Of his usual guards, John only took with him Aydan. Crystin was attempting to break through to the Consolidated Soul Phase, and after her success- John was confident she could make the step- she would be best served on her own, working for the Tenebach clan’s purposes apart from him. Aydan was not without his own ambitions, but as they had discussed the main ones involved his own cultivation. Naturally, those were being fulfilled with the rise of the Tenebach clan, and John wouldn’t let him go without whatever he needed. Everything else- spending time with his family and the like- Aydan was actually able to do more than John, since they spent the same amount of time with the clan, but Matayal was away from John for a frustratingly large portion of the year.

Who thought it was a good idea to wed two heirs of clans that were geographically distant? Oh right, two old grandpas. Presumably it had been expected that Matayal would have siblings, but that never happened. At this point, appointing someone else to govern the clan affairs would take up enough time and effort they might as well wait for Tirto to finish maturing.

Regardless of all that, John was fairly happy… but he still had his own ambitions in cultivation. So along with Aydan and enough other guards to be appropriate for someone of his status, they were heading north to the Phoenix Forest, where they would be received as guests by the Firepine Palace. There were very few who would refuse the visit of a Consolidated Soul Phase cultivator. Even if they had hated his guts, they would probably at least entertain him for a few days and then find some excuse to avoid him. But there wasn’t a conflict between their factions- not that it would have been easy to develop regardless.

Astrein was directly between the Stone Conglomerate and the Phoenix Forest. They were passing through it now, in fact, and while John was quite pleased with the spiritual energy in the area… most people were not, given the even mix seemed to pretty much everyone like a near complete lack of spiritual energy. But as John had totems for two-thirds of the elements, he could clearly determine that even that portion was more than the ambient energy to be found in other countries. After all, few cultivators bothered to draw upon it- they could simply go in any direction to find their preferred elements. The only element not present directly adjacent was Darkness, but that could be practiced reasonably well in either earth or water dominant areas- or one could pass through the Stone Conglomerate to the Darklands.

“What is it?” Aydan suddenly spoke.

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“You have a look. What are you thinking about?”

“... In the future I might like to establish myself here.”

“It seems a bit… remote?” Aydan commented.

John laughed, “Maybe for the moment. Our influence is already spreading out of Marble county. In a few years, maybe a decade, how far will we have expanded? In this direction, at least, there’s no competition.”

“For good reason,” Aydan commented.

“I could found a sect,” John posited. “We don’t have to be limited to clan structures.”

Aydan clicked his tongue. “If only your grandfather could hear you now. Such an unfilial member.”

“... He’s still quite alive,” John pointed out. “And the Tenebach clan has been doing quite well under me, I do believe.”

“We’re at our highest point since the founding,” Aydan confirmed. “But with such a rapid rise, we must be on the lookout for an equally rapid decline.”

“I’m not going to just abandon the clan,” John pointed out. “I’ll make sure Melanthina is properly settled in, and I’ll still make myself available.” John shrugged, “I haven’t mentioned this to Matayal yet anyway. Our plans for what we intend to do in the future are still quite flexible. Though there was some mention of traveling the world.”

“A dangerous proposition…” Aydan said. “Even for cultivators of your power. I know it’s difficult to believe, but this region has generally been considered peaceful compared to some others. At least from the view of those with lesser power.”

“It’s not like other countries can have Consolidated Soul Phase cultivators killing each other every day,” John pointed out. “Even if they have a head start, there simply aren’t that many of us in the world.”

“I imagine not,” Aydan agreed. “But a self assured foreign traveler might run into some trouble.”

“I’m not the sort of asshole who throws my weight around,” John pointed out. “You know me better than that.”

“And I also know that you’re the sort who would step in when they found one of those. Thus, conflict.”

“... Fair. What do you think about bringing Lucanus?”

“Are you intending to maximize your chances of getting into a conflict?” Aydan asked. “Because that would do it.”

John shrugged, “I just thought it would be… interesting. We can’t just stay in relative isolation here forever. Yustina has also mentioned some interest in visiting Aglor and Hegresh.” Not in so many words, but she’d indeed mentioned wanting to visit her former home to see with her new eyes. There might have also been some implied asskicking should whoever caused her death still be alive. Even so, she’d been a Great Lake cultivator then- the same Consolidated Soul Phase as she was at now. Alone, she wouldn’t be any better off… but perhaps with a group of similarly inclined individuals.

“I wouldn’t even be able to place those countries on a globe,” Aydan admitted. “Personally, their names sound like unaspected countries rather than places of impressive cultivation.”

It was true that the local countries were named more after geographical and spiritual energy related features more than a proper name- except Astrein- but that wasn’t true everywhere, as far as John knew. “I would be willing to bet that Aglor means something about lakes or water in some old language.” Though cultivators had spread one language to more or less everywhere, some people still spoke local languages and there had been more variety in the past. And there were some languages competing in size even still, which reminded John to at least gain some proficiency with them if he truly intended to travel.

-----

Along the way they stopped in Lunson, the capital of Astrein. Logically speaking if John were going to set up something in the area it would be the capital, but he didn’t really feel like that was correct. It was the only place in the country where land was expensive- because of the tournament and the associated industry- and it would be too… obvious. If John was to grow something in the area, he wanted time to make something of it before people started taking note and thought to stop him. Though once more, he wasn’t sure if he even would follow through on these vague, at least a decade off plans. He wished he could talk to Matayal. How many decades would it take to advance things to the point he could have a cell phone so he could do that? No more than a couple centuries, if he got people interested. Though going down a path of technology wasn’t of much interest to people in a world of cultivation, and frankly speaking John didn’t have the know-how to do much himself.

What was an equivalent replacement, then? Shadowhawk messenger birds were a start on the level of communication he wanted to receive. The Sunfields had telegrams, more or less- if extremely unsecure. Maybe he could promote more things like that so that security could be developed. Or figure out how to make satellites or something that could redirect messages to only where he wanted. Which was of course an even further step beyond what he could actually do. Still, he could encourage some things in Marble County. A local network with slightly more convenient communications could catch on, and if it just started internally the security and privacy issues would be minimal. Hell, even telegrams started with someone literally transcribing a message which meant every single one passed through the eyes of at least two people that weren’t the sender or recipient- and that was still widely used.

Though he didn’t intend to set up in Lunson itself, and if he did it would be later, John still took a look around the city, casually sensing everything he passed. The area wasn’t quite as devoid of permanent cultivator residents as he’d previously thought. He took note of what factions were permanent fixtures in the capital. Instead of being cycle cultivators like himself, he mostly found they were small sects that accepted cultivators of different elements, most likely as a mutual defense pact rather than anything more. Properly supplying techniques, one of the main draws of a sect, couldn’t be easily accomplished if three, four, or six elements needed to be covered equally. But John could only see what was on the surface. Perhaps there was more. Still, his initial investigations gave him enough to work with for the moment, if any of it was even going to be relevant later.

-----

“... I thought they were exaggerating when the descriptions said the forest was constantly on fire,” John narrowed his eyes as he finally set his eyes upon the actual Phoenix Forest. He was sweating already, and they were still a good fifteen minutes from entering the area. At least the road was quite wide, to avoid what was happening. “This is worse than the Green Sands.”

“I do believe this is somewhat seasonal…” Aydan contributed. “It’s spring so… new life is born. Or something like that.”

John was glad that the carriage had been properly prepared for the journey. The carriage itself would have likely been fine without more changes, but the wheels might have been a bit rough. The same with the carriage driver and what could have been normal horses if research hadn’t been done. Special bits and bridles were prepared to resist the heat, transferring some of it elsewhere as it could.

“I have the feeling I’m going to get too much experience with fire,” John continued. “I thought it was supposed to be secondarily earth dominant here as well…”

His spiritual energy senses stretched out. It was true that on the surface the firepines which were the main species to greet them felt only like pockets of fire element, but underneath they were still plants. The ground itself also radiated energy, the ashy ground being soil surprisingly vibrant with life. Even as John watched waves of fire burn through the area, new growth was poking up through the remnants of previous plant matter. The growth wasn’t so rapid as the Viridia Wildlands, but that was to be expected. It would be a hell of a lot more difficult to cut a path through burning jungle to get anywhere, so the area would be even more sparsely populated if that was the case.

John paid attention to the smallest details he could catch as they passed by the scenery. From his understanding, Firepine Palace was oriented much more towards the fire side of things so they might not have the insights he was looking for directly… but providing him an opportunity to learn for himself would be sufficient enough.

One thing John could say about the Phoenix Forest was that it was surprisingly minimal in terms of smoke. He kind of expected his lungs to be full of smoke already, but most of it seemed to either remain high in the air or rapidly settle to the ground instead of lingering. Even so, John idly wondered how high the incidence of lung cancer was in the area. For his own part, he did his best to filter out his lungs- and he could see that Aydan was protecting himself as well, even if he couldn’t literally replace the air inside him.