<< We traveled throughout the void tired from our travel we sought to rest on a nearby planet, we could sense the nearby spiritual energy was very lacking but it was enough. We settled down for the night each finding a spot we found acceptable the planet rather barren we made due, by the time it was dawn half of our group went missing but the planet was now vibrant as if last night was but a dream. The planet had eaten them in the night. >>
- excerpt from: The adventures of Jesol
The flying vessel left the ark -Shrine of the ancestors- the docks gates sealed shut behind them blending in with the rest of the ark seamlessly.
A handful of guards stayed within the ark as guards as it's self navigated, it originally designed to be inhabited by nothing other then plant and bug life in the long run.
The ark itself was dark gray blending itself into the darkness and a very insubstantial amount of spirit energy exuded from the exterior hull one would fail to notice the ark if not within 20 kms distance and high cultivation, shaped like a pear from above the ark was of the smallest variety at just 2.5 kms in width well below what should be the smallest type of Ark at just 5 kms in size.
The reason for this was simple, lack of materials and need.
The Ark was made from whatever spare material was leftover after the construction of all the other arks as such it had been made up of mostly whatever could be found at the time namely waste materials and the foundation being normal spirit wood as the skeleton of the ship with dry and bottom grade spirit veins being linked together just barely and the ark didnt even have basic space expansion spells placed upon it.
This could not be considered a problem for the ark as it had been made with the intention of being more of a time capsule holding the Nordaine family legacy in the hopes that if anything should happen to all living descendants the ark would somehow wander in the void on its own preserving what remains for an indefinite time in the hopes of one day being found.
However during the Vast tree realms treasure light fall the ark had experienced its fortune, upgrading the spirit veins from dry rank -> bottom grade spirit veins with a couple low grade ones mixed around.
Considering the size of the vessel this was substantial as even dry rank spirit veins could spread spiritual energy several hundred kilometers although it only covered several hundred feet with hair thin lines.
Of course it didn't release much spiritual energy but it 'filled' the air either way
The spirit wood had mutated into an unknown variety that is much tougher with the added bonus of coming back to life, spreading its roots across the ark mixing with the newly upgraded spirit veins greatly increasing the durability of the ark.
The wood itself held enough spirit energy to equal a mid grade spirit vein but it could not produce spiritual energy only gather, cleanse it, store and eventually release it in some form.
One fact that seemed to be ignored, the wood seemed to be able to survive the voids erosion fairly well.
One would think they would pay attention to this, but considering this lively tree was the only one plus it held the ship together nothing more could be done unless the branches flowered and bor fruit.
As for cutting a stem to grow a new one this was not possible for most spiritual plants, if it was would rare plants not be widely available?
The more rare or prescious the plant the less likely it can reproduce.
Most spiritual plants are products of heaven and earth meaning they have no reproductive cycles and simply appear when the spiritual energy and environment is just right.
Seeds are more often then not simply infertile, simply holding different kinds of spiritual energy so no matter what method you use you can't make something out of nothing.
The ark had two sections the top layer being a library of sorts and the bottom layer being the garden + grave site, with another hidden layer being a treasury.
Originally the garden held normal plant life to not waste a single bit of energy, but now the spirit wood had expanded inside the ship covering the insides in a dense layer of foliage and the normal plant life had transformed into simple spirit plants found across many continents and even some wood sprites could be seen wandering.
Although the Ark had transformed it was still not used as a cultivation resource and was still being used as a time capsule, as for the guards that are assigned here they are given the rights to cultivate as they see fit.
"It truly is the void... I had hoped you were joking when you told me this information, the amount of life within that flying ship or ark was abundant to say the least, but now that I see what's befor me…" the ancestor had become silent for a bit, looking outside it was suffocating, even tho there is nothing but empty space ahead the 'lack of anything' was truly frightening.
She couldn't feel any spiritual energy in the void around her, it was substantially different to the void inside the previous Vast tree universe.
At best she had read about the true endless void in ancient records, she couldn't be considered a peak expert in the whole of the vast tree realm but she was a peak expert of her region during her life able to aquire and gather a substantial amount of information otherwise hidden.
As the elders flying ship traveled for a few minutes a display screen to the left of him focused in on a seemingly empty spot in the void.
As they approached the empty void the screen started to display small lights in the distance
"Each of those lights is a single ark or flying vessel within the five family union ancestor, each vessel is about 100~300kms apart in distance so that we are harder to spot in the void. The weapon systems onboard our flagship can fight up to late body refinement cultivators with ease after which we can only defend or send out individual cultivators of similar rank, we can only start targeting potential threats at around 700kms distance given no stealth spells are at play- after that the accuracy goes wildly down but if all the vessels in our union fire towards a direction even if its several millions of kilometer distance we can at least ward of potential trouble befor it gets to close" the elder had a proud look on him
Ancestor Nordaine - "Tell me the basic situation of nearby powers and what you consider to be the biggest trouble and tell me what is going on within the Bells of hope elder proteus"
"Yes ma'am~~ nearby we have the alliance fleets of the five flower sect, the towering merchant group, the four kingdoms, the dwarven militia, and the elven convoys, they are the only ones near us with about 400~600kms distance between the fleets but the towering merchant group and the four kingdoms have sort of mixed together while the rest of us keep mostly to ourselves" the elder paused and continued on
"further then that we have no permanent neighbors since the location of every ark fleet has constantly changeing the past 5 years but we tend to stick towards the outer edges of the vast tree armada, which is what we call the whole collective of fleets in this group wh--"
The ancestor interjected here "do you consider it safer towards the edges or is it just due to lack of power that you are resigned to it?"
"Well its a bit of both, we can go deeper into the central zone of the armada and even to the very center should we pay a price but we have already witnessed once an attack by a heaven defying cultivator strike the very center of the original armada and it annihilated over 700 hundred thousand arks in one go even when protected by over 20 void realm cultivators! This was also when the armada was split into multiple sections heading in different directions" the elder was reminiscing with both awe and fear
Ancestor Nordaine - "A heaven defying cultivators attack... did any of the void realm cultivators survive?"
"Yes ancestor, of the 20 around 18 had their body's destroyed in what looked like a moment to me but several bright flashes of light from what seemed to be protective treasures…. but I personally couldn't say if they were--could be seen and from what we've gathered of those 18~ 15 died permanently... since their mind and soul could presumably no longer rejoin, while the 2 who's body did not breakdown had basically gone comatose for a while but are reported to be active once more but we have no way to verify this" a trace of awe could be heard from him
The ancestor now understood why it would be a risk to be near the center at the start, but considering the current situation taking a risk might be better then being at the sidelines.
"As to the opinion of staying towards the edge its a bit controversial since we both could be subject to first encounters with unknown beings and should the armada choose to retreat in any opposite direction of the one we are furthest located from it basically dooms us to our fate" the elder had put a map in front of the ancestor and pointed in the west most location central upper peak.
"This is the basic area we are at currently, the opinion of the fleet alliance we are part of, believes its beneficial to be in the edges rather then the center to allow for us to trade with other groups more freely then say the central area where every section is controlled by different powers whom may be less then kind, although we will probably be subject to pirate raids out here from my opinion"
The map displayed every ark fleet they had encountered and the possible direction they headed along with several footnotes about first interactions
"Then I'm sure you've checked the average power of other alliance fleets to be the same or near?" she was impressed by the intel
Elder Proteus - "We... it's still hard to say. We've seen many smaller powers then us, many larger and even one which we would like to avoid as even a fraction of them would overwhelm us but overall it has been peaceful between the current fleets that have passed"
"In terms of individual cultivation how do you feel you would have fared amongst those groups?" her ears perked up
"Badly, should it come to it we would prefer void fleet warfare rather then boarding actions as fleets smaller then us would either have powerful protectors whom could weaken us by doing suicide runs. While those similar to us it would simply be a double edged sword we wouldn't come out unscathed is my fair belief. While with the larger groups we will be the ones either resorting to suicide tactics or by paying a large materials price should they only be looking for that sort of thing otherwise we may have to fall under their control or dead" holding nothing back he gave out his opinion, he knew they could do better but currently much disorder lay underneath
"Are we truly so weak by comparison?" a trace of shock pervaded her face
Elder Proteus - "It is due to our choice to take as many people as possible into the void rather then selling off as many materials we could to increase the size of the main ark and simply take the powerful, otherwise we could have decided on joining one of the larger groups but simply no one would take a risk to let 7m cultivators more board their vessels. This was one of the main points which we are allied with who we are currently, as they have similar minds to ours or in the case of the towering merchant union - customers"
If they had focused all their resources simply on making a single individual ark or multiple large ones rather then 50+ smaller vessels, they could have caught the eyes of a major power that wouldn't care about the number of cultivators on board, being able to make larger arks also meant having many skilled laborers to make use of after all.
While smaller arks with larger populations simply showed a lack of foresight, leadership and resources available.
Once those resources started to dwindle what then?
If they couldn't take care of themselves why should others do it for them?
"So you have basically rooted yourselves to the ground due to your beliefs? idiotic, doing so will cut off your own future effectively forever till your mind can no longer accept change" she didn't hold her disdain back
"Hahahahh~ worry not! we are aware of this problem but we are not stuck on some frivolous belief of being benevolent, we are doing this because we will root out the weak early on while keeping our numbers larger then normal that way even if 2 or 3 million are to die within the next 10 years it wouldn't make a difference in the end, we are not seeking talented cultivators but survivors who will live to cultivate another day! Unfortunately this time period is now expected to be 80~100 years rather 10, I guess those other powers were right to criticize us" the elder had a sour smile towards the end of his excitement
Ancestor Nordaine - "due to the ark world?"
"Yes, due to the one thing we could not foresee we now have to think of different ways to eliminate a large amount of people without causing large amounts of civil unrest, it also blocked off many potential allies we could have made" the elder sighed at the end
"That being said let me tell you about our five family union flag ship, the Bells of hope" trying to get back on track the elder shifter the conversation.