Chapter 470: Chapter 455: Sprint to the 9th Level of the Purple Mansion!
Despite not agreeing to Jin Qu’s request, the impending war between the Anti-Light Alliance and the Great Brightness Immortal Palace still inevitably influenced some of Zhouyang’s decisions.
Originally, he planned to open a shop in Haoyang Immortal City, but he lost interest at this time. Meanwhile, Zhou Guangxiang, having just advanced to the Purple Mansion a few years ago, was assigned the task of protecting the Zhou Family in Cangyuan Immortal City.
"If both sides really start a full-scale war, Cangyuan Immortal City might also send people to fight. Tong Yue and the others, as new entrants to Cangyuan Immortal City, currently have no achievements and are likely to be used as pawns sent to the battlefield as cannon fodder."
"If that really happens, you should take someone from the Zhou Family as a disciple under the guise of accepting a newly born junior, thus providing protection for the Zhou Family, making others hesitate to act against them."
"Bring these items with you too. If Tong Yue is really deployed to the battlefield, give these items to him for self-defense."
Inside the cave mansion, Zhouyang called Zhou Guangxiang out, explained the imminent war situation to her, and handed her some items, clarifying his plans for her.
The contents of the storage bag contain a set of magical artifact equipment tailored for Zhou Tongyue, which Zhouyang purchased materials to specifically prepare upon learning of the impending war, along with a Tier Three High-Grade Puppet Beast, and some healing and life-saving spirit pills refined by Xiao Ying.
Originally a martial hall cultivator of the Zhou Family, Zhou Tongyue, after successful Foundation Establishment, practiced the high-level technique "Golden Radiance Shining Technique," with magical combat abilities definitely above the level of peers.
The set of equipment prepared by Zhouyang is essentially an upgraded version of the original Zhou Family martial hall cultivator’s set, each item being a Tier Three magical artifact personally refined by him.
The material costs alone for crafting this set of magical artifacts amounted to forty or fifty thousand low-grade spirit stones by Zhouyang, demonstrating its effectiveness.
With this set of magical artifacts in hand and the Tier Three High-Grade Puppet Beast assisting, Zhou Tongyue should have no major issues in ensuring his survival unless facing top-notch Ninth-Layer Foundation Establishment cultivators.
"Xiang’Er understands what needs to be done. Please rest assured, Ninth Uncle, Xiang’Er will definitely take good care of the Zhou Family in Cangyuan Immortal City—they won’t let your efforts go to waste!"
Zhou Guangxiang took the storage bag given by Zhouyang, nodded firmly, and made a solemn promise.
Zhouyang, witnessing this, first nodded and then shook his head, saying, "As long as the Zhou Family isn’t wiped out, it’s enough. Don’t get too close to them, lest revealing our relationship harms them. You must manage the balance within this matter carefully!"
"Yes, Xiang’Er will faithfully follow Ninth Uncle’s teaching and definitely not reveal the relationship between the Zhou Family and Ninth Uncle!"
Zhou Guangxiang responded solemnly, immediately bid farewell to Zhouyang, and left the city overnight heading towards Cangyuan Immortal City in Yu Country.
After she left, Zhouyang also officially entered a closed-door cultivation retreat.
Seven years later, the war between the Great Brightness Immortal Palace and the Anti-Light Alliance broke out as expected. Both sides mobilized more than a hundred thousand cultivators in border regions for large-scale battles, with daily casualties on both sides.
The Zhou Family in Cangyuan Immortal City, as predicted by Zhouyang, was also forced to dispatch several Qi Cultivation Cultivators along with Patriarch Zhou Tongyue to the battlefield to participate.
This kind of large-scale war among cultivators is different from wars between ordinary mortal realms.
In wars between cultivators, unless they have invaded deep into enemy territory to besiege enemy mountain gates, they generally follow the principle of soldier against soldier, general against general.
The opposing sides set up array campsites in vacant areas, then each sends a certain number of Qi Cultivation Cultivators and Foundation Establishment Cultivators into a battle zone stretching hundreds of miles for magical combat.
Every cultivator entering the battlefield must stay inside the battlefield zone for a full day before being allowed to leave, or they will be directly executed as deserters by their side’s supervising Golden Core Stage Cultivator.
Moreover, every half-month or month, the Purple Mansion Stage Cultivators and even Golden Core Stage Cultivators must personally enter to engage in combat with enemy cultivators of the same tier.
The advantage of magical combat between high-tier cultivators compared to low-to-middle-tier cultivators is the allowance to withdraw from the battlefield when overmatched.
However, if a high-tier cultivator fails in magical combat, then in the next low-to-middle-tier cultivator battlefield engagement, the enemy can deploy more cultivators, increasing by ten percent for each additional defeated high-tier cultivator.
Therefore, high-tier cultivators participating in magical combat are also reluctant to withdraw without utmost necessity.
Should they dare to deliberately abandon combat and withdraw, they will surely face severe punishment from their side’s higher-ups and resentment from countless low-tier cultivators.
In the later stages of war, even high-tier cultivators might be forced into a death match mode, where each side selects several high-tier cultivators to engage in a death match, which continues until death.
The death match mode is overseen and supervised by Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, even Golden Core Stage Cultivators have no choice but to kill their opponents to achieve victory!
And the victorious side not only gets to kill enemy high-tier cultivators but also wins the spiritual mountains and spirit mines offered by the enemy as stakes.
This unique mode of warfare was determined by high-tier cultivators from both the Great Brightness Immortal Palace and the Anti-Light Alliance after countless great battles.
Since neither side has the ability to completely destroy the other, they can only adopt this unique mode of warfare, persistently draining the enemy’s resources, and depleting their war potential.
It must be understood that Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators have also grown step by step from Qi Cultivation Stage Cultivators.
Now, among the fallen Qi Cultivation Stage Cultivators and Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivators on the battlefield, there could be those who might have had the potential to become Golden Core Stage Cultivators or even Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.
The more low-to-middle tier cultivators one kills in a war, and the more resource points one gains from the enemy, the fewer high-tier cultivators the enemy will be able to produce in the next few hundred years.
When the number of high-tier cultivators from the enemy is thoroughly overwhelmed by one’s own high-tier cultivators, a truly decisive exterminating battle can be initiated.
For thousands of years, both the Anti-Light Alliance and the Great Brightness Immortal Palace have each launched an exterminating battle affecting the entire Land of the Far West when their high-tier cultivators vastly outnumbered those of the opponent.
Unfortunately, in both wars, no one truly annihilated the other, as they were overturned by the opponent’s special means at the critical moment, utterly destroying their great advantage, forcing them to retreat back to their lair and negotiate a truce.
The war cannot end quickly. The longest battle between the Anti-Light Alliance and the Great Brightness Immortal Palace dragged on for seventy years before it concluded.
The shortest one lasted at least a decade.
Only in this way can they deplete the opponent’s war potential, striking them to the core.
In seclusion, Zhouyang occasionally inquired about the war news but spent most of his time in retreat, closing the doors of the cave mansion.
Thus, after the war had gone on for three years, which marked his tenth year in seclusion, he finally progressed to the Eighth Layer of the Purple Mansion.
With his cultivation reaching the Eighth Layer of the Purple Mansion, just one step away from the Ninth Layer, Zhouyang decided to continue his retreat after learning about the outside situation, determined to make a direct sprint to the Ninth Layer.
However, before that, he changed his cave mansion, relocating to the "Extreme Yang Cave" suited for fire element cultivators.
The "Extreme Yang Cave" is located beside an underground fire vein within Haoyang Immortal City, created personally by a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator as a treasure land for cultivation. Inside, the cultivation room not only has a Spiritual Qi density comparable to a Tier Five Spiritual Vein but also continuously absorbs and transforms pure fire element Spiritual Qi from the underground fire vein through array power, providing fire element cultivators for refinement and cultivation.
Fire element cultivators are the most numerous in the Land of the Far West, with the Haoyang Sect and Li Huo Sect, two of the top six major sects within the Anti-Light Alliance, being renowned for fire divine techniques.
Thus, ever since the creation of the "Extreme Yang Cave," the 20-plus cultivation rooms inside have always been in high demand, long occupied by high-tier fire element cultivators who heard of it, and difficult to rent even with money.
If not for the war between the Anti-Light Alliance and the Great Brightness Immortal Palace, causing some high-tier cultivators to be summoned to the frontline, allowing a few cultivation rooms to become vacant, Zhouyang would not have had the chance to rent such a treasure land for cultivation.
This time, he aims to sprint to the Ninth Layer of the Purple Mansion. The "Extreme Yang Cave" cultivation room’s annual rent of five thousand low-grade spirit stones should be of great help.
After prepaying ten years’ rent, Zhouyang officially moved into the cultivation room within the "Extreme Yang Cave" for seclusion.
"Indeed, you get what you pay for. The annual five thousand spirit stones only rent such a room, less than seven feet long and less than five feet wide, which seemingly cannot be compared to a cave mansion, yet the boost to my cultivation speed is beyond comparison even to Lingxi Peak’s Tier Five Spiritual Vein!"
Experiencing the effect of cultivating in the "Extreme Yang Cave" for the first time, Zhouyang couldn’t help but express his delight at the benefits of this cultivation room.
He heard that in major sects, various cultivation treasure lands have significant effects on high-tier cultivators. Years ago, while chatting idly with his Dao Companion, Xiao Ying, he learned that cultivating in a cave mansion within "Ten Thousand Woods Spiritual Land" indeed had much better results than in ordinary Tier Four cave mansions. Yet, he hadn’t had the chance to try until today.
Today he fulfilled his wish to try it and realized that the rumors were indeed true; the difficulty in renting such a cultivation room in the "Extreme Yang Cave" was justified.
"With this treasure land’s assistance, along with the remaining spirit pills and two cultivation-enhancing treasures I have, how could I not succeed in my major task!"
Recalling the preparations he made for sprinting to the Ninth Layer of the Purple Mansion, Zhouyang couldn’t help but reveal a confident smile.
With a spread of his hand, he took out all the remaining Tier Four High-Grade Spirit Pills that could enhance cultivation, then meticulously inspected these pills and subsequently flipped his hand to bring out another two jade boxes.
One of these boxes contained the purple-red spirit fruit, which he bought at an underground auction, suspected to be the Tier Five Spirit Fruit "Purple Sun Vermilion Fruit"; the other stored three pieces of "Cloud Mist Immortal Tea" he had acquired in the Cloud Mist Marsh within the Liuyun Continent Cultivation Realm.
The genuine "Purple Sun Vermilion Fruit" can increase thirty years of cultivation even for Golden Core Cultivators; Purple Mansion Stage cultivators consuming it could have a high chance of directly elevating a layer in cultivation, provided they can withstand the medicinal power.
The spirit fruit Zhouyang possessed was confirmed by Xu Song, even if not authentic, it indeed contained pure fire element Spiritual Power, and consuming it would likely offset ten to twenty years of arduous cultivation.
Similarly, drinking the infusion made from the three pieces of "Cloud Mist Immortal Tea" directly boosts the cultivation of Purple Mansion Stage cultivators by ten years.
With the help of these two spiritual objects, along with the remaining Tier Four High-Grade Spirit Pills, and the cultivation room in the "Extreme Yang Cave" that greatly aids his cultivation, how could Zhouyang not be filled with confidence for his sprint to the Ninth Layer of the Purple Mansion?