Chapter 387: Chapter 374: Yumu Cave Blessed Land
Speaking of which, Shen Lang recalled what Xia Xiaoting had said about the Yumu Cave Blessed Land and couldn’t help but ask Shu Lan a question.
The War God Hall did have a little information regarding the Pocket World Blessed Lands.
However, these Pocket World Blessed Lands had all vanished without a trace starting ten thousand years ago.
Not even the War God Hall knew what had happened to them.
Now, suddenly hearing about the Yumu Cave Blessed Land, Shen Lang felt a flicker of doubt in his heart.
"Allow me. The Sect Leader happened to entrust this task to me," a wizened voice suddenly interjected.
Everyone turned to see Wang Dashu approaching from the distance, his wide sleeves fluttering and his spirit high.
Beside Wang Dashu was Fang Hongfeng.
Fang Hongfeng was startled to see a group of people sitting on the ground, all of them in tattered, blood-soaked clothes.
When his gaze fell upon Xia Xiaoting, he swept her with his Divine Thought and immediately pointed at her as if he’d seen a ghost. "You! You! Last night, you were still at the Qi Martial Realm Eighth Heaven! How are you in the Spirit Martial Realm now? Don’t tell me you were all cultivating!"
"Ah! This is outrageous! How could you start cultivating without me?"
Jie Fengqing beckoned to him. "Come over here. I’ll tell you what Junior Brother taught us. Don’t interrupt Elder Wang’s explanation to Junior Brother about the Yumu Cave Blessed Land."
As Wang Dashu approached, a disciple had already brought out a chair and placed it next to Shen Lang.
Wang Dashu looked at the disciples on the ground, sensing their cultivation levels, and a strange light flashed in his eyes repeatedly.
Suppressing the ecstasy in his heart, he said, "The sect’s grand tournament is only the first step. The truly important event is the Yumu Cave Blessed Land grand tournament in half a year. In six months, all sixty-five Profound Iron Level influences in the Purple Chu Country will participate in a brutal competition in the Purple Chu Imperial Capital!"
"This competition will be used to select the candidates who will enter the Yumu Cave Blessed Land for its trial."
Everyone around them stopped cultivating and began to listen to Wang Dashu’s explanation.
In a low voice, Wang Dashu recounted many things, some of which Shen Lang knew and some he did not.
The Star Continent was vast and boundless, home to countless sects and powers.
Generally speaking, Legendary Level powers were considered the strongest forces in this world.
But in reality, even stronger than these renowned Legendary Level sects were the Thirty-Six Great Cave Heavens and the Seventy-Two Small Blessed Lands.
These Pocket World Blessed Lands were scattered across the Star Continent, highly mysterious, yet they truly existed.
The people from these Pocket World Blessed Lands rarely allowed their disciples to appear in the world, so many on the Star Continent believed these places were just a legend.
And many of those who knew of their existence later assumed they had ceased to exist over the long years, as they had all but disappeared.
The Thirty-Six Great Cave Heavens and Seventy-Two Small Blessed Lands were exceptionally mysterious, rumored to be grotto-heavens established in the Human Realm by Great Powers from the Upper Realm.
The Spiritual Qi and various other resources within them far surpassed those of the current Legendary Level powers.
Many powerhouses believed that the Thirty-Six Great Cave Heavens and Seventy-Two Small Blessed Lands were far stronger than even the Legendary Level powers; they simply never involved themselves in the disputes of the Human Realm, remaining aloof and transcendent.
They didn’t even appear during the Demon Race’s invasion tens of thousands of years ago.
Because of their transcendent and detached nature, few had ever seen their true face.
The Yumu Cave Blessed Land was one of the Seventy-Two Small Blessed Lands.
Although this Small Blessed Land was discovered, only ruins remain now.
No one knew what had happened to the Yumu Cave Blessed Land, nor when its people had disappeared.
Disciples from the Yumu Cave Blessed Land had never even been heard of roaming the Human Realm. Aside from a few records within some Major Sects, most current sects only knew of a Blessed Land with this name and were ignorant of anything else related to it.
Theoretically, since they had never appeared, they couldn’t really be considered to have disappeared.
But ten years ago, a mysterious woman came to the Imperial Dragon Sect and informed them of the Yumu Cave Blessed Land’s precise location and the method to enter it.
And so, the mysterious Yumu Cave Blessed Land finally entered the sights of the major sects of the Purple Chu Country.
That mysterious woman claimed to be a disciple of the Qingxu Cave Heaven, one of the Thirty-Six Great Cave Heavens.
No one could verify her claim, but it seemed the truth of it no longer mattered.
What mattered was that the Yumu Cave Blessed Land was near the Purple Chu Country, located in one of the Three Great Forbidden Lands of the Western Wilderness: the "Dragon Scale Forbidden Land"!
Legend said this forbidden land was a mysterious place where the Dragon Race was imprisoned. Demonic Qi ravaged the land, and for a thousand miles in every direction, there was no sign of human life, not even a bird would dare to cross.
At the behest of the Imperial Dragon Sect, Li Hen Sect, and Flower Sect, the sixty-five Profound Iron Level influences of the Purple Chu Country, along with those three Spirit Copper Level influences, began sending people into the mysterious Yumu Cave Blessed Land.
It was held once every three years, and so far, it had been held three times.
Only ruins were left of the Yumu Cave Blessed Land, but the vegetation there was lush. Primordial beasts roamed the vast wilderness, mountains pierced the clouds, and Demon Beasts ran rampant.
To the Dragon Scale Forbidden Land, the Yumu Cave Blessed Land was like an oasis in a desert.
Even as ruins, its Spiritual Qi still far exceeded that of many Major Sects in the outside world, and it was filled with countless Talents and Treasures of Heaven and Earth.
Furthermore, the cave residences of the powerhouses who once lived in the Blessed Land also contained numerous treasures.
Therefore, for the sects of Purple Chu, even in ruins, it was still a supreme Blessed Land.
As for why the Imperial Dragon Sect would share this Blessed Land, many did not understand.
Some said it was because the Flower Sect and Li Hen Sect found out, so they couldn’t keep it for themselves;
Others said that the truly great treasures within had already been taken by the Imperial Dragon Sect, and they were only sharing the place to earn a good reputation.
The minimum cultivation for a Martial Artist to enter the Yumu Cave Blessed Land was the Spirit Martial Realm.
So, in a way, it could be considered a joint trial for all the Profound Iron Level influences of the Purple Chu Country.
This was a trial filled with immense opportunities.
By the same token, it was also an incredibly cruel one.
Due to conflicts over benefits and past grudges, the Yumu Cave Blessed Land was fraught with danger. Beyond the threat of powerful Demon Beasts, there was also peril from rival and even non-rival powers.
Killing for treasure was the most common sight inside.
Because the number of participants was limited, each sect needed to select a group of people first, who would then compete against other sects to finally determine how many from each sect could enter.
It was a trial, but it was also a game.
And since it was a game, there were naturally rules.
The Imperial Dragon Sect, Li Hen Sect, and Flower Sect jointly established many rules, the most important of which was: Martial Artists at the Xuanwu Realm or above could not proactively attack those below the Xuanwu Realm.
This was to protect the foundation of the various sects.
Otherwise, if a group of Xuanwu Realm powerhouses encountered a group of Spirit Martial Realm cultivators from another sect and killed them all, it could very well cause that sect to go into decline.
Because those who entered were all elite disciples!
According to the three sects, including the Imperial Dragon Sect, the trial was meant to make the various sects stronger.
Not to destroy them.
While ensuring a degree of fairness, if a sect’s disciples were all killed by people of a similar cultivation level from another sect, it could only mean they were not worthy of being a Profound Iron Level influence.
The establishment of these rules guaranteed the safety of Low Tier Martial Artists to a certain extent.
Without such rules, many sects would be unwilling to let their Low Tier Martial Artists enter.
Even with the protection of High Tier Martial Artists from their own sect, a chaotic battle could easily result in a group of Core Disciples being wiped out.
During the first trial, some Xuanwu Realm powerhouses from Evil Dao Sects had interfered in the battles between Spirit Martial Realm cultivators.
But it was said that soon after, these Xuanwu Realm Martial Artists who had acted were annihilated into dust by a strange and unpredictable attack.
Many people from other sects had also personally witnessed similar events. No matter which sect the Xuanwu Realm Martial Artist belonged to, as long as they directly interfered in a fight between cultivators of a lower tier, they would be inexplicably obliterated.
Only then did the major sects begin to take this rule seriously and abide by it.
After that, the Yumu Cave Blessed Land became much more peaceful, and in a way, much fairer.
But fairness is always relative; there has never been absolute fairness in this world.
And no one advocated for it either.
This was a world where the strong were revered.
...
Even though Xuanwu Realm powerhouses couldn’t interfere in the struggles of Spirit Martial Realm cultivators, the dangers within were still immense.
The Martial Artists who dared to enter, or rather, who were qualified to enter the Yumu Cave Blessed Land, were all elite disciples from their respective sects.
They either possessed tyrannical cultivation, had special killing moves, or were equipped with powerful Magical Treasures provided by their sect.
Once a battle broke out, it would be incredibly brutal.
On the other hand, the number of people each sect could send into the Yumu Cave Blessed Land was not the same, which naturally created another form of unfairness.
For example, some sects sent in over forty Peak of Spirit Martial Realm cultivators, while others sent only twenty-something.
If people from two such sects were to gather and then get into a dispute over some treasure...
The best-case scenario would be the smaller group giving up and leaving directly;
The worst-case scenario would be them getting surrounded and annihilated by the larger group!
And in fact, during the second trial, the latter scenario happened many times.
It got to the point where many sects later entered the Yumu Cave Blessed Land with the very direct goal of killing for treasure.
Using their numerical advantage to constantly surround and kill the Martial Artists of weaker sects, seizing their Sumeru Rings and powerful Magical Treasure Secret Artifacts, was more direct and effective than a group of people searching for other treasures inside.
After a few rounds, many sects grew even stronger as a result.
As for other sects, their Core Disciples who entered were slaughtered, a devastating blow from which they might not recover for hundreds of years.
Hearing this, Shen Lang suddenly asked, "If the Martial Artists who enter can bring powerful Magical Treasures, can they also bring powerful Demon Beasts? For example, a Bone Demon."
As Shen Lang spoke, he released Bone One.
"My Bone Saber is thirsting for battle!"
Wielding a massive Bone Blade, Bone One looked around proudly, scaring the disciples sitting cross-legged on the ground into scattering and fleeing with their hands over their heads.
"Shut up. Your job today is to be an exhibit," Shen Lang chided.
"Oh, Boss, Bone One understands! It’s because Bone One is the tallest, greatest, and most handsome that Boss chose me for the exhibition!"
Bone One immediately put away its Bone Blade and struck what it considered a very imposing pose.
Wang Dashu had already heard that Shen Lang had a powerful Bone Demon with him, but he was still startled by the sudden sight of it.
He had a feeling that if this Bone Demon went berserk, even he might not be able to defeat it...
