BOOM!
A thunderous roar shook the heavens, and the City of Gold made its dazzling debut.
Fragments of the upper Island Cloud ruins came crashing down.
Rocks and the Twin Bear Brothers pushed away the massive stones weighing them down and slowly stood up.
Then they looked at the scene before them.
For a moment, even their breathing stopped.
What an incredible and magnificent sight!!!
The legendary Golden City of Shandora had suddenly, completely, and unreservedly revealed itself before their eyes.
The midday sunlight poured down from the heavens.
All across the city, scattered piles of gold glittered with dazzling brilliance.
Even though it had been sealed away for more than three hundred years, the moment it finally saw the light of day again, it remained every bit as breathtaking as the legends described.
“Wahahahaha!”
Rocks couldn’t help bursting into uproarious laughter.
His laughter echoed throughout the city, lingering for a long time.
“The Golden City…
The City of Gold, Shandora!
We actually found it!”
Black Bear Big Bear and Brown Bear Little Bear exchanged a glance, both completely dumbfounded.
A city covered in gold.
Almost no pirate could possibly remain calm in the face of such a sight.
“Men!
Pack everything up and take it all!”
Rocks waved his massive hand.
The Twin Bear Brothers hurriedly grabbed their sacks and began picking up the treasure.
A city supposedly built from gold was no joke.
For the first time, the Twin Bear Brothers experienced what it meant to pick up so much money that their hands actually cramped.
After an hour of hard work, they had filled more than a dozen sacks with gold.
Yet when they stood up and looked around, they realized they had swept through less than one percent of the area.
There was too much!
They simply couldn’t pick it all up!
Whoosh~
Just then, the sound of something cutting through the air came from above.
The young knight Gan Fall arrived on his Spotted Sky Horse.
Looking at the scene before him, even he was so utterly shocked that he was left speechless.
“What…
what kind of place is this?”
Gan Fall’s mouth fell open.
As a native of the Sky Island, he had never known that such a place existed on the island.
No!
It wasn’t just him.
Even the current God, or perhaps even the Gods of previous generations, probably had no idea that a city was hidden beneath the Island Cloud ruins.
“Could this be…
Shandora, the city the Shandia have long yearned for?”
Gan Fall suddenly remembered the Shandians’ obsession with the legendary city.
Zzt~
A flicker of electricity snapped Gan Fall’s wandering thoughts back to reality.
“Young man, spying isn’t a very good habit.”
Ren stood with his arms crossed, looking at the young Gan Fall.
“You…”
Gan Fall’s pupils shrank.
The man before him, his entire body surrounded by crackling electricity, gave him an overwhelming sense of danger.
“S-sorry.
I…
I have no intention of becoming your enemy!”
Gan Fall spoke nervously as he controlled his Sky Horse and slowly descended.
“Kid, who are you?”
Rocks sat on the steps of the central palace, calmly looking at Gan Fall.
“I…
My name is Gan Fall.
I’m a member of the Sky Island Patrol…”
Gan Fall suppressed the fear in his heart and began speaking with Ren and Rocks.
“I know.
You should be adventurers from the Blue Sea.
You don’t belong to either our side or the Shandians.”
“If your objective is simply the gold in this city, then I don’t think there needs to be any conflict between us.”
Ren and Rocks exchanged a glance and nodded.
“Smart kid,” Rocks remarked.
“We truly have no intention of getting involved in your affairs, nor are we interested in this land.
Once we’ve packed up this batch of gold, we’ll leave.”
Ren added.
“In that case, please allow me to help!”
Gan Fall spoke sincerely.
In less than half an hour, this four-man group had defeated both the Sky Island Divine Soldiers and the Shandian warriors.
Their strength was beyond question.
Gan Fall suspected that even the combined forces of the entire Sky Island might not be enough to defeat them.
Naturally, he wasn’t foolish enough to make an enemy of such powerful outsiders.
Since their objective was merely some gold that was irrelevant to him, instead of trying to stop them, it was better to help them.
The sooner they left, the sooner everything would be over.
“Aside from the gold here, we also need food.
Can you get some?”
Ren asked.
“No problem.”
Gan Fall readily agreed.
“As for food, there’s plenty at the Divine Soldiers’ camp.”
Once he said it, he did it.
Gan Fall mounted his Spotted Sky Horse and departed.
About fifteen minutes later, the Sky Horse returned carrying large bags of supplies.
“Whoa!
It’s normal food!”
Black Bear Big Bear cheered.
Brown Bear Little Bear grabbed a pastry and immediately began stuffing it into his mouth.
Ren and Rocks weren’t much better.
They hadn’t eaten a proper meal in several months, and now they too were devouring the food like starving wolves.
Once everyone had eaten their fill, they continued working as gold miners.
With Gan Fall and his Sky Horse helping them, transporting the treasure became much easier.
The Sky Horse made trip after trip between the altar where the ship was anchored and the Golden City.
But after half a day, a new problem emerged.
Late at night.
“This is bad!
Captain!
Vice-Captain!”
Brown Bear Little Bear hurried over.
“What happened?
Is someone trying to steal our treasure?”
Rocks immediately became murderous.
“N-no…
It’s our ship.
It’s full.
There’s simply too much gold.
We can’t fit any more!”
The moment Brown Bear Little Bear said this, even Rocks was dumbfounded.
He had never imagined that one day having too much gold could actually become a problem.
“Our ship simply can’t hold enough gold to carry away an entire city.”
Ren gave his conclusion.
“Ah…
then what do we do?”
Black Bear Big Bear looked troubled.
What could they do?
Just leave it there, of course!
“Although we can’t transport everything in one go, we can treat this place like a ‘bank.’ Whenever we run out of money in the future, we can come back here and take some more.”
Ren shrugged.
“Hey, hey, hey!
Ren, are you serious?
I absolutely don’t want to go through that journey again.”
Rocks shook his head.
He had no intention of drifting miserably across the White-White Sea all over again.
Black Bear Big Bear and Brown Bear Little Bear also shook their heads so vigorously that they looked like rattles.
Ren helplessly sighed and patiently explained.
“This Sky Island originally belonged to Jaya.
It was carried up here by the Knock Up Stream.”
“Next time we come, we won’t need to start from the Heaven’s Gate.
We can simply find Jaya’s coordinates and fly straight up here.”
Rocks understood.
But another question immediately followed.
“Then why didn’t we come from Jaya in the first place?”
“It’s simple.”
Ren spread his hands.
“Because I couldn’t fly back then!”
“Vice-Captain, if we leave the gold here and someone else who comes to Sky Island discovers it, what do we do?”
Brown Bear Little Bear raised his paw and asked this very constructive question.
“Idiot.
Of course we can’t leave the gold somewhere this obvious.”
Anything Little Bear could think of, Ren naturally could as well.
In fact, Ren had already anticipated this problem.
And he had already selected the perfect hiding place for the treasure.
Over the next two days, Gan Fall and the Twin Bear Brothers busied themselves transferring the city’s gold.
Meanwhile, Rocks suddenly remembered something.
“In the story told by the big-talking liar Noland, the City of Gold, Shandora, also had a massive bell tower made entirely of gold.
Why haven’t we seen it anywhere?”
Rocks asked.
“Good question.
Follow me!”
Ren immediately took the lead and charged up the gigantic beanstalk.
Before long, the two of them climbed all the way to the very top of the enormous beanstalk.
Once they reached the summit, Rocks finally spotted it.
Not far away, standing upon the Island Cloud, was a colossal structure of truly magnificent proportions.
“The Golden Belfry!!!”