Perhaps because he had become the young lady's servant, Xiao Yan's treatment had improved quite a bit compared to before. He was even granted a room of his own. This gave him the opportunity to refine some pills to heal his injuries. Fortunately, he had long since scavenged plenty of medicinal ingredients, and his spatial ring still held many that were useful for healing, saving him the trouble of searching for herbs in this unfamiliar world. Otherwise, he wouldn't even know if the necessary herbs existed here.
During this time, he also employed a few subtle methods to extract memories from others, and coupled with some probing questions directed at Lin Jing, he managed to gather a decent amount of information about this world.
This world was called the Tianxuan Continent. It bore some similarities to the Dou Qi Continent, but people here cultivated something called Yuan Power instead of Dou Qi. Though the cultivation systems differed, they shared certain structural parallels. The realm divisions here weren't as detailed as those of the Dou Qi Continent, but the cultivation process was far more perilous.
As far as he knew, the strong in this world had to absorb certain special energies during the early stages of cultivation, such as Yang Gang Force and Yin Sha Force. On the Dou Qi Continent, only the path to becoming a Dou Di required absorbing special energies; other stages didn't have such prerequisites. The Yang Essence Stones they had been mining earlier could be refined into Yang Yuan Pills, which aided cultivation during that stage.
And Yang Yuan Pills were just the lowest grade of auxiliary materials. There were also stronger ones like Pure Yuan Pills, Nirvana Pills, and Profound Yuan Pills...
Understanding all this helped Xiao Yan confirm that the overall cultivation speed on the Tianxuan Continent was likely faster than on the Dou Qi Continent. However, the number of top-tier experts was definitely lower. Relying too heavily on external sources of energy would always come with consequences. The further one progressed, the harder it became to improve. According to Xiao Yan's guess, the Nirvana Tribulation and the Threefold Tribulation that existed here were byproducts of this system.
Due to long-term reliance on external energies, a practitioner's inner power would start to show problems—such as floating Yuan Power and unstable foundations. These Nirvana Tribulations seemed to be heaven and earth's way of correcting that, a trial that helped stabilize the cultivator's foundation at the higher stages.
However, these Nirvana Tribulations were incredibly dangerous. If one failed to overcome them, they would vanish without a trace! And that was just for the Nirvana Realm. In Xiao Yan's world, the Nirvana Realm would be comparable to Dou Wang or Dou Huang level at best. It was simply unimaginable to Dou Qi Continent cultivators that one could die from a failed breakthrough at such a realm.
The Dou Qi Continent had many realm divisions, but the cultivation process itself posed almost no risk. There was certainly no such thing as heavenly tribulations. Cultivation was a step-by-step progression. Even when using external aids, it might grant one or two star advancements—but on Tianxuan Continent, such boosts could result in a full realm leap.
Overall, the Tianxuan Continent allowed for rapid advancement in cultivation, but once a certain level was reached, progress would come to a dead halt. The path beyond that was riddled with life-threatening trials. In contrast, cultivation on the Dou Qi Continent was slower but much safer. Things like Qi Deviation or Dou Qi backlash were nothing compared to Nirvana Tribulations.
The so-called Ancestor Realm was the highest known level on this continent. If it was as the white-clothed woman said, that the Ancestor Realm was equivalent to Dou Di, then Xiao Yan's current strength—having passed through the Threefold Samsara Tribulation—should place him at the very peak of this world.
This world also had no Alchemists—only something called "Symbol Masters." These Symbol Masters specialized in using spiritual power to attack and were also capable of crafting weapons. Because of this, the weapon systems here were far more refined than those of the current Dou Qi Continent. Of course, this didn't apply to the ancient Dou Qi Continent when Artificers still flourished—back then, it wouldn't have been any weaker.
Even so, although Symbol Masters were supposedly good at crafting, very few still practiced it. Nowadays, even Rune Master competitions involved nothing but spiritual power duels—it was no longer about forging at all. Xiao Yan couldn't help but wonder why the profession was still called "Rune Master" when it barely had anything to do with actual runes anymore.
Moreover, after some probing, Xiao Yan discovered that the space in this world was not as stable as that of the Dou Qi Continent. This meant that his attacks would cause far more destruction here. If his punch could shatter tens of thousands of feet of space on the Dou Qi Continent, then here it could likely destroy hundreds of thousands—possibly even a million feet—of space in one strike.
After nourishing himself with pills for some time, his injuries had recovered by about thirty to forty percent. While he was still far from full recovery, he now had enough strength to deal with a Nine-Star Dou Sheng-level expert—especially with the help of his alchemical resources and soul power at the Emperor Rank. This gave him a decent level of confidence while roaming the Tianxuan Continent.
Once his injuries stabilized a bit more, Xiao Yan tried circulating the Flame Mantra. To his surprise, he found that his strength had improved slightly. Of course, it wasn't enough to claim he had stepped into the Dou Di level, but the sensation of progress was unmistakably real.
What shocked him even more was that he sensed the special energy needed to break through to Dou Di in several places across this continent. That discovery left him ecstatic. He knew that as long as he could absorb enough of that energy, breaking through to Dou Di might no longer be out of reach.
In truth, such energy wasn't uncommon in the ancient times of the Dou Qi Continent—hence the existence of so many Dou Di. But that energy had long been depleted and never replenished, which was why the Dou Di level had all but vanished. In this world, however, no one had ever succeeded in reaching Dou Di—known here as the Ancestor Realm—so the energy remained abundant.
However, when he was sensing the world's energy, he noticed something else: there were traces of black, tainted matter mixed into what should have been pure energy. It looked contaminated. This realization caused Xiao Yan's heart to sink.
If he guessed correctly, this corruption was likely caused by the Yimo race altering this world.
Absorbing such polluted energy for extended periods would gradually erode one's body. Eventually... one might be completely transformed into a Yimo!
Of course, this kind of problem didn't apply to Xiao Yan. His Purifying Lotus Demonic Flame naturally possessed purification abilities—perfectly suited for cleansing this contaminated energy.
But when he used his soul power to scan Lin Jing's body, he discovered that there was already quite a bit of this tainted energy inside her. Her strength wasn't high—only around the Creation Realm level by local standards. If she continued absorbing such energy, it wouldn't be long before she completely turned into a Yimo.
(End of Chapter)
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