Amid the disputes on the Discourse Ranking, the Human Race welcomed the annual Mid-Autumn Festival, and people everywhere poured into the streets.
Every Mid-Autumn Festival, large numbers of scholars would gather, especially in prefectural capitals and even national capitals, where festivities began warming up in advance. Many people visited places frequented by literary men and scholars to soak up the literary atmosphere and Literary Qi.
Today, many people arrived at the usual venues for literary assemblies only to discover that they were deserted, utterly lacking a festive atmosphere. Even where assemblies were being held, the participants' Literary Ranks were low. Only after asking around did they learn what had happened.
The Four Seas Dragon Clan had announced the locations of the temporary Sea Eyes early on. Starting on the thirteenth day of the eighth month, scholars throughout the Human Race began making their way to them.
Although there were many Sea Eyes, the Saint Origin Continent was boundlessly vast. Scholars in remote regions were often ten thousand li from the nearest one. Even with Flood Dragon Horses capable of traveling three or four thousand li a day, they needed to depart two or three days early.
Looking down on the Saint Origin Continent from high above, one would have seen temporary Sea Eyes of varying sizes appearing in bodies of water everywhere. These Sea Eyes differed from one another, but shared two features. First, dense crowds surrounded them-not only scholars, but also ordinary people bringing their entire families.
The other shared feature was that all these Sea Eyes led one way to the wharf outside Baling City.
Sand Prefecture lay in Gu Kingdom, in the western Saint Origin Continent. Its counties were formed around oases.
Sun Horse County was one such large oasis, covered in tents and home to more