Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

Ning’s group, however, didn’t dare to randomly use those arrays without doing some careful investigations. They’d rather continuously teleport through the Archaeus region than accidentally run into a reclusive Daolord who was residing within one of those continents!

“I hope things work out this time,” Ning sent mentally.

“Don’t worry, Darknorth. Even if there are Daolords residing in this continent, Daolords often go into closed-door meditation sessions that last a million years or more. We’ll move in and depart immediately. There’s no way we’ll be unlucky enough to run into one,” Greatjoy chortled.

“Just be careful, everyone. Don’t randomly send out your godsense to search this place,” Solewind warned.

If you swept a region with godsense, you might be able to discover a Daolord… but that Daolord would also discover you!

……

Ning’s group of five advanced through the continent, quickly reaching a place which was bustling with life and activity.

This place was a city known as Thousand Mountains, a place where the eight major sects of the region all recruited disciples from.

In the city of Thousand Mountains resided an old freak known as ‘Old Demon Qixiu’. He truly was the number one expert of this region, superior to all others in the eight major sects. However, he was a very low-key figure who very few people knew about.

“Patriarch.” As the Old Demon walked out of his room and through his estate, quite a few servants and retainers would call out to him with respect when they saw him.

“Ugh. This world places enormous restrictions on my power.” The Old Demon’s gaze drifted off into the distance as he stared at the mountain ranges outside the city of Thousand Mountains. “And yet, I really just can’t bear to leave…”

“Eh?” The Old Demon’s face suddenly turned pale. Five figures had suddenly appeared next to the lake nearby him. They were Ning, Solewind, and the others.





* * *





Book 28, Chapter 3 - Transfer Array


Upon seeing the five, Old Demon Qixiu could sense that his very soul was beginning to shudder. He swallowed, hard, then bowed and said respectfully, “Greetings, five seniors.”

Good heavens! He stood at the very peak of power in this world. By all rights, he should’ve been invincible, and yet… why was it that these five were unfathomably more powerful than him?

“I have a few questions for you,” Heartlord Solewind said with a smile.

“Please ask, senior.” The Old Demon was quite cautious, but even he himself didn’t realize that deep within his heart, a seed of trust was beginning to blossom towards this bald, red-robed youth.

“What is the name of this continent?” Solewind asked.

“This continent is quite vast, stretching hundreds of billions of kilometers,” the Old Demon said. “Because there are so many mortals living here, we refer to this continent as the Mortal Realm.”

Solewind nodded slowly. “Has anyone ever left this ‘Mortal Realm’ and ventured off into other continents?”

“There’s only one way to do that. You’d have to activate the ancient transfer array and head to the the Sacred Immortal Realm,” the Old Demon said.

“Sacred Immortal Realm?” Solewind asked. Upon hearing this, Ji Ning, Greatjoy, Firesurge, and Skyfire all revealed smiles. They were going to be able to leave this place.

This entire continent was surrounded by spatial tempests, making it impossible for them to leave. Only by using a spatial transfer array to go to another continent would they be able to escape.

“This entire continent holds just a single transfer array within it,” the Old Demon said. “Supposedly, an incredibly long period of time ago there was a major power from the Sacred Immortal Realm who descended upon this continent who personally set up the array. There’s no way for the cultivators of our Mortal Realm to come up with such a complicated array.”

Ning and the others all laughed. Most likely, this spacetime transfer array leading to the Sacred Immortal Realm was something which had been personally established by an extremely powerful Daolord.

“Here in our Mortal Realm, the elemental energy of Heaven and Earth is very sparse. It is incredible if you can even reach the Nascent Soul stage. To reach the Apotheosis stage is even more difficult.” The Old Demon continued, “Thus, countless Nascent Soul cultivators and Apotheosis cultivators shall gather from throughout the continent and travel through the array towards the Sacred Immortal Realm. According to the Apotheosis cultivators who came back from that place, the elemental energy there is far denser than it is here in our Mortal Realm, making it easier to cultivate and easier to overcome the tribulation.”

‘Nascent Soul’, ‘Apotheosis’… these were different terms for Ki Refiners. In the Three Realms, the mortal ranks were Zifu Disciple, Wanxiang Adept, Primal Daoists, and Void-level cultivator. This represented what the most perfect Ki Refining systems in the Three Realms could accomplish.

However, in the Endless Territories and in this alternate universe there were many different mortal races that used different Ki Refining techniques which had different terms and titles.

“Where is the transfer array?” Solewind asked.

“Here is a map.” The Old Demon immediately took out his treasured map.

Solewind glanced at it while simultaneously flipping through the Old Demon’s memories, wiping away all traces of this encounter.

“Time to leave,” Solewind said. The five immediately vanished.

“What just happened?” Old Demon Qi Xiu stared at his surroundings. “Why do I have the feeling that something is off…” The Old Demon frowned but wasn’t able to comprehend what had just happened.

……

Afterwards, Ning’s group chatted with two other Apotheosis cultivators who were considered extremely powerful in this continent. Everything they said was roughly the same as what the Old Demon had said.

The five of them road atop a cloud, staring down at the lands below.

“It is true that the elemental energy in this continent is quite sparse.” Ning nodded. “It is true that mortal cultivators would find it very hard to train here.”

If there was no elemental energy at all, there would be no way to cultivate whatsoever. The elemental energy in this continent was only enough for someone to just barely reach the Primal Daoist stage. If you wished to reach the Void level and become an Earth Immortal, it would be extremely difficult. The ‘Old Demon’ which Ning’s group had questioned would’ve been considered a Void-level Earth Immortal in the Three Realms.

“It is because of the formation which covers this entire place,” Solewind said. “This formation covers everything, drawing power from the entire continent. That’s why the elemental energy in this continent is so sparse! Still, the reason this continent is protected from the spatial tempests is because of this formation.”

“The Sacred Immortal Realm should be a continent where the density of elemental energy is normal,” Firesurge said. “However… as a result, the living creatures here refer to it as the ‘Sacred Immortal Realm’.”

“When there’s a difference in density of elemental energy, it’s only normal that there one realm is viewed as higher and one realm is viewed as lower.”

Ning and the others chatted as they advanced through the clouds and moved towards the ancient transfer array. They stared at it from afar.

The ancient transfer array took up an extremely wide amount of space. The entire formation itself covered hundreds of millions of kilometers, and its core components were extremely complicated and exquisite.

“It really is a spacetime transfer array.” Ning and the others were able to recognize it at one glance.