Chapter 763: Tiandu Secret Realm

Spirit Seeds were simply too small. Even if someone hid ten thousand of them on their body, it would be difficult for anyone else to tell.

That was where the trouble began.

Until everything was over, no one knew which side had gathered more and which side had gathered less.

Even if you told the truth and said you had not found many, others might not believe you. What sect would willingly take out its gains and let others inspect them?

Allowing someone to search your body was even more impossible.

Wei's cultivators, for example, could never permit Qi's cultivators to search them. No one would accept such humiliation. If you bowed your head that far, you could forget about having an easy life after returning.

That left only one result.

Robbery.

Once people started robbing one another, fighting and killing became unavoidable.

Some fanciful people had once proposed unrealistic ideas, believing the various sects were foolish and could simply agree among themselves not to compete over the rankings.

Reality, however, was cruel.

Once someone created a ranking tied to a struggle over benefits, people would inevitably compete for it.

Never mind the various states. Within a single sect, who could guarantee every disciple was kind-hearted? Once they entered the Tiandu Secret Realm, how were they supposed to distinguish themselves?

And what sect could enter the Tiandu Secret Realm and then return empty-handed? How would it explain itself to Misty Pavilion? At minimum, it had to find some Spirit Seeds to bring back.

The Tiandu Secret Realm was enormous.

Anyone searching for Spirit Seeds had to spread out and look in every direction. An entire sect could not possibly move together in one mass, all searching in the same direction. How would that differ from having only one person search?

Once they dispersed, there would inevitably be moments when some were isolated and weak.

And when the strong encountered an opportunity to bully the weak, an opportunity to obtain something simply by reaching out and taking it, who could guarantee every single person would restrain themselves?

If one disciple saw a fellow disciple performing better, could anyone guarantee that no one would take extreme measures?

The moment even one person was killed, everyone would become wary.

No murderer would admit what they had done.

With no one admitting it, everyone else would assume someone had begun robbing people.

Then who could still trust whom?

A single point of rupture could shatter the whole arrangement and trigger a chain reaction.

And then there was Jin, that shit-stirrer.

Jin was poor. It would never casually give up Misty Pavilion's generous rewards.

Looking at it from the opposite direction, who would willingly come in last under such circumstances?

Not only would they gain nothing, their sect disciples would have died for nothing as well.

Finishing last would also deal a tremendous blow to a sect's reputation.

So there was no choice.

They had to compete for the ranking.

In short, for all kinds of reasons, conflict over Spirit Seeds could not be avoided at all.

Entering the Tiandu Secret Realm therefore meant facing a bloody slaughter.

And not an ordinary slaughter.

Most of those sent into the Tiandu Secret Realm were elite disciples. No sect could simply sit by and let such people throw their lives away easily. Even if only for appearances, they would concentrate their financial resources to support them.

Every time the Tiandu Secret Realm opened, it was also Tianxing Sect's best season for business.

The sect could sell enormous quantities of talismans.

For that reason, the Tiandu Secret Realm had become the fiercest and most brutal battlefield of pure cultivator-on-cultivator slaughter in the entire cultivation world.

No one wanted to come here.

Niu Youdao did not want to come either.

Coming here meant gambling with his life.

But like everyone else, he lived under the same rules and had no choice.

At that moment, he raised his palm and sniffed the Spirit Seeds he had just received.

They carried a faint, strange fragrance that was difficult to describe, refreshing to the heart and mind.

The things were so tiny that one could lose them without even realizing it.

After carefully storing them away, Niu Youdao finally looked up at the enormous hanging scrolls suspended from the cliffs on both sides.

The trees painted on those scrolls were the trees that produced Spirit Seeds.

The cultivation world called them Spirit Trees.

The paintings had been hung here so everyone passing through could learn to recognize them, making it easier to harvest Spirit Seeds after entering.

Once everyone had received their supplies, they gathered outside the ghostly mist and waited.

About two hours later, the lightly drifting mist began churning violently.

Then, from somewhere unseen, came a low hum.

The sound was not loud, yet it seemed capable of washing through the mind and spirit.

A point of white light suddenly erupted inside the vague, half-real mist.

In an instant, it burst outward into a vast sea of fog.

Everyone, Niu Youdao included, stared at the strange sight.

Several Misty Pavilion cultivators flashed down in front of the fog and faced the crowd.

Each of them took out a Spirit Seed and demonstrated its use in full view of everyone.

They tossed the Spirit Seeds directly into their mouths and swallowed them, then circulated their spiritual power to refine them.

Afterward, they turned one after another and walked into the fog.

Before entering, they pulled along an iron chain.

One end of the chain disappeared into the mist with them.

The other remained attached to the cliff outside.

After everyone waited a short while, the chain suddenly jerked from deep within the fog.

A bell hanging on the cliff rang three times in succession.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Bai Yulou, who had been watching the bell, nodded silently.

Then he turned toward the crowd, cupped his hands, and extended one hand toward the mist.

"Gentlemen, begin!"

Everyone looked at one another.

Those standing at the front had no choice but to go first.

One after another, they took out a Spirit Seed and swallowed it, then stepped forward and cautiously entered the fog.

Before long, Niu Youdao advanced with the crowd as well.

A cluster of people surrounded and guarded him as he entered, afraid someone might take advantage of the moment to attack him.

Before entering the fog, everyone knew there was a cliff directly beyond it.

Yet once they began walking, even if they headed straight toward where the cliff should have been, even after walking more than enough distance to reach it, they never touched stone.

The cliff seemed to have vanished.

They kept walking.

Then, one after another, their vision suddenly brightened.

An ancient forest abruptly appeared before them.

There was no trace of any cliff.

So this was the Tiandu Secret Realm?

Suddenly finding himself in an entirely different landscape, Niu Youdao spun around and looked back.

The mist had vanished without a trace.

Behind him there was only more ancient forest.

The air rippled like water.

People continued stepping out of empty space behind them, one after another.

It was extraordinarily strange.

Although this was Niu Youdao's first time here, he had done his preparations before coming.

He knew that once someone entered at this point, they could not go back.

One year later, the mist would appear inside this forest.

Only when that strange mist appeared again could everyone return through it.

At the same time, once the full year had passed, the mist in Tiangu outside would disappear.

In other words, throughout that one year, people in Tiangu could enter this world at any time.

Once the year ended, the passage for entering through the mist would be cut off.

Anyone wanting to enter again would have to wait another fifty years.

Conversely, during this one year, those already inside this world could not return to the world they had come from.

After the year ended, however, the passage for returning would remain open throughout the following fifty years.

"There are still people behind you! Anyone who has come through, move away immediately and clear the way!"

A Misty Pavilion cultivator's shout rang out.

The Misty Pavilion people who had entered would likewise be unable to return during this year.

Niu Youdao gave them a deep look, then moved away with everyone else.

Only now did he turn his attention to the forest around them.

Every ancient tree was frighteningly enormous.

Looking upward, many appeared to rise hundreds of meters into the sky.

Their trunks were grotesquely thick.

A person standing beneath them looked no different from an ant.

Many trees still bore old scars left by fighting.

Niu Youdao knew what those scars meant.

Whenever the year ended, this area became the final checkpoint where everyone fought and robbed one another before leaving.

The intensity of the battles could be imagined.

"Stop staring. Don't you understand your own situation? Do you want a whole crowd of people locking onto you? Move!"

Yan Li, Elder of Zijin Cave, grabbed Niu Youdao and pulled him along.

A group surrounded Niu Youdao and moved rapidly through the ancient forest, quickly putting distance between themselves and the entrance.

They had not gone far when Niu Youdao suddenly called, "Wait!"

He stopped first.

Yan Li had no choice but to stop as well.

His voice sank. "Wait for what? Why aren't we leaving quickly?"

Niu Youdao tipped his chin toward a stream in the forest.

"An acquaintance. I'll go say hello."

Everyone followed his gaze.

Beside the stream, a Misty Pavilion cultivator assigned to inspect the area around the exit stood atop a rock, scanning the surroundings.

An acquaintance?

Everyone looked at one another.

They were about to accompany Niu Youdao over when he raised a palm and stopped them.

"Everyone can wait here. If all of you come closer, there are some things I won't be able to discuss conveniently with him."

"Don't worry. He's from Misty Pavilion. With him there, no one will dare do anything to me."

After hearing that, the others could only stop and watch him go.

Some even developed a vague sense of expectation.

Niu Youdao flashed over and landed beside the Misty Pavilion cultivator.

The other man remained standing atop the rock, looking down and examining him.

"Niu Youdao. What do you want?"

He glanced past Niu Youdao toward the Yan cultivators as well.

Niu Youdao smiled.

It seemed the fight in Tiangu had not been entirely wasted.

The man actually knew who he was.

Niu Youdao immediately cupped his hands. "I wouldn't dare claim familiarity with Senior. There are simply a few things I don't understand, and I hoped I might ask Senior for guidance."

Being addressed as Senior by the now-famous Niu Youdao gave the cultivator a small measure of pleasure.

Even so, his voice remained stern. "Don't ask what you shouldn't."

Niu Youdao hurriedly said, "Senior, set your mind at ease. This junior would never ask anything that ought not be asked. I only wanted to know: none of us brought food inside. Can the things in this place be eaten?"

Seeing that he was merely asking something like this, the cultivator answered casually. "Once you've taken a Spirit Seed, naturally there won't be any problem. So long as you don't eat anything poisonous, everything is the same as outside. There won't be any special effect."

"Didn't you learn about this before coming in? You really waited until now to ask me?"

"Couldn't you ask them?"

He tipped his chin toward the Yan cultivators.

"Don't tell me every one of them also came in without learning anything about the Secret Realm."

The Yan cultivators in the distance found the conversation strange.

They had no idea what the two were discussing.

Niu Youdao sighed. "Before this, I never imagined I would have any chance of coming here. The news came too suddenly. My circumstances at the time were unusual, and I was avoiding certain matters, so I truly had no time to investigate properly."

"Later I did ask them some questions, but every one of them has their own calculations. I couldn't bring myself to trust them completely. I feel much safer asking Senior."

"Senior, can the water here be drunk?"

The cultivator replied, "So long as you've taken a Spirit Seed, eating and drinking are no different from outside."

Niu Youdao asked, "They told me that after entering, Seniors like you cannot leave again for a year either. Does that mean Seniors also eat the food and drink the water from this place?"

As though unconsciously, his hand made a suggestive motion and pointed toward the stream in front of them.

The cultivator had already grown impatient. "There's only this one stream nearby. We have to remain here on guard. If we don't eat and drink what is available here, what else are we supposed to eat and drink?"

"Relax. So long as you don't die at someone else's hands, the food here won't kill you."

"Enough. Go do whatever you're supposed to do. Stop pestering me."

Niu Youdao had reached the answer he wanted so quickly that all the other lines he had prepared remained unused.

He did not say anything further.

Instead, he cupped his hands and took his leave.

"Thank you for Senior's guidance."

Then he sighed.

"I'm afraid I may not have any chance to return alive anyway."

Shaking his head, he turned and walked away.

[End of Chapter 763]