Several days passed. While Yang Kai was cultivating, he suddenly felt the tower ship shudder slightly, its speed dropping sharply.
Soon after, an Ink Clan voice rang out across the deck: "Stay sharp, everyone — we're approaching the Royal City."
Yang Kai collected his resources and flickered to the deck, gazing in the direction of the ship's heading. A massive floating continent came into view.
Heiyuan's territory was also a vast floating continent, but compared to this one, it was completely outclassed. The floating continent where the Royal City sat was more than ten times larger than Heiyuan's.
Yang Kai was secretly stunned.
Floating continents were essentially the leftover fragments of shattered Chaos Worlds. Judging by the sheer scale of this one, it wasn't hard to imagine how enormous the Chaos World must have been in its prime.
This must have been an incredibly prosperous world once upon a time. Now all that remained was a single floating continent, perpetually shrouded in the power of Ink.
As the tower ship drew closer, an enormous Ink Nest gradually entered his field of vision. Even the thick shroud of Ink power couldn't conceal its majestic form. Staring at that Ink Nest — far larger than he could have imagined — Yang Kai felt a chill run through him.
Zhagu had told him about the hierarchy of Ink Nests, so he knew this one should be a Royal Lord-grade Ink Nest — also called a high-grade Ink Nest.
Zhagu's Ink Nest was merely the lowest Lord-grade. Even at the lowest tier, with sufficient resources, it could birth over a thousand Ink Clan in a single batch.
This Royal Lord-grade Ink Nest before him was dozens of times larger than Zhagu's. Standing upon that floating continent, it resembled an insurmountable mountain.
If supplied with enough resources, couldn't an Ink Nest of this size birth tens of thousands of Ink Clan at once?
Where the Ink Nest stood was the very foundation of the Ink Clan — the heart of the Royal City.
Radiating outward from the Ink Nest, an enormous city sprawled in every direction, forming the territory of the Royal City.
Before the tower ship even reached the floating continent, Yang Kai sensed a powerful aura sweep over them in surveillance — presumably the Domain Lord-level powerhouse stationed in the Royal City.
Heiyuan stood at the bow of the ship, his own aura flaring ever so slightly.
Before long, the probing aura withdrew, clearly having confirmed Heiyuan's identity.
Without anyone directing them, the tower ship flew straight toward a particular section of the Royal City and soon arrived at a square where over a hundred tower ships of varying sizes were docked. Each one was enormous — several times larger than any human vessel.
However, it was immediately obvious that all of these ships had been crafted by human Artifact Refiners. With his own developing expertise in Artifact Refining, Yang Kai could tell at a glance that every single one of these ships had been forged specifically for the Ink Clan by human Artifact Refining masters.
"Wait here — I'm going to pay respects to the Royal Lord!" Heiyuan instructed his entourage before striding off.
Yang Kai stood on the deck, momentarily stunned.
He had assumed Heiyuan would bring him along to meet the Royal Lord. The entire journey had kept him on edge, because he had no idea whether the Royal Lord possessed some uncanny ability to see through his hidden secrets. If so, he would have fallen before he ever got started.
To his relief, Heiyuan had no such intention whatsoever.
Thinking about it, that made sense. Though Yang Kai was now a Grandmaster-level Artifact Refiner — something of a treasure in the eyes of the Ink Clan — the Royal Lord wasn't someone you could just casually request an audience with. Why would Heiyuan drag him along?
With no need to face the Royal Lord directly, Yang Kai felt considerably more at ease.
Heiyuan headed straight for the Ink Nest and soon disappeared from sight. Yang Kai looked around and noticed that all the Ink Clan who had accompanied them stood at rigid attention on the deck, their eyes fixed upon the Ink Nest, their expressions reverent and devout.
It wasn't just them — the Ink Clan left behind on the surrounding ships all wore much the same look.
The Ink Nest of this Royal City seemed to hold a special kind of awe for the Ink Clan.
According to what Zhagu had told him, the Royal City's Ink Nest was the origin of every single Ink Nest across the entire Yin-Yang Theater of War. All Domain Lord-grade Ink Nests had been split off from it, and the Domain Lord-grade nests in turn had spawned many lower Lord-grade ones.
The countless Ink Clan were born from these Ink Nests of varying tiers. Trace it back to the source, and the Royal City's Ink Nest was the wellspring of their very existence. Naturally, arriving here filled them with an inescapable sense of reverence.
Yang Kai fell into deep thought. Where had the Royal Lord-grade Ink Nest itself originated? It couldn't have simply appeared from nothing. Unfortunately, though he had asked Zhagu this question before, Zhagu hadn't been able to answer.
As far as Zhagu knew, the Royal Lord-grade Ink Nest was the highest tier there was. But Yang Kai felt that couldn't be the whole truth — there were surely deeper secrets here, ones that even most of the Ink Clan themselves didn't understand.
Heiyuan had gone to pay respects to the Royal Lord, and there was no telling how long that would take. Yang Kai was idle and considered strolling through the Royal City, but on the one hand, he was completely unfamiliar with the place and feared drawing trouble — his human identity was conspicuous enough as it was — and on the other hand, his Ink Coins had been completely spent long ago, so even if he found something good, he couldn't buy it. He gave up on the idea immediately.
He turned and went back to his cabin, took out his resources, and resumed cultivating.
He ended up waiting for days.
Until, at some point, he felt Heiyuan's aura suddenly descend upon the ship, and he hurried out.
Stepping onto the deck, he found Heiyuan there as expected — except that when he had left, he had been alone, and now he returned accompanied by another Ink Clan member.
The Ink Clan individual appeared to be a Lord, but judging by his aura alone, he was far more formidable than any Lord Yang Kai had encountered before.
Yang Kai bowed respectfully. "Master!"
The unfamiliar Ink Clan member looked down at Yang Kai, studying him with appraising eyes. "So this is him?"