The airship bound for Aurora Land took a long time before it slowly departed Stephenson's harbor.
Perhaps too many spellcasters had been invited. Even though everyone boarded in an orderly queue, the process was painfully slow. Xu Nan noticed that the decks of all three airships, including the Red Sun he was riding, were packed with people.
Such a sight had been common enough in Xu Nan's former life, but considering every one of them was an elite spellcaster, even a mage holy land like Stephenson could probably only gather such a crowd for an event on the scale of the Aurora Tide.
Perhaps many magical organizations had predicted the intensity of this cosmic anomaly in advance. Stephenson had come under pressure from all sides and had no choice but to issue more than triple the usual number of invitations. More than half went to resident wizards of Stephenson, while others were sent to close partner organizations like Lost Paradise.
No matter what, the intensity of this year's Aurora Tide was beyond question, but the competition would also be exceptionally fierce.
It took roughly four to five hours to travel from Stephenson to Aurora Land. The main sources of variation were the wind and other factors. Aside from a small number of anti-gravity components, Stephenson's airships were operated almost entirely mechanically. Only this could minimize the influence of anomalous factors near the edge of the world.
Beyond this point, heading farther north would bring them truly close to the edge of the world.
That was also why A Kai had said Stephenson was the barrier guarding the north of the Prime Material Plane. North of Stephenson, there were basically no naturally developed civilizations left—only exiled races.
Xu Nan stood on the deck and gazed into the distance. Aurora appeared on