It was massive for the domain of an E Ranker, even one about to ascend to D Rank. Easily a mile tall, it dominated the top of the mountain. Sweeping buttresses propped the edifice up. There was only one way in, at least for those unable to traverse the air like Sam was.

A vast road curled down around the mountain, like a marble snake. It shone brightly in the light of the sun. A few people walked up and down, but for the most part, it was empty. Near the top, a thousand or so guards waited, standing in front of a set of double doors as tall as a small skyscraper. The doors were firmly shut, and as Sam approached, the guards looked up at him, one pointing in alarm. Then they spotted Alran right behind him, and moved out of the way. The doors slid open, a grinding hum ringing out as they slid along their tracks.

Sam let gravity carry him down, landing in front of the guards. He nodded once, and strode through. Alran hurried behind him, the man's ebony wings folding in on themselves as he walked.

Within the palace, a small city waited, a miniature model of the one below. Mansions fought for the sunlight, some of them clearly altered to reach above their neighbors.

Within the palace, tens of thousands of people lived, and to Sam's surprise, most of them were F Rankers. The Worldsea in general was a weak world, and this just put that into perspective. In comparison, Prax, the kingdom of Granthar, had possessed millions of E Rankers. This realm had far fewer of them. As a consequence, Sam was most likely just as strong as Sovereign Elvras, if not stronger, to say nothing about the king's soldiers. Those guards outside the palace had barely been level 200. They wouldn't have been able to defend Fort Knox from Sam, let alone anything else.

"Wait!" Alran barked, before Sam could head much further into the palace. "Before you meet the king, you're going to have to leave your weapon behind. Just thought I'd warn you."

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Sam smiled. "No problem. I don't need it anyway." With that remark clearly unsettling Alran, Sam continued walking, holding Terra's Will loosely.

As he strode down the main road, he took in the sights. More of the family crests that he had noticed on the weapon embankments outside were present, but these ones were even more stylized and embellished. Some of them were three dimensional in their scale, jutting out from the buildings for dozens of feet.

The closer Sam and Alran got to the center of the palace, the taller the buildings became, and the higher the average strength of the citizens became. It wasn't until Sam was about half a mile from the central palace complex that the average level of the inhabitants reached into E Rank, and even then, they were quite weak.

"Why is this planet so devoid of higher rank cultivators?" Sam asked, curious. "It's much larger than most E Rank worlds. Shouldn't there be more E Rankers?"

Alran smiled bitterly. "Leveling here is a lot harder than it seems. Most of the world is covered in water, so it's hard to find prey without disturbing the true monsters of the deep. There's D Rankers lurking deep in the ocean."

Sam paused. "D Rankers? How has this whole kingdom not come crumbling down by now?"

"Elvras comes from a larger faction from beyond this star cluster. He was sent here as a rite of passage. That faction doesn't accept anyone as a true member until they reach D Rank."

"That seems to be a common theme in the Tower," Sam muttered. "Scions of big sects making trouble for me."

"What was that?" Alran asked. "The Tower?"

"Don't worry about it."

They walked in silence for the rest of the short trip. The main palace had no doors, instead fitted with a Grecian style arch that wouldn't have looked out of place on a temple. Within were hallways of marble, a natural continuation of the path that led within. Rooms opened into the hallway every few hundred feet, with a variety of purposes. Sam saw a training room, filled with weapons and weights, a swimming pool, and a garden within the first minute. There was barely anyone in the palace, with a few high E Rank guards patrolling. None of them bothered Sam, with Alran's presence keeping them away.

"The inspection room is coming up," Alran said a few minutes later. "You'll need to leave that hammer there."

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