Walking around the city, Kai bought a few burdens of water, a few kegs of alcohol, and dry food that wouldn't spoil for long. Once he had a bite to eat at a street eatery, he moved towards the hundred meter wall.
As he approached it, he felt his head begin to spin more and more. Standing in front of it, he felt tiny. Up close he could see how filigree it was made, the joints between the stones were perfect, and looking at each block he could see the light writing on each one.
To the naked eye, a normal person would hardly be able to see it, but seeing the Essence Energy, he could see it moving all over the wall. It was obvious that some incredible Array Master or their group had completely reinforced the wall.
"I wonder who one needs such a strong defense against? What level does a master have to be at to be able to do damage to this structure?" - Looking at it Kai thought.
At the top of the wall was a staircase that zigzagged and was also made of gray stone, it was part of the wall. When it was built, they had laid blocks for the stairs.
The staircase was quite wide and crowds of craftsmen were constantly climbing it. There seemed to be a regular stream of warriors coming into the wasteland. One of those climbing was Kai. Right now, he was looking at the Beast Border City from above, where he had an incredible view.
He could see literally every building in the city, and in the center was a huge disk from which the main roads led clockwise in all directions. That disk was the Tower of Truth. When Kai strained his vision, he saw a lot of energy constantly flowing into it, and that was only a part of it, the bulk of it was gathered from the bowels of the earth.
"I wonder how much concentration of energy there must be... I'll definitely need to save up some money to test out some of the cultivation zones..." - Thinking about it, Kai almost made it to the top of the wall.
Taking a step on the last step he saw a large flat plateau in front of him, thirty meters long, when he looked closer he realized that just the wall was so wide that even at the top of it was spacious enough. Kai started walking to the side that was closer to the wasteland.
As he approached the edge he unknowingly opened his mouth.
- Holy shit... - Kai said involuntarily.
There was now an endless land stretching out in front of his eyes! Everything was in yellow and gray tones, wherever he looked he saw nothing but this plain, there were no hills at all. And what was most amazing were the cracks that diverged all over this land. Looking down from above he could see how deep they were, many didn't even have bottoms!
Looking down, he was even more surprised, right after the wall was an incredibly deep chasm. It was also as if it was formed from a crack in the ground. It seemed as if the walls were deliberately built in the neatness of this chasm. When Kai tried to see the bottom, he failed. Even when he sharpened all his senses and black smoke started oozing out of his eyes, he could only slightly see as if there was a fire burning below.
- Amazing! - Dumbfounded, Kai said.
Across this abyss from the top of the wall were ten wide tension bridges, which were arranged in a perimeter from west to east. Looking at a bridge that was not far away, he saw a plaque above it with the number 3 written on it.
The contract stated that the rendezvous point would be near the bridge at number 10. Since the numbering went from 1 to 10, from west to east, the head of the expedition had indicated the outermost bridge, for they were heading deep into the wasteland to the east. Realizing that he was now on the other side of the wall, Kai slowly began to walk towards his destination, constantly looking at the plain.
This wasteland seemed very mysterious to Kai, he was already bursting with interest. He wanted to hurry up and travel and see everything from the inside. One of the thoughts that interested him was where the expedition commander had found the cave, if there was not a single mountain visible on the entire horizon?
"Maybe it's just that from the wall you can't see any other natural areas of the wasteland... Still, it's just immense, and it's unlikely that from the wall you can see everything." - Kai pondered.
After a while Kai came to the end bridge and saw a lot of people walking up and down it. As well as the other bridges....
- So, where should I look for my group? - Kai wondered. But at that moment he heard a girl's voice from far away.
- Master Fabian, where are we going? Why do you always keep everything a secret, it's not fair! - A cranky female voice sounded.
- Fabian? That must be where I'm going. Good thing I didn't have to look for a long time. - Kai thought and started moving towards the group of people.
There were now eight people standing in the distance. In the center was a man with glasses, he seemed to be about 45 years old. He had a nice enough face and light stubble. His hair was grayish and a bit unkept, and he was wearing a robe and looked like a typical bookworm, yet he was at the middle stage of the Cloud Sphere. This was probably the commander of the Fabian Expedition.
Standing beside him was a short girl of about 17 years old with long brown hair and wearing strange clothes like shorts and a loose short-sleeved sweatshirt. She didn't seem to be registered as a Border Beast City warrior, yet she was at the middle stage of Cultivator and Kai could hear her referring to Fabian as her Master. He made the assumption that she was most likely his employer's apprentice.
Besides these two, there were also four men and two women. All of them were around the average stage to Peak Cultivator. Only one of the men was at the beginning stage of the Cloud Sphere.
He was a tall and muscular man, with a two-handed axe on his back. Examining him, one could definitely tell that he was focusing on overwhelming strength and frontal attacks.
The other three were unremarkable, just ordinary masters of Border City.
And the last members of the group, they were two girls who had an already mature charm about them. They were very similar to each other, it seemed like they were sisters. They were somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-27 years old. The older looking one carried a thin rapier on her belt and the younger one had no obvious weapons, but when Kai looked at her hands she had spiked gloves on them, she must have been a master of close combat.
Overall looking over the whole group Kai was pleased, it looked quite strong and balanced, yet he didn't feel threatened by them. In unforeseen circumstances, he would be able to get away from the man with the axe. And Fabian though he was at the middle stage of the Cloud Sphere, as a scientist absorbed in his research, it was likely that his techniques didn't specialize in pure fighting style, otherwise he wouldn't have gathered a large group with him. So Kai had nothing to worry about.
Walking towards them, he took out the contract from the ring beforehand and unfolded it.
As the girl continued to mutter at the man with glasses, then a voice was heard:
- Hello, it seems I'm on my way with you, hehe. - Said Kai, and showed the contract.
- Ooh, you must be Kai! Well, finally the whole group is here! We can move out, we'll get to know each other on the way! - The man with glasses said good-naturedly and pointed towards the bridge.