Yong Lu inspected the route and asked the receptionist "How do I take this route?"
The receptionist looked over and said "This route will be crossing a station only twenty kilometres west of the small city. You can buy a ticket and board the ship at that station."
"Hmm." Yong Lu looked at the distance. If he had to calculate it based on his speed, it would take sixteen days without stopping and if he took occasional breaks, it would take approximately twenty days. "When will the ship arrive at this station?"
The receptionist took out a jade slip from below his counter and pressed it against his head. Only foundation building cultivators are able to use their spiritual sense outside their body, even inside it's very restricted and generally only late stage qi refiners can use this.
After a few seconds, the receptionist replied "The next ship will arrive in ten days. The location is relatively barren at the border, so the ships only halt there every three months."
"What is the price?"
"There are three prices based on the different seats. A silver ticket will give you a room which is shared by four to ten people, a gold ticket will give you a small private room and a jade ticket will give you a small courtyard. The charge is based on the number of stations you cross."
Yong Lu knew this already, as every station was exactly the same distance from each other. It's as if someone looked at the map from above and drew exact points, and no matter whether that point was a lake or a mountain, it would be made appropriate, which is why the stations generally look the same.
As for payment, one could either pay directly at the beginning or pay per station. There is no difference between the options, and the ships have barely any difference at all. The sole purpose of the flying ships is to transport cultivators from one place to another. Naturally this is mainly for lower stage cultivators.
Higher stage cultivators fly faster when they simply use a flying tool, and using only a bit of spiritual power can already give them a peaceful journey. When flying alone, they are often faster than any ship and have higher flexibility, so most of the time they arrive faster and even if there are some robbers, they can easily avoid them.
Even so, Yong Lu didn't understand the need to give low level cultivators that high of a movability, in fact, this is mainly used by rogue cultivators and most others have their own ships as long as they reach a certain point, even if that point is still among low level cultivators.
'It can only be said that this is connecting the plains better. Maybe the beasts even support this, after all, they also have to move around, and the ships don't forbid beasts. Rather than saying this is a transportation service that attempts to profit, one should think of it as a public transportation service that connects the whole realm.
I wonder, is there also an alliance between all holy places here that enforces basic rules? If not, I can't imagine why beasts would follow the rules of the humans, after all, even if the transportation is in human territory, when they approach the boards, they should be in danger of being attacked, yet the closest station is right next to the border…'
The stations are naturally not only in cities, in fact, the least number of stations have cities around them. At most there would be a town where the locals live, and that's it. Ships only fly from station to station, but the nearest cities to the stations would always send their own ships to transport these cultivators from the stations to the city.
The distance is short and if one approaches a ship that is too close to the station, then it's likely that the station will defend these non-public ships.
'Regardless of what their goal is, at least they managed to spread the whole cultivation world a lot. The population of the human realm should be very high, especially with the number of mortals that can live well in their cities. If they don't spread it like this, then the cost of transporting resources from far away would probably be higher than the profit such a large number of cultivators would bring.
Well, these humans live so long, even though they don't have the large variety of culture a normal modern society has, they are extremely advanced in their own way. If one had to repopulate the people in modern society, it would probably cause many disagreements.
The decentralisation of the cultivation world is definitely better. As for beasts… well, they follow the nature and heaven much more than humans, so they don't have to worry about such issues at all. It must be easier to solve issues in the beast realm, and politics in a lab wouldn't exist there, as long as I want and have the strength, I can just experiment and don't have to wait for thousands of documents and so on…'
Yong Lu was much more expectant in his heart, then he looked at the receptionist and asked "What's the price?"
"Fifty for silver, hundred for gold and two hundred for jade. It's recommended to take at least a gold ticket, as there are always differences between cultivators. Fighting on the ship is forbidden, but outside, no one will care."
Yong Lu nodded while he was surprised in his heart. Fifty spiritual stones isn't low for qi refiners, but these cultivators would rarely travel far enough to need a ship. If one only looked at the cost, fifty was barely acceptable for late stage qi refiners. Naturally this isn't because the price is too high for them, but because no one would take a ship just for one station, except one was very close to one.
Lu looked at the route again and saw that it would take seven stations from the station he'd take, which would be a total of eight stations. Each station is exactly a month distance from another.
He knew that silver and gold tickets were used by qi refiners, respectively rogue and family or sect cultivators, while jade are used mainly by foundation building cultivators. In fact, one might think this is not only because one wants a larger space, but also because of the density of spiritual power in the surroundings.
But this thought would never come to any cultivator. The minimum spiritual power of the whole world is that of a second stage spiritual vein, while any town has the standard of a third stage vein and cities only start at fourth stage veins. The same is for gathering places, even the periphery starts usually at the third stage, except the gathering place is very small.
Based on this, any business that involved higher spiritual density would start at the fourth stage vein. It is common in this world for forces to have a vein one grade higher than their own stage.
Even fourth stage veins are looked down upon, and only when one has a fifth stage vein, can one claim to be a proper force. As for having a vein two stages higher, the cost of this would usually be higher than the benefit. No matter how high the vein is, a cultivator would only be able to cultivate faster when the vein is a stage higher than their cultivation.
Except the case of an immortal vein and a mortal vein, everything else has no difference.