The next two jumps were a brutal test of endurance.
The spatial fold to Silver-Gate City was freezing cold. It tasted like ozone and sharp metal. Luna passed out completely. Jin had to catch her small body before she hit the silver-plated floor of the transit hub. He carried her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. He did not stop walking. He handed the blue tokens to the next clerk and stepped directly onto the final platform.
The last jump to Zenith City was different.
It was not a violent, chaotic drop. It was smooth. The power pushing them through the fabric of space was absolute and perfectly controlled. The ancient, class-one projector in the capital did not struggle. It pulled them across the continent with terrifying ease.
The blinding white light faded.
Gravity returned gently. Jin's heavy leather boots touched solid ground. There was no bone-jarring impact. There was no sickening nausea.
Jin lowered Luna to the floor. She gasped, her eyes fluttering open. The spatial sickness was instantly gone, washed away by the incredibly dense, pure Aether filling the room.
Jin took a deep breath. His Foundation Level 4 core vibrated happily. The air here was rich. It was heavy with life and energy.
He opened his eyes and looked around.
They were standing inside the central spatial tower of Zenith City. It made the blue crystal tower in Iron-Spire look like a cheap, dirty toy.
The cavernous hall was not built from stone or marble. It was grown from massive, overlapping plates of white and gold bio-crystal. The ceiling arched hundreds of feet into the air, painted with glowing, moving constellations. The transit rings were massive, capable of moving entire merchant fleets at once.
"We are here," Nyx stated in Jin's mind. Her telepathic voice was sharp. "We are in the center of the board. The threat level is maximum."
"Keep your head down," Jin ordered out loud. "Do not draw your weapon unless I give the absolute command."
He pulled his heavy brown hood down over his face. He helped Luna to her feet. The young ledger keeper was shaking, but she was awake. They walked off the massive golden platform and joined the flow of wealthy travelers exiting the transit hall.
They walked through a pair of towering glass doors.
They stepped out into Zenith City.
Jin stopped dead in his tracks. He stared. For the second time since waking up in the green gel, his corporate mind was completely stunned.
It looked exactly like Earth.
But it was Earth pushed a thousand years into the future, built entirely on the brutal logic of the Gene-Dao.
Massive, shining skyscrapers reached up to pierce the clouds. They were not made of concrete. They were built from highly refined, indestructible beast-bone and shimmering, translucent steel. The streets were incredibly wide, paved with seamless white stone. Glowing, levitating platforms moved smoothly through the air, carrying civilians and cargo between the massive towers.
There was no smoke. There was no dirt. The city was flawlessly clean. It was a perfectly optimized, trillion-dollar corporate headquarters.
"It is massive," Luna whispered. She stared up at the impossible towers. She had never seen anything like it. Cloud City was a mud hut compared to this.
Jin scanned the streets. He observed the local population.
The people here moved with absolute confidence. They wore pristine silk suits and elegant, flowing robes. They radiated power. In the outer rim, a Core Formation expert was a warlord. Here, Core Formation was just the middle-class standard.
Then, Jin noticed the local security.
Pairs of city guards patrolled the wide white streets. They wore beautiful, form-fitting silver armor that looked more like formal clothing than protective gear.
But the most glaring detail was their hands. Their hands were completely empty.
"They don't have rifles," Jin muttered to himself. He frowned under his hood.
In Iron-Spire, the heavy guards carried thick plasma rifles. In Crimson-Rock, they carried massive iron spears. The weapons were physical deterrents. They were tools used to project lethal force.
The guards in Zenith City carried nothing. No swords on their belts. No plasma rifles slung over their shoulders.
Jin's analytical mind rapidly processed the data. He cross-referenced it with his inherited memories of the power ladder.
He understood instantly. It was a terrifying realization of scale.
A plasma rifle was an equalizer for the weak. A bullet was a piece of metal pushed by a chemical explosion. It was highly effective against mortal flesh and low-level Foundation cultivators.
But a plasma bolt was completely useless here.
These guards were Nascent Soul experts. Their bodies were heavily mutated by high-tier Legacies. Their skin was infinitely denser than steel. If someone shot a plasma rifle at one of these guards, the superheated energy would simply bounce off their chest without leaving a scorch mark. If someone fired a heavy machine gun at them, the bullets would flatten against their skin like raindrops.
They did not carry weapons because their biological bodies were the ultimate weapons. A Nascent Soul guard could punch a hole through a tank with his bare hands. He could move faster than a fired bullet. He could snap a man's neck just by manipulating the gravity around his throat.
Jin looked down at his own pale hands. Foundation Level 4.
He was incredibly fragile. He was a glass cup walking through a city of iron hammers. If he made one mistake, if he bumped into the wrong person, he would be crushed into dust before Nyx could even draw her dagger.
"Do not look at anyone," Jin commanded sharply. He looked at Luna. "Keep your eyes on the ground. We are completely outclassed here. We are invisible."
Luna nodded quickly. She grabbed the edge of Nyx's cloak again.
"Where is the Academy?" Jin asked his shadow-guard.
Nyx raised a black-gloved hand. She pointed a single finger directly toward the absolute, dead center of the massive capital.
"There," Nyx said.
Jin looked past the shining skyscrapers.
In the exact center of Zenith City, rising above everything else, was a massive, sprawling fortress. It was not a single building. It was an entire mountain made of dark, polished obsidian, carved into hundreds of elegant pagodas, training arenas, and towering libraries.
A massive, glowing golden dome covered the entire mountain. It pulsed with ancient, terrifying Aether. It was a barrier that even the Emperor's armies could not break.
It was the Genesis Zenith Academy. It was the monopoly on violence. It was his sanctuary.
"We walk," Jin said.
He adjusted the small grey spatial pouch on his belt. The wealth of a dead bandit boss was heavy against his hip, but he knew it was pocket change in this city. He needed to find his aunt. He needed to secure a bed behind those golden walls.
They merged into the massive flow of foot traffic. They kept their heads down. The three anonymous scavengers walked through the shining streets of the gods, heading directly for the obsidian mountain.