303: Chapter 301 The First Pot of Gold in the Upper Realm

"Bang!!!"

Two massive energies collided violently in mid-air.

The starlight sword beam and the grayish-white light sphere remained in a deadlock for a brief moment.

Su Lin's wrist suddenly exerted force.

The blade forced its way through the light sphere's defense, slicing upward from the base of the single horn and piercing straight through the entire wolf's head.

The One-Horned Corpse Wolf let out a shrill wail.

Its massive body fell like a kite with a snapped string, crashing heavily onto the dark-gold metallic ground.

Kicking up a cloud of grayish-black dust.

"Done." Su Lin landed steadily on the ground, lightly shaking off the foul blood stained on the blade.

Seeing their leader insta-killed, the remaining corpse wolves didn't dare linger any longer and fled in panic with their tails between their legs.

Chu Weiwei, holding up her venom-stained skirt, approached with a beaming smile.

"Revered Master is so amazing. The elegance of that sword strike really made Weiwei's heart race."

That familiar heart-shaped pattern appeared in her purple eyes once again.

Su Lin silently rolled his eyes.

If this girl's love-struck brain could be converted into combat power, she probably would have dominated the Upper Realm long ago.

He put away the ancient sword of destiny and brushed the dust off his sleeves.

"Stop being a fangirl and hurry up and dig out this wolf's inner core. This is our first pot of gold in the Upper Realm."

"As you command, Revered Master." Chu Weiwei replied obediently. She pulled out a small knife from nowhere and began dissecting the corpse wolf with practiced movements.

Watching her movements, which were so skilled they were somewhat unsettling, Su Lin couldn't help but grumble inwardly.

This is what you call professional—a textbook example of an Advanced laborer.

After gathering the spoils, the two continued walking toward the outskirts of the forest.

The gravity in this Taihuang Immortal Domain was indeed ridiculous.

Su Lin felt as if he were hiking with a mountain on his back.

Every step required a significant amount of immortal essence to maintain his balance.

He wondered how his other disciples, who had been teleported away, were doing now.

He hoped they wouldn't cause any major trouble.

Especially Su Hongling with her short fuse; he hoped she wouldn't go and beat up a local thug right off the bat.

The surrounding dark-gold trees gradually thinned out.

At the end of his vision, a vast plain appeared.

In the center of the plain, a city shrouded by a massive light screen was faintly visible.

"Revered Master, look! There's a city over there!" Chu Weiwei pointed ahead, her voice filled with excitement.

"I see it." Su Lin took a deep breath of the somewhat heavy air of the Upper Realm.

"Let's go and check out the local customs of this Upper Realm."

Only when they reached the city gate did Su Lin truly feel the city's dilapidation and oppression.

The towering walls were built from a grayish-white rough stone, their surfaces covered with traces of weathering and battles.

Above the city gate, a wooden plaque hung crookedly, with three large characters written on it: "Liuyun Town."

Two guards in tattered armor stood watch at the entrance.

They leaned listlessly against the city wall, holding spears, their eyes numb and hollow.

"Halt. Entrance fee: two Low Grade Immortal Stones per person."

The guard on the left lazily lifted his eyelids and glanced at Su Lin and Chu Weiwei.

Su Lin was slightly taken aback.

Low Grade Immortal Stones?

He was dirt poor; where would he get Immortal Stones?

It seemed that no matter which world it was, without money, it was hard to take a single step.

He turned to look at Chu Weiwei.

Chu Weiwei understood immediately. She pulled out the corpse wolf inner core she had just dug out and waved it in front of the guard.

"Big brother, we've just arrived and don't have any Immortal Stones on us. Is this Blade-Armor Corpse Wolf inner core enough to cover our entrance fee?"

When the guard saw the inner core, his originally cloudy eyes instantly lit up.

"A Blade-Armor Corpse Wolf inner core? Good stuff!"

He snatched the inner core, examined it carefully, and his expression immediately turned fawning.

"Enough, more than enough! Seniors, please come in!"

Su Lin sneered inwardly as he watched the guard change his tune faster than one could flip a page.

Sure enough, money makes the mare go, and an inner core makes an Immortal smile.

Entering the town, the sight before Su Lin's eyes left him dumbfounded.

This was no Immortal Realm city.

This was clearly a large-scale refugee camp!

The buildings on both sides of the street were low and dilapidated, mostly simple shacks made of wood and thatch.

The Cultivators walking on the street were all sallow-faced, thin, and dressed in rags.

The auras on them were weak and chaotic; they were clearly either newly ascended or "Half-Immortals" who hadn't even reached the Earth Immortal Realm.

There was no ethereal Immortal Qi, no jade palaces or towers.

There was only the numbness and exhaustion of struggling to survive.

This isn't how it's supposed to look.

What happened to the promised Immortal Realm? What happened to eternal life?

Su Lin complained in his heart.

Chu Weiwei clung tightly to Su Lin's arm, her delicate brows slightly furrowed.

"Revered Master, the people here are so pitiful."

"The auras on them are so weak; it feels like they're not even as strong as Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators in the Lower Realm."

Su Lin patted the back of her hand, signaling her to lower her voice.

"We've just arrived. Speak less and observe more."

The two walked aimlessly down the street, trying to gather some useful information.

On the roadside stalls, some crude Immortal Plants and low-tier Magic Treasures were displayed.

The stall owners called out weakly, their eyes reflecting a longing for Immortal Stones.

An old man selling tea caught Su Lin's attention.

The old man's face was covered in wrinkles, and his grey Daoist robe was full of patches.

He was laboriously lifting a huge copper kettle, pouring tea for passing Cultivators.

"Old man, two bowls of tea."

Su Lin stepped forward and handed over a small metallic scale he had stripped from the corpse wolf.

Seeing the scale, the old man's eyes lit up. He quickly took it and wiped it with his sleeve.

"Thank you, guest! Please, both of you, take a seat!"

The old man nimbly poured two bowls of tea and brought them to Su Lin and Chu Weiwei.

The tea was a murky pale green and emitted a faint bitter scent.

Su Lin picked up the tea bowl and took a light sip.

The taste was indeed nothing to boast about, but the faint Immortal Qi within was better than nothing.

"Old man, we've just arrived and don't know much about this Liuyun Town." Su Lin put down the tea bowl and asked seemingly casually.

"I wonder, which great power controls this town?"

Hearing this, the old man looked around and lowered his voice.

"Keep your voice down, guest. This Liuyun Town is the territory of Earth Immortal Xuantian."

"Earth Immortal Xuantian?" Su Lin feigned surprise. "Sounds like someone very powerful."

"Of course!" The old man sighed.

"Lord Xuantian is a genuine Earth Immortal expert. We Half-Immortals, who don't even have immortal registry, can only depend on him, paying Immortal Stones in exchange for the right to reside here."

"immortal registry? What's that?" Chu Weiwei couldn't help but interject.

"You wouldn't know, young lady," the old man explained. "In the Taihuang Immortal Domain, only those who have reached the Earth Immortal Realm can go to the main city to register and obtain immortal registry."

"With immortal registry, one is considered a true Immortal and can enjoy the protection and resources of the main city."

"Half-Immortals like us can only eke out a living in remote towns like this, at risk of being eaten by the powerful Yao Beasts outside at any time."

Listening to the old man's narrative, the doubts in Su Lin's heart gradually cleared.

So, even the Upper Realm has its social classes.

Half-Immortals are like undocumented residents, forced to struggle at the very bottom.

While Earth Immortals are official residents with legal identities.

As for Heavenly Immortals or even higher beings, they likely live in those prosperous main cities, enjoying lofty privileges.

This is absolute class oppression.

Su Lin cursed inwardly.

The rules of this Heaven are even harsher than the feudal dynasties of the Lower Realm.

"And how does this Earth Immortal Xuantian treat you usually?" Su Lin continued to probe.

The old man gave a bitter smile, his wrinkles bunching up.

"How else could it be? We have to hand over a fixed amount of Immortal Stones every month. If we can't pay, we're kicked out of town to fend for ourselves."

"I heard Lord Xuantian is currently in seclusion, preparing to break through to the Heavenly Immortal Realm, so the tribute for these past few months has doubled again. We can hardly survive."

Boy, this boss really knows how to promise the moon while squeezing every bit of surplus value from the bottom.

The old man let out a long sigh, his wrinkled face written with the despair of being repeatedly crushed by time and reality.

"Guests, you two have an extraordinary bearing; you must have been top-tier experts who called the shots in the Lower Realm." The old man tremblingly lifted the rough copper kettle and added more murky tea to their bowls.

"In my youth in the Qingming Realm, I was also the ancestor of a sect with a hundred thousand Disciples. A stomp of my foot would make the entire Cultivation World tremble.

After surviving the Lightning Tribulation by the skin of my teeth, I joyfully thought I could join the celestial ranks and find true freedom."

The old man's eyes became incredibly hollow, his cloudy pupils reflecting the same numb, walking dead on the long street.

"Only after arriving in the Taihuang Immortal Domain did I realize that people like us, who were sect ancestors in the Lower Realm, are worth nothing here.

The spatial barriers here are terrifyingly solid, the gravity is horrific, and most Spells from the Lower Realm are useless here.

What's even scarier is the Immortal Qi permeating the air; it is violent and heavy.

Without a Marrow-Cleansing Jade Slip issued by the main city or a filtering Formation set up by an Earth Immortal expert, if we forcibly absorb it to Cultivate, our Meridians will be torn apart by this violent Immortal Qi."

Su Lin held his tea bowl and listened quietly.

He looked around; the buildings on both sides of the long street were mostly built from a grayish-black rough stone.

The surfaces of these rocks were pitted and gave off a deathly coldness.

The entire Liuyun Town seemed to be built at the bottom of a giant crater, surrounded by towering black mountains, like a natural prison.

The color of the sky was even more oppressive. There was no azure firmament like in the Lower Realm, only a thick layer of sickly dark-purple clouds that loomed year-round.

Occasional pale flashes of lightning flickered deep within the clouds, but no thunder followed, creating a silence that made one's skin crawl.

"So, you can only depend on this Earth Immortal Xuantian, paying Immortal Stones in exchange for the right to live under the protection of his Formation?" Su Lin asked softly, his tone calm, yet he had already seen through the cruel essence of this so-called Immortal Realm.

The old man nodded bitterly, his shriveled lips trembling slightly. "Staying here, although we are squeezed dry, at least we can keep our lives.

If we're kicked out of Liuyun Town into that Desolate Wasteland outside, in less than three days, we'd be devoured by wandering Void Realm Vicious Beasts or shredded into meat paste by violent immortal spirit storms."

Chu Weiwei sat obediently by Su Lin's side. Holding the tea bowl with both hands, her amethyst-like eyes darted around as she surveyed the surroundings.

In the eyes of this Medicine Immortal, everything around her exuded a novel yet dangerous aura.

The seemingly ordinary weeds by the roadside actually had extremely sharp metallic serrations on their leaf edges; the dark-green moss growing in the corners emitted a faint glow in the dim light, a glow clearly laced with hallucinogenic toxins.

She leaned closer to Su Lin, her warm cheek lightly pressing against his arm, and murmured in a very low voice, "Revered Master, the people here are so pathetic.

They fought so hard to climb up, only to end up in a bigger cage as slaves."

She slightly raised her delicate chin, her gaze filled with a touch of morbid obsession and relief. "Weiwei is still the smartest. As long as I can stay by Revered Master's side, even if it's a mountain of blades or a sea of fire, I'm ten thousand times happier than these people."

Su Lin lightly patted the back of her hand, signaling her to be quiet.

Just then, a piercing sound of a gong suddenly came from the end of the long street.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The Half-Immortals who were walking with heavy steps on the street immediately scattered to both sides like startled birds upon hearing the gong, bowing their heads and not even daring to breathe loudly.

A squad of guards clad in dark-red uniform armor, riding massive and hideous six-legged beasts, came patrolling down the street with an air of majesty.

The armor on these guards shimmered with uniform Formation light, clearly high-tier protective gear made in sets. Each of them held a black whip flickering with lightning, their gazes arrogant, as if they were inspecting their own livestock.

"Lord Xuantian's decree! This month's tribute quota is increased by twenty percent! All Half-Immortals, immediately pay 'immortal spirit ash' or equivalent Immortal Stones! Those who cannot pay will be expelled from the town immediately!"

The leading guard commander sat atop a six-legged beast, holding up a golden decree, his voice exploding over the long street like muffled thunder.

A suppressed wail suddenly erupted from the crowd.

"My Lord! The quota was just increased last month, why is it rising again this month! We really can't squeeze out another drop of Immortal power!"

A tattered old woman knelt on the ground, pleading bitterly. She might have once been a Saintess of a certain world, but now she was humbled to the dust.

"Enough talk! Lord Xuantian is at a critical stage of breaking through to the Heavenly Immortal Realm and needs massive resources! Being able to contribute to his Immortal path is a blessing you Lower Realm ants have earned over several lifetimes!"

The guard commander ruthlessly swung the lightning whip in his hand, lashing it hard across the old woman's back.

"Crack!"

The lightning Law attached to the whip instantly tore through the old woman's thin clothing, leaving a charred, bone-deep scar on her back. She screamed and collapsed to the ground, twitching as her aura rapidly withered.

"This old one... this old one really can't scrape together enough this month..."