(Day 4)
Beyond the city gate lay an unimaginably vast expanse. At first glance, it looked like a boundless starry sky, dotted with countless stars.
But upon closer inspection, those glowing specks were arranged in neat, uniform patterns. They were not a natural starfield.
They were ships—ship after ship filling the heavens.
During the ancient Immortal Domain's golden age, countless Metal Warships had stood ready at all times, waiting for the Immortal Domain's barrier gates to open so they could march into other worlds and deliver devastating blows to their enemies.
There were also enormous merchant fleets carrying endless supplies, ready to travel to other worlds at any moment.
These ships hovered everywhere, occupying the boundless sky. They looked rather strange. Though they floated in the air, they lacked the grandeur of steel starships from science fiction, devoid of that mathematical beauty.
Just as stereotypical cultivation fantasy novels described, they looked exactly like ancient sailing ships from the real world, except their materials had been replaced with metal and special spirit wood.
Even in this vacuum, the ships somehow still had masts and sails, though those too were covered in patterns resembling formations. Who knew what purpose they served?
Fang Zheng gazed at the stars filling the sky through his telescope and sighed. "Looks like even in a Cultivation World, not every cultivator is that absurd. Not everyone can travel faster than light. They still need transportation."
"By rights, outside the city gate, as a stranger, I'd be attacked as an invader. But inside the city, I shouldn't be identified as an enemy at the drop of a hat, right?"
After all, if ancient frontier cities on Earth were any reference, even if there were inspection systems inside the city, they would not launch attacks outright, would they?
After hesitating for a while, Fang Zheng tried switching from Spectator Mode back to Creative Mode.
He waited uneasily for a moment, but no Golden Armored Golems came to attack him. Fang Zheng breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's good enough that I wasn't attacked immediately."
"I need to see whether I can find someone normal on these ships to talk to. Maybe I can find some kind of office and get something like a temporary ID."
Looking at the blocks and various items in his Inventory, especially the Golden Apples and various potions, Fang Zheng felt fairly reassured. "With unlimited resources in Creative Mode, I should count as filthy rich no matter what."
"Although I've only obtained one block from this world so far—the Vermilion Bird and White Tiger Law Barrel—things like Golden Apples that restore health should be worth at least some spirit stones or other currency."
"As long as I can sell them, I can buy things. And as long as I can buy them, I can probably afford anything, no matter how expensive it is. My supplies are unlimited, after all."
The space beyond the city gate was absurdly vast. The sky resembled an abyss of the universe, with no end in sight. An overwhelming number of Metal Warships in every conceivable shape and color packed together densely, stretching endlessly across his entire field of vision.
Every vessel, even the smallest, was nearly as huge as a mountain, and the distances between them were considerable as well.
After taking out Elytra and fireworks in Creative Mode and flying for quite some time, Fang Zheng finally reached the nearest ship.
After searching around the vessel, Fang Zheng spotted a tall figure in black robes, with white hair draped over his shoulders, sitting cross-legged in a corner of the deck on this mountain-sized ship. He became excited.
"It really wasn't easy to find a person!"
He landed and carefully approached as politely as he could, calling out softly, "Um, hello."
"Can you understand what I'm saying?"
The white-haired figure did not move.
Fang Zheng hesitated, then raised his voice again. "Uh, excuse me?"
But the white-haired figure remained motionless. Fang Zheng suddenly felt a little frightened.
Looking at his blocky hands, he wondered, "Could it be that even though I can hear myself talking, I'm really just talking to myself in my head?"
"In this Minecraft world I transmigrated into, does this Block Person body not even have the ability to speak?"
After hesitating for a moment, Fang Zheng still stepped forward. Whether I can speak or not, whether I try arranging blocks into words or do something else, as long as they're willing to communicate, there are plenty of ways.
Standing before the figure, Fang Zheng looked up. It was a man nearly four meters tall, dressed in black robes. His face shone with divine radiance, his skin was like jade, and his eyes were pure gold. He had an inhuman air about him; not even a pore could be seen on his skin. His expression was resolute, his white hair flowing freely.
He looked exactly like the sort of cultivator described in cultivation novels.
Yet his face bore not the slightest expression. He was as cold and still as a slab of chilled iron, and his eyes did not move at all. He simply sat cross-legged, hands resting on his knees, staring into the distance.
"Um, excuse me?" Fang Zheng waved his blocky hand before him, trying to attract his attention through gestures and communicate with him.
But it was still useless. Fang Zheng could tell that this resolute-looking white-haired figure showed no sign of movement whatsoever.
Even when a Block Person as frightening-looking as Fang Zheng came right up to him, not even his eyes shifted in the slightest.
Fang Zheng suddenly felt scared. He tried once more to get the man's attention.
He took a grass block from his backpack and placed it on the ground before the figure, then took out and lit a firework. Yet the figure still did not move. "Could he already be dead?"
Fang Zheng suddenly felt a little upset. He left the figure behind and began searching this mountain-sized ship for other people.
He succeeded, and he failed.
Using Spectator Mode to pass through the cabins, Fang Zheng found quite a few figures.
Within the enormous mountain-sized ship were vast, lavishly furnished cabins of all kinds.
In different cabins, beings with different faces and genders—some with horns and scaled tails, some not even humanoid at all—stood or sat, or appeared to be carrying out some kind of work in the cabins.
But they all had one thing in common: every single one of them was frozen.
It was as though their time had stopped. Not one figure showed even the slightest trace of movement.
Each one seemed to have been frozen at a particular moment in time, becoming a lifelike statue.
The sight made Fang Zheng's skin crawl, and he grew increasingly agitated as a bad suspicion surfaced in his mind.
He left this ship and continued flying with fireworks and Elytra. After spending most of the day traveling, he arrived at another ship near the first one.
But the result was the same. There were people aboard, along with some unknown goods. Fang Zheng even saw two richly dressed cultivators who appeared to be drinking tea and chatting, but they too were frozen statues. The tea in their cups was like solidified crystal.
Standing on the deck and looking at the vast fleet that filled the sky and land, so enormous he could not fathom its size, as well as some ships that would occasionally light up, set sail, and head toward the distant reaches beyond the city gate, Fang Zheng felt a chill run down his spine.
"Could every ship be filled with these frozen dead people?"
"What the hell is going on?"
Why was it that outside the city gate, only seconds after he emerged from the Hell Gate, Vermilion Bird and White Tiger had attacked him? Then, after he had finally escaped the seal and reached the city wall, Golden Armored Golems had come to attack him.
And now that he had finally entered the city, every person he saw was a motionless statue?
Boom!
A deep sound like thunder suddenly rang out.
That sudden noise came from beneath Fang Zheng—from this very ship.
Before you continue