289: Chapter 289 Black Abyss Valley

Half a month after the Taihe Assembly concluded, the Taihe Auction commenced.

Across the entire Taihe Prefecture city, as many as a thousand Cultivators gathered purely for this auction.

Among them, the Purple Mansion factions like the Chen Family had already departed; since this auction was jointly hosted by them, naturally they would not stay behind to compete with these Cultivators for Foundation Establishment spiritual objects.

Moreover, they had already obtained the foundation establishment pill, so leaving earlier would allow them to prepare for the Foundation Establishment of a few individuals sooner.

However, even without their participation, the Taihe Auction remained fiercely competitive, with many families hoarding over a decade's worth of heritage just for today.

For a Qi Refining Family, as long as a single clansman successfully achieved Foundation Establishment, the status of that Family would skyrocket accordingly, and its right to speak throughout Taihe Prefecture would also greatly increase.

Therefore, even though a single foundation establishment pill had already been driven up to twenty thousand Spirit Stones, people still continued to bid.

It was a pity that the Spirit Stones brought by most Qi Refining families were simply insufficient to buy a foundation establishment pill, allowing them to only purchase slightly inferior Foundation Establishment spiritual objects. Moreover, even if they successfully bid for one, they still had to safely bring it back to their Family. Of course, if they still had enough Spirit Stones, they could also rent a Tier 2 Immortal Cave from the five major Purple Mansion factions to undergo Foundation Establishment.

The matter of Foundation Establishment had never relied solely on Foundation Establishment spiritual objects.

Otherwise, Foundation Establishment Cultivators would have long been walking everywhere.

The primary reason for the Chen Family's rapid rise lay in Chen Changqing and the Legacy foundation of the Wanta Sect, followed secondarily by the quality of its clansmen.

Within a Family, powerful clansmen determined the upper limit of the Family, while the quality of the clansmen secured its lower limit.

Why it was extremely difficult for a Qi Refining Family to become a Foundation Establishment Family fundamentally boiled down to a lack of heritage and decisive Foundation Establishment immortal seedlings, compounded by the suppression of other factions.

Under these various factors, a Qi Refining Family often required a century or even hundreds of years of plotting to finally have a chance of becoming a Foundation Establishment Family.

As for Foundation Establishment families, the difficulty of wanting to become a Purple Mansion Family would only be even greater.

It was not merely due to the scarcity of Purple Mansion spiritual objects, but even more so because of the sheer difficulty for a Foundation Establishment Cultivator to become a Purple Palace Cultivator.

If a Foundation Establishment Cultivator wished to become a Purple Palace Cultivator, they had to ensure that their magic power, Divine Soul, Physical Body, and Realm all met the requirements simultaneously to have a shred of hope of achieving a Breakthrough into the Purple Mansion.

Therefore, one could easily imagine the difficulty for a Family wishing to become a Purple Mansion Family.

How could the Chen Family transitioning from a Qi Refining Family into a Purple Mansion Family in less than a hundred years not arouse the covetousness of others?

Yet in Yan Country, Purple Mansion factions had already reached the absolute pinnacle. Once reaching this level, no one dared to proactively provoke trouble. Furthermore, the Chen Family had the backing of the Yuxu Sect, which prevented those factions coveting the Chen Family from easily causing trouble for them.

After a few hours, the auction concluded, and many Cultivators chose to stay within the market city to look for an opportunity to leave.

Meanwhile, those Cultivators who had not obtained any treasures were also waiting for an opportunity.

Only some Cultivators who gained nothing at all and had no intention of killing others to seize treasures left early, wishing not to become embroiled in the conflicts of others.

A month later, as batches upon batch of Cultivators seized the opportunity to leave, the chaos in Taihe Prefecture thus unfolded. Fortunately, this chaos only lasted for about a month; although quite a few Cultivators were waylaid and killed, even more successfully escaped.

...

The Tang Country Cultivation World.

Over half a year had passed since Chen Changqing and Li Qingling left Yanhuo City.

Over these past six months, the war between the Badao Sect and the Xiyang Sect was announced to have ended with the Xiyang Sect ceding a quarter of its territory.

Had other Sects not intervened in the end, the two factions would have continued fighting.

In this battle, both sides each lost several Purple Palace Cultivators.

Among them, the Xiyang Sect suffered seven casualties among its Purple Palace Cultivators, while the Badao Sect lost four. The gap in strength between the two sides was obvious at a glance.

During this period, Chen Changqing and his companion traveled through many places in the Tang Country Cultivation World. Firstly, to scout out a territory that would allow the Chen Family to develop here for the long term, and secondly, to see if the Badao Sect was keeping an eye on them.

After all, they had killed a Purple Palace Cultivator of the Badao Sect. If the other party wanted revenge, they truly would not dare to directly introduce the Chen Family into Tang Country.

However, as long as the Chen Family was willing to develop here, they could first dispatch a few Foundation Establishment Cultivators without necessarily needing the two of them to personally step forward. That way, even if the Badao Sect wanted to retaliate against them, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack within Tang Country.

Tang Country was immensely vast, and the territory occupied by a lower city far exceeded the expanse of an entire prefecture in Yan Country.

As for the territories occupied by those nine middle cities and four upper cities, they would only be even larger.

Even a Golden Core faction would find it difficult to extend its influence into every single city.

"Having visited so many places, I feel that the location of this Tianli City is still the best," Li Qingling said solemnly, looking at Chen Changqing across from her.

"Indeed, this Tianli City belongs to the territory of the Tianli Sect. Although it is only a lower city, under the governance of the Tianli Sect, this place is completely peaceful and serene," Chen Changqing nodded.

Tianli City was located at the easternmost part of Tang Country, facing the Chu Country and Zhao Country directly. The junction of these three countries was a valley belonging to a lawless zone managed by no one. If the Chen Family arranged themselves here, they could advance to develop within Tang Country and retreat to hide in Heiyuan Valley.

They would have completely no fear of enemies seeking revenge.

After all, as a lawless zone, Heiyuan Valley surely possessed sufficient strength.

This strength was naturally provided by the Four Major Factions of Heiyuan Valley, all of which had Golden Core Masters holding down the fort.

One of them was the Rogue Cultivators Alliance established by a Loose Cultivator. The Rogue Cultivators Alliance was considered the strongest faction in Heiyuan Valley, with a total of one hundred thousand Cultivators within the alliance. Furthermore, the cultivation of the current alliance master had reached the Golden Core Great Perfection, allowing them to rank at the forefront even among various countries.

The other three were respectively the Alchemy Hall, Nightfall, and the Five Sects.

The Alchemy Hall was formed by a gathering of Alchemists, possessing a total of two Golden Core Masters internally.

Nightfall was an assassin organization, and their Cultivators primarily reaped benefits by accepting various bounties.

Nightfall was also an intelligence agency, particularly in that they compiled the top hundred powerhouses of the present day into a Heaven Rank so that everyone could know the strength of the era's powerhouses, alongside an Earth Rank which recorded Genius Cultivators within the scope of a thousand years, a hundred years, and thirty years.

Their Heaven and Earth Ranks were extremely accurate, so accurate that the possibility of error was virtually nonexistent.

As for the final faction, the Five Sects, as the name implied, it was formed by the alliance of Five Sects. The single strength of these Five Sects was insufficient to compete with the other three factions, but after joining forces, they were only slightly weaker than the Rogue Cultivators Alliance.

Within their Sect alliance, there were a total of two Golden Core Masters holding down the fort, commanding a total of forty thousand Cultivators under their command.

It was precisely because of these Four Major Factions that the three countries listed this place as a lawless zone.

These matters were only learned by Chen Changqing and his companion after checking into Tianli City.

However, it was worth mentioning that although Heiyuan Valley repelled Cultivators from the three countries, it did not particularly repel factions from the territory controlled by the Tianli Sect.

As for why this was the case? Many people had their guesses.

"It's a pity that our Yan Country is too far from Tang Country; otherwise, dispatching clansmen to develop here on a large scale would also be feasible," Chen Changqing said somewhat gloomily.

Li Qingling deeply agreed with this reasoning.

To reach Tang Country from Yan Country, one needed to pass through the State of Zheng, Lu Country, Suolong Ravine, as well as Yu Country and Song Country.