Recalling Chen's memories, he was instructed to get on another commercial spacecraft in starport station. Since the departure will be the next day, they had already booked him a hotel with a given address.
"Tomorrow is my next flight, and I'm supposed to arrive back in the morning. It's already 3:30 PM Earth Time, so I should use my free time and do some exercises and meditation at the hotel." He thought in his head.
Hong went to the entrance and left the place. He walked over to the taxi areas and signaled for a taxi. A taxi pulled up and the door opened before he stepped in.
"Where to go buddy?" The young taxi driver asked. His voice had a thick foreign accent that an American southerner would have.
"Take me to this StarCity Hotel." He showed the address to the guy and transferred credits over.
"Ok buddy."
The taxi pulled away from the entrance on autopilot and quickly joined the energy highway. Flying through the energy tube, the taxi passed from the starport to the station at a fast speed.
A minute later, they approached the station and entered from the side. Upon entering, Hong was astounded!
"W-what the?!" He couldn't help but gasp in astonishment.
What looked like a giant hollowed-out cylinder on the outside turned into a much larger hollowed-out cylinder.
A vast landscape of both natural life and a city entered his eyes. The surface was covered in vast tropical forests mixed in with lakes and rivers that seemingly stretched for thousands of miles from the north to the south. For the west and east, the ground naturally curves until it seemingly touches the sky.
The ceiling was so high, that clouds were naturally present! The ceiling generates an artificial blue sky with a weird artificial sun that moves across it.
The artificial sun is shaped like a straight line that stretches north to south, all the way to the edges of the cylinder. It slowly moves across the sky towards the west before meeting the natural curve and fading behind the artificial sky where it gradually turns to night.
Author: It took a lot of thinking and rewriting to figure out how the heck you would simulate day and night in such a structure considering it does not rotate at all.
You could see plenty of cities that were in random places everywhere. Each building was high enough that it literally connected with the artificial sky, like towers that connected the heaven's and earth. They looked like they were seemingly being support towers for the entire place.
Then there was smaller towns around the cities that did not connect to the heaven's, but still had impressive high-rises.
Countless amounts of hovercraft traversed the skies in orderly fashion and no roads stained the natural forests between each city. However, there was some giant seas that had oceans with beaches that were used for entertainment.
You could also see plenty of hovercraft that come out of the artificial sky and plenty that enter the sky before disappearing.
"Such a beautiful place! I wonder if I could go search for herbs..." He thought deeply, but then shook his head.
"I'm an idiot. This is the future, and there's no spiritual energy, Qi, or the heaven's itself. All the mortal herbs that can live without all three have been thoroughly studied. Just looking at the herbal websites, everybody knows their effects since I can confirm they are true."
Even if he wasn't an alchemist in the past, he was a sect master, and naturally had a bunch of alchemists working for him. It wasn't that difficult to get a book containing info about many mortal, divine, immortal, and god herbs and their effects.
Just looking at his memories of them and the websites, almost everything matches up with the mortal herbs.
"Without spiritual energy or Qi, they should just be low ranked mortal herbs since medium and high ranked mortal herbs require at least some Qi or spiritual energy. I cannot benefit in any way from them since they are completely useless for cultivating or cultivators." He couldn't help but sigh with a slightly negative mood.
The taxi flew from a hole in the ground like many others did and soared into the skies until they were above cloud level. The AI pulled the taxi onto an invisible lane full of other vehicles as it went across the landscape at high speeds. Hong silently looked at the clouds and landscape below.
The taxi branched off from the traffic and descended into the clouds.
A thick, rectangular metal pillar about fifty kilometers away from a metropolis city appeared in front of them. It's height surpassed the clouds and connected the heavens as clouds moved around it.
Giant square-shaped holes littered the exterior at every spot and looked to be docking areas.
Every second, countless spacecraft appeared out of nowhere from the artificial sky before entering each hole. Every second, countless spacecraft left the holes and took off into the sky before seemingly vanishing.
Hong could tell that they were commercial spacecraft because of their exterior appearance and their manufacturer name on the sides.
The taxi followed other vehicles as they approached the base of the structure. About a circular kilometer around the base had been cleared of forests for buildings and structures.
They passed through an invisible barrier surrounding the place and entered the town surrounding it before merging into traffic. The giant pillar stood out like a sore thumb from this height, and blocked out a large portion of the horizon.
Hong could tell by the buildings and factories that this place was mostly occupied by hotels and spacecraft manufacturers with some stores as well.
The taxi finally approached the ground before stopping at a high-rise hotel. The name StarCity floated on a hologram above the entrance and it looked to be 4 stars.
Hong stepped out of the taxi, thanking the driver before closing the door. The taxi flew off into the skies as he walked towards the entrance.