Ascension of the immortal Asura

John felt himself pulled through space for a short while, longer than he initially expected. The multi-colored chaos of space blurred by them as they traveled through the connected tunnel of space, moving towards the other end of the formation connection.

'Thankfully transportation formations shield us from the spatial chaos. Otherwise, moving this fast through spatial chaos would be quite painful, if not fatal,' John mused, watching the multi-colored chaos fly by.

It lasted a few seconds before he found himself standing in a different room, indicating they had traveled tens of thousands of miles in that one jump, or perhaps even a hundred thousand miles or more.

He looked about, finding himself in a mid-sized chamber. The chamber had the same gothic design as the rest of the Shadows of Death Guild, and had no windows to be seen at all. Dozens of other guild members were visible, either guarding the entrance to the room, or controlling the roughly dozen or so transportation formations themselves.

'Still underground, huh?' John guessed.

With the Guild Headquarters underground, the only way to get into it was through the transportation formations spread throughout the continent such as the room he found himself in. These rooms were also underground, and were no doubt well hidden and guarded. With such a careful arrangement, it was no wonder the guild was able to endure for tens of thousands of years.

"Here," the Grandmaster said to John, who noticed the Grandmaster and Zuri standing on another nearby platform already. He moved to that formation, which activated after the Grandmaster nodded his head towards the gray-robed Archivist controlling the formation.

Flash!

After another few seconds, John again found himself standing in an underground room, one almost identical to the one he had been in. As before, he and the others moved to another transportation formation, which then activated.

Flash! Flash! Flash!

The group jumped through a half-dozen transportation formations on their journey, with each jump being shorter than the last. The last jump had lasted about a second before they appeared in another room, indicating they had only traveled about ten thousand miles or so, or so he thought.

"We've arrived," Zuri said, hopping off the platform after the Grandmaster.

'Six jumps…at least several hundred thousand miles, perhaps more,' John mused, turning to Zuri as he hopped off as well.

"How far have we traveled?" he asked her curiously, "and just how expansive is the guilds transportation formation network?"

"The Yang-Dao Sect is several million miles away, but I don't know the exact distance," Zuri said, to which John felt complete awe.

"Three million, eight hundred thousand miles, approximately," the Grandmaster said without looking back.

"Almost four million miles!" John exclaimed, completely shocked by this.

He had figured it to be a million at most, but it was nearly four times that amount. His shock was not only because of just how large the Human Continent on this planet was, but also because of how far the formations had taken them. He had based the distance traveled based on his homeworld formations, but clearly these formations were of a higher level, able to transport them farther in less time.

"Just how large is the Human Continent?" John asked Zuri as they walked towards the exit of the room. He had a map of parts of the continent, but didn't know the scope of the entire thing.

"Hmmm….ten million miles across, I think?" she said, a thoughtful look on her face.

John opened his eyes wide with awe, stunned by the sheer size of this world. He had known it was a far larger world than his own when he had crashed down to it over half a year ago. It's size had been mind-blowing, but he had not realized just how mindblowingly large it was.

Just the Human Continent alone was over ten times larger than the Divine Martial Continent, and there was still the Beast Contient, Devil Continent, and Continent of War, all which were of roughly equal size.

'This world is too large,' John couldn't help but think as he followed Zuri through the exit.

They appeared in a wide tunnel, one lit with light formations embedded into the walls. The tunnels were smooth and cleanly carved, and contained countless formations, both visible and invisible. He followed the Grandmaster, snaking through the tunnels for quite some time.

Based on the formations he could see and feel, an enemy getting through these tunnels was next to impossible, as the defensive and offensive formations would slaughter them mercilessly. That wasn't even considering the formations he couldn't see or feel, which he was sure existed.

"This place is well guarded," John said to Zuri.

"Of course it is," Zuri replied. "All the critical transportation nodes are well hidden and well guarded, as they have a direct line to the guild headquarters.

John nodded his head, then silently followed the Grandmaster through the tunnels. Quite some time later, they arrived at a staircase that led upwards. At the top of the stairs was a simple door, which surprised John at its simplicity. The Grandmaster opened the door and stepped through, followed by Zuri then John.

John felt himself step through a formation as he did so, and then looked back as the door closed behind him, slightly surprised as he noticed the door vanish from his sight, hidden by an illusion formation.

He then looked at the room he entered, which was several dozen yards wide and tall, and was made from some sort of stone. The room was rather empty, seeming to be used as simple storage, with only a door on the other side of it. The group walked through that door and entered another simple room, somewhat larger in size. There were several tables, couches, and other furniture in this room, at which several guild members sat. They were talking to several World Expansion cultivators who were wearing fiery orange robes, the image of a blazing sun on the back.

'They're clearly not from the guild,' John mused, studying the powerful cultivators. Each felt like they were stars made human, burning with an intense yet contained energy. 'Yang-Dao Sect cultivators!'