Sofie looked into the city through the now open gate and was amazed at the buildings lined up by the side of the road. The buildings themselves were made of high-quality stones and a few other things Sofie couldn't recognize, but as the other materials were less used on the buildings, it should be worth more than the high-quality stone used in most of the buildings.
Thinking this, Sofie was secretly amazed. The only thing she knew about being used to build houses and other buildings was materials like wood, stone and in some rare cases high-quality stone.
The inside of the city however, had all its buildings made of high-quality stone and some other materials that looked even more rare.
Lost in admiration, Sofie did not discover the fire lizard she was sitting on slowly moving towards the city gate, as she wholeheartedly admired the different buildings inside the city.
It was only after Sofie finally made it through the city gate, that she discovered she was actually inside of the city itself.
Turning around, she could see the last few fire lizards with disciples ridding on top of them making their way inside of the city. Following which the giant city gate slowly started to close once again.
Looking around at the buildings at the side of the road they were traveling, Sofie could not help but ask Ling Yue. "What are the different buildings inside the city for? They don't look like a place you would live…"
Ling Yue listened to what Sofie said and looked a little amused as she answered. "The reason is that most of the buildings inside the city are shops that sell all kind of things. Most of the residents inside the city live inside the sect grounds. The ones from the shops and buildings around here, live mostly inside their shop or some of the buildings allocated for living inside. Seeing as most shops are run by merchant groups, they even hire some of the disciples to take care of the shop from time to time for a small fee."
"So, I can work inside one of the shops!?" Sofie said while looking at the colourful buildings passing by the side in wonder.
"Haha, indeed, but I do not recommend it, as it is better to spend your time cultivating." Ling Yue gave a slight laugh while explaining the demerits of working in the shops.
Sofie nodded her head in acknowledgement to what Ling Yue said, as she heard that cultivating takes up a lot of time and once you started cultivating you would start to see the world expanding before you. The stronger you got, the bigger the world got.
Sofie did not really know what her big sister meant, but she talked about a giant continent far away from the gathering of islands they came from. It was on this giant continent all the strong cultivators resided according to her big sister.
"We will enter the sect shortly, we will first leave the fire lizards at a stable close to the sect and then walk the rest of the way." Ling Yue's voice came from behind and interrupted Sofie's train of thought, startling her in the process.
The stable they arrived at was way bigger than anything close to what Sofie had seen before. They had a stable back in the village for some of the horses, but the stable for the fire lizards was way beyond it.
They had to fit in more than 50 fire lizards and fire lizards were not small in any way, so the size of the stable was understandable to some degree.
Entering the stable, Sofie and Ling Yue separated from the rest of the disciple, as each of them guided the fire lizard to a separate place for them to stay at. The reason was that fire lizards did not like being around other fire lizards and would start fighting with each other, if they were put together.
Ling Yue guided the fire lizard towards the front of an empty stables for fire lizards, as they made their way to the stable, Ling Yue helped Sofie get off the fire lizard before jumping down from it herself.
Now with both of them on the ground, Ling Yue started removing the saddle and other things on the fire lizard, before guiding it into the stable.
"Let's get going, we will enter the sect and get you officially registered before getting something to eat." Ling Yue said, as she made her way towards the exit of the stable.
Sofie, who heard the mention of food, felt her stomach rumbling, before quickly following after Ling Yue leaving the fire lizard in the stable.
*****
Sofie and Ling Yue soon exited the fire lizard stable to meet up with the rest of the disciples from the scorching sun sect before making their way towards the sect grounds.
Sofie and Ling Yue both walked through the city together with the group of old and new disciples of the sect.
Sofie and several of the other children walking towards the sect grounds, looked around themselves filled with amazement for the colourful and big city.
*****
"What is that?"
"It's a magic weapon created by cultivators."
"What is it used for?"
"fighting!"
A little into the journey towards the sect, Sofie started questioning about everything she found interesting along the way.
What especially drew her attention was some sort of disc like object that many of the people around here carried around.
Sofie was extremely confused about what her senior sister Ling Yue said. The disc was a magic weapon used for fighting? How did they use the disc? Maybe they threw the disc at people and it would do something?
Sofie was honestly clueless about how the little disc could help fighting off enemies, all she could imagen was someone throwing a dinner plate at random people and with how strong cultivators were, it was hard to imagen the tiny magic dinner plate (disc) doing anything in a fight.
"What does the tiny magic dinner plate do?" Sofie asked the senior sister walking besides her curiously, earning herself a weird look.
"Tiny magic dinner plate?"
"Ah, I mean the magic disc weapon, thing?"
Ling Yue looked at her new little junior weirdly. This little junior even dared to call one of their sects' life-saving magic treasures a tiny dinner plate?
"It's called the disc of fire. In combat, it can help strengthening your fire qi and in dangerous situations work as a shield to block enemy attacks for some time, depending on their cultivation level."
Sofie looked towards the tiny disc of fire in wonder, to think such a tiny disc could do so many useful things, it was indeed deserving as a magic item created by cultivators!
"Can I also get one?" Sofie asked, as she looked at Ling Yue with both eagerness and anticipation shinning in her eyes.
"Yeah, you will actually get a tier 1 disc of fire after officially becoming a disciple of the scorching sun sect!" Ling Yue said proudly upon talking about how the scorching sun sect could afford to give away something like tier 1 disc of fire to all the new disciples.
"We are at the sect grounds! New disciples, please line up before the entrance to get registered. The disciples who followed me to pick up new disciples can return for today, that is all." The voice of elder sun travelled from the front of the group, signalling that they had finally arrived at the scorching sun sect.