Chapter 161: The Autumn Leaf Caravan

Generally speaking, three years after entering as freshmen, students gain freedom of movement. By this time, few remain within the academic factions; most have already formed their own teams or joined stable groups to venture into the Chaos Realm.

Those with ordinary strength and talent figure out ways to earn more money to provide for the next generation.

If they have the opportunity to successfully turn a realm into a dungeon instance, that is naturally even better, as a continuous stream of realm-origin income is sufficient to sustain a lineage.

Those with outstanding strength and talent pursue the Path of Legends.

However, ascending to a Legend is no easy feat; it is not simply a matter of reaching a certain level and achieving the breakthrough naturally.

In fact, even ascending to the Transcendental stage is no longer just about reaching a target level. It requires elevating one attribute to its absolute maximum limit, designating it as the primary attribute, and then undergoing the Transcendental Foundation Rite to condense a Transcendental Heart. This triggers a comprehensive readjustment of attributes, resulting in a qualitative leap in power.

If Transcendence is like this, Legend goes without saying.

A top-tier realm rich in resources like the Shattered Astral Realm easily attracts a large number of veteran professionals.

As the starting point of the realm, the outpost gathers quite a few veteran professionals.

Walking out of the inner city, Chu Cheng and Fang Xi saw a ten-story building covering an estimated area of over a thousand square meters on their left hand side. Hanging on the wall was a huge signboard stretching all the way to the top of the building, bearing the words "Constellation Hotel."

According to the information provided by the mentor, this was officially operated by the outpost and was the only lodging facility in the entire base.

Chu Cheng and Fang Xi first rented a large double-bedroom suite to settle in. Unlike dungeon instances, one could not simply set off on a journey casually in the Shattered Astral Realm.

The regional channel within the outpost was still usable. He opened the regional channel and first checked the number of available channels, finding only four: the General Channel, the Party Channel, the Bounty Channel, and the Official Channel—privately created small chat groups excluded.

Chu Cheng checked the four channels one by one and quickly got a grasp of the situation.

"There are still quite a few people here."

After briefly tallying the day's messages and the number of speakers, he deduced that there were around a thousand professionals currently remaining in the outpost.

However, a large portion of them were outpost staff and garrison personnel, leaving only about one-third as professionals who had descended into this realm.

Of course, the population size had nothing to do with him. What he cared about was whether any of these people were part of a team heading toward Outpost No. 8 recently, as he planned to hitch a ride with them.

The result was favorable: a team was indeed preparing to head toward Outpost No. 11 recently, but they would pass by Outpost No. 8 along the way.

He immediately sent a message to the team's manager, whose surname was Zhang:

"Hello, Manager Zhang. There are two of us here, and we would like to tag along with your team past Outpost No. 8. May I ask how much it costs?"

Zhang Youling was busy tallying supplies and replied casually upon seeing this unfamiliar message:

"It's 50 gold per person just to tag along with the team. You pay a 25 gold deposit first, and the remaining 25 gold upon arrival."

"We can help with the fighting."

"What levels and classes are you?"

"One Level 41 mage-class, and one Level 30 tank-class."

"Hmm."

Zhang Youling pondered for a moment and said:

"The Level 41 mage-class doesn't need to pay. The Level 30 doesn't need to help fight, and it costs 50 gold."

"Ah?"

"What 'ah'? What can someone at only Level 30 do? This isn't inside a dungeon; the minor mobs in this realm could easily be above Level 40. You can't tank them."

Chu Cheng was speechless.

"Alright, where are you guys, and when do you set off?"

"Our caravan is at the city gates. The official name is Autumn Leaf Trading Co., Ltd., and inside the realm, it's called the Autumn Leaf Chamber of Commerce. Come over and register; we set off tomorrow morning."

"Hold on a moment."

Chu Cheng called Fang Xi over and filled her in on the conversation. The young girl covered her mouth and chuckled softly upon hearing it.

The outpost only had a single street, and not a very long one at that. In less than ten minutes, they arrived at the city gates, where a caravan was busy preparing cargo in the gate square in the distance.

There were no trucks or automobiles; instead, they used a giant pack-beast native to the realm.

They looked very much like Kodo beasts, measuring over ten meters long from head to tail, with bovine horns on their heads, covered in scales, and possessing a docile temperament.

Frames or carriages could be mounted on their backs to carry people or cargo, and they even dragged string after string of large, train-like carriages behind them.

These creatures moved slowly but possessed infinite strength. With a docile temperament like an ox and a decent level of intelligence, they were exceptionally fine pack-beasts.

Chu Cheng made the rounds, found Manager Zhang Youling, paid a 30 gold deposit, and obtained a ticket.

This served as both a receipt and a contract.

Chu Cheng did not haggle over the price, nor did he display his strength to try and talk his way out of this expense.

What kind of place was this? A dangerous, high-level realm. Coming here for the first time, it was naturally wise to play it safe.

Early the next morning, Chu Cheng and Fang Xi checked out and left, rendezvousing with the Autumn Leaf Chamber of Commerce.

The 50 gold was well spent. He was assigned to the back of a pack-beast in the middle of the procession. A large cabin was embedded into the creature's jagged spine, with rows of cabins on both sides, and he was seated in one of them.

The interior space of the cabin was quite spacious, even larger than the seats on a high-speed train, and Fang Xi sat right beside him.

When there was no combat, they could sit here; when combat broke out, they would need to go out and provide support.

While preparations were underway, Chu Cheng took a look at the caravan. The scale was much larger than he had imagined. There were over thirty giant pack-beasts alone, of which only five or six carried passenger cabins like this on their backs, while all the others carried freight holds, with nearly a hundred large metal carriages towed behind them in total.

At the very front of the caravan were two fearsome tyrannosaurs, standing seven to eight meters tall and over ten meters long, with a terrifying template and a level as high as 55. Key areas of their bodies were armored, and combat saddles were strapped to their backs, carrying five knights each.

A driver, a guard, two archers, and a mage—all of them professionals.

Two tyrannosaurs were enough to deter the vast majority of monsters and greatly reduce troubles along the way.

There were over a thousand people traveling with the caravan, among whom only about 170 to 180 were professionals. The remaining thousand-plus people were mostly human soldiers, alongside a small number of alien races.

Apart from special circumstances like Chu Cheng's, professionals who dared to venture into the Shattered Astral Realm were at least Level 40 or above.

Sharing the same pack-beast with him were two small squads, all above Level 40. The leader of one of the squads was a Transcendental professional above Level 50. When his gaze swept over, Chu Cheng could feel a distinctly heavy wave of pressure.

As for the human soldiers, they were indigenous people of the realm, comparable to NPC soldiers in a dungeon.

The Constellation Tower had over a dozen outposts and garrison stations of varying sizes in the Shattered Astral Realm.

Outposts generally guarded mineral resources, while garrison stations served as population concentration hubs.

In realms where cultivation was possible, certain factions would clear out the monsters within the realm, establish human towns, cultivate farmland, and turn them into independent city-states.

These soldiers were recruited from those human towns. Through training and combat tempering, they became qualified soldiers.

Although their individual combat effectiveness was lacking, they were perfectly fine for guarding outposts or towns and serving as caravan guards.

After all, the number of professionals was limited, and it was certainly impossible to have them do such grunt work.