Five family union -- Bells of Hope -- (2)

"Whats the point of cultivation if you face restriction after restriction? Its so that one day we can overcome the limits of the heavens, we cultivate to live forever, we cultivate to take what we want, we cultivate to live as we want, we face nothing but death on this path yet still so many choose to step forward. I want to live forever"

- Assistant teacher Sai ~ Late stage golden core

Ancestor Nordaine looked at the old elder

"Elder, how old are you now? I don't mean to offend but you seem to be on your last breath"

The elder was indeed rather old and it showed plus it did not help that he lacked talent for cultivation

"I am 687 years of age ancestor, unfortunately I rather lacked the talent and luck required to advance in cultivation in my younger years BUT fortunately during the fall of the Vast tree realm many cultivators such as myself were given an opportunity of a lifetime that pushed our cultivation to either the next level or on the brink of a breakthrough such as myself, I still have a good 150 to 170 years ahead of me, would have been 1000 but sadly the void is brutal"

Every stage and minor advancement gave cultivators a new lease on life, increasing the time they had left depending on their current cultivation stage and ones cultivation technique.

Many factors during cultivation could alter the amount of life granted and even decrease your lifespan instead of increasing it, it all depends on the prudence of each person.

Ancestor Nordaine - "Are you confident of entering Deity transformation within the next 5 to 20 years? I don't want to put pressure on you but we can't afford to lose anyone of your standing right now, I don't plan to make my rebirth public after all"

The Nordaine family was at it's weakest point in history since their establishment, never befor had the direct Nordaine family line lacked as they did today and never befor had they experienced or expected too enter such a dark age.

Like all wealthy families they thought themselves infallible.

"Do not worry ancestor, while I am untalented I am persistent and careful in my cultivation otherwise long would I have perished, plus we still have the guardian knights protecting the family although some may be low on moral lately"

The ancestor did not doubt this, but she still had her doubts, as for the guardian knights it was best not to put hopes in their eternal loyalty as anyone can be enticed to other sides especially in this new era.

The Five family union had a relatively peaceful history, with few wars and few calamities befalling them, while being rich in cultivation materials and cultivation methods causing the Five family union to be a rather developed territory.

This wealth caused a multitude of things to happen, first it gave security to cultivators allowing them to practice in peace and quite for large periods of time, second the lack of any major powers being located near then allowed them to grow unhindered for thousands of years, and lastly the location allowed for materials from all across the nearby territories to be acquired with relative ease enabling them to practice all sorts of cultivation paths with less overlap for the same types of materials being required.

As for those that gained the most benefits, the major families have basically the same authority as kings and queens within their territory.

Such an peaceful environment generally did not breed highly skilled fighters, but highly skilled craftsman and politicians.

The ancestor had her worries, while cultivators risked their lives to gather cultivation materials and opportunities in the past, the newer eras had become accustomed to large businesses being able to provide them with what they looked for with ease, all the while cultivators can simply work during the day and cultivate during the night.

Cultivators can go multiple weeks to years without rest after all, what did it matter if they wasted some time working, they didn't have to go out and fight for resources anymore after all.

The rise of consumerism caused many merchant unions to rise overshadowing a sect driven society and causing those very sects to fall on after another.

Sects require the masses to be ignorant, in need, and with few connections in order to indoctrinate them into the various sects without worry.

You could buy pills, elixirs, weapons, armors, cultivation methods and gathering of information with ease thanks to merchants, why would bother joining a sect that limits you with rules?

They still had to follow the rules of territorial powers after all wouldn't joining a sect make things even more difficult for them?

The ancestor was present for such a change during her lifetime making her willingly separate herself from society in order to cultivate, the era had changed after all.

Her views and values could no longer held the same worth for these new cultivators leading easy lives by comparison.

An endless flow of cultivation material and peace, this was the reason why so many Qi convergence and Foundation Establishment cultivators flourished in the new eras, but now those large businesses did not exist, the tens of millions of kilometers worth of spiritual farmlands were gone and with it the most peaceful era of cultivation.

"Regardless I am not worried ancestor, my grandchildren are all competent members of the family, and although many of our servant families are struggling to make a choice on loyalty or self preservation I have not doubts as to our future success even without them"

The vessel they rode was now fully docked and they had officially stepped onto the Five family unions flag ship The bells of hope.

The dock was massive going up and down several hundreds of meters while the sides stretched for what seems to be several kms the base of the dock was about 3-1/2 kilometers in holding thousands of small 10 foot flying vessels to large 100 meter flying ships all docked but each guarded.

The entrance to the dock was only about 50 feet wide, so one wondered how these ships would fit through.

"This is one of 20 docks located around the Ark one of the larger ones and the best one to enter for the view we are about to see, ah! if you're wondering why we don't shrink these vessels to store its for security reasons, we don't want people sneaking in after all"

The ancestor tried to muster up her spiritual sense to see ahead.

Ancestor Nordaine - "Spiritual sense restrictions... and cultivation restrictions?"

Elder Proteus - "Indeed, this is one of the most important places in the ark after all. Should anyone be invading us we will have to hold them here and hope we can stop them from advancing forward, although it can only restrict people up to soul integration down to body reformation stage after that we can only hope to restrict their senses to give us every advantage and should it come down to it we will directly split this space from the ark"

As they walked they entered a corridor with several others that were making their way in or out of the dock, after walking for about a minute they came upon the exit.

What greeted them was an overview sight of the world below.

Massive buildings lay below them stretching far into the distance, all one could see was white and gray stone built up in an absolutely brutalist way.

No curves could be seen on any building, no plant life and no color simply sharp edges, smooth walls and gray stone.

The overhead view made a clear '0' divide between the central area and the outer edges, the central area was a hole leading to a far away land below covered by some clouds with greenery in every direction while the land above lorded over.

Above the buildings and even above the viewing deck they now stood on, white and gray clouds covered the entire skyline leaving no gaps to be seen.

One could see rectangular upright holes that lead into passageways inside the giant stone buildings with many people moving between passageways to enter other stone buildings, each passageway had large letters at the entrance to be seen clearly denoting where each passage leads.

Very few alleys could be seen, each building had become a cluster with at least 8 other building of varying sizes and any that gaps that could be seen a bridge to connect buildings to one another was built, the only windows to be seen lay at the very peak of each respective building or at the very bottom with no light penetrating into the stone walls.

The buildings themselves rose one kilometer into the sky and it was only here that a distinction between buildings could be made for they all had different heights yet none went below one kilometer in height.

At the very peak of the buildings, large circular gray-white disks could be seen hovering above with a soft light, directly below these disks hollow pillars stood leading into each building from above.

Some of these pillars released some sort of smoke while others seemed to do nothing from afar.

Ancestor Nordaine - "It's indeed a sight"

The ancestor was truly shocked at the scene, if befor she was used to seeing large open areas with greenery on every corner this was simply a distorted view of the world.

Elder Proteus - "We made sure that no one forgets that even if we have relative safety inside the Ark they should always remember the true situation, although with the recent developments the past 5 years we will be tuning this down a bit"

An ark world built upon the concept of unity over individuality, absolute survival over comfort... at least on the outside.

Elder Proteus - "Even tho it might seem a bit extreme the insides of the building themselves each have their own design, from gardens, dinners, relaxation rooms, even to entire tracks developed for physical exercise. The 5 major families have already made plans to develop the new areas of the ark such as the sky and the middle zone while we are still debating what to do about the wilderness below"

The ark had a clear shape it was that of a large gray wooden boat on the outside while on the inside it had the shape of a hourglass from top to bottom, the sky stretched far into the distance seemingly beyond the outer appearance of size the ark had while the wilderness below also stretched far beyond what could be seen from the hole leading down.

Elder Proteus - "Come let us take a ride into the clouds first ancestor"

Upon saying so, the viewing deck they stood upon separated from the main area and hovered for a second befor forming a bubble encompassing the platform.

The viewing platform quickly rose into the air and into the gray white clouds leaving the gray buildings down below.

Above the clouds the sky opened up revealing a majestic purple sky encompassing the entirely of the visible skyline.

The sky was filled with dense spiritual energy rolling with incredible momentum threatening to destroy the platform, the wind made its presence known by smashing onto the the platforms protective bubble causing a deafening sound to spread inside.

The elder did not stop the ascent and simply recited a spell to stop the sound waves from penetrating to the inside of the bubble, while increasing the supply of energy it used to support the shield to the max.

Elder Proteus - "Looks like there is a storm brewing, we better make this quick or else we could be in danger"

The ancestor felt the spiritual energy surrounding the platform and was awed

Ancestor Nordaine - "This is remarkable! The spiritual energy below the clouds is not even comparable to what lays above it, it almost seems like it will rain purple spiritual Qi! I've only ever read of such wonders happening never did I think I would experience such a thing myself!"

Sky blue, yellow, pink, orange, green clouds started taking shape all across the sky and even more color clouds appeared to take shape.

Elder Proteus - "The sky used to be much cruder then this when we designed it, we had many special sky elements and spells spread across the sky of the ark but nothing which would impress like this" the elder explained

Ancestor Nordaine - "This sky took shape during the treasure light fall?"

Elder Proteus - "Indeed the 'sky' befor only spread out about 13 kilometers and we directly captured the atmosphere from above our home continent and simply filled the inside of the ark with it, we still have several thousand sky stones filled with the substances that make up the sky in storage for future repairs but now they will simply collect dust till we find another use"

The elder had now pulled up a good 10 kilometers into the sky.

Elder Proteus - "The current sky is spread about 1.8 million kilometers from side to side getting wider as you move up and it reaches 2.8 million kilometers up, we had to sacrifice many tools and cultivators to measure the sky as many unknown elements and creatures have appeared that even the resident soul integration cultivators could not overcome"

The ancestor took particular interest in this topic

Ancestor Nordaine - "Soul integration cultivators? Did you not say no one among the 5 families currently has high tier cultivators?"

Elder Proteus - "They are not part of the 5 families, but vagrant cultivators who paid a great amount to enter our arks"

The ancestor was worried about this, and it showed

Elder Proteus - "Don't worry ancestor, out of the 3 soul integration cultivators on board only one shows signs of being troublesome, the other two have had connections to the five family union from befor the arks were being built. One of them had allied with us in the past to fight against foreign aggressors and has good relationships with many of the families while the other has been courting someone from the moore family since befor the building of the arks and has invested large amounts of resources to the building of the arks" the elder paused here

Ancestor Nordaine - "And of the last one?"

Elder Proteus - "He's a bit of an eccentric which isn't much of a problem, the only thing is that he does not like to follow the rules set down by the Bell family or anyone else for that matter. We are considering the imprisonment of such an individual should it come down to it but only as a last resort"

Ancestor Nordaine - "Confident in his capture? or have the other two promised their assistance? Because even if you use titans capturing a soul formation cultivator is basically suicide"

Elder Proteus - "We have more then enough fire power on our own just the Nordaine family alone could send out 3 of our 5 body reformation guardians to assist in the capture, of course we would employ the use of not just titans but trapping formations aswell otherwise even if we send out all 5 guardians we wouldn't guarantee a successful capture and might have to resort to the killing of his body which will result in the making of a permanent enemy rather than a disgruntled cultivator"

Thinking for moment he respectfully asked his ancestor

"Ancestor from the record held by our family your last known cultivation stage was early soul integration, does this still stand true?"

The ancestor though for a moment

"Yes, given nothing went wrong with my resurrection I should still be at the early stage of soul integration. I was originally on the boundary of entering peak early stage soul integration but sadly I made a mistake"

The ancestor was downcast, the Nordaine family cultivation legacy was improved generation by generation with hundreds of even more incomplete branches.

So far no member of the Nordaine family had made it past early soul integration in 15,000 years, the fact she nearly made it to the peak could already be considered among the top 3 in their history.

Luckily she had a second chance to try again, even if she failed once more it made it clear for future generations on what to avoid.

Looking at this sky the ancestor felt revitalized.

It wasn't much, in the Vast tree realm just their family alone controlled a similar amount of territory after all but it was already considerable.

Scanning her surroundings she seemed to shake slightly.