Pei Ye didn't know.
At this moment, Zhu Gaoyang had put him down, and he silently sheathed his sword.
After careful consideration, he believed that the strength of some cultivators was not closely related to their realm... and not really related to their ranking in the Crane Catalog either.
The strength of the vast majority of cultivators can be defined by their realm. The cultivation realm represents the tier of their strength, because "realm" is a grand rule: Upper Second Realm, Ziyi, Tuan Shen... each level represents a qualitative change. Cultivators are like ants climbing this giant edifice, and when they meet, their level isn't determined by their name but by which level they've reached.
But some people might be beyond the Three Realms, not in the Five Elements.
