Plans were made to deal with various issues John had seen from his recent survey of the continent. There wasn't anything absurd, as each region did well enough watching over itself. So issues they might have been unaware of, and others they might have been embarrassed to ask for aid. Cultivators liked to deal with troubles themselves and hated to owe anyone anything. But if it was important, they should.
There were small bits of unrest as well. John hadn't interviewed people and asked if they hated him, but he did learn so people's opinions about him and his sect. Certain negative feelings were similarly held against his closest allies. People could feel what they wanted, but if John thought it might turn into sothing foolish then they needed to do sothing about it. It would be far better for people to be stopped before they hurt anyone, or even threatened soone. Because otherwise he might have to kill them.
Arranging for such details was important because he was going to be away for a while. Publicly, because diplomacy behind closed doors was often sothing else entirely. They weren't going to declare they were good friends with the Empire of Elents anyti soon, but it was important to solidify in everyone's minds that they were definitely not enemies. For that, John had to visit them. Otherwise, it was just one-sided.
-----
John was trying to determine what retinue would make the biggest impact. He needed people from all over so that nobody felt excluded. He couldn't bring too many of his close friends and family. Yustina had to co because he wanted to give her the opportunity to see her forr holand- even or especially if she wasn't interested in revenge. Her husband would obviously be included, as separating the pair would be foolish. And if he for so reason needed combat support, they were among those he would trust with that the most.
The Molten Sea as a whole wasn't ready to properly make ands with the Empire of Elents. They had borne the greater costs of the war, and even if they had been repaid with the lands of their forr neighbors- who were also quite often enemies as well- they could be left to simr for a while longer. Aldara wasn't going to beco less of an Exalted Soul Phase cultivator, and without aning any offense to the Molten Sea he doubted any of them would have a chance to make the advance any ti soon. He wasn't specifically trying to aid any of them, and those he knew were still struggling.
Sitora would co. The Sky Islands were just as much of the continent as anyone else, and a transmigrated individual from another period could be valuable. After so discussion with Renato and Deirdre, they decided not to finish the club. Plenty of people were aware of their connections, but it would just be too many people closely tied to John. This wasn't supposed to be John Miller, the Six Elents Crossroads, and his friends. It was supposed to be the continental alliance… which he happened to be the core of while many of those friends were the pillars.
Mandlen was included because he was a likely reincarnator that wasn't one of John's friends. They weren't enemies, either. They had pleasant conversations and publicly agreed on many policies. But that was the extent of things. The Indestructible Kapok Grove hadn't made the best first impressions on John, but he had long since gotten over that. Their upper mbers were fine, but that didn't an he was going to like them all.
Venkat of the Boiling Springs was invited because he liked shot put. And because if he ca Ursel was more likely to go deal with that stuff in the Viridia Wildlands instead of asking to co along so she could fight the Empire of Elents' best earth cultivators. If she wanted to do that… it could be on a later trip. Ursel wasn't avoiding Venkat. She was just waiting for an opportunity to officially crush him in battle first.
John snagged various others from different regions. It happened that many of them were higher cultivation, but that was because cultivation rank was almost directly tied to leadership. In clans, the strongest mbers might rely advise the clan head and elders might surpass a sect head in raw power… but rarely. Though so saw the benefits of proper leaders and the stability it could bring, instead of just whoever could hit hardest.
John hoped he was one of the decent leaders. It was unlikely everyone he was close to was lying to him, but they absolutely could be biased.
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John sailed with the others through the northern seas. Even if the Molten Sea was a shorter distance it wasn't actually a faster journey in most cases. It certainly wasn't an easier journey, and they didn't need to bother the nice buffer zone by making a fuss about their diplomatic ventures in that area.
The northern seas were cold, but just along the coast they were mostly imbued with relatively ta water elent. Not too many storms or anything of the sort, and the beasts weren't all that bad.
All John was worried about on the journey was what he would say. He knew the words. He had plans for all of the official things that the continent wanted. None of them were important if he failed to provide. As long as he didn't sohow restart the war, it would be a success.
He didn't think he was going to. If he had any belief that the Empire of Elents would try to kill him, he wouldn't have gone. Everything should have been fine.
Steve clapped him on the shoulder. "It'll be fine. You're acting like you're going to see your highschool crush."
"I wasn't even worrying about that," John said. Yet. His feelings about Aldara and Matayal would never be anything but complicated. Feelings weren't logical and didn't fit into neat boxes. John couldn't declare that logic was above everything else, though. Cultivators relied on feelings all the ti, to great success. But John sotis did wish the world was logical, even if he still might not understand it. As it turned out, things were even more complicated from the top.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
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Sitora was cozy inside her cabin. She was still an Ascending Soul Phase cultivator, and thus defending herself from a bit of cold was possible. However, that wouldn't an it was comfortable. John had seen the signs of age in his first life and his current one. Sitora was already old when they t, and she absolutely wasn't getting any younger. That was sothing cultivators could do, but she only had small steps she could make with her cultivation. If she had been capable of reaching the Exalted Soul Phase, she would have held the position of the First Peak island master.
"Thank you for agreeing to co," John comnted. "I know it's not easy to share such details with strangers."
Sitora shook her head. "That might have been true once, but at this point I'm not afraid of much. Whether death takes forever or I get a third chance… I think I'll be content either way."
That was a good mindset. John couldn't say it was the best one because he honestly didn't know, but being depressed about potential death wasn't beneficial to anyone. Not that people often had a choice about their feelings in the short term. In the long term, people actually did have quite a large influence over what mindset they carried. That included people that weren't cultivators, though the willpower necessary to control spiritual energy and the additional ti to grow likely made cultivators more individually successful at ntal control.
"The continental alliance will miss you."
"It doesn't need to," Sitora comnted. "But perhaps an empire could."
John rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure how serious Sitora was about their continent becoming an empire, but ever since she'd heard about it she'd brought it up when they t. More once she found out it annoyed him.
"I would still miss you, at least," John finally said.
She smiled lightly. "We're barely even friends. The only thing we have in common is the sa planet."
"It's weird, isn't it?" John said. "Because that makes four of us. Even if there are many other transmigrators that we aren't aware of, it seems like an anomaly."
"What do you think it would an?"
John frowned. "Maybe that our universes are closer than others." John looked up into the sky. He had stared at them long enough with little enough knowledge of astronomy that he convinced himself he recognized constellations he barely even knew about, then reconvinced himself he was making things up. Currently, he was of the mindset that they weren't the sa, which might not an a different universe but maybe ant a different galaxy. John really wasn't sure how to pick out the milky way. In the right places, he could see the galaxy around them. It looked a lot like the milky way, but they probably all did from inside any similarly disc shaped galaxy. "taphysically, perhaps."
"And us speaking the sa language?" Sitora asked.
"Random luck. And the willingness of the English to form a widespanning empire."
How many people was it? About one in four or five. He had no idea about the statistics in the ti Sitora ca from. If they were the only four from Earth, it would be one in six hundred or more. That sounded unlikely, but it really wasn't compared to the whole transmigrating thing. But John had figured out about the others specifically because they spoke English- Sitora had even been using it as a code language- so it was probably far from random.
Hopefully they could compare with a good number of others from the Empire of Elents. There were supposed to be both reincarnators and transmigrators after all.
-----
If only pleasant things like asking if people ca from Earth and spoke English were first on the agenda. Sadly, it involved a lot of travel once they landed.
The region they landed in was a land of lightning. John found it quite believable that ships would be lost if they didn't know how to navigate into the port, because the lightning was about as constant as the Glass Hills. Except this particular area had built in lightning rods… which also happened to be pointed pillars of stone upon which ships could run aground.
The pillars continued inland. They seed almost entirely natural, though John thought they might have repaired or recreated so of them. They just felt different, even if he couldn't explain how.
It might have been a coincidence that they were asked to arrive in that particular port. It was one of the close ones, after all. However, as they were escorted throughout the Empire John found their route quite andering… and it happened to pass through so of the most impressive elental regions. Maybe their continent should have done the sa- though Aldara probably had so idea about most of them to begin with.
The next region of note was one of near-constant earthquakes. One would think that would be a major issue, but humans were surprisingly adaptable. Buildings were built on wide lots and made to shake. They even leaned into it by adding bells on so of them, ringing on the corners when the hourly quakes appeared. Not that they were on the hour. They just averaged sothing like that, not counting the various waves of aftershocks every major earthquake had.
Next was a land of constant rainbows. Without light elent it wouldn't have even been close to possible to see clear rainbows in nearly every direction, sotis double or triple, but with an abundance of a particular sort of light elent it just worked.
Next was a tri-elent region. The allied cycle of water, earth, and darkness. Specifically, an underground lake system. They absolutely didn't need to have routed through that area, because it ant leaving behind the carriages they had been taken in and acquiring new ones on the other side. The maps they had of the Empire of Elents weren't terribly precise, but it was more than clear to John they could have just gone around.
He did appreciate seeing the sights, though, even if he could recognize the purpose. He was supposed to recognize the grandeur of what they had. Admittedly, the areas were quite impressive. So were places like the Phoenix Forest and other special zones from his holand.
John kind of wished he'd gotten to spend more ti in the lakes. He found darkness quite pleasant, even if he was a six elent cultivator now. Likewise, everyone liked water. It was peaceful, and the solidity of the caverns had been reassuring.
There were probably blind cave beasts that ate people, but you couldn't have everything in life. Sotis you had to make compromises.
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