At exactly five thousand feet above the land-wide floor, the ascent slowed.
The shift from upward climb to complete mid-air was so delicate that even a dragonfly hovering above the garden pond remained undisturbed. Deep within the core, the backup magnetic balance weights engaged. He locked the Five Sacred Peaks into an eternal geo-stationary anchor lined up with the planet’s magnetic leylines.
The mountain stopped.
It didn’t drift with the prevailing winds. It didn’t bob like a cork on water. It hung in the azure sky as unbending and unmoving as a mountain resting on solid mountain stone, crowned with unending golden sunlight.
Around the outer edge, the surrounding heat settled at a permanent, comfortable delightful spring-like warmth. The air was rich with ninety-eight percent pure oxygen, fragrant with the scent of wild mountain thyme and pine resin, fully free of mortal dust, smoke, and insect pests.
Yet, as the mountain settled into its sky mooring, an immediate water-system phenomenon arose.
Beneath the five peaks, the ancient underground water beds—endlessly replenished by the deep dragon-veins and guided by Xiao Long’s nine-clawed aquatic mastery—continued to pump water upward. Hundreds of cubic meters of sweet, ice-cold, stone-rich springwater surged through the granite channels every single second.
