127. First Encounter with the Mu Continent

Life here seemed to move at an exceedingly leisurely pace. The buildings had clean, simple lines; their walls and floors were polished until they gleamed like mirrors, and their ornamentation consisted primarily of geometric designs.

Only the sculptures hidden in the shadows were different. Every one of them was elegant and exquisite, in no way inferior to the masterpieces left behind by the European Renaissance.

The city itself was meticulously planned, without the slightest trace of deafening noise or clamor. As they walked along the streets, they saw people everywhere dressed in long robes of gauze and going barefoot, gathered around beautiful flower beds. Some leaned against them, some stood, and others simply sat on the ground. They conversed and debated calmly, many holding ancient, weighty books and elegant long pens. They listened attentively to one another and occasionally recorded something on sheets of paper.

Apart from these people who enjoyed exchanging ideas, soldiers on patrol could often be seen beneath the arcades and beside the doorposts. The atmosphere was very much like the one Chairman Mao had described: united, tense, solemn, and lively.

Luo Yu had been watching those groups of people closely. They seemed to be engaged in some kind of academic discussion, and he felt a deep admiration for them.

“The people here are even more eager to learn than the students at school.”

Luo Li nodded in agreement. “There must be an enormous library here.”

Bai Wuhuo was playing with the drooping ear-bun Luo Li had tied in his palm. At that, he instinctively mocked her. “Hey, even if there is a library, little girl, you wouldn’t be able to understand it!”

Luo Li snatched her hair back with one paw. “Can’t you play with your own tail? Hah! An ignorant boy who’s lived for thousands of years actually has the nerve to laugh at others. Has your brain been stuffed full of roast chicken?”

Qin Yue was long accustomed to the pair’s bickering. With an impassive expression, she surveyed their surroundings. Besides the locals, there were a very small number of outsiders like themselves. Most of these outsiders were cultivators. A few others had set up stalls along the street and appeared, from their features, to be elves or dwarves. There were also several strangely dressed, peculiar-looking individuals. Without exception, everyone wore the same kind of bracelet as they did.

Because their magical power was being suppressed, Qin Yue could not determine the cultivators’ levels of attainment. Still, they all came and went hurriedly and behaved with extreme discretion.

As the four of them passed a street stall, the seated vendor suddenly called out to them.

His words were completely unintelligible.

The man had very dark skin, and a circle of colorful down feathers covered the top of his head, hanging to the ground like a tail. His long golden hair fell in waves. Around his neck hung a heap of necklaces strung from various bones and gemstones; armlets encircled his upper arms, while his wrists and ankles were covered in layer upon layer of rings and chains. He looked like a walking jewelry stand. A string of strange wooden masks hung from his waist.

More astonishing still, he was holding a furry spider the size of a millstone. The spider wore one of the magic-suppressing bracelets as well, and was twisting its neck in an attempt to bite through the chain. Several of its legs scraped irritably over the vendor’s body as it repeatedly hissed. The vendor patted its back now and then to soothe it, his expression full of indulgent affection.

Luo Yu could not help baring his teeth slightly. He turned his head and glanced curiously over the stall. There were all kinds of strange ornaments, animal eyeballs, pungent medicinal powders, exquisite little metal bottles, dried corpses of unknown creatures, puppets, dried herbs, ores, and countless other things. It was a dazzling assortment of objects whose uses were impossible to guess.

Luo Yu would have liked to ask what they were for, but communication was impossible, and he could not determine the vendor’s origins either. He could only shake his head regretfully.

“We have a communication problem. We’ll come back another time.”

The vendor froze, then spoke rapidly.

His words were once again incomprehensible.

Luo Yu shook his head helplessly and pointed at his own ear. “Brother, I can’t understand you!”

The vendor frowned and thought for several seconds. Then, all at once, he switched to English.

“Can you understand me? Do you speak English?”

Luo Yu’s eyes lit up. This was perfect! He immediately replied in English, “Yes, I can. You speak English? Are you from the surface?”

The vendor’s face blossomed into a grin.

“Yes, the surface! Melanesia. Are you from the Eastern Heavenly Court? Or the Eastern Divine Race? You haven’t studied Kara?”

Luo Yu suddenly understood. The old man who had let them into the city had said “Dong”—he had actually meant “Eastern.” Luo Yu had no idea what the difference was between the Eastern Heavenly Court and the Eastern Divine Race. Perhaps both referred to cultivators from the East.

He nodded, all his curiosity focused on the unfamiliar term. “Kara? Is that the native language here?”

The vendor’s smile grew even brighter.

“Kara is the common language of the undersea continent. If you’d like to learn it, I have a textbook with English translations. It’s extremely comprehensive. I went to enormous trouble to bring it back from the city of Muwol. I nearly lost my life more than a dozen times on the journey. I’m sure you understand how precious it is!”

Luo Yu’s eyes shone. A textbook for the native language? That was exactly what he had been looking for!

“Could I take a look?”

Seeing a possible sale, the vendor immediately sprawled over the stall and rummaged swiftly through the chaotic goods. He soon pulled out a brand-new scroll of hide and handed it to Luo Yu.

“Have a look. It’s made from an entire snake-tailed rabbit hide. It won’t last forever, but the contents are completely intact. I know your memory is excellent, so I’m sure it will still be as good as new by the time you finish learning it.”

Curious, Luo Yu gently unrolled the scroll. Its surface, about the size of a keyboard, was covered in writing as fine as pores. Anyone with poor eyesight would have sworn there was nothing written on it at all. A ring of strange runes bordered the text, making it obvious that the scroll was a magical artifact.

Luo Yu tried injecting a little magical power into it. The bracelet had not sealed everything quite so completely after all. Although most of his abilities were unusable, simple everyday applications were still possible.

The runes on the scroll flashed. They guided the magical power through the writing, and the characters infused with that power immediately rose into the air one after another, enlarging into letters that even an ordinary person could read.

Luo Yu was extremely pleased. Though this was not as convenient as a jade book, it was quite interesting. It was also finely made and would make a nice travel souvenir.

“How much?” Luo Yu asked.

The vendor flashed a row of dazzling white teeth and said cheerfully, “Fifty magic stones!”

Luo Yu frowned. “Magic stones?”

What were magic stones supposed to be? And fifty of them?

Seeing his expression, the vendor asked cautiously, “Yes, magic stones—crystals containing magical energy. Dark-element stones are acceptable too. You don’t have any?”

After hearing the vendor’s explanation, Luo Yu immediately understood. The magic stones he mentioned were probably spirit stones, while those dark-element stones might well be nether stones. Yet this was only an ordinary language book. Were prices here even higher than in the cultivation world? Was the vendor simply trying to name an outrageous price?

They might have plenty of spirit stones, but they could not allow themselves to be treated like fools and fleeced.

Qin Yue had been listening quietly for a long while. She glanced at the pile of scrolls on the stall and said flatly, “There are so many scrolls like this. Why are you charging so much?”

Luo Li joined the bargaining as well, putting pressure on the vendor.

“You can’t deceive your customers! On the surface, a detailed magic book sells for only twenty magic stones. I’m sure it must be cheaper elsewhere than it is here!”

Besieged by the two of them, the vendor was deeply distressed.

“No, I’m not! Don’t you know? The journey from Muwol to Shakama passes through the Orcs’ territory—what your people call the Demon Race—and then through the Chaos Zone. Believe me, aside from me, you would have no way of buying such an excellent language textbook in Shakama.”

Luo Yu was skeptical. “That makes no sense. How could a city this large not sell language textbooks?”

The vendor stared at the four of them for a long while before asking, “You… only just entered Navaram?”

At the mention of Navaram, Luo Yu’s eyes widened.

“This place… is the legendary continent of Mu, the one that sank beneath the sea?”

The continent of Mu, Navaram, had been called one of the “Lost Continents” alongside Atlantis and Lemuria. Based on records unearthed in various places, it had been swallowed by the Pacific Ocean more than ten thousand years ago.

According to legend, the humans who lived on that continent had once been the masters of the surface world. They possessed a magnificent civilization and had colonized every nation that existed in their time, only to vanish beneath the sea in a single night. With their disappearance, human civilization itself suddenly regressed, and everything was buried beneath the passage of time.

A thousand years after another civilization gradually rose, people discovered records and legends concerning the continent in various ancient ruins. Some had spent their entire lives searching the Atlantic Ocean without finding anything. Even now, Mu remained a mysterious and beautiful dream in the hearts of many, continuing to draw explorers who sought it tirelessly.

Qin Yue made her decision at once.

“Tell us everything you know about this continent, and we’ll buy your textbook.”

The vendor’s eyes lit up.

“No problem. You can call me Gofei. I lived in Muwol for three years. For centuries, people from Europe have been coming there—the English in particular. I once saw an angel there. It was fighting a vampire and destroyed the entire hotel! Ha! The poor innkeeper never received a penny in compensation. That winged bird-man was so poor you could hear his pockets rattle.

“There are countless stories like that. I’ve traveled across half the continent, and in the south I even met merfolk from Atlantis. Yes, and that was also when I ran into giants. Fortunately, I was clever enough to tell them I was a native Orc. Those fellows actually believed me…”

Once Gofei’s tongue was loosened, the four of them gradually formed a preliminary impression of the continent.

The continent lay beneath the Pacific Ocean, between China and the United States. Its northernmost point was level with Qingdao in Shandong, while its southern reaches extended as far as Australia. Its longitude stretched from Japan to Mexico, and its total area was equivalent to four Chinas—larger even than Africa.

Many highly intelligent races lived on Mu. The most numerous were the native monsters of the continent. In Mu, they were known as the Orcs. They were concentrated in the east-central region and were intensely hostile toward foreign races, believing that immigrants had seized what belonged to them. They were even hostile toward the native Karans, accusing them of selling their own lands to the immigrants and betraying the continent of Navaram.

The Karans were descendants of the Mu Empire from ten thousand years ago. They had always lived in the southwestern part of the continent and had formed an alliance with the Eastern Heavenly Court and the Eastern Divine Race, both of which had come from the East. The three factions occupied most of the western half of the continent.

The most mysterious branch of the Eastern Heavenly Court lived in the northwest. The west-central region was home to loose cultivators who had arrived intermittently from China and Japan over the past ten thousand years. Together, they had formed the powerful Eastern Divine Race.

Besides them, there were practitioners from every nation of the surface world. These beings occupied the northeastern region known as Muwol. Although the Orcs disliked these surface dwellers as well, their relationship was not especially poor overall.

There were also the Titans in the southeast—the race commonly called giants. They too were natives of Mu. They had already been living on the land when the continent sank beneath the sea. Thus, the Titans were the Orcs’ staunchest allies.

However, the Titans were naturally warlike and inclined toward having strong limbs but simple minds. In practice, they served as the Orcs’ shields and enforcers.

The immigrants of Muwol had no real political position. Their population was a chaotic mixture of magic users, necromancers, elves, dwarves, witches, vampires, angels, alchemists, demons, and countless others. Yet because they lived beside the Orcs and were deeply interested in the Eastern magical system, they were reluctantly counted as part of the Orcish alliance.

The Eastern Divine Race had migrated to the continent far earlier than the Eastern Heavenly Court and had already established a firm foothold. Powerful and uninhibited, they had long been regarded as a thorn in the side of the native Orcs. Relations between the two sides had repeatedly reached the point of irreconcilable hatred.

The area between their territories was known as the Chaos Zone, where major casualties occurred frequently. Even many innocent passersby who happened to be caught in the crossfire had been dragged into the bloodshed.

Although the Eastern Divine Race was powerful, it was fond of internal conflict. Over the course of their long war with the Orcs, the two sides had won and lost in roughly equal measure.

Apart from these major powers, the continent also had several neutral groups. For instance, there was the Divine Descendant Race, said to be the most powerful race in the world. Because they held themselves in exceedingly high regard and were few in number, they would never lower themselves to participate in the wars between the two sides.

Then there were the weakest of all—the merfolk, descendants of the former Atlanteans. They were simply incapable of taking part in the war.

The latest chapter of The Best Friends’ Chronicle of Immortal Cultivation, Chapter 127: First Encounter with the Continent of Mu, is now complete.