"So the current Kingdom of Yue is truly in utter chaos!" Han Li suddenly remarked.
This cryptic statement left the other four cultivators with a sense of profound mystery. They could only respond with dry, polite smiles.
"Fellow Daoists, please continue your chat. I shall go look around elsewhere." Han Li rose to his feet, speaking amiably.
"Please feel free, Senior!"
"Safe travels, Senior!"
...
The four hurriedly watched Han Li depart with respectful gazes.
Han Li waved a casual hand, called out to Qu Hun who had been standing outside all along, and headed toward other stone pavilions.
...
Two hours later, Han Li stood in a secluded corner of the mountain peak, head bowed in contemplation.
He had just spent a considerable amount of time inquiring about the situation in the Kingdom of Yue's cultivation world from several groups of cultivators. The result was that the Kingdom of Yue could only be described with one word: "chaos."
In such a situation, he now had two paths he could consider.
The first was to fly by sword and travel far away from the Kingdom of Yue and its neighboring countries, finding another suitable location to continue his cultivation.
The second was to find a way to repair the ancient teleportation array and simply gamble on where it might send him. After all, such an astronomically valuable teleportation array wouldn't have been built underground without purpose—it must lead to some distant, faraway location.
At first glance, the first option certainly seemed the safer choice.
But when Han Li considered it more carefully, he felt this decision wasn't much better either.
Because to the east and west of the Kingdom of Yue lay, respectively, the Demonic Path's stronghold of the Tianluo Kingdom and the Righteous Path Alliance's Fengdu Kingdom, so the only directions he could go were north or south.
Heading north through the Yuanwu Kingdom, there were still over a dozen smaller and medium-sized countries, but clearly the cultivation worlds of these nations couldn't withstand an invasion by either the Demonic Path or the Righteous Path Alliance. Some of these countries had already long since become vassals of one of the two great powers, serving as their puppets, and had been engaged in covert struggles for quite some time.
Otherwise, the border between the Tianluo and Fengdu kingdoms was quite limited, and in the past it would have been impossible for large-scale clashes to erupt.
These countries could become battlegrounds for the Demonic Path and the Righteous Path Alliance at any moment, so naturally Han Li couldn't remain.
But if he risked crossing through several countries and continued heading north, he would eventually reach the extreme northern reaches of the Tianlan region and encounter the "Boundless Sea"—a place so vast that even immortals found it nearly impossible to cross.
This sea was not only utterly murky and boundless but also hostile to almost all forms of life. The few species of fish that could survive in it were fierce beyond measure, no less formidable than high-level land-dwelling demon beasts. Even a Core Formation cultivator who fell into the sea would face extreme peril.
Crossing the sea by flight was pure fantasy!
Because there had once been a powerful figure whose cultivation had reached the Nascent Soul stage. Growing intensely curious about what lay at the sea's end, he set out with ample preparations, flying along the sea's expanse for over a year. Yet all he saw was endless ocean water—not a single place to rest his feet was ever found.
By that point, the spirit stones and medicinal pills he carried had been reduced to less than half. Under those circumstances, the powerful figure had no choice but to return in frustration.
Otherwise, without any means to replenish his spiritual energy, even a Nascent Soul stage cultivator would be trapped and perish in the sea.
Han Li naturally harbored no such wild thoughts about crossing the sea.
Thus, he could only think southward.
To the south of the Kingdom of Yue, beyond five or six countries including the Kingdom of Zijin, lay a tight alliance composed of nine nations of varying sizes—the so-called "Nine Nations Alliance."
This alliance had been formed under the leadership of the cultivation worlds of the nine nations.
It was created to deal with a powerful and frenzied opponent—the invading army composed of "Law Masters" of the Mulan people.
Speaking of the Mulan people and their Law Masters, one must first discuss the vast Mulan Grassland adjacent to the nine nations and the Mulan people who lived upon it.
The Mulan people were entirely different from the Yan people of the Kingdom of Yue and the Yuanwu Kingdom. They were a purely nomadic people—fiercely independent in spirit, every one of them loving the blade and the spear. Upon the Mulan Grassland, they had organized themselves into thousands upon thousands of tribes, large and small.
These tribes varied greatly in size—the smallest numbering only hundreds of thousands, the largest boasting tens of millions of members.
Within these nomadic tribes, cultivators also existed. The Mulan people simply didn't call them cultivators, instead honoring them with the title "Law Masters."
These Law Masters, in broad terms, were not so different from ordinary cultivators. Their realm classifications and fundamental techniques were remarkably similar.
The only distinction from outside cultivators was that these Law Masters did not place much emphasis on magical treasures or talismans before reaching Core Formation. Instead, each one pursued the Five Elements Daoist arts to a state of sublime mastery. They had even combined these with certain indigenous secret arts of the grassland to develop even more potent, more enigmatic new techniques—forming a unique system of their own. They called it—"Spirit Arts."
Relying on these exceedingly sharp "Spirit Arts," the Law Masters of the Mulan people could contend on equal footing with cultivators of their own realm, even holding a slight advantage.
Later, as the Mulan people's "Law Masters" grew ever more numerous, the spirit veins and spirit stones they required surged dramatically, gradually failing to meet the normal cultivation needs of the Law Masters.
After all, the Mulan Grassland was a place with extremely meager cultivation resources.
Thus, from an unknown point in time onward, the Law Masters of the Mulan people turned their gaze toward the nine nations—places with richer spiritual energy and more abundant resources. They began frequently venturing into these countries to seize spirit veins, spirit mines, and other cultivation resources that cultivators valued as dearly as their own lives.
The cultivation worlds of the nine nations naturally refused to cede these resources to what they regarded as barbaric cultivators from the wilderness. A bloody battle erupted in full force.
At first, each of the nine nations fought alone, and the result was a devastating defeat at the hands of the unified Mulan tribal army. They even lost nearly half their territory and resources.
Later, when the nine nations realized the true strength of their opponents, they hastily learned from their mistakes and formed the "Nine Nations Alliance." They began frequently employing schemes and other unsavory tactics, eventually managing to chip away at the Mulan Law Masters bit by bit, reclaiming their occupied lands.
But the Mulan Law Masters, having just tasted the fruits of expansion, naturally refused to give up so easily. In the endless years that followed, they continued to entangle themselves with the cultivation worlds of the nine nations in an unceasing struggle. As the death toll climbed steadily, the hatred between both sides only deepened further, spilling over into the mundane world and turning the Yan people and the Mulan people into bitter, hereditary enemies.
Nowadays, the Mulan people dared not set foot within the nine nations' borders, and likewise, no Yan people would be found living within a hundred li of the Mulan Grassland.
Speaking of it, no one truly knew how many Mulan people there were in total.
Because the Mulan Grassland was simply too vast—the Mulan tribes entangled with the Nine Nations Alliance constituted only a small fraction of those who inhabited it.
Although the Mulan Grassland was not as immeasurably vast as the Black Devil Sea, according to Mulan oral tradition, if a tribe were to travel by caravan from one end of the grassland to the other, it would take a full five years of wandering.
And on the far side of the grassland lived the Mulan people's true ancestral enemies—the Tuyuhun people.
These equally nomadic peoples called the great grassland the "Tianlan Grassland," for they had for generations revered the legendary "Tianlan Beast" as their guardian spirit.
As two nomadic peoples sharing the same grassland, they became each other's mortal enemies without need of any pretext.
For countless generations, warriors and cultivators from both peoples had locked in fierce battle.
Without fail, once every hundred years, they would clash in a grand battle at the very heart of the grassland. Tens of millions of mortal warriors would fight upon the ground, while thousands upon thousands of cultivators would battle in the sky.
Of course, it was ultimately the battle in the heavens that decided the victor.
All of this, Han Li had learned from various texts and hearsay.
And it was said that on the far side of the Mulan Grassland lay an empire so vast as to be nearly inconceivable. The entire Tianlan region, it was rumored, was still less than one-tenth its size.
Such a rumor struck Han Li as almost impossible to believe.
He simply could not fathom how large a country ten times the size of the entire Tianlan region could be!
Of course, these matters had nothing to do with Han Li's current plans—they were merely stray thoughts that had risen unbidden to mind.
After clearing away all these extraneous musings, he considered the matter once more and concluded that the Six Sects, after their withdrawal, would not linger in the nearby countries. They would undoubtedly detour toward the Nine Nations Alliance.
After all, given the ongoing clashes between the Nine Nations Alliance's cultivators and the Mulan Law Masters—small skirmishes every few years, full-scale wars every decade—they would eagerly welcome the Six Sects as a powerful new addition to their forces.
As for which specific nation within the nine they would settle in and what kind of spirit vein they would secure, that would depend on the Six Sects' own abilities.
From this perspective, unless he returned to Yellow Maple Valley and continued serving as cannon fodder, the southern reaches of the Tianlan region were definitely off-limits.
Though he had long since reached a clear understanding of these issues, considering them once more still gave him a terrible headache!
It seemed the only option was to first repair the ancient teleportation array. If it could truly be restored, then he would consider whether to actually activate it.
At worst, if the destination proved unsatisfactory, he could simply teleport back. Of course, there would inevitably be some risk to bear! Han Li thought to himself with a bitter smile.