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01 Water Curtain Cave

Legend holds that the great world is centered upon Mount Sumeru. Sumeru is formed of four treasures — gold, silver, lapis lazuli and crystal — girdled about by a salt sea, and ringed by four great continents and eight lesser ones. The four great continents are these: the Eastern Continent of Excellent Bliss, the Southern Continent of Jambudvipa, the Western Continent of Cattle-Gifting, and the Northern Continent of Uttarakuru. Each is sundered from the next by sea, and the distance between them is no less than ten thousand leagues. Beyond the sea of the Eastern Continent of Excellent Bliss lies the kingdom of Aolai, hard by the ocean's edge. In that sea stands a famed mountain called Flower-Fruit Mountain, and upon its very crown rests a stone of immortality, three fathoms six feet five inches high and two fathoms four feet around. It bore nine orifices and was crowned with orchids — wondrously fair beyond all else.

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