I Start with a Mysterious Island

Chapter 321 - 254: Mommy, Look! There Are a Lot of Black Swans Outside the Plane

’Women! They’re impossible to figure out,’ Lin Li sighed to himself. ’It’d be a real headache to have a girlfriend as unreadable as Su Yue.’

"Beverages? Would anyone care for one?" After the plane leveled off, a pretty flight attendant pushed a cart slowly down the aisle, gently asking the passengers if they wanted a complimentary drink.

"Lin Li, would you like something to drink?" Su Yue watched the flight attendant pushing the cart toward them, then turned to ask Lin Li, who was looking out the window.

"You go ahead. I’m not thirsty." Lin Li kept his eyes fixed on the endless sea of clouds outside the window, answering without turning his head.

Seeing that Lin Li didn’t want a drink, Su Yue ordered a cup of coffee for herself.

The plane flew at an altitude of ten thousand meters, over a boundless, white sea of clouds.

For Lin Li, who was taking a plane for the first time on Blue Star, this scene reignited his yearning for flight.

On Earth, humans could only fly by relying on external objects.

But this world was different. Besides flying with external objects, one could also use a Superpower to gain the ability to fly.

Additionally, any Cultivator who broke through to Tier Three would also gain the ability to fly.

’I’ve already broken through to Second Order High Rank. The breakthrough to Tier Three is just two more steps away. It won’t be long before I’ll be able to fly...’

As Lin Li imagined himself soaring freely through the sky like a bird after breaking through to Tier Three, a faint, imperceptible golden Spiritual Light flashed in his eyes.

If any ordinary Cultivator had been present and able to hear Lin Li’s inner thoughts, they would have surely found this young man arrogant and conceited.

The further a Cultivator progressed, the harder it was to advance. The resistance to breaking through could sometimes be so great as to make one feel hopeless.

After reaching Second Order High Rank, ordinary Cultivators often had very little confidence in their ability to break through to Tier Three. Many wouldn’t even consider the possibility.

For most Cultivators at Second Order High Rank with average aptitude, it would take at least ten years to break through to the Peak of Tier Two.

And if they did manage to spend over a decade to successfully break through to the Peak of Tier Two, for a Cultivator with average aptitude, this was almost the absolute limit of their cultivation.

Even some Cultivators with superior aptitude, after reaching Second Order High Rank, would only focus on cultivating hard and breaking through to the Peak of Tier Two as quickly as possible.

Who else would be like Lin Li, completely disregarding the Peak of Tier Two and setting his sights directly on Tier Three? As a Second Order High Rank Cultivator, he was already fantasizing about the moment he would break through to Tier Three and gain the ability to fly.

Just as Lin Li was picturing himself soaring through the boundless, azure sky, Su Yue, who was sitting beside him, nudged his arm with her elbow.

"What is it?" Lin Li said, snapping out of his daze and turning to face Su Yue.

"Lin Li, why do you keep staring out the window? There’s nothing out there but clouds. What’s so interesting about them?"

Su Yue had been feeling rather bored because Lin Li was just staring out the window instead of talking to her, which is why she had asked.

Lin Li didn’t know what Su Yue was thinking, but he didn’t hide his own thoughts and replied with a smile.

"I was just looking at the clouds, thinking how interesting it would be if one day I could gain the ability to fly and soar freely above this sea of clouds."

"Oh, so that’s what you were thinking about! That’s not difficult to achieve at all. It’s very simple..."

"Very simple?"

"Yeah, very simple..."

"Uh..."

"My dad has a Spiritual Artifact that can give someone the ability to fly for a certain period of time. You want to fly, don’t you? I can go borrow it from my dad, and then you can fly to your heart’s content..."

The Spiritual Artifact Su Yue mentioned, the one that could grant temporary flight, was something Su Chen had won at an auction in the Capital City six months ago. It had even been in the news at the time.

That Spiritual Artifact was not cheap. Su Yue couldn’t remember the exact price, but it was probably no less than five hundred million—enough to buy a private jet.

If Su Chen, who was currently in the Capital City on business, knew that his daughter was so casually offering to lend one of his collectibles to a boy, who knows what he would be thinking.

Er... He’d most likely have mixed feelings!

"A Spiritual Artifact that lets people fly above the sea of clouds... that can’t be cheap, right?" Lin Li asked instinctively when he heard Su Yue say her father had such an item.

"..." Hearing Lin Li’s question, Su Yue belatedly realized what she’d implied and said evasively,

"I don’t know! I never asked my dad how much he spent on that Spiritual Artifact. It probably wasn’t that expensive, though.

Hasn’t the Spiritual Energy Research Institute been making a lot of announcements recently? They said they’ve made huge progress in developing similar Flying Spiritual Artifacts.

In the future, the price of these kinds of Flying Spiritual Artifacts will get cheaper and cheaper.

It’ll become a piece of cake for ordinary people to experience flying freely in the sky."

Lin Li didn’t know anything about the market for Spiritual Artifacts that grant flight. Hearing what Su Yue said, he naturally assumed the price for this type of artifact was in the millions.

’I’d better not trouble Su Yue to borrow the Spiritual Artifact from her dad,’ he thought. ’If I want to try one, I can just buy it myself.’

’Of course, flying with a Spiritual Artifact probably isn’t as agile as the flight a Cultivator gains naturally after breaking through to Tier Three.’

Therefore, in Lin Li’s mind, the only ways to soar freely through the sea of clouds like a bird were to either awaken a flight-related Superpower or break through to Tier Three via cultivation.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I was just thinking about it, not planning on actually doing it." Lin Li shook his head, telling Su Yue not to borrow the Flying Spiritual Artifact from her father.

"Are you sure you don’t want to?"

"I’m sure."

"This offer won’t last forever, you know," Su Yue said with a smile, a ’don’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you’ look on her face.

’Miss this opportunity, and I’ll just make my own later...’ Lin Li retorted inwardly. He then shook his head again, urging Su Yue to give up the idea of borrowing the Flying Spiritual Artifact from her dad.

Although Lin Li had refused Su Yue’s kind offer, she still kept the matter in mind.

She decided that after their trip to Qiongcheng was over and they returned to Rongcheng, she would call her dad and have him arrange for someone to send the Flying Spiritual Artifact over for her to "play with" for a few days.

Of course, while she would say she was borrowing it to play with, her real intention was to let Lin Li experience the feeling of flying freely.

...

The plane had been flying for over an hour at an altitude of ten thousand meters since leaving Rongcheng Airport. There was still nearly an hour to go before they reached Qiongcheng.

At first, the passengers had been looking with great interest through the windows at the endless white sea of clouds outside.

After flying for more than an hour, everyone’s interest had dropped significantly.

Except for a few children who were still looking out the window, the other passengers were either resting with their eyes closed or watching TV shows and movies they had downloaded beforehand.

Lin Li and Su Yue chatted for a while at first, but by now they had both taken out their phones to watch downloaded videos.

Although it was said that in-flight internet was now available, it had not been enabled for safety reasons.

The passengers had no objections to this. After all, their lives were more important. It was better to be safe than sorry, and no one wanted to be that one unlucky person.

Another ten-odd minutes passed. Inside the quiet cabin of the smoothly flying plane, a little boy’s innocent voice suddenly rang out.

"Mommy, look! There are so many black swans outside the plane! This is the first time I’ve ever seen so many black swans outside of a zoo."

...