Chapter 1910: Abyss of Suffering

Zhao Hai initially thought that some people wouldn’t be able to partic.i.p.ate in the training. He didn’t expect everyone to come. This made him happy.

The training didn’t take a long time. Zhao Hai originally wanted the training to be over two months for the first one. But now he found that this wasn’t feasible. Two months was just too long and it would have diminis.h.i.+ng effects on the army. It would also delay their own cultivation. Therefore, Zhao Hai changed the training period to be one month. One month wasn’t a long time for a cultivator, but it was enough for one to communicate with the others. It would make everyone feel that coming over wasn’t a waste after sharing notes with the others.

Naturally, Zhao Hai wouldn’t let these people train by themselves. He also conducted lectures and sparred with them. He shared his cultivation experience, greatly benefiting the people of the first army.

The month of training quickly flew past and the troops of the army dispersed once again. Zhao Hai also returned to the Black Tiger Gang to resume his practice.

After six months, Zhao Hai was finally able to combine his divergent abilities and combat techniques, creating a fighting style that belonged solely to him. It was also from this that Zhao Hai discovered the difference between spells and divergent abilities. There would be spells that would lose their use when the user’s level becomes high. Just like the spells that Zhao Hai learned in the past. When his level was still low, the spells were very powerful. But now that he has become stronger, the spells have become useless.

Meanwhile, divergent abilities were inborn qualities of the user. As the user becomes stronger, so will the divergent ability. In other words, no matter what stage, divergent abilities won’t become obsolete. This was good for Zhao Hai. This meant that even if he learns a more formidable cultivation method in the future, his offensive methods would still be viable. Moreover, it would be stronger compared to others.

Zhao Hai used a year and a half to learn all kinds of fighting techniques using his divergent abilities. Looking at the level of the fighting strength, Zhao Hai was somewhat surprised.

Next, Zhao Hai was going to carry out a more important training. It was to use his divergent abilities to feel the nature of the world.

This wasn’t an easy matter for Zhao Hai. Take his melding with the tree for example, Zhao Hai’s thinking has become very slow. He thought that he was only using the tree’s thinking for a few hours, but a few days had already pa.s.sed outside.

Apart from communicating with trees, Zhao Hai has yet to communicate with other objects with his technique. He doesn’t know if he could succeed, but he wants to try if he can.

In this process, Cai’er has nothing she could do to help. All of this should be undertaken by Zhao Hai on his own. But before he uses his abilities to communicate with the world, Zhao Hai plans to take a rest. He has been practicing constantly and he was feeling mentally exhausted. Therefore, he wants to take a rest.

Zhao Hai first took a bath in the hot spring before wearing comfortable clothing and sleeping inside the villa. Meanwhile, Laura and the others took charge in looking at the situation in the Soaring Dragon Realm.

Over this year and a half, the Freedom Alliance have sent 50 immortal experts to the Soaring Dragon Realm. Meanwhile, the nine super sects were only able to send 20 experts.

Although the immortal experts from both sides fought against each other during the war, there wasn’t any conflict between them when they came to the Soaring Dragon Realm. On the contrary, they got along really well. This was because everyone knew that, in the Soaring Dragon Realm, n.o.body cared if they were from the nine super sects or the Freedom Alliance. They have only one ident.i.ty here, cultivators of the Great Realm of Cultivation. All of them were identified as such and not by their faction.

People who reached the immortal stage weren’t fools. Even if they share a grudge in the Great Realm of Cultivation, they need to put aside this hatred once they arrive in the Soaring Dragon Realm.

With the cooperation between the two factions, they were able to find a small city close to their camp. Then they started to move their operations there.

Zhao Hai now understood why the Great Realm of Cultivation didn’t have a base of operations in the small city in the past. This was because living inside the city required money. Moreover, the denominations they used were high-grade spirit stones. To stay for a day inside the small city, 100 high grade spirit stones were needed. And that was for each person.

Although it could be said that cultivators who can go to the Soaring Dragon Realm were people of status and weren’t poor, such a payment was still hard to accept for them. So in the end, the people of the Great Realm of Cultivation could only set up camp outside the city. In fact, this was the case for most people coming from the lower realms. The people from the True Spirit Realm don’t really expect to make money from collecting rent. Instead, they want to push the people from the lower realms into a state of compet.i.tion. This would further stimulate their potential.

Zhao Hai doesn’t know about this. And even if Tie Zhantian and the others did, there was nothing they could do about it.

Most of the people living in these small cities would receive tasks from sects in the True Spirit Realm. Tie Zhantian and the others could also take these tasks. After completing them, they would be rewarded. The rewards for these tasks were very impressive, at least in Tie Zhantian’s view.

Besides the rewards, those who complete tasks would also receive an impression point. Impression points were based on whether one completes the task or not. Both success and failure of a task would give impression points. If a person’s impression points become high, a sect might approach them and send an invitation.

However, these tasks weren’t easy. With how powerful the beasts in the Soaring Dragon Realm were, the tasks were quite hard. Sometimes, a task would require ores, some would require herbs. The issuer of the task wouldn’t provide you with more information. They would just provide general information and leave the rest to the cultivator. Unless one was familiar with the area, the task would be quite hard to complete.

There’s another thing that made the tasks more difficult. Tasks weren’t exclusive. This means that other people could complete the task. If someone completes the task before you, then they would be the ones getting the impression points. This made it more difficult for Tie Zhantian and the others to get impression points.

Because of this, Tie Zhantian and the others only completed a few tasks over the past year. Although they received rewards, they didn’t get a lot of impression points. This was because they were too slow to complete the tasks. When Tie Zhantian and the others were going to hand in the task, someone had already claimed it before them. Although they would still receive rewards, the impression points have already been claimed.

If there was one word to describe the living conditions in the Soaring Dragon Realm, then it would be ‘cruel’. This was the word that Tie Zhantian and the others would describe their experience in the Soaring Dragon Realm.

It was a brutal living environment with ferocious compet.i.tion. Tie Zhantian and the others felt their days stretch out due to their suffering. Now they understood why experts who went to the Soaring Dragon Realm would become stronger once they returned. One would need intense drive to become stronger in order to survive in such an environment.

In the past year, Tie Zhantian and the others felt their strength constantly increasing. However, they still didn’t lower their guard when they explored outside. This showed how formidable the beasts in the Soaring Dragon Realm really were.

Tie Zhantian heard that there used to be a team of 100 experts who broke into the territory of a powerful beast when they were doing a task. Of the 100 people, only ten of them came back. And those who came back had turned insane and left the Soaring Dragon Realm soon after. This was a true story. And it was this precautionary tale that made Tie Zhantian and the others careful of everything they did.

A team of 100 immortal experts were nearly wiped out by a powerful beast. This showed how powerful the beasts in the Soaring Dragon Realm could become. If Tie Zhantian and the others weren’t careful, they might be throwing their lives away without them knowing.

Zhao Hai looked into the situation of the Soaring Dragon Realm. Tie Zhantian and the others were still in the small city called Balin City. Although they couldn’t stay in the city for a long time, they could stay there during the day. But when night comes, there would be an inspection of the city, expelling those who didn’t have a lodging pa.s.s. It was also because of this that few cultivators stayed in the city for a long time. The night was the most active period for the beasts. If the cultivators stayed until night time and got expelled, they would be in grave danger.

Zhao Hai also paid attention to the state of Tie Zhantian’s group. Originally, the Great Realm of Cultivation had 80 people. But after more than a year of fighting, only 73 of them remained. Tie Zhantian also suffered a few injuries. Fortunately, he was able to communicate with Zhang Feng, allowing the Freedom Alliance to send him some medicine.

Laura looked at Zhao Hai and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Zhao Hai smiled bitterly and said, “I’m thinking about the Soaring Dragon Realm. Let’s wait until I reach the immortal stage. Even if I don’t go there, we could still get some resources.”

Zhao Hai said so because he was depressed about a certain matter. Although Tie Zhantian brought the summoning token to the Soaring Dragon Realm, Zhao Hai couldn’t use liquid silver and the silver dust. In other words, Zhao Hai could only see Tie Zhantian’s surroundings. He couldn’t use liquid silver to explore the realm.

Another thing that Zhao Hai wasn’t happy about was the fact that he couldn’t use the summoning token to take plants and ores from the Soaring Dragon Realm. The realm laws of the Soaring Dragon Realm seems to have a property to repel foreign spiritual forces.

Zhao Hai and the others also understood why Hu Shan said that unless one was at the immortal stage, they wouldn’t be able to enter the Soaring Dragon Realm. Although Zhao Hai used some tricks to understand the state of the Soaring Dragon Realm, he still couldn’t enter with his current level. The realm laws of the Soaring Dragon Realm didn’t even allow his spiritual force to act. Therefore, Zhao Hai couldn’t use any of his usual methods to map the Soaring Dragon Realm in advance.

Fortunately, Zhao Hai was able to send his immortal-level Undead to Tie Zhantian through the summoning token. This would ensure Tie Zhantian’s safety.

In fact, Tie Zhantian already used the summoning token a few times. If he didn’t summon the immortal-level Undead, he would have perished long ago. Zhao Hai also experimented and confirmed that he could only send immortal-level Undead to the Soaring Dragon Realm.

Because of this, Zhao Hai has to wait until he reaches the immortal stage before he could continue with his plans regarding the Soaring Dragon Realm.

Laura smiled and said, “It’s already good that we can see inside the Soaring Dragon Realm. I think it wouldn’t take long before Martial Uncle Tie and the others leave Balin City. Balin City is just too small. Even if there are sects present that they could join, they’re not the best choice.”

Zhao Hai nodded and said, “It’s good to leave Balin City. However, Soaring Dragon Realm is just too cruel. Using the transmission formation to go back to the camp costs a high-grade spirit stone.”

Laura and the others smiled. Speaking of which, this cost may be painful for other people, but this isn’t a problem for Zhao Hai. The s.p.a.ce has a lot of spirit stone mines. Moreover, the worst quality of spirit stones produced were high-grade spirit stones. If Zhao Hai entered the Soaring Dragon Realm, even if he did nothing, he would be able to live inside the cities every day. He has more than enough spirit stones to live in luxury inside those cities.”

Seeing that nothing special was going on, Zhao Hai looked at Laura and the others and said, “I’ve been practicing hard recently. I need a rest. Do you have somewhere you want to go to? We can go play around for several days.”

Hearing Zhao Hai, Laura’s eyes shone, then she said, “Brother Hai, now that you said it, I remembered something. This is something important to us. We can take advantage of this opportunity and deal with this matter.”

Zhao Hai raised his brow and asked, “What is it? You seem so serious.”

Laura smiled, her eyes flashed a cunning light as she said, “Business, we’re going to do business!”