The passenger boat sailed down the Heaven-Reaching River with the current. The north wind of winter filled its sails, and it made good time, covering roughly a hundred and thirty or forty li a day.
Strictly speaking, that was not fast. Pan Long could travel with the wind at astonishing speed, while heroes of the Martial World could gallop from town to town, changing horses at every stop, and cover seven or eight hundred li in a day—more than five times as far.
But for ordinary people, traveling by boat was the most comfortable way to get around without sacrificing speed.
A carriage could cover perhaps thirty or forty li a day, fifty at most. That was about the limit. Unless you had a thousand-li steed pulling it, you had to let the horse rest. Traveling this way, you even had to change horses every two or three hundred li, or they simply could not endure it.
On foot, hardy wanderers of the Martial World could outpace horses and keep going longer, but arriving coated in dust after a long journey was hardly pleasant.
As for the so-called "eight hundred li at a gallop"—without spells to transmit messages, sending word that way basically killed a batch of horses every time. Even the messenger often fell seriously ill after delivering it. In those legendary tales of someone "traveling a thousand li in a day, slaying an enemy, and returning," the protagonist was usually an Innate Master. Ordinary people's bodies could not compare.
Pan Long was in no hurry, so he could take the boat at his leisure.
Yang Province was not going anywhere. It was not about to grow legs and run off. What difference did a few days faster or slower make?
He got along well enough with the others