With the passage of time, the battle grew more chaotic with its effects traveling far and wide. Whether it was the Twin River Empire to the East, the Lu clan territory to the North, the Five Mountain Sword Academy to the south, and the Alabaster Midnight Sect to the West; all these immediate neighbors to the Ice Emerald Sect, despite being thousands of kilometers away from the battleground could feel the terrifying undulations created from the fight between the founder and the four judges.
All were hit with different reactions. The younger ones, too ignorant to understand what it meant for shockwaves of a fight to reach that far, had shining looks of ignited spirits and blood boiling, each imagining the future of one day wielding the same level of power as the ones that released so much power in their attacks that it made their buildings tremble despite being so far away, while the older ones had looks of respect, fear, despair and envy for some, especially those who had been hit by the massive slap of reality on their limits.
As for the senior leaders of these organizations, they all had varied reactions. The old ancestor of the Twin River Empire had trepidation and relief the more the fight went on and he saw how terrifying Feng Qiu really was. He was just at the fifth stage of the palace realm, he could not hold a candle to her, and based on what he saw, he could barely even last half an hour against her. Were he to face off against her, his only choice would have been to use every trump card and taboo art to ensure he could escape from her alive, as for confronting her, he extinguished all thoughts the more the fight went on.
He wiped the cold sweat on his forehead when he thought, in a year's time when the grand elder of the Lunar Bug Sect broke through to the palace realm, he had planned to go with him and strongarm the Ice Emerald Sect into giving out their original copy of the Emerald frost flow veiled scripture that was part of the Frozen Serenity Scripture.
When the Lunar Bug Sect came to him for help, in order to gain his cooperation and help in sheltering them from the Ice Emerald Sect that now had a palace realm expert, the Lunar Bug Sect gave out the original copy of their cultivation art that was also a part of the Frozen Serenity Scripture, in addition to sharing a key detail, which was the reason they had a thorny relationship with the Ice Emerlad Sect.
The Lunar Bug Sect divulged that the original copies of the cultivation arts that were part of the Frozen Serenity Scripture, had part of a map covertly embedded in them, and the map more than likely led to the main legacy of the Frozen Serenity Sect.
He was skeptical at first, so he used the extensive resources of his empire to verify the claims of the Lunar Bug Sect. He managed to find a few organizations that were weaker than his Empire, that had arts that had ties to the Frozen Serenity Scripture.
With a few veiled threats and promises, he managed to obtain the original copies. The cultivation arts themselves were not much in terms of grade as they fell a little short when compared to the art the Lunar Bug Sect had given him, or the one the Ice Emerald Sect had. If he was to grade them, they were in the top tier of the orange grade, but nevertheless, he parted with a few valuable resources to acquire them.
With the original copies in hand, he studied them for almost a decade before he managed to decipher the secret mechanism of unlocking the map hidden within it. Each copy had its own unique method of being decrypted.
After confirming the veracity of the Lunar Bug Sect's claims, his interest and greed were sufficiently piqued. He was an ambitious person by heart, and he hoped to push the Twin River Empire to greater heights even though he had long let go of his reigns as the Emperor to focus on his cultivation.
Before him, the Twin River Empire had been a rank 4 empire that was stronger than the rest of its rank, but it was still a rank 4 empire, with no palace realm expert in sight until him. He wasn't the favored prince or the one next in line for the throne.
He had been one of the many children, the emperor before him had sired over the years. He bided his time, never competed or showed any interest in the throne, and never tried to form any connection.
All he was known for was being a bookworm, as he spent his days at the royal library studying different things, or hanging out in tea restaurants regularly frequented by scholars and rogue cultivators alike, and later he even joined the Odyssey Horizon Guild. An organization similar to the Rogue Cultivator Alliance, in that anyone could join it.
It was as ancient as the Dragon Meadow and if the rumors floating around were thought to be true, they also had ties with the Dragon Meadow in that both these organizations had their roots from the same place and that place was an ancient sect known as the Primordial Log Keepers.
The Primordial Log Keepers was rumored to be an organization formed by eight transcendent beings. It only had seven founding members, each belonging to a different species. It was founded by a dragon, Ao, a Fusang tree, a kunpeng, a yuan, a fairy, a vermilion bird, and the last one was a sage human, whose identity was unknown other than he was deemed worthy to be a founder along the other mythical beings.
The origin and reason for the Primordial Log Keepers's existence was unknown, and it was even in doubt whether such an organization ever existed in the first place because the lineup of their founders excluding the human, was terrifying, to say the least. It wasn't far-fetched to think that such a lineup was strong enough to unite the whole continent if they so wished.
However, other than the name and the rumored founders, there was no much that was known about them, and any evidence of such an organization existed was virtually non-existent and not many people knew about it, and one of the few reasons talks of it still remained relevant to date other than the monstrous lineup of its founders, was because the Dragon Meadow and the Odyssey Horizon Guild were rumored to have been offshoots of it.
Both their origins had their foundations built from the Primordial Log Keepers. The Dragon Meadow was a mysterious enigmatic treasure house that could safeguard your wares even from the heavens itself.
As for the Odyssey Horizon Guild, it was an organization formed with the aim of exploring the continent. They gave out tonnes of missions related to the exploration of the continent, and their payments were good enough to tempt the masses to venture even to the most dangerous of locations.
You could trade in incomplete lost cultivation arts, recipes, locations to undiscovered grottos and mysterious realms, recipes, and unknown creatures, maps of places that have not been traversed such as the deeper regions of the Green Fog Region. The Odyssey Horizon Guild accepted it all, and in return, you could get paid in spirit stones, certain treasures of equivalent value, and access to special locations to boost your cultivation.
There was no limit to what you could redeem your findings for. If it was extremely valuable, you could even get a saint rank treasure for your efforts, or even gain the means to break through to the soul formation realm. They had the foundations to do it.
They accepted membership from anyone, it did not matter whether you belonged to a sect, clan, royalty, or just a rogue cultivator, anybody could join and undertake their missions. They also had a tiered membership system to encourage the fulfillment of their missions. Other than payment given for a mission completed, depending on the tier of membership one had, they could have a discounted rate and access to certain resources; some general, some unique to the point that they could only be found in the hands of the Odyssey Horizon Guild.
The higher the membership, the better the discount and the wider the access, and as far as the resources went, it went from cultivation resources to even information.
The majority of rogue cultivators who did not want to join any organization were members of the Odyssey Horizon Guild. As long as they were lucky and made great discoveries, they had the chance to leap over the dragon gate from carps into dragons, and it wasn't just them. Members of royalty, clan members, or even sect members who were not favored within their respective organizations could use the guild as a source to strengthen themselves, and the old ancestor of the Twin River Empire did exactly that.
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