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Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Ownership of Amulets wasn’t fixed, so this gave birth to a special kind of trade known as Amulet auctions. Some cultivators would rather sell the Amulets they owned for Contribution Points, so every once in a while the Divine Trade Association would hold an auction.
Contribution Points were the only accepted currency in an auction. Even if a cultivator was so unlucky that they could neither claim an Amulet or an Arcane Glade for themselves, they could still cultivate very quickly assuming they had the Contribution Points necessary to purchase these Amulets.
This part matched what Lu Ye had gathered from his friends and acquaintances. They had told him that Contribution Points were extremely useful in the Cloud River Battlefield, and they were right. Though to be fair, Contribution Points were useful not just in the Cloud River Battlefield, but everywhere else.
This was the first time Lu Ye entered the Cloud River Battlefield, so he didn’t consider claiming an Arcane Glade as an option. Most of the Arcane Glades out there would already have an owner, and he wasn’t so hubristic as to believe that he could defeat them as he was.
He might be invincible in the Spirit Creek Battlefield, but that status was stripped the moment he entered the Cloud River Battlefield. He could be the strongest First-Order Cloud River Realm cultivator in the entire world, and a veteran could still kick his ass like it was nothing.
He was tempted to buy an Amulet or two and check how good they were. Although he could cultivate on Spirit Pills alone, he would rather cultivate more efficiently than otherwise. Also, he had over seventy thousand Contribution Points in hand right now. That had to be enough to purchase some Amulets, right?
Unfortunately, he asked a manager about the Amulet auction and learned that the last auction was two days ago, and the next would be almost a month away. He immediately ceased that thought.
After obtaining everything he needed, Lu Ye left the Divine Trade Association.
The sun hung high in the sky, and countless cultivators could be seen entering and leaving the hotspot. At first glance, it seemed that the Cloud River Battlefield was a much livelier place than the Spirit Creek Battlefield. In reality, it was because this was a Divine Trade Association hotspot. Considering that the Cloud River Battlefield was several times bigger than the Spirit Creek Battlefield, the chances someone might encounter another cultivator in the wilderness were even smaller than they were in the Spirit Creek Battlefield, not to mention that there were far fewer Cloud River Realm cultivators than there were Spirit Creek Realm cultivators.
Once outside the hotspot, Lu Ye checked the 10-point map and messaged Ju Jia his current location.
Ju Jia responded, “Aang!”
It would be an incomprehensible response to most people, but Lu Ye had known Ju Jia long enough to guess that it meant “yes”. Unfortunately, Ju Jia still didn’t have a 10-point map of his own, so he didn’t know where he was. It would be difficult for Lu Ye to locate the body-tempering cultivator without even knowing which direction he should travel.
Since he was already here, he might as well take the rough with the smooth. He decided to familiarize himself with the battlefield.
With a thought, Lu Ye soared to the sky, picked a random direction, and flew. According to the 10-point map, there was a Tertius-level Arcane Glade about one hundred and fifty kilometers away from his current location. He wanted to know the difference between a Tertius-level Arcane Glade and the wilderness.
The owners should not attack him if he just observed from a safe distance.
There was a chance the Tertius-level Arcane Glade might belong to the Thousand Demon Ridge, but the reality was that the owners of an Arcane Glade often came from both factions. In the Cloud River Battlefield, cultivators rarely exposed their affiliation to one another to avoid conflicts of interest.
This was not possible in the Spirit Creek Battlefield because the cultivators were centered around their sects and Outposts, but in the Cloud River Battlefield, most people either traveled alone or in groups. Even those who chose to travel in groups rarely gathered too many people.
This was to avoid issues if they encountered a new Arcane Glade. The cultivators who found the Arcane Glade first would also sign a Sacred Pact and cooperate temporarily with each other.
New environments gave birth to new ways of living.
This was why his second senior sister, Shui Yuan, had told him that their factions weren’t completely opposed to one another in the Cloud River Battlefield. In some cases, they might even have to cooperate with each other.
Worst case scenario, the Sacred Pact would keep them from backstabbing each other even if their affiliations were opposed.
Lu Ye didn’t fly unassisted for long before he brought out his Spirit Boat. It was going to be a long trip, and flying on a flying Spirit Artifact was just less exhausting.
On a related note, Lu Ye had switched out his Spirit Boat for a Middle-Grade Spirit Artifact. It was also a Spirit Boat, but it was faster and tougher because it had more defensive enchantments. At the very least, he would not be in danger of crashing after one direct hit or two.
Yi Yi poked her head out after confirming that there was no one around them. She sat down in front of Lu Ye and looked left and right curiously. “So, this is the Cloud River Battlefield. It doesn’t look too different from the Spirit Creek Battlefield though.”
“The people are definitely different. From now on, almost everyone we meet will be a Cloud River Realm cultivator.”
“It’ll be fine. Amber and I will help you if we get into a fight!” Yi Yi declared while swinging her fist.
Amber also let out a growl of agreement.
“Where are we going?” Yi Yi asked.
“We’re heading toward a Tertius-level Arcane Glade. I want to check out what’s so special about it.”
“I see.” Yi Yi stopped asking questions and enjoyed the sights for a bit.
Suddenly, she pointed a finger and exclaimed in surprise, “Lu Ye Lu Ye, look at that pretty cloud! It has four colors!”
Lu Ye looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a tetrachromatic cloud as she said. It was moving quickly toward them.
Lu Ye raised his eyebrows. It hadn’t even been a couple of hours since he entered the Cloud River Battlefield, and trouble had found them already.
According to the basic information packet he bought from the Divine Trade Association, iridescent clouds would always appear in the sky before they rained Amulets.
The color of the cloud decided the type of Amulets that would be distributed. A dichromatic cloud would produce White and Green Amulets only. A trichromatic Amulet would produce White, Green and Blue Amulets. A tetrachromatic cloud would produce White, Green, Blue and Purple Amulets, and finally, a pentachromatic cloud would produce White, Green, Blue, Purple and Gold Amulets.
There was no such thing as a monochromatic cloud, not one that produced Amulets at least. It was always between a dichromatic cloud and a pentachromatic cloud.
Since the cloud in front of them was tetrachromatic, it meant that it could produce Purple Amulets at best.
Lu Ye immediately stopped in his tracks and stared at the cloud for a bit. He felt a surge of delight when he confirmed that the cloud was heading toward him.
The delight only lasted for a moment though. It was because he saw a vast number of auras trailing beneath the cloud.
The tetrachromatic cloud could be sighted from at least fifty kilometers away. Naturally, all nearby cultivators were going to flock toward it like bees to honey. He could tell that there were many elites within the group.
At the Spirit Creek Realm level, one could determine their cultivation level by their aura because it was proportional to the number of Microcosmic Orbits in their body.
This did not apply to Cloud River Realm cultivators or above, however. All Cloud River Realm cultivators only had one Cosmic Orbit. Therefore, it was difficult to tell how strong they were based on their aura.
Besides that, there was no cultivation realm with a bigger power disparity than the Cloud River Realm. Take a cultivator who had ascended to the Cloud River Realm with two hundred and forty Spiritual Points and another with three hundred and sixty Spiritual Points for example. Technically speaking, their cultivation realm was the same. In reality, the latter was way stronger than the former because they had unlocked far more Spiritual Points.
This was why it was extremely unwise to judge a cultivator’s strength based on their cultivation level at the Cloud River Realm. It was all too common for a so-called “low level” cultivator to kill a “high level” cultivator.
Here in the Cloud River Battlefield, there were only the weak and the strong. And the only way to tell who was who was to fight them.
This was why Lu Ye dared to roam the Cloud River Battlefield alone.
In the Spirit Creek Battlefield, he was so infamous that he literally could not go a hundred kilometers in one direction without being swarmed by a sea of Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators. But here, few would even know his name.
A cultivator could remain in the Cloud River Battlefield for years before returning to Jiu Zhou. His third senior brother, Xiao Xinghe, was one such example. The guy had not left the Cloud River Battlefield until he had ascended to the Real Lake Realm.
This was good news for Lu Ye. In the Spirit Creek Battlefield, he was the infamous Vanquisher of Sects and Bane of Spirit Creek. Literally every Thousand Demon Ridge cultivator in the battlefield wanted to kill him even before he was Heaven Nine.
Now that he had a fresh start, he decided that it was time to change his strategy as well. Ideally, he wanted to keep as low a profile as possible. Even if that wasn’t possible, he wanted to avoid becoming so famous that he couldn’t go anywhere without a tail, one that was made up of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of cultivators no less.
Now that he thought about it, he had been hunted since practically the first day he became a cultivator. For once, he would like to lead a steady and relatively peaceful life.
Lu Ye did not grow arrogant just because he became invincible in the Spirit Creek Battlefield. He was well aware that cultivators who were stronger than him were a dime a dozen in the Cloud River Battlefield.
That was why he hurriedly descended on a small hill the second he saw the massive group of auras trailing behind the cloud.
At least hundreds of cultivators had gathered beneath the tetrachromatic cloud. The group was only growing bigger as time passed.
The cloud was as big as it was colorful. Excluding the blind, everyone within several hundred kilometers of the cloud should notice it.
No one was fighting because it wasn’t time yet. No one was revealing their affiliation willy-nilly either. Everyone here was a competitor unless they were a familiar, friendly face they could work with, faction be damned.
The cloud would not stop until it was directly above Lu Ye’s head. Then, it came to a complete standstill. Lu Ye could not help but lament his luck when he saw this.
The tetrachromatic cloud wasn’t too high up in the sky; a couple thousand meters above ground at best. Logically speaking, the Cloud River Realm cultivators should fly as close to the cloud as possible so that they could claim the Amulets before anyone else.
In fact, people used to do that until too many people were dead, and the grass on their gravestones was at least dozens of meters tall now. The Amulets did NOT fly slowly when they were ejected from the cloud. To put it simply, they moved fast enough to kill any Cloud River Realm cultivator if they were too close.
The Amulets flew slower the further they traveled. That was why the cultivators scattered away from the tetrachromatic cloud instead of closing in. In a sense, luck played a huge factor in a contest like this. It was impossible to say where an Amulet would appear until it did.
For once it’s not “oh, the auction is in two days – they happen every ten thousand years”