Chapter 35- First Journey Through the Sky

“Senior Brother… was I secretly kicked in the head?”

“Nope. That’s real.”

The West Town Outer Court had assembled in a field outside the town. Their duties had been assumed by mortal servants overseen by the disabled and seniors who had stepped back from the front lines in the Inner Court. Every fit Earthly Realm lay brother and sister had left. No exceptions.

Tian knew he would never forget brother Tang’s face, wrapped in a blanket and sitting immobile in a wicker chair, watching his brothers march out the gate.

The West Town branch of the Outer Court was headed for the Southern Border. And they were going on a flying ship.

“It’s the size of… of…”

“Hush, Junior.”

Tian shut up, his eyes riveted on the boat. It was shaped like one of the river boats he saw polling its way up and down the long river that wrapped around the mountain. Just vastly, impossibly longer.

“I can run pretty fast now,” Tian thought, “But it would still take me at least twenty minutes to go end to end. At least twenty. Thirty?”

The number kept revising upwards as the boat got closer. It was huge on a scale Tian’s mind simply didn’t operate on. He could understand the river being big or the mountain being big, but a human construction like the boat didn’t seem to fit in his mind. It just kept going and going.

“It’s not built for humans. It’s too big. It’s just too big.” He thought. “There is no way it could land without crushing hundreds of farms.”

Someone up there agreed with him. Smaller boats fell like pollen, drifting downward towards the waiting cultivators scattered around the base of the mountain. One of them landed feather-light in front of the West Town. It was a flat bottomed skiff with a flat deck and a little covered area seemingly made out of a forest’s worth of woven bamboo splits. The prow of the ship gently fell forward, turning into an enormous ramp, wide enough for the waiting cultivators to march aboard in rows ten across.

“Even their little boats are bigger than the entire Temple complex.” Tian thought. “Who could build on that scale? How does it fly without wings? Hell, how does it fly without making a sound?”

“West Town Outer Court reporting! All disciples are present and accounted for. We await your command!”

Brother Fu’s voice roared out. There was the sound of clashing blades in there, and an old dog ready to show the young pups why it still ruled the pack.

ACKNOWLEDGED. BOARD THE DINGHY AND AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS.

It was a man’s voice, but Tian would swear his ears didn’t hear it. The voice just appeared in his head without bothering with such petty methods.

“WEST TOWN! BY RANKS! FORWARD MARCH!”

“March?” Tian wondered what marching was. Like the annual procession? He decided to just do what his brothers did. They seemed to know what was happening.

They marched up the ramp and into the hold of the dinghy. The interior was mostly empty, at least where they were standing. After everyone was on board, the prow closed up again and Tian felt a gentle pressure on the soles of his feet. “Are we flying?” He muttered.

The brother next to him glared and put a finger to his lip. Then nodded. Then glared again and repeated the gesture. Tian nodded obediently.

The pressure continued for a few minutes, then stopped. The ramp lowered again.

DISEMBARK. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE STEWARDS.

“WEST TOWN! REVERSE DIRECTION.” Everybody spun around. Tian kept up. The forced ‘stroll’ practice made his reflexes very sharp. “WEST TOWN! FORWARD MARCH!”

They marched out onto an enormous deck. The roof above was almost lost in darkness, with a few floating lights flooding the floor below. There were little roads marked with white paint, others with green or red or blue.

“Welcome aboard the Summer Torrent! Your journey to the Southern Border will take thirty six hours. You will follow the blue path and only the blue path to your berth. Do not stop at any point along the way! Do not talk to anyone. Do not slow down. We have another town coming on board in ninety seconds, so I want you off my deck in thirty! Now, MARCH!”

Tian didn’t recognize the cultivator talking, but he recognized an Inner Court uniform, so he marched. Brother Fu and Sister Bai led them down the blue path, never varying their pace. Even when it looked like there was another town’s worth of Outer Court members blocking the hall, they kept the pace. The others cleared the hall exactly four seconds before the front row reached them, entering into their own berth.

Tian hadn’t really considered what it would be like shifting eighteen thousand people in a hurry. He’d never had to organize a group of any size. It was almost as amazing as the ship itself.

Their berth was nothing more than another big room, though smaller than the one they had landed in. Brother Fu and Sister Bai quickly had the Temple and Covenant split up and spread out evenly. When the room was divided to their satisfaction, complete with aisles to walk up and down and determining the location of the privies, they instructed everyone to sit. The noise was remarkable, echoing off the walls and ceilings.

Sister Bai cleared her throat. “Alright, for those of you who haven’t traveled by sky barge before, both of you,” That got a small laugh. “Let me explain what’s going to happen here. You are going to sit right where you are. If you want to sleep, pull out a blanket, bundle up and sleep. You want to eat, eat dry rations. Better still, eat a fasting pill. There is a reason they are the only ‘pill’ available in the Outer Court. All they do is provide enough nutrition to keep a Earthly Realm cultivator going for a week. Key point- if you don’t eat, you don’t excrete. So do drink a lot of water, because any toxins you accumulate in your body will be flushed out through your urine.”

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She pointed dramatically towards the privy. “Enjoy clean bathrooms while you still can. You won’t have them long. Other than that, you can talk quietly with your neighbors, but don’t wander around. Better still, just settle in for a long cultivation session. Right, that’s it. Enjoy.”