Chapter 7: Fractured World

As cultivators require abundant Spiritual Qi to cultivate, sects would not be established in a location chosen on a whim. They would be situated in natural spiritual lands, where the Spiritual Qi was abundant. Such an environment would benefit a sect in several ways. The first one is obviously the abundance of Spiritual Qi which made cultivation efficient.

The second one is that such spiritual lands would produce an abundance of resources such as medicinal plants, spiritual trees, precious ores and so on. These could be harvested by the disciples of the sects which are not yet strong enough to take more advanced missions.

The sect would receive materials, and the disciples would get achievement points which they could then exchange for cultivation resources.

There was no worry that the disciples would not turn in the materials they have gathered, as most of the items required special processing to be consumed or used safely and efficiently.

The larger sects would have Alchemy Halls and Forging Halls which could use the materials into immediately usable cultivation resources such as pills, elixirs and medicinal liquids, and tools such as talismans, spiritual treasure weapons, non-weapon spiritual treasure tools and etc.

Smaller sects like the Yin Yang Unity Palace would exchange the raw resources with merchant companies for the useful cultivation resources which they can then distribute either through monthly allowances or in exchange for points.

The more senior disciples who can take harder tasks earn the sect money with which it buys even more resources and necessities. They also raise the sect's reputation which causes more people to request missions from the disciples.

The third way a spiritual land is benefiting the sect is the natural presence of demonic beasts, which could be hunted by the disciples, both honing their combat skills and allowing them to harvest precious materials from the corpses.

And lastly, a spiritual land also can be an easy marker for the sect's boundaries, as every sect regards their spiritual land as their direct sphere of influence.

In fact, if an outsider is noticed hunting for treasures in a spiritual land belonging to a sect, it is considered a major offense, and many bloody fights were started between sects because one of the disciples trespassed into the spiritual land of another sect.

Therefore, there were no cases in which two sects occupied the same spiritual land.

In the vicious cultivation world, competition over resources is bloody and merciless. The higher quality the spiritual land is, the more it is sought and that more strength the sect had to have to hold and protect it. There were countless sects destroyed over a spiritual land. And all sects had greedy eyes on them at all times, since even if there were an enormous amount of them, it was a limited amount, and it was far from being able to satisfy the demand.

Hence the puzzlement Wu Long felt. How does a sect of this tiny magnitude, low level and low overall strength occupy a spiritual land? It could only mean that the competition was not so fierce and the cultivation world within the easily traversable distance is quite peaceful.

Another thing that puzzled him was that it indeed was a spiritual land. When he noticed the low quality and amount of Spiritual Qi in the atmosphere in the sect, he decided that maybe it was because a sect of this means was not able to occupy a spiritual land and was instead situated in some spiritually deficient place instead, but as he confirmed all signs, he understood that his assumption was wrong.

Then the quality and amount of Spiritual Qi outside of the spiritual land had to be barely present. Which meant, this was not a part of the world he knew.

'A minor world?'

He then thought to himself.

As besides the Seven Boundless Worlds there were countless minor worlds that existed, and in which most of the lands of mortals were situated. But he quickly discarded this possibility as it was common knowledge that all minor worlds are connected with the Seven Boundless Worlds forming one enormous system that seemingly lives and breathes. It was impossible for one of the minor worlds to have this much of a gap in quality of the Spiritual Qi.

"It can't be.. .. a ..a fractured world?"

He then expressed disbelief at his own assumption and spoke out loud.

Fractured worlds were basically minor worlds that suffered calamitous events in the past, enough to bring them to a brink of destruction. This would cause that world to close off, without the ability to go in or out.

Of course, no matter how bad the calamity was or how close it got to destroying that world it was still inestimably far from actually destroying a minor world. Actual destruction of minor worlds has only happened enough times to count on one hand. But the damage was extensive enough that the link was temporarily shut off.

This would explain the doubts he had previously, but he still could not be certain so he decided to find more information before he would make wild declarations.

As he got up to continue traveling after his quick rest he noticed a presence approaching him from afar. It was a demonic beast at mid-level 1st tier judging by its aura.

A cold smile appeared on his face.

He might be pretty weak right now, but he did not fall to the point where he would fear a beast of this level.

Soon, a slightly bigger wolf with black fur and lava-like lines over its body sprang out of the bushes and gave out a low growl.

It then immediately pounced on Wu Long with its jaws, aiming for his neck.

Wu Long placed his right hand on his sword, and took a step forward and to the right, as he casually took his sword out in a graceful, slightly skewed arc.

He then proceeded to move his sword down from the raised position without stopping it midair as if all he did was draw an arc in the air with the sword. At the end of this motion a few drops of steaming blood flew from the sword blade to the ground, and he sheathed the sword while the wolf landed in two halves behind him.

The blood of this wolf seemed to be hot, as it started evaporating in mere moments after it was exposed to the air.

"Hmm, Scorching Heart Wolf, regretfully without a core. And it is quite young, as a mature one should be around high-level 2nd tier." he said with a slight regret in his eyes.

He then turned in the direction the beast came from and rushed there with nimble movements. historical

"Let's see what you've left behind to go and greet me, shall we?" he said with a slight smile.

This beast traveled not long, but it was an agile creature, so it took Wu Long about 15 minutes to travel there.

He did not know where exactly the wolf came from as with the limitations of his current cultivation his spiritual sense was practically non-existent, but he knew the general direction and soon felt the air around him heat up. He traveled a bit further and determined the direction the heat was coming from, adjusted his course and rushed there. Soon the vegetation in the surroundings began to grow sparse, as only heat-loving plants would grow nearer to the source of this high temperature.

At last, he got out of the trees and could see a bit into the distance as there were a few giant boulders in the middle of a land with no trees.

In one of the boulders, an orange crystal emitting intense heat was lodged, and 12 wolves similar to the one he slayed were idling around and on the boulders.

There was one mid-level, and four low-level 2nd tier, the rest were 1st tier Scorching Heart Wolves.

They were already looking in their direction as they noticed him long ago, and he also was not surprised to see them as he detected their aura as he moved here.

"Haa.. I am sorry to do this since I can sympathize with the situation" he said with a sigh and a wry smile.

Seeing a harem around one male made him somehow reluctant to ruin this scene, as he understood how frustrating it was to be interrupted in such situations all too well.

However, what he saw next, made him first raise an eyebrow, and then scoff with a cold snort.

The male wolf, perhaps having some superior survival instincts, showed fear in his eyes, and with a growl sent all the female wolves at Wu Long. The wolves showed reluctance but decided to follow through, as the male wolf retreated slowly, getting ready to run in the opposite direction.

Wu Long suddenly launched from his standing position, skillfully evading the female wolves' claws and fangs. He ran straight for the male wolf, and unleashed a clean sword strike straight from the sheath which went in a weird arc. The beast evaded only to somehow willingly move in the direction the arc drawn in the air tilted to, effectively shoving its head under the blade.

With a thud, its head and body fell separately to the ground, while Wu Long ran by him, and with one leg as a pivot turned to look at the now lonely 'harem'.

The wolves turned only to see their leader beheaded.

"Go"

Wu Long said in a cold voice. Demonic beasts do not understand words, even high-level ones never communicate. They only act instinctively, but they as most living beings have survival instincts, which mean they knew fear. Wo Long's word seemed to get the meaning across without any need for mutual language, as the hairy 'harem' quickly rushed off in a random direction, the only requirement being as far as possible from here.

In fact, this was not an act of kindness from Wu Long, he just felt it tedious to deal with them as he knew that the only one of them to have a demonic core is the male he had slain. There was literally no merit in him pursuing the rest of the pack.

His cultivation was also quite low, and his body was not really trained, so his stamina would not allow him to kill them all without exhausting a good two-thirds of it.

He flicked off the blood that was emitting intense steam and sheathed the sword, taking out the dagger instead. After approaching the head of the Scorching Heart Wolf he made a few skillful incisions and took out a perfectly round slightly translucent red core the size of a hazelnut that felt warm to the touch. A chaotic flow of energy could be seen swirling inside of it moving according to a mysterious and profound order.

"Haha, fortune is still favorably looking on me even in this life, such a good harvest within half a day of launching off, not bad." he said with a smile, which quickly turned wry as he thought 'haa, to think this is considered good find now'.

His cultivation technique will allow him to fully absorb this core without worrying about side effects that would usually follow directly absorbing demonic cores.

This core was of a Yang attribute, so it would not be very beneficial to his cultivation base. But he could temper his body with it.

He also knew countless ways to improve his Yang Qi, and the Yang Root, which influences the rate at which his body is producing Yang Qi and the amounts of Yang Qi that could be stored and shot out. Of course, this core was nowhere sufficient to influence his Yang Root but it was sufficient enough to improve his condition a little bit, increasing the effectiveness of the treatment for his broken sword in the future.

Improving stamina, endurance and overall physique also would help him exert a bit more of his strength.

The two movements he made killing two Scorching Heart Wolves may have seem effortless, but it was in fact very taxing on his current untrained and untempered body, so much so that he was currently sore all over.

He looked at the crystal lodged into the boulder, and shook his head.

"It might be a treasure, but it is useless to me as It will lose its effects once taken out from the boulder which connects it to the source of its power deep underground." he mumbled, not particularly sad.

"Well , I can at least use its effects a bit while I am here"

Wu Long sat in a lotus position and took a fasting pill, and then proceeded to take out the leather water bag and take a few sips.

"Heh, hunger" he laughed at his needs.

Once he cleared out his thoughts caused by his mortal needs, he took out the demonic core, wiped it a bit with a cloth even though it was already clean, and swallowed it in one go.

His stomach immediately started producing scorching heat that began to course through his whole body as he started cultivating.

His skin flared up turning red and even emitting slight steam.

He sat like that for around 5 hours, absorbing the Spiritual Qi that was influenced by the crystal above him, keeping up the temperature that was given by the demonic core.

Gradually, his flared up skin returned to normal, and once all signs of the previous state disappeared he opened his eyes that flickered with a profound light.

"Good, now I don't need to worry that my arm will fall off because I moved around with a sword a bit." he said with a smile.