“I won’t deny that he exaggerated things a little, but no, the threat he spoke of is quite real,” Gu Canyang said thoughtfully while clasping his hands and placing them on his legs. “I would not have realized it if he hadn’t brought it up, but we do need to watch our backs for the moment. Just in case, I’ve already messaged all our allies about this.
“That said, it is very unlikely that Thousand Demon Ridge would actually attack our Outpost. Even if they somehow succeeded, we could just escape by teleporting away through the Divine Opportunity Column or breaking through their encirclement. In any case, it is impossible for them to lay a finger on Brother Yi Ye by attacking the Outpost.”
A bitter smile cracked on Wei Li’s face. “Brother Zhao even claimed that he’s staying here so he could respond to the threat in time…”
“I know right? That was the point where I realized that something was amiss. The Heavenly Derivative Sect’s Outpost is a long, long distance away from ours. Unless Brother Zhao could see into the future, there’s no way his allies would show up in time to aid us. Sure, he arrived pretty early during today’s meet-up, but that’s only because he happened to be in the area. If the Thousand Demon Ridge did decide to attack us, the battle would be over long before his people could reach us.”
“Oh, Brother Zhao… I don’t understand why he would go about this issue in such a roundabout way. He could’ve just told us his request directly.”
“Like I said, he’s here for Brother Yi Ye. He doesn’t know if Brother Yi Ye is training under our sect right now. If he is, it would’ve been rather impolite to make a request directly. It’s a different story if he spoke with Brother Yi Ye in private though. Knowing that silver-tongued bastard, I doubt Brother Yi Ye would be able to escape his clutches”
“Seriously.” Wei Li didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. “I’ve heard of his reputation a long time ago, and as far as I can tell it’s more than justified. So, should we respond to this, or…”
“No.” Gu Canyang waved his hands. “Brother Yi Ye never said anything about training in our sect, so there’s a high chance he’s just passing through. We’ve already received much kindness from Brother Yi Ye, so it would hardly be right to influence his opportunities. If Zhao Li does succeed in inviting Brother Yi Ye to whatever scheme he has in mind, then good on him.
“What we should do right now is to send out the scouts and monitor the movement of our enemies. Every second is precious if Thousand Demon Ridge really does the unthinkable.”
“Yes!”
…
Recently, Ju Jia had found a great place to cultivate in. It was the training chamber of Hidden Light Sanctuary.
When he was following Sima Yang, the amount of times he entered an Outpost could be counted on one hand, much less using a cultivation chamber. He had never cultivated in a World Spiritual Qi rich environment until Lu Ye took him to a training chamber. Since then, he became absolutely obsessed and visited the place at least once every night. He was barely seen during the day either.
Ju Jia’s tolerance for boredom was extraordinary. Even Lu Ye was no match for him in this regard. Then again, it wasn’t that surprising. He was the guy who withstood Sima Yang’s ridiculous exploitation without batting an eyelid after all.
Ju Jia was grateful to Sima Yang for putting him on the path of cultivation. That was why he never complained a word no matter how much abuse he received from the spell cultivator.
Today, the cultivators who killed Sima Yang were dead in the Lost City of Xianyuan, and even the House of Wintry Blossoms’ Outpost had been occupied thanks to Lu Ye. If there was an afterlife, Sima Yang should be able to rest in peace now.
In the pavilion, Lu Ye and Zhao Li were sitting opposite each other and engaging in an eloquent discussion. They were talking about wards.
A few days ago, after the duo encountered one another by “coincidence”, they gradually grew familiar with each other’s presence. However, they didn’t talk much because Lu Ye spent most of his time in the training chamber.
This lasted until Lu Ye accidentally learned that Zhao Li was a cultivator of the Way of Wards. His interest was immediately piqued, and he dragged the older cultivator into an academic discussion.
Lady Yun taught him much about Glyphs, but most of his knowledge regarding wards came from the books he took from her study. In that sense, he was a self-study in the Way of Wards, even though the Way of Wards was technically a branch of the Way of Glyphs.
He thought he was doing okay in this field, but he could just be deluding himself. There was no one he could measure himself against after all. Naturally, he was most happy to find out that Zhao Li was a ward cultivator.
So engrossed he was with the discussion that he did not notice that cold sweat was forming on Zhao Li’s forehead at all.
Zhao Li was wailing mentally right now. He already knew that Lu Ye was pretty good in the Way of Wards since he was able to slip through or breach a Grand Ward using his special methods, but it wasn’t until they engaged in an academic discussion that he realized that he was seriously talented in this department.
Zhao Li discovered that Lu Ye’s knowledge was a bit skewed, however. There were two main directions in the Way of Wards. One of them was creating Wards, and the other was breaching them.
Generally speaking, the two directions were complementary to each other. Someone who knew how to create wards must know how to breach wards, and vice versa.
However, that wasn’t the case for Lu Ye. His knowledge was impeccable when it came to breaching wards, but he almost felt like a novice when it came to creating wards.
The duo weren’t just exchanging words. From time to time, they would create wards for the other person to breach. Zhao Li quickly discovered that Lu Ye was able to breach any ward he created in two or three breaths at most. Although Zhao Li’s attainment in the Way of Wards wasn’t particularly impressive, and the wards he created were a reflection of that, he could not understand how they were breached as quickly as they were. It hurt Zhao Li’s pride and made him wonder if he had wasted his time all these years.
The one thing that made him feel better was that the wards Lu Ye created weren’t particularly impressive either. He wasn’t able to breach them as quickly as Lu Ye, but it also didn’t cost him too much effort.
While the end result was nothing special, what really stunned Zhao Li was the process. Lu Ye had created his ward in an extremely short time by directly channeling his Spiritual Power. He did not use any ward creating tools in the process.
His Great Elder was the only one he knew who could create a ward with a single thought. However, their cultivation levels were night and day to put it mildly.
Generally speaking, it was incredibly difficult for a Spirit Creek Realm cultivator to create a ward without using some tools. Some common examples were small ward flags or ward keystones. Moreover, each item possessed a unique characteristic of its own. Only by using them together in certain ways could a Spirit Creek Realm cultivator create a ward.
Zhao Li wanted to confirm one thing no matter what.
“Who did you learn the Way of Wards from, Brother Yi Ye?”
Lu Ye immediately thought of Lady Yun. Technically speaking, Lady Yun only taught him the Way of Glyphs. However, the Way of Wards was a branch of the Way of Glyphs, so it wouldn’t be a mistake to say that she was his teacher in the Way of Wards either.
He could not tell Zhao Li the honest truth though. Lady Yun had specifically told him to keep her identity a secret.
So, he said, “The Crimson Blood Sect owns some books on the Way of Wards, and you should know that I’ve received the inheritance of a Glyphweaver, right? Glyphweavers and the Way of Wards are kinda related to each other, so sometimes I would read those books to further my knowledge.”
“… You’re saying that you’re self-taught, Brother Yi Ye?” Zhao Li’s eyes twitched once.
If Lu Ye managed to come this far via self-study, just how much further would he go if he had a proper teacher? He could not even begin to imagine.
In the past, the seniors in his sect often lamented that there were unparalleled geniuses in the world that ordinary people like them could never hope to stand with as equals. He never really took their words seriously because he thought that these so-called unparalleled geniuses might exist, but they could not be that much better than him. It was because he was a genius himself.
But now, he realized that he was just being arrogant and foolish.
This also explained why Lu Ye’s attainment in the Way of Wards was so unusual. He could breach most wards with ease, but the wards he created were rather shoddy. However, the process of that creation were paradoxically quite impressive.
Even more stunning was the fact that a self-study had somehow managed to breach a Grand Ward not once, but twice using his own special methods.
“Have you ever heard of the Hundred Wards Tower, Brother Yi Ye?”
“No. What is that?” Lu Ye raised his eyebrows. He had never heard of it, but it obviously had something to do with wards.
“You could say that it was a treasure of the previous era.”
By that, he meant the era before the Spirit Creek Battlefield came to be.
Lu Ye was no longer completely ignorant about the state of Jiu Zhou. Naturally, he was privy to the Era Theory.
Previously, he thought that a world like Jiu Zhou—one filled with countless sects and champions—would possess a long and deep history. In reality, things were a little more complicated than he thought.
To put it simply, there were no written records of Jiu Zhou before the Spirit Creek Battlefield came to be. All the history books only recorded events after the formation of the Spirit Creek Battlefield, and the battlefield was two or three thousand years old at best. Not long after that, the two cultivation factions—Grand Sky Coalition and Thousand Demon Ridge—came to existence as well.
One thing was certain, the old Jiu Zhou must have been an incredibly prosperous and powerful Cultivation World. They knew this because there were a lot of relics that clearly did not belong to the current Jiu Zhou scattered across the continent. From time to time, ancient ruins and inheritances would pop up on the Spirit Creek Battlefield as well.
Unfortunately, no one was ever able to find any written record regarding the old Jiu Zhou. That was why they simply addressed them as relics of the previous era.
It made no sense that their history spanned only two to three thousand years considering the average lifespan of a cultivator. To make a comparison, a Divine Sea Realm cultivator had a lifespan of a thousand years or so, a True Lake Realm cultivator around five hundred years, and a Cloud River Realm cultivator around two hundred years. As for Spirit Creek Realm, they were like garlic chives that kept growing back no matter how many times they were harvested.
Of course, these were just theoretical numbers. All cultivators led a life of violence. Even if someone managed to live to old age, something like invisible damage or worse would definitely impact their lifespan.
The most popular theory to date was that a catastrophic disaster had struck the previous Jiu Zhou and reset their Cultivation World altogether. It was the only explanation as to why their written history only spanned two to three thousand years.
The Hundred Wards Tower Zhao Li mentioned was probably one such relic.
“There are a hundred floors in the Hundred Wards Tower, and each floor contains a different kind of ward. With the floors getting progressively harder, and the challengers who successfully clear a floor are rewarded by the Heavens. Naturally, the rewards are all related to the Way of Wards in some way.
“There is a saying among ward cultivators, and that is that a ward cultivator who hasn’t challenged the Hundred Wards Tower is not a true ward cultivator. According to the current standards, someone who cleared the first ten floors is considered a novice in the Way of Wards, twenty floors, an elite, thirty-three floors, a master, and sixty-six floors, a grandmaster…”
“What about a hundred?”
“No one has ever cleared a hundred floors, but not because they are all wanting.” A bit of pity entered Zhao Li’s eyes at this moment. “It is because the Hundred Wards Tower itself is incomplete. It only has sixty-six floors.”
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