Zhu Chang's father placed his hand on the shoulder of his son. Even though the kid had troubled him a lot in the past few months, he still loved his son and was missing him.
His mother, on the other hand, was even more emotional. She had made his disappearance such a big issue that he had even stopped eating.
She hadn't eaten even once since Zhu Chang had left. Fortunately, she was a Heavenly Beast who could survive for a long time without having to eat, so it didn't create any trouble for her. Still, Zhu Chan couldn't see his wife so sad.
He had to show a strong front despite feeling sad as well. All he could do was look for his ignorant son.
They were standing on the Roof of the Royal Palace of the Black Tortoise World. Even though it was known as a world, it was not even a world in reality. It was just a different realm altogether.
The other Heavenly beasts also lived in similar realms of their own. It not only provided them more defense but also provided them with more control over who could enter and who couldn't.
The only way to enter the realm was through Spatial Portals that only some High Ranking Heavenly Beasts could do. And even they couldn't use it in stealth. No one could sneak inside this realm as long as they weren't highly capable.
The Realm was called the Black Tortoise Empire, but it was more like a Black Tortoise Clan.
The palace where they were standing was the main building of the Clan where only the main Blood or the so-called Royals could live.
There were similar places in the distance, and there were many of them. However, they weren't pure. Their bloodline was thin as they were born in a branch family.
There were about ten thousand Black Tortoises in this realm. Over nine thousand of them were considered to be from the Branch Families.
There were only slightly more than five hundred of them that were Royal Black Tortoise Bloodline, and they were all inside the massive Palace where Long Chen was standing.
And amongst the five hundred, only one was called the Heavenly Beast King! He was also the patriarch and the father of Zhu Chang.
No one could take his position as the Patriarch and become the Heavenly Beast King. The title wasn't just a title, after all. It was much more than that.
It was the spiritual link of the old man with the Godly Star in the sky.
Each Godly Star represented a Godly Beast! And they were linked with the Godly Beast.
A person from his own Clan could have schemed against him to kill him, but it was going to be futile since that didn't transfer the link.
The Godly Beast link with the Godly Star could only be transferred willingly. So no one could inherit it. From generation to generation, the link was only transferred to the most worthy.
At least that's what was supposed to happen. But even the Godly Beasts couldn't completely rid themselves of their blood bonds.
They only transferred their Godly Links to their blood heirs, and that's how all these Royal Clans became eternal, and the branches were left behind.
In some cases, the heirs were talented like Zhu Chang, so it was fine, but not all clans were lucky. That's why Most Royal Godly Beast Kings tried to have multiple wives so they could have many heirs.
It was all because they believed that at least one of the many heirs was going to inherit their true talents and be worthy of leading the Godly Beast Clan for the next thousand years.
The Black Tortoise Clan was different from other clans though. Unlike the other Godly Beast Clan masters, Zhu Chan didn't have many wives. He only had one wife and only one son.
He had always been insightful because of his talent, and he wanted to have faith in his Bloodline. If his Bloodline was worthy, just one son was enough.
And if his first son wasn't born with talent, then it was time to give the chance to be a Godly Beast to someone else since he didn't want his son to carry the burden.
Albeit, there was no need for that since Zhu Chang had managed to perform even better than his expectations so far. The only problem was that he was a bit unruly.
Since he was the only son, Zhu Chang also got quite a lot of love from his mother, who loved him more than her life.
Zhu Chang went down with Long Chen, taking the stairs.
Seeing everyone walk down the stairs, Long Chen couldn't understand why they weren't flying down instead. It was odd. It wouldn't have been odd if there weren't so many steps. But as far as he could see, there were like more than ten thousand steps.
And the stairs straight went down to the ground floor, not attaching to any other floor on the way.
"What happened?" Zhu Chang looked back, watching the Long Chen stand still.
"Nothing." Long Chen shook his head, taking his first step down.
"Huh?" As he was the last in person to step on the stairs, the stairs started moving. They started going down.
"Fascinating. It looks like an elevator but without any of the mechanism of earth," Long Chen muttered, observing the stairs that kept going down.
And the speed of going down wasn't slow either. Despite that, it was still time consuming.
Long Chen couldn't stop himself for long as he asked directly. "Is there a reason you don't fly down?"
"Hmm?" Zhu Chang's uncle glared at Long Chen weirdly. "Flying in our house is considered bad manners. So don't try it when you're inside. As a matter of fact, don't fly inside any house as long as you are here, even if it's not our house."
"You understand?" he asked.
"Ah, right." Long Chen could only nod even if he believed that it was just a waste of time.
'Such weird traditions,' he thought, looking down.
After what seemed like an infinity, everyone finally reached the ground floor. And it was only now that Long Chen saw the true depth of this place!
From outside, it looked like a big palace but not that special. However, from the inside, it was truly different. Long Chen finally had a feeling that he was truly in the world beyond humans.
The Palace on the inside looked as big as the real world. He couldn't find the end of the place as far as he tried to see. It was just so big.. And the most surprising fact was that there wasn't any use of spatial manipulation to make it happen.