Chapter 284: To the Temple

They exited the dining hall, passing through a series of open chambers and wide corridors. They crossed a breezy, open-air passenger bridge and finally emerged onto the city streets.

Solomon looked around. This district of the city was built on a massive, almost incomprehensible scale. The wooden doors of the surrounding buildings were impossibly tall, and the stone structures loomed high above the horizon. The cobblestone streets were so incredibly wide that the buildings on opposite sides felt miles apart.

Just like the dining hall, everything out here was in pristine condition. Solomon had fully expected to see crumbling ruins, shattered statues, and overgrown debris, considering this was a sealed dungeon. Yet, the city was maintained so perfectly it felt as if he had just stepped through a portal into a living, thriving world.

Solomon watched the girl walking a few paces ahead of him. Even her walking style was completely silent. Her sandals made absolutely no noise against the cobblestones, and she carried zero spiritual presence. That explained exactly why Solomon hadn’t realized she was standing right behind him until she spoke in the dining hall.

"What is this place?" Solomon asked, breaking the silence.

"It is our city," she responded simply.

Solomon did not want to argue semantics, so he accepted the obvious truth. "Why does this city exist inside a dungeon? Is this some kind of grand illusion, or am I living inside a projected memory right now?"

The girl shook her head slightly without breaking her stride. "I do not think it is a memory."

"When was the last time someone actually visited this place?" Solomon inquired.

"I cannot recall," she answered flatly.

"Do you have a name?" Solomon asked.

"I am just a maid," she replied.

"Are there other maids, or anyone else performing duties just like you?" Solomon pressed.

She did not respond.

Solomon let out a quiet sigh. ’I feel like I am trying to hit on a girl at a bar who is clearly not interested in me,’ he thought to himself. ’She is giving me cold replies, cold shoulders, and the silent treatment, probably hoping I just shut up and stop asking her questions.’

A while later, she stopped walking and stood directly in front of a massive stone wall.

"We have arrived," she announced.

Solomon looked at the wall, then tilted his head back to look higher up. He quickly realized it wasn’t a standard defensive wall, but rather some kind of ascending architectural structure. He couldn’t quite understand its purpose from up close.

The girl suddenly bent her knees and jumped. She launched herself straight up into the air, clearing the height effortlessly, and landed gracefully on top of the structure.

Solomon simply stared up at her in utter disbelief. That vertical jump was at least several times her own height. Her slender legs and small physical build could not possibly generate enough force to jump that high naturally. He recalled how effortlessly she had carried all those heavy ceramic dishes at once.

’It wasn’t just her refined serving skills,’ Solomon realized. ’Her physical strength is absolutely insane.’

The girl looked down over the edge. "Are you coming?"

Solomon walked up, touched the cold stone, and tried to jump. He couldn’t even reach halfway to the top. He backed up, took a running headstart, and leaped again, but his fingers merely brushed the middle of the structure.

The wall was at least five times his own height, and relying purely on his unenhanced physical strength, Solomon could only jump roughly twice his height. He refused to give up immediately. He backed up, tried a few more running leaps, and failed every single time.

The girl watched him struggle. "Would you like me to carry you up?"

"There is no need," Solomon responded, rubbing his sore calves.

Solomon took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He focused his mind, pulling silver aura from his heart core and forcing it down through his newly opened hip cores, trying to push the spiritual energy all the way down into his legs to enhance his jumping power.

The energy stalled at his thighs. It simply could not reach his feet.

He recalled the strict cultivation lecture Yue had given him in the carriage. Unless he successfully unlocked his navel core, he could not freely circulate his aura throughout his entire lower body, regardless of how much spiritual energy he possessed.

The navel core acted as the body’s primary reservoir and a crucial checkpoint, responsible for distributing aura evenly to the extremities whenever needed.

Determined to overcome the obstacle, Solomon sat down in a traditional lotus position at the base of the wall. He kept his eyes closed and began circulating his aura. He tried to pour the silver energy directly into the dormant navel core.

The moment the energy touched the core, it simply disappeared into the void, failing to pool.

Solomon steadied his breathing, completely cleared his mind of all distracting thoughts, and tried the process again. This time, he managed to hold a small pocket of aura inside the navel core. However, the moment he tried to pull more aura from his heart to pour into the reservoir, his concentration broke, and the initial pocket of energy instantly dissipated.

He mentally reviewed Yue’s instructions on what was required to shatter the navel gate. The core needed to be continuously poured into and filled to the brim with dense aura to unlock. As long as he could not sustain that constant flow, no matter how much infinite aura his Indefatigable talent generated, the core would remain sealed.

Yue explained that the navel core serves as a primary spiritual reservoir and does not control any specific physical limb. Instead, its purpose is to store excess aura to fuel stamina and heavily amplify overall power output.

Because this gate is incredibly stubborn, it cannot be forced open normally and it requires a ridiculously excessive amount of internal energy to be actively stored and circulated directly against it . To do this, a cultivator must enter a deep meditative trance known as the "Abyssal Calm" stage.

For most standard cultivators, generating the sheer amount of aura required to fill the reservoir was the primary challenge. That was not the case for Solomon. He already possessed the necessary volume of energy thanks to his immortal heart. The true hurdle was his lack of spiritual control. His navel core was simply too big, and he lacked the required meditative stage, the refined focus, and the spiritual ascendance necessary to sustain the flow long enough to fill it.

He had not learned the Dao.

’I originally planned to stay at the Azure Dragon Sect for a few more weeks to train these cultivation stages with Yue before coming home to visit my family,’ Solomon thought, opening his eyes with a frustrated sigh.

’But since the Grandmaster suddenly summoned me back to the academy for the owl replacement, I took the chance to take a break. Otherwise, I would have had to sit around the academy doing absolutely nothing for a week, travel all the way back to the sect, and then wait another month just for the emergency portals to open so I could return to the academy and then come home.’

’To be honest, this is better. If I had arrived a month later, the dungeon break might have already occurred, or father would have sold the diner and the house and I wouldn’t even have known about it. I guess it’s as they say, ’whatever happens, happens for good.’

Solomon did not want to get carried up the wall by a maid, but it seemed he had no other choice.

He stood up and looked toward the top of the wall. "I cannot clim—"

He stopped speaking before he could even finish the sentence.

A massive shadow blocked out the sky above the city. Solomon stared upward. He had to tilt his head all the way back until his neck physically could not bend any further, and even then, he could not see the full extent of the colossal figure looming over the buildings.

The gargantuan figure shifted slightly. It moved a massive, tree-trunk-sized leg, stepping down from the sky with an earth-shattering tremor.

As the foot landed, Solomon finally realized exactly what the massive ’wall’ structure in front of him actually was. It was a single step on a colossal staircase.

He also instantly realized why every single door, building, and street in this pristine city was built on such an impossibly massive scale. It wasn’t just for an architectural show.

This city... belonged to giants.