On their first journey aboard the Thousand-League Soaring Cloud Roc, most of the disciples were excited and curious, pointing at the mountains, rivers, and forests that seemed to have shrunk beneath them and chatting animatedly.
Fang Qianyuan also found it quite novel, but after watching for a while, he grew bored. He silently circulated his cultivation technique, making the most of his time to train diligently.
He had advanced to the Fourth Transformation so quickly not only because of the Mysterious Treasure Pill, but also because of his own diligence. Without cultivating tirelessly at every opportunity, he could never have made full use of the Treasure Pill's advantages.
By dusk, a day had passed, and most of the others had fallen silent, sitting in their seats and passing the time in their own ways. Some disciples who suffered from vertigo had already vomited their guts out and collapsed to one side, fast asleep. Fang Qianyuan, who had quietly cultivated all day, was instead full of vigor as he gazed toward the distant horizon.
The sunset's lingering radiance burned like flames, staining more than half the sky red. Beneath the clouds that filled the heavens with color, the vast mountains and rivers slowly unfolded before them like an immense, magnificent painting.
An unbroken range of mountains appeared ahead. Amid the towering peaks lay a valley roughly a hundred li across, surrounded by ridges. At its center, buildings stood in dense ranks, like a man-made forest of wood and stone.
This was the headquarters of the Azure Cloud Sect, one of the ten great sects under heaven. Built according to the pattern of the nine palaces and eight trigrams, it occupied the entire valley, with the surrounding ridges serving as natural city walls.
Upon seeing the headquarters, the Thousand-League Soaring Cloud Roc