Inside Hong Lin city, a large circular building with multiple smaller buildings stood. Its roof was painted red, while its walls were white. Looking at it, one could tell that it was made from Hong Lin tree wood, while the paint was made from the leaves of the tree.

At the front of it, a twin towered gate was built, at the top of which a board hung that mentioned the name of the building.

'Hong Lin Royal Palace' 

There were hundreds of people entering and exiting the palace and guards stood at the sides, observing each and every person. There were both commoners and cultivators mixed into the crowd and all of them seemed to be following the proper etiquette.

Within this crowd of people, a couple of men wearing Daoist robes were also walking. They kept a calm expression on their faces and entered the gate. The guards at the gate observed them like all others and spirit sense spread over them.

After a couple of seconds, the guards nodded and let them in. 

"Ugh, do we really need to do all this? Following the rules like commoners, this is humiliating." One of the men said in a low voice.

"Master named you Dai Heng so that you could have some perseverance while also being patient. Why don't you follow his wishes?" The other man replied.

"But senior brother, why do we have to be like this? We are at the Nascent Soul realm. If anything, all of them should bow to us when we are here." The man named Dai Heng asked.

"Master sent you out so that you could experience the world better. Just because you are a Nascent Soul realm cultivator does not mean that you can just exert your might and suppress others. 

There is a place and timing for everything. Doing that here would bring you no benefits and you will only lose face for Master and yourself." The senior brother replied.

"Fine… I won't…" Dai Heng replied.

The two of them continued onward to the second gate, where they were checked as well.

  The entire area of the place was divided into four circles. Each circle had different buildings and the innermost circle was the one that held the royal palace and the royal court.

All the other circles held other important buildings of the kingdom, such as the ministry of labor, the ministry of agriculture, the ministry of culture, and so on and so forth. Depending on their importance, they were all assigned in different circles.

The buildings in the outermost circle were the offices of minor officials and workers that took care of the miscellaneous tasks of the administration. The buildings in the second circle were those that housed the more important buildings, such as the royal library, the royal repository and many more.

The third circle contained all the ministries, while the final fourth circle was the one that held the actual royal palace.

All this took up half of the area of the capital city and looked like a large crown set upon the earth, with the buildings the decorations of the crown.

The two men in Daoist robes were halted at the second gate and were checked more thoroughly. The security increased the deeper one went into the circles, with the outermost circle being accessible to nearly everyone, including commoners, while the second circle and onwards needed special identity tokens to enter.

"Halt! Show us your identity token." The guard at the second gate spoke.

The senior brother among the two took out a relatively plain piece of paper and handed it to the guard.

"We do not have tokens, we were given a temporary pass. We have been invited to the palace." The senior brother spoke in a humble tone.

The guard narrowed his eyes and took a look at the pass. Only two lines were written on it and the words were written rather casually.

'Please grant entry to the bearers of this pass. 

-Daoist Hua'

In addition to these lines, a red stamp that was in the shape of a leaf and another stamp that read 'Noon' was imprinted at the bottom.

The guard found it to be rather dubious and wondered if these men were here to ridicule them with a thing like this. But when his eyes fell on the red leaf stamp, he knew that it was genuine.

"Hmph! Enter, but next time tell whoever issued you this pass to use a better quality. It is very rude to use this kind of format for official documents." The guard warned.

The senior brother could only smile wryly, knowing that he couldn't really say anything to the person who issued them this pass. 

"I'll keep that in mind, brother guard." The senior brother said before they walked ahead while the junior brother hid his face in embarrassment.

"Why doesn't master think of us when he sends us out on errands like this? His style is far more casual than it should be for someone of his stature." The junior brother stated.

~Sigh~

"Do you want to tell master? Feel free to do so. Just remember that fifth junior brother ended up plucking the grass of the back mountain one blade at a time, without using his cultivation for three years when he did the same." The senior brother warned.

~gulp~

"I… I'll keep it to myself." The junior brother hurriedly replied.

"That will be best." The senior brother said before they continued onward.

They were now at the third circle's gate and about to enter it. 

"Show us your identity tokens!" the guards ordered.

The senior brother was about to hand the pass to the guard and the junior brother was about to hide his face to save the embarrassment, when suddenly he felt a spirit Qi wave coming from the back.

~thud~ thud~

Both of them turned around at a lightning like speed and took defensive postures. The guards who saw this became alert as well and thought that these two were here to cause trouble.

"Senior brother that…" the junior brother spoke.

"Someone powerful is here…" 

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