The city of Neel had a total of five gates on different heights of the mountain. Not all the vampires were eligible to pass through all the gates. The gate located at the bottom of the mountain was the general one and every person was eligible to pass through it. It had no restrictions.

But the second gate located one thousand meters above the ground was special and only a select few were able to pass through it. Elena and Tomoe were already eligible to pass through this gate as any adventurer with B rank or higher could freely go past it.

As for the third gate, anyone who wanted to go past it needed special permission from the city hall. The only people who were an exception to this rule were vampire nobles of marquis rank or higher and S rank powerhouses. So Elena and Tomoe could also go past this gate.

Then for the fourth gate even Elena and Tomoe were not able to go past without the permission from the city hall. That was because the area beyond the fourth gate was an administrative area where no one except needed individuals were acknowledged.

And finally beyond the fifth gate, at the peak of the mountain, only a single manor was there. This manor was the home where Vampire Queen Juxiao lived. That was also the destination where Elena and Tomoe needed to go.

But to go past the fifth gate, even S rankers needed to follow a procedure and sent a letter with their wish of meeting with the Vampire Queen written on it. Then it was up to the queen to decide if she wanted to meet with that person or not. If she agreed for a meeting, then the queen's manor would send a letter of invitation to the person who asked for a meeting. So only with the letter of invitation someone was able to go past the fifth gate.

This whole process was very complicated and time consuming. Elena could just go in with brute force but then the meaning of this whole journey would become useless.

If Elena wanted, just asking the Vampire Goddess would have been enough for her to get an all Continent business permit. But Elena did not do that and decided to take the complicated route only because it was more exciting. So at the very last step, she did not want to use brute force again. And it was not like Elena was in any kind of hurry.

Even if she got the all continent trading permit immediately, it was not Elena who was going to use that. She would be giving that permit to the ladies who wanted to start an independent business under Zona's lead. So these ladies would need quite some time, probably years to start this venture seriously. So Elena was fine with taking a little extra time here. Vampires who were almost immortal did not care much about the passage of time.

So for the time being Elena decided to go past the third gate first and then she could apply to go past the fourth one. The office from which a letter could be sent to the Vampire Queen was located behind the fourth gate, so going past the fourth gate was a must if Elena wanted to meet with the Vampire Queen.

There were stairs that directly led to the third gate but taking the stairs was way too troublesome. For that reason and as most of the vampires were capable of flying, that was the preferred method for most in climbing this mountain. A person was not able to enter the city without going through the gates because the whole city and the mountain was actually covered by a translucent barrier. Only if the barrier was breached then someone would be able to infiltrate the city illegally.

But this barrier was created by the queen herself. Breaking it was insanely hard if not impossible. So no one ever tried that foolish act. So Elena and Tomoe again took to the skies and flew toward the third gate located about 3500 meters above the ground.

As soon as they landed before the gate, five guards dressed in a similar style of clothing appeared before them. These guards were definitely quite strong and the person leading them was a B ranker. They came toward them aggressively but were extremely polite and asked Elena and Tomoe for a proof of identity. Tomoe and Elena both used their Adventurer Guild cards for this purpose and seeing that they were S rankers, all the guards became even more respectful and welcomed them inside the city.

Tomoe was a bit curious about the aggressive attitude of the guards which looked like a lie now. But when they approached Elena and Tomoe, Tomoe was able to feel the battle intent from them. Tomoe was curious about it and after seeing that the guards here looked quite talkative unlike their first impression, she asked the guard leader about it.

Hearing the question, the guard leader who had introduced himself as Iven became a bit embarrassed. He apologized again for his unsightly behaviour and told Tomoe and Elena the reason behind it. He told them that the person who was in charge of overseeing all the guards of this city was a very strict person and trained all the guards every single day without fail. And all the guards here including him were just returning from that same training session. As the training was exceptionally strict, they all were still filled with the aggression of the training and leaked that a little bit. Hearing this Tomoe's curiosity was satiated and she followed behind Elena to enter the city.

Beyond the fourth gate, a very beautiful cityscape was there. The busy markets were located in the bottom two areas and most of the population of this city also lived there. For that reason, this part of the city was very quiet and peaceful. All the houses here were well planned and were built with luxurious designs. They complemented the silent nature of this area and it looked like a beautiful picture.

Elena and Tomoe were already told that no inns were there in the third gate's area. But that did not mean this area did not have residence for outsiders to live. Anyone could book a whole mansion here and could live in it. These mansions came with the servants taking care of it, so the person booking it did not need to worry about much and could just spend a happy time in the beautiful mansions of this beautiful city. But not everyone was able to afford them as these mansions were extremely expensive to book.

But that obviously was not a problem for Elena and she was actually feeling excited with this chance of spending more money like a prodigal young master. So she happily started to search for the best and most expensive mansion to book and if she could, buy one permanently.

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