east gate city.

Over the course of two weeks Alex travelled all the way to easy gate city. The city acted as the gateway between the eastern continent and the central continent. The part of the central continent alex had ran through the last couple weeks was the intermediary area between the estern content and fhe central continent, borders were weird when a fight between two semi powerful cultivators could reshape a map overnight.

The city was set in a colossal mountain range that spanned Almost the entire stretch of land connecting the two contenents. At one end of the mountain range was the dead man's frozen land connecting the northern and central continent, a vast baren stretch of baren frozen land with barely any life.

And at the other end was the great desert connecting the southern and central continent, a mirror image of the ice to the north. And to the west was the thousand lakes connecting the western and central continent. As for the mountain range infront of him, it was called the dragons spine mountain range, real original.

The average hight of the mountains was roughly the same as Everest, with the two largest being the 'dragons horns' at the northern end, being three times the hight of Everest each. The smaller mountains were at the dragons waist and tail, at the mid and south end of the range. In front of him was the dragons waist, each mountain still being large enough that the cloud layer was only one third of the way up the mountain.

Alexs destination was the valley between the first and second smallest mountains. That was where the east gate had been built, and where the tournament would be held. Once he could see the gate itself up ahead Alex slowed down, from his 200km/h to his normal running speed of about 30km/h.

Once near the gate he saw all manor of things. Birds as big as planes carrying people, flying boats as big as cruse ships, land beast's large enough to make elephants look like house cats, and cultivators flying through the air with all manor of tools rainging from swords to fans to even a furnace or two. All of them Being the transport for various sects and their deciples.

Stopping to enjoy the view alex said "We can't be out done now can we? You ok with showing off a bit nuwa?" Climing off his shoulder and onto the dround, nuwa grew to her full size, even larger then the last time. Now a colossal length of 200 meters long from head to tail. Jumping up he landed on her head, sitting down to enjoy the ride.

Nuwa curently had a dexterity stat of 430, plus her innate speed as a snake, those combined made her 'sprinting' speed a steady 60km. While not majorly impressive like the other beast's, having such a large and powerful spirit beast all to his own was a message of personal power in and of itself. As compared to the show of sect power with the other colossal beast's and tools.

Looking ahead the east gate city lived up to its name. In-between the two mountains there was a literal gate set into a colosal wall spanning the gap between the two mountains. Infront of the wall was a large city, which became denser the closer to the wall you got. The city itself was surrounded by a wall, albeit much smaller then the mountain gate one, with smaller gates of its own.

Once close to the city, nuwas large size and powerfull presence combined with alex riding ontop of her caused some commotion as cultivators made way for them to pass by, not wanting to be in the way of nuwas path. Once near the city wall there were several lines. The longest being made up of body forging/blood refining cultivators cultivators, the one next to that being one third the length for qi absorbing/marrow refining cultivators, and the next line was one third the length again for foundation establishment/bone forging cultivators.

Showing his power as a bone forging cultivator alex went to the third line, nuwa shrinking down to fit on his shoulder again. This line only had a couple duzon people, all who looked either middle aged or elderly, so alexs curent apreance of someone who just turned 21 stuck out like a sore thumb.

Of course, no one was stupid enough to accuse him of lying, as he was very clearly giving off the aura of a late stage bone refining cultivator. And to be at that level while looking his age, he had to be either an incredible talent, or an old monster trying to play a prank.

In both situations no one was stupid enough to try and challenge him as in both cases he had at least enough power to back up his aura. To explain what someones 'aura' was, it is like a shadow, with more powerful cultivators having larger shadows.

As an example. if you were standing on the middle of the street, and a large shadow came up from behind you even if you coulden't see what was making the shadow, you knew something big was there. The bigger the shadow, the bigger what ever was behind you was. You didn't have to know what was making the shadow to know that it could be dangerous the stay in the way of whatever was making the shadow. Simalerly the bigger your own shadow, the less threatening a shadow of the same size would be.

The same principle applied to a cultivators aura, at the an equal stage, teo cultivators 'shadows' would be about the same size as each other. A higher rank cultivators shadow cover up a lower ranks shadow, and a lower rank cultivator wouldn't be able to overshadow a higher rank.

It's been said 100 times, but when someone ranks up in cultivation, it is a increase in life level. A rebuilding of one's existance at a fundamental level. So faking a 'shadow' was near impossible. Especially for someone only at the foundation building equivalent.

After a while it was alexs turn, once at the gate a cultivator checked to make sure he wasen't on any wanted list's, and handed him a token before letting him into the city.

Walking through the gate Alex noticed a significant increase in the level of suround qi. It haden't been mentioned before but qi, as you would expect, varied in level from place to place. There were certain lines of qi that traveld across where the concentration and regeneration rate where higher, again as you would expect they were called dragon veins. Every major sect was built on top of one or the intersection of multiple dragon veins, and as you got closer to the center of the world the size and quality of dragon veins got higher and higher, with the royal palace being built on the center of the largest known dragon vein, a 9th grade perfect dragon vein.

The purple dawn sect was built on top of a medium sized dragon vain, sharing with two other sects. East gate city, however, was on top of the intersection of three rather large dragon vains, with the walls having formations designed to seal qi inside their bounds. This caused the ambiant qi inside the walls to be significantly higher then outside, by about 10 to 15 times.

All this being said, Alex had just recently hit his 'max' for qi cultivation at 10,000 times ambient purity. With ambient purity being mesured by the world's avrage. Raising it any higher was impractical as he needed a stupid amout of qi to find just a couple specks with higher potency compared to what he had. But with 10 to 15 times higher quality and quantity? His plans to advance to foundation building just changed.

He originally planned to advance soon after he reached 10,000x purity, but with this opportunity making that number higher coulden't hurt. 'How about 20,000x purity? Coulden't be to hard. And I've had ideas to help with the qi problem for a while now anyway. What could possibly go wrong?'

Something of note was that all 81 strands of qi where curently 5 meters long and 20 centermetres wide, with his meridians being 10 meters in diameter and the bridges being 3 meters wide. He had also tested their dutabilty at one point, and had only managed to crack one after forcing as many strands in as he could before 'detonating' them. Surfice to say, they were tough.

The streets of East gate city were practically the same as east wood city, shops lining the streets and vendors with stalls stood up wherever they could. But with the adition of a spirit beast or strange looking cultivator every now and again. 'If that lazy bum of a sect leader wasen't lying, the tournament should be in a week, starting at the base of the gate. Might as well find an inn to stay at 'till then.'