Archfiend

Chapter 254: The Passion of Exploration

‘My god… What the hell is this realm?! Heavens… I can’t believe this whatsoever!!! No wonder, no wonder nobody ever survived Danxia Temple’s depths!’

‘The Eight Great Deadlands, truly deserving to be called the Eight Great Deadlands! I keep on looking forward to the cultivation world’s vastness more and more!’

‘This commander defies the heavens! Friggin’ awesome! Late-stage Qi Condensation! He was actually able to come out with so many people!’

‘Isn’t this unlikely? How is this the narration of the Xingtian Legion’s Commander? Wouldn’t there be other things that they want to keep secret?’

‘Hehe, upstairs, are you crazy? If there’s a problem, it’s the afternoon right now. Why isn’t a single clan talking about the seven a.m post?’

‘That’s right! This is tacit approval! Haha, I’ve always been Yangyu’s fan!’

However, among these threads, there was one person’s post who was followed by countless messages!

‘This cultivation world is large, very large. Fellow Daoists, I hope we can still make an effort together. A thousand entered Danxia Temple, and young friend Xu in particular came out alive with his team. I’ll drink to that.’ [1]

These words were simple and also brief. Placed in the boundless posting space, they were completely inconspicuous. The poster ID was an extremely rare sight. The poster’s rank wasn’t high, but his name… 

Daomaster Cloudcrane!!!

If this name appeared, perhaps a good many people would go crazy with posting. So what? If you want to advance to Core Formation, get mad. That wasn’t to further mention that Daomaster Cloudcrane was claimed to be the best teacher and educator. It was no exaggeration to say that he fit the phrase “peaches and plums throughout the world”; he had many students in many places! However!

This name of “Daomaster Cloudcrane” didn’t even have a portrait above it. There was also a platinum frame. Inside were four characters that caused all cultivators to go wild!

Five Phases Cardinal Extreme! Five Phases Cardinal Extreme, Ancestor Cloudcrane!

This was the real-deal Ancestor Cloudcrane!!!

Cloudcrane was congratulating Danxia Temple’s defeat! Among the Eight Great Deadlands, from this day onwards, Danxia Temple could finally turn orange in color! No longer was it the bright red of the past!

Those who are alive, do not enter! Where there is entry, there is no exit!

‘I kowtow to Ancestor!’

‘I pay respects, Dao Master… Junior is so excited right now that I can’t even talk…’

‘I get to admire a Dao Master up close… Heavens… Such an unexpected opportunity! I got to actually see Ancestor Cloudcrane post!’

‘This is too unbelievable! I bet that today is the most exciting day that I’ve been online!’

At four in the afternoon, Ancestor Cloudcrane had sent out word. At six in the afternoon, not a single clan called into question this post. At six-thirty, the forum moderator Immortal Visitor Amidst Clouds gilded the post!

“This is?!” A young cultivator who had just start drawing qi into his body was greatly startled when he saw the color of this post. 

He’d already browsed and lurked Chinacultivation for ages. In total, there were only fifty posts with this color. This represented a permanent sticky! Forever enshrined in essence! The site absolutely couldn’t use any method to tamper with its content!

In these fifty posts, there was Daomaster Skybearer’s “The Discussion of the Possibility of a Perfect Foundation Establishment in the End of Days with the Qi Condensation Base”. There was Ancestor Ancientpine’s “Research and Insight of Unorthodox Divine Abilities.” There was Grandmaster Gao Muya’s “Anyone Can Become an Artificer”. There was also the Heavens Law Research Institute’s “The Refute of the End of Day’s Realm Stagnation and Conjecture” and so on! 

Nonetheless, absolutely none of them were posts under the Core Formation cultivator or apex power level!!! This was the first level, and furthermore the introduction of cultivation! A Qi Condensation realm post!

In addition, the contents weren’t the slightest bit inferior to all the previous discussion posts! This was one bomb of a subject! This told all cultivators that the Eight Great Deadlands weren’t truly paths of certain death!

There wasn’t one objection. Regarding this post’s permanent sticky and eternal splendor, no one expressed objection.

And yet, this still wasn’t the most amazing thing! The most amazing… was that this post immediately enabled the reward function afterwards! [2]

This was because: ‘Branchmaster Xu lost his left arm in this journey. As everyone knows, the amount of heavenly treasures needed to restore a left arm is hard to calculate. Presently, there is only one known method, and that is to find a grand artificer to have something custom made. For this hero who was the first to challenge Danxia Temple—please allow me to call him a hero. At the very least today, he is suited to this title—crowdfunding will be conducted using the site’s name.’

‘Thanks to him, who not only walked out from Danxia Temple, he has also spurred the cultivation world’s determination to explore secret realms!’

These words seemed to be said seriously, but Xu Yangyi was unquestionably worthy!

This was because… as long as any section of Chinacultivation.com or the black market was now opened, one would discover that after this post was finally confirmed, permanently stickied, and eternally gilded, the mission and business sections were completely flooded with posts!!!

In the mission section: ‘Preparing to war against the Sixteen Lesser Deadlands! Mingshui Province’s Meng Clan is recruiting! As long as you have the great ambition to dare to explore! As long as your realm is at or below Foundation Establishment! We invite you to join the Meng Clan’s secret realm squadron!’

‘Guifang’s Su Clan is recruiting cultivators with experience in exploration to be retainers. The pay is fifty medium-grade spirit stones per month. All secret realm gains are split fifty-fifty. The Su Clan will prepare all of your support!’

‘Dongshan Province’s Liu Clan is awaiting your membership to our special exploration team! We are preparing to war against Dongting’s underwater Paradise Lesser Deadland!’ 

And in the black market section, everything was a monotone shade… 

‘Does anyone know what Commander Xu brought out from inside? This Throne is offering a bounty of 500 medium-grade spirit stones!’

‘If someone can help our company set up a line to Commander Xu within three days, our company will aid them with 20% of their pill elixirs before Core Formation!’

‘If someone can provide detailed information on the goods that Commander Xu brought out, This Throne is offering a bounty of 300 spirit stones!’

Yes… the main post simply couldn’t talk about what Xu Yangyi took out. However, this caused imaginations to roam!

Back in those days, there was an Ancestor Floatingcloud. Today, there was a Xu Yangyi. If the cultivation world’s major and minor companies weren’t anxious, then that was absurd!

Xu Yangyi had led a majority of the Xingtian Legion out and rescued two people. This action had completely ignited the cultivation world’s wind of exploration!

This wasn’t the exploration of secret realms, but rather the exploration of deadlands! However, no one was currently paying attention to these two pages. This was because after Chinacultivation.com enabled reward privileges for the “Danxia Temple has been Broken Through!” post, a tide of rewards attracted everyone’s attention in a flash!

The first reward was Immortal Visitor Amidst Clouds, a hundred medium-grade spirit stones.

The second was a new registered ID… God Ming Sister Nine! Her reward… was 8,888 medium-grade spirit stones!!!

The third… was also a new ID, Yi Jianyang. It was quite the ordinary name, unknown as to who it was. It could be speculated that there was some connection to the Yi Clan. That was due to the great wave of this user’s hand. He rewarded… 10,000 medium-grade spirit stones!!!

The fourth was a famous moneybags on Chinacultivation.com, the Qin Imperial Court’s Second Prince. He rewarded… 11,000 medium-grade spirit stones!

The fifth came and so did the sixth… The number of people became greater and greater. Just counting on the number of rewarders, there were no less than ten thousand!

Some were worth ten thousand and some were a single coin. A good amount in the middle were worth a hundred or fifty. Yet no matter the number, this represented that these people recognized Xu Yangyi at the very least! This A-rank Legion seed had appeared on the cultivation net several times. According to reason, there wouldn’t be too many people paying attention to them at the moment!

His first appearance was the Vermilion Snow Incident. Nonetheless, that was a case from three years ago in the end. His rise was simply the attention-grabbing goal of his Signing Ceremony. Apart from a few die-hard, love-smitten female cultivators, how many still remembered him now?

Yet the situation was completely different this time! Xu Yangyi would truly be remembered in their hearts! To the point that if he went out, everyone who caught sight of him would recognize him!

In these several thousand years… he was the first recorded person to break through Danxia Temple’s secret realm!

“Amazing…” In a mansion at the Capital, seven old men dressed in Tang suits were sitting at a directors’ conference table. They intensely studied the computer on the table. After ages, an old man at the head seat shook his head and sighed wistfully, “Investigate his background. I want it at once!”

“Yes!”

Not one objection! This was considering… that everyone was thinking about Ancestor Floatingcloud at this moment! The Ancestor Floatingcloud of over a century ago! In the future… there wouldn’t necessarily not be another ancestor who had left a deadland!

No matter whether it was making friendships, learning through another’s experience, or… a direct recruitment, all of this was absolutely major assistance!

Elsewhere, in the Bountiful Treasures Pavilion, Vulture’s eyes were drilling into a screen. He dared not believe anything. This was that Xu Yangyi! That youth from Heavens Law who he’d wanted to recruit yet failed to!

“It’s been over five years, huh…” He took a deep breath, looking at the screen with his face covered in shock. “He came out from Danxia Temple… He’s sure to be on this year’s stage for the cultivation world’s celebrities… T-This is the first Qi Condensation cultivator that’s going to go up!”

Jingle! At this time, Vulture’s cell phone suddenly rang out. As he picked it up, his expression became incredibly respectful two seconds later. “Junior greets Senior Lu.”

“Yes… I understand. I certainly do have a relationship with Commander Xu. Arrange a meeting opportunity? Alright… I’ll do my best…”

As all cultivator’s gazes converged on Danxia Temple, in the most northern part of Xichuan Province, there was a tall nameless mountain. Below the mountain was a boundless prairie that was blooming with many flowers. Groups of cattle and sheep were herded by shepards waving whips, and they leisurely chewed on grass. Boths side of the national highway were mantled with mountains, fields, green grass, and the aroma of flowers. Tents stood tall at both sides. Many people on road trips parked their cars and carefully took photos.

The character “chuan” (川) was in Xichuan Province because the surroundings were all mountains and rivers. As for this mountain behind the prairie, it was known as Qi Mountain. The mountains were tall and the forests were dense, their outer forms steep and dangerous. It became the paradise of a great majority of explorers. [3]

However, there were no mortal explorers that could see the tremendous, empty cavern behind a waterfall in the deepest depths of the valley. If a mortal entered, they would be obstructed by a cliff wall. But if it was a cultivator, they would see a three to four-meter-wide empty cavern. In books, it could be described by the grand words “Bottomless Pit”. And if they continued walking in, they would see a domain of incomparably vast palace halls!

They were richly ornamented buildings. People were flying over rooftops and vaulting over walls, a boiling cauldron of voices. This domain was shockingly a utopia that mortals couldn’t approach. It occupied about ten kilometers of space. In the center, there was a seven-story palace hall. Among a stretch of ancient buildings, it was incredibly striking. As for its carvings and designs, each aspect was extremely delicate and fine.

Before this point, the three large bloody characters of “White Tiger Hall” were suspended high on a horizontal board. Perhaps any cultivator who arrived here would pay deep respects. None who didn’t have reports to make absolutely wouldn’t enter without permission. 

White Tiger Hall was in Qi Mountain’s Bottomless Pit. The palace hall’s Linghu Clan was a brilliantly famous first-rate clan that a great many people know about in the cultivation world!

At this moment, in the palace hall’s seventh level, there were three old men gathered together in a fine and exquisite pavilion room. In front of them, a jade slip was awesomely placed.

Ahead of this jade slip, a light screen was slowly glittering. The image that appeared on the light screen was Longsu Province’s qi reparation. 

No one spoke. They had watched this image three times and used divine abilities and secret arts to examine it no less than ten times. They had long since confirmed its authenticity. But even so, they also felt that it was hard to believe.

1. “I’ll drink to that”. A little tricky to translate this phrase “当浮一大白”. It originates from a Western Han dynasty scholar named Liu Xiang (77-6 BCE). Originally used in a story about violations in a drinking game, but later on used to describe a somewhat bold spirit.

2. Chinese forums have a “reward/tip” function.

3. The character “川” means river.