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Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
In the Sanctum of Providence, Lu Ye put his hand on the Divine Opportunity Column and connected his mind to it.
When he was a Spirit Creek Realm cultivator, the only place he could enter was the Spirit Creek Battlefield. Now that he was a Cloud River Realm cultivator, a new option had opened up to him.
He could still enter the Spirit Creek Battlefield, but he would have to pay three thousand Contribution Points to do so. Moreover, his strength would be suppressed to Heaven Nine—or more specifically, his peak form before he ascended to the Cloud River Realm—until he left the place.
The fee was only worse for Real Lake Realm cultivators or higher. This was the main reason high level cultivators generally avoided entering a battlefield they didn’t belong to unless absolutely necessary.
Lu Ye wasn’t going to enter the Spirit Creek Battlefield, of course. He was going to enter the Cloud River Battlefield.
He did not enter the Cloud River Battlefield immediately despite having made his choice. It was because the Cloud River Battlefield was quite different from the Spirit Creek Battlefield. For starters, Outposts did not exist in the Cloud River Battlefield. This meant that there were multiple ways one might enter the place.
The first way was to appear at a random location. If the cultivator was lucky, then he would appear in a safe place. If they weren’t, then they might appear at a hostile location such as an enemy encampment or the territory of a powerful Spirit Beast. There was a high chance he would get killed if he couldn’t defend himself.
The second way was fixed-point teleportation. There were Arcane Glades in the Cloud River Battlefield that were filled with rich World Spiritual Qi. Even better, most of them contained a Divine Opportunity Column. If a cultivator had left an imprint in the Divine Opportunity Column beforehand, they could teleport directly to the Arcane Glade.
Unfortunately, this way only applied to those who owned an Arcane Glade. As Lu Ye had never even entered the Cloud River Battlefield before, he did not have an Arcane Glade as a matter of course. This meant that he could only rely on the third way.
The third way was also a fixed-point teleportation, though there were many places he could choose from.
The Cloud River Battlefield did not have Outposts, but it did have a lot of Divine Trade Association hotspots. They were scattered throughout the battlefield and acted as supply bases and rest areas for the cultivators. Moreover, every hotspot had its own Divine Opportunity Column. Any cultivator no matter what faction they belonged to could use them to teleport out of the Cloud River Battlefield.
One could say that these hotspots were the busiest places in the entire battlefield.
As Lu Ye closed his eyes and made contact with the Divine Opportunity Column, dots of light 1began appearing in his mind. Each dot represented a hot spot belonging to the Divine Trade Association. He could choose any one of these dots and teleport there. The question was, which should he choose?
Shui Yuan had told him to seek out his fourth senior brother, Li Baxian after he entered the Cloud River Battlefield. However, Lu Ye wanted to find Ju Jia first. The big guy was as wooden as he was tough, and it had been months since he entered the Cloud River Battlefield. He wanted to know where his friend was and how he was doing. If someone had taken advantage of him, he wanted to know as soon as possible.
He could see over a thousand light dots in his head. It showed just how vast the Cloud River Battlefield was.
The Spirit Creek Battlefield was vast, but the Cloud River Battlefield was several times bigger than it. After all, even the lowliest Cloud River Realm cultivator could fly telekinetically. If the battlefield was too small, then the cultivators would not be able to unleash their full power.
He pondered his choices for a moment before choosing the location at the center of the Cloud River Battlefield. This way, Ju Jia could be on the other end of the battlefield, and he should still be able to reach him fairly quickly.
“Are you ready, Amber?” Lu Ye asked quietly.
On his shoulder, the tiger responded with a cute growl.
Lu Ye smiled and thought, “Teleport.” The next moment, he was struck by a small sense of vertigo.
The feeling went away as quickly as it came. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in an unfamiliar hall.
Not far away, an unfamiliar cultivator opened his eyes at the same time as him. It was clear he had teleported over from Jiu Zhou and chosen this location as his destination as well. They did not try to communicate for obvious reasons.
Lu Ye put his hand on the Divine Opportunity Column again and tried to teleport back to Jiu Zhou. He immediately received a notice that a large sum of Contribution Points would be deducted if he did this. He knew then that the intel he received was correct. All cultivators who entered the Cloud River Battlefield must stay in it for at least a month. Otherwise, they would have to pay a huge sum of Contribution Points.
This might be the first time he entered the Cloud River Battlefield, but he had collected a lot of information through various channels. The only flaw in the information he collected was that it wasn’t comprehensive enough.
He wasn’t sure why such a rule existed. His best guess was that the teleportation wasn’t free, and the Heavens had implemented it to prevent cultivators who had way too much free time on their hands from abusing the teleportation.
By the time he came to, the cultivator that appeared at the same time as him had already left the hall. Lu Ye also left after he was done with his experiment.
He was immediately struck by a cacophony of noises. This was the Divine Trade Association. It made sense that countless cultivators would frequent this place.
Lu Ye tapped a finger on his Battlefield Imprint and attempted to contact his fourth senior brother. He was going to inform him that he had arrived at the Cloud River Battlefield, but to his surprise, the message had failed to transmit successfully.
His fourth senior brother’s imprint still existed, so it wasn’t because he was dead. This could only mean that his fourth senior brother was currently in a different world.
The same thing happened when he tried to contact Feng Yuechan.
Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan were inseparable for as long as he knew them. If one of them was unreachable, then the other person was most likely unreachable as well.
He messaged Ju Jia next. This time, the message transmitted smoothly, and Ju Jia responded to it very quickly.
Lu Ye frowned after communicating with Ju Jia for a bit. Not only was Ju Jia ignorant of his current location, Lu Ye himself wasn’t sure where he was beyond “the center dot in the Cloud River Battlefield”. He had no choice but to tell Ju Jia to find a Divine Trade Association hotspot and purchase a 10-point map for himself before ending the communication. After that, Lu Ye sought out a manager and purchased a 10-point map and a basic information packet on all things in the Cloud River Battlefield.
What surprised Lu Ye was that the manager was only a Spirit Creek Realm cultivator. The Divine Trade Association might be the only organization in Jiu Zhou who was capable of doing this. He already knew this, but Lu Ye still realized all over again that the Divine Trade Association was no ordinary organization.
Lu Ye remained in his private room and checked out his 10-point map to learn about his current location. He then checked the basic information packet he received.
It took two whole hours before Lu Ye finally put down his jade slip. He took his time to digest everything he just learned.
As his second senior sister had told him, the Cloud River Battlefield was a much more complicated and competitive place than the Spirit Creek Battlefield. Here, cultivators did not just compete against enemies from an opposing faction, but also their own. That said, the strong could usually capitalize on this and rise through the cultivation levels very quickly.
In the Spirit Creek Battlefield, every sect had an Outpost where the concentration of the World Spiritual Qi was much higher than the wilderness. The more Blessings they purchased, the more they could upgrade the World Spiritual Qi of their Outpost and accelerate the cultivation of the disciples.
There was no such thing in the Cloud River Battlefield, however. Instead, there were the Arcane Glades.
An Arcane Glade was a territory where the World Spiritual Qi was concentrated. In the Cloud River Battlefield, the average concentration of the ambient Spiritual Qi was only equal to the wilderness of the Core Circle in the Spirit Creek Battlefield. Suffice to say, this cultivation environment wasn’t even good enough for a Spirit Creek Realm cultivator, much less a Cloud River Realm cultivator. If the cultivator cultivated using the ambient Spiritual Qi around them only, they would find themselves rising through the cultivation levels very, very slowly.
The Arcane Glade was one of the most popular solutions to that problem. An Arcane Glade was identical to a Spirit Creek Battlefield Outpost in the sense that its World Spiritual Qi was much richer than normal. That was where the similarities ended, however. An Arcane Glade wasn’t divided based on sects. Anyone could own one, be it a small group of friends consisting of three to five cultivators, or a large group consisting of ten to twenty cultivators. Generally speaking, it was incredibly rare to find an Arcane Glade accommodating more than twenty cultivators because that would reduce the amount of World Spiritual Qi each person got to a pittance.
Arcane Glades were split into four levels: Primus, Secundus, Tertius and Quartus. Primus was the best, and Quartus the worst. To put it simply, the higher the level, the richer the World Spiritual Qi, and the more efficient a cultivator’s cultivation became.
There were less Arcane Glades than there were cultivators, so cultivators often fought each other to claim one. In the Spirit Creek Battlefield, it was incredibly difficult to occupy an Outpost. The grand ward alone presented a nigh insurmountable challenge, and there was only so much a Spirit Creek Realm cultivator could do. Lu Ye was an exception, not the rule.
At the Cloud River Realm though, that was a different story. The cultivators weren’t just much more powerful, their bag of tricks would’ve grown exponentially as well. Not even an Arcane Glade that was protected by a grand ward was safe from its would-be plunderers.
Generally speaking, few people could hold onto a high quality Arcane Glade for long. It almost always changed hands after a short period.
Besides that, Arcane Glades did not exist forever. What was a Primus-level Arcane Glade today could up and vanish like a mirage the next day.
The opposite was the same. A barren land could suddenly transform into an Arcane Glade as well.
The Cloud River Battlefield was vast, and its number of Arcane Glades innumerable. However, there were always cultivators who just weren’t strong enough to claim an Arcane Glade of their own. How could these people grow stronger then? Spirit Pills alone would not satisfy their needs, not to mention that it would be beyond inefficient.
That was why there was another way to cultivate besides claiming an Arcane Glade, Amulets.
In the Cloud River Battlefield, Amulets could literally fall from the skies at any moment. An Amulet’s quality could be split into White, Green, Blue, Purple and Gold. White was the lousiest, and Gold the best.
When an Amulet fell from the sky, everyone within fifty kilometers of ground zero was almost guaranteed to see it. Those who managed to claim an Amulet only needed to find a safe place to crush their Amulet. A massive amount of World Spiritual Qi would automatically appear out of nowhere and nourish the cultivator.
No one knew where the Amulets came from. Their best guess was that they were the gifts of the Heavens.
Each day, a large amount of Amulets would appear all over the Cloud River Battlefield. It was something all cultivators needed as there could never be too many resources.
It wasn’t easy to claim an Amulet, however. It was something every Cloud River Realm cultivator wanted after all. It wasn’t just a matter of speed and hand-eye coordination either. Those who weren’t strong enough to keep the Amulet they claimed usually perished to their attackers.
The strong ones would fight for the Gold Amulets, while the weak ones could only aim for the White Amulets.
In the Cloud River Battlefield, there was no such thing as an upper limit when it came to cultivation speed. Given enough strength and luck, a cultivator could ascend to the Real Lake Realm in just one or two years.
