merchant group to take notice of the forest and they quickly see that they've been surrounded by over 30 wolves, they're all rather weak wolves but in a pack, they'll be able to easily tear through their merchant group especially given the forest terrain.

The merchants lose their smile and replace it with a look of worry, the guard's step to protect the merchants.

"Do you still want to stop us?" Jack says while squinting at the merchant who was talking earlier. He has a sardonic smile on his face feeling rather smug.

The group of merchants just shake their heads, upon seeing this and not wanting to wait for more people to show up Jack signals for his group to quickly leave the area which they do.

"Do we follow them?" one of the merchants ask the man who spoke earlier.

"No, I have my own plan" the outspoken man says with a vicious smile.

Jack and Jessica hurry down the road with increase vigour quickly leaving sight of the group of merchants, his nerves still taught and his hand still resting on the sword. After roughly 10 minutes of full speed running on horseback, they finally feel comfortable enough to relax.

This had been a chilling experience for Jack, he had been feeling confident after intercepting a few strikes from the shadow assassins earlier but clearly assassination and frontal assaults are quite different. Jack previously had some training in Karate but that's not applicable to this world of swords and magic.

Looking down at his hand wrapped in bandages still, he grips the sword by his waist. It suddenly feels like it weighs 200kg and has a huge pile of responsibilities. He needs to be able to protect the things he needs to with this sword by his waist but he doesn't have the skills to do so. His eyes peer to Jessica who senses his gaze and gives him a sweet smile.

Jack tries to push these thoughts to the back of his mind as they continue down the road with renewed gusto. The day proceeds to enter night and Jack decides he'll spend the whole night within the game to ensure nothing happens. They've set up a slight camp within a clearing far from the road, a few of the wolves have caught some rabbits for them to eat.

Jessica is tearing into her food with unladylike manners, almost eating like one of the wolves. Jack is roasting a few more pieces of meat by the fire. His mind has many questions but he is unsure where to start.

"Do you know how strong those guards would be?" Jack asks Jessica. She takes a look at him and thinks for a few moments while chewing her food, a loud gulping sound can be heard and she starts to talk.

"Not really, I heard most merchants hire guards that are at least Stage 3 around this area" finishing her sentence she takes another bite.

"What's the difference between the stages?" Jack asks, this information was vaguely covered on the private forums but given how much incorrect information he had to correct previously, he's taking all the information provided there with a healthy dose of scepticism.

"I don't know but I heard that once you reach the Saint realm you can fly through the sky" she says bluntly, clearly not knowing much more than this.

"What about magic spells like launching a fireball from your hands or making water appear from nowhere?" Jack asks while turning some meat, staring at the fire.

"The temples usually handle that sort of thing, a lot of towns will have a temple where you can pray to the godly spirit statue and if you're lucky will get bestowed some powers" she explains, "the mayor of Apricot Town is rumoured to have received the blessing of a high god before he became the mayor…"

"They say he is able to cause the clouds to set alight with fire or freeze someone where they stand with a snap of his fingers but no one has seen him do any of that stuff so no one is really sure" she picks a few pieces of meat from her teeth.

"So, if I go to a temple, I might be able to get some of these magical powers?" Jack asks

"If your luck is good" Jessica replies with a burp. Jack throws another piece of meat to Jessica along with a piece of cloth indicating for her to wipe her face. She ignores the him and starts to eat another piece of meat.

Fenrir is asleep by the fire but he raises his head and points his ears towards a certain direction, a few howls come from that direction let out by one of the smaller wolves. Jack notices this and looks in that direction and can see some flashes of light but it's not lightning.

Jessica notices Jack looking in a direction and peers there too, quickly explaining "Looks like some people are fighting in the air". Jacks eyes go wide from hearing this and stands up, he's about to walk towards that area but pauses and looks at Jessica not wanting to leave her alone.

Jessica sees his reaction and stands up too, "Let's go check it out, you're obviously curious" she says taking the lead to walk over there, Jack not wanting to be left behind quickly douses the fire and walks over there. Fenrir and Sleipner are following closely behind.

They trudge through the forest for a few minutes and come across a hilly area that gives them a better view of the battle going on overhead. There are 6 people standing in the air, 4 on one side and two on the other while two people are fighting with weapons far above them.

Innumerable sword lights flash as they collide mid-air producing a boom. Red lights, blue lights flash from either side as they continue to collide but neither side is drawing back. Jack and Jessica can feel the terrifying shockwaves from their position at least 20km away from the action.

A huge blue sword light tears through the air towards the other person, who attempts to block it. *BOOM* The sword light crashes into the defensive barrier of the person in red, a phantom image of a giant can be seen surrounding the person.

The phantom giants' arms are taking the full brunt of the sword light that slowly is getting dimmer and finally is broken. The person in red takes this chance to swing his sword which causes the giant to send some chains from its hands towards the person in blue.

As the chains crash into the protective barrier of the person in blue, another Phantom image can be seen, this time it's a giant blue bird. It's wings easily block the chains which shatter. The giant lets out another roar and sends out more chains while the person in red rushes forward.

The giant blue bird lets out a deafening screech and sends out a ball of energy towards the giant. The giant deflects the energy ball which crashes into the ground.

A huge 10km pit appears with a giant chunk of ice appearing in the middle going high into the sky. The person in red appears in front of the person in blue, the person in blue intercepting the sword strike with their own sword. Thousands of sword strikes land in a single moment but the person in blue easily intercepts each one pushing back the person in red.

The phantom image of the Blue bird gathers several orbs of blue energy, each orb bringing an aura of absolute zero and destruction with them. The person in red quickly retreats back to the phantom image of the Giant. The person in red raises his sword which the giant copies, a gigantic sword appearing in the giant's hands.

The blue bird fires off the seven orbs of absolute-zero ice energy, the giant swings down its sword with a red sword light appearing trying to suppress the orbs of energy, one orb shatters, two orbs, three… finally the last orb is left and the giants sword stops with the sword light dimming.

The single orb of absolute-zero ice energy lands on the giants' arm causing it to quickly freeze but the sword light still lands on the Blue Bird which lets out a giant cry. The phantom images slowly dim and get smaller, disappearing in short order.

Jack could feel the energies involved and decides that they've seen enough and quickly leads Jessica away. He needs time to process what he saw and as he's lost in his thoughts while walking away, doesn't notice someone in blue appearing before the both of them.

Fenrir lets out a growl causing Jack to take notice of his surroundings, Jack then signals for Fenrir to stand down as he goes forward to talk to the person that appeared.

"We didn't mean to interrupt your fight, sorry" Jack says explaining their position, he has no possible way to combat the person in front of him so he can only hope they let them go without hassle.

"It's ok, player we hope that you enjoyed the show" the person says, a hood is covering their face with their voice sounding rather androgynous. Jack isn't sure what to say but the person in blue is clearly looking at Jessica.

Jessica notices this look and steps behind Jack, she doesn't like the feeling of being inspected by this random person who is far stronger than her. The person in blue notices this and says, "You need to protect her" while suddenly disappearing into the sky.

Jack just looks at Jessica who is in turn looking at him, they both have a look of confusion and shock on their face but instead of staying in this area they quickly leave it. They return back to the clearing they were at earlier, passing it and returning the road to continue their journey.

They're both now riding Sleipner together, with Jessica slowly nodding off while Jack supports her so she doesn't fall off. Their journey continues like this for a few days with Jack not bothering to return back into the real world.

Jack and Jessica are both riding the horses and as time progresses, they slowly get better at it leading to their speed increasing further and after 3 days and 3 nights, they make it to the Plains of Sorrows and off in the distance Jack can vaguely feel the hill that he dug up when he first started playing.

They're still on the primary path leading through the Plains of Sorrows but it's an old unmaintained road from one of the many failed attempts at starting a village in the area. "Where do you think that lake is?" Jack asks Jessica, hoping she has some idea. She just shakes her head indicating she has no idea.

Frustrated Jack brings out the city creation stone and as he does, he can feel it tugging towards a certain direction. Not having anything better to follow, Jack decides to just follow the induction. This quickly leads them off the path and after several hours of running through the plains, they come across an incredibly deep but narrow river.

Sleipner comes to the bank of the river and takes a sniff of the water, quickly huffing away from it indicating that the water is no to drink. Jack jumps down and looks at the water closely and sees that it has some sort of black tinge to it.

Jack can no longer feel the induction from the city creation stone, so he turns to Jessica and says, "Well, I'm sure we could keep looking forever and always find some place better but this spot looks as good as any" he says convincing himself. Jessica just gives him a smile but not saying anything.

Jack takes this as a cue and walks several hundred meters from the bank and places the city creation stone down on the ground. A prompt appears before his eyes, 'Do you wish to create Holy Dragon City at this location? '

Jack presses the 'Yes' prompt and a bright light is emitted from the city creation stone.

Huge amounts of heaven and earth energy gather from the surrounding thousands of kilometres, causing countless people to peer into the sky wondering what these fluctuations indicate.

*ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR*

A massive dragon cry sounds as more energy gathers, even more people in the surrounding regions peer into the sky. A white light appears in the sky and quickly gets larger, people in Feather Town and Apricot Town can clearly feel see this massive ball of energy and quickly set off to the location to see what's going on.

The ball gets larger and larger, cracks start to appear on the surface of the ball and quickly the energy ball disappears but in its pace is a 10,000km long White Dragon. It's peering down at the Earth as though it's a godly being and lets out another roar.

The shockwaves of this road reach 1000s of km, countless trees are knocked down. All the wild animals are scared and cower on the ground as though their king is angry. The dragon gathers more energy and a white shockwave of energy spreads through the Plains of Sorrow from its body transforming the region into fertile grasslands.

*SCREEEECH*

In the distance suddenly a bird's cry can be heard, in that direction a red energy ball has appeared in the sky. It's gathering massive amounts of the heavenly energies the White Dragon just emitted, the White Dragon can see this but sends out more energy challenging the red energy ball to absorb all of it.

The red ball quickly starts to crack too and within moments shatters, a fiery Phoenix appears where the ball was located and lets out another screech. Everyone in the surrounding regions can feel the terrifying fluctuations emitted by these two massive creatures.

The city creation stone in front of Jack slowly changes, as it gets larger and larger slowly transforming into an orb larger than him. The city creation stone slowly changes into a City Heart and is giving out strange fluctuations.

Jack turns his eyes away from what is going on in the sky and places his hands on the City Heart in front of him. Information appears in front of his eyes, 'Holy White Dragon Empire City Heart is undergoing mutation from outside influences'. Jack wants to stop this mutation but he's unable to do anything.

The city heart changes from a pure white colour into a combination white and black colour. Jack can feel strange energy entering his body and closes his eyes to accept it.

He can hear a booming sound within his body as his vision turns dark and he crumples over, Jessica notices Jack and rushes over. She checks his body and sees that he isn't hurt then cradles him, watching the show in the sky worried.