Chapter 197 - Star Plain Province
The Bloody Totem Tribe held close to 50 million members. Whilst this was ‘larger’ than the nearby Rising Sun Tribe, the Rising Sun Tribe members had a greater average strength, after all, they were of the Aztec lineage. The Aztec Tribesmen were also physically larger, so their tribe actually occupied a much larger piece of territory compared to the Bloody Totem Tribe.
One year ago, the Blood Totem Tribe launched a surprise attack against the Rising Sun Tribe, catching them off guard and inflicting tremendous damage to their foundation. However, in the end, they were driven away; they were unable to actually defeat this large tribe, particularly when the tribe was guarded by those stronger Aztec elders.
However, not one single person in either of these tribes posed any sort of threat to Yaan.
Initially, when he found out that there were no 5-Star Realm warriors in either of these enormous tribes, Yaan felt surprised. Even across a population numbering tens of millions, in a society where body tempering was practised by almost every single tribesman, not one person was able to reach the 5-Star Realm?
But when he thought about it, and as he learned more about the region, it started to make sense.
Yaan could not speak for the entire Qi Plane, but he had a good understanding of society on Planet Yushu at least. Back on Planet Yushu, there were countless mortals and far fewer cultivators, the two were worlds apart, very rarely interacting or mingling.
On the Blood Plane, or at least in this War Flower Empire, this distinction basically didn’t exist. All people practised body tempering to some extent, so there were just as many lower realm cultivators as there were mortals!
Reaching the 1-Star Realm, or the Iron Class or Bronze Class, was possible for anyone, so long as they were diligent with their training, and they managed to procure some half-decent resources.
However, progressing further was difficult. Each subsequent realm was exponentially more difficult to reach than the last. This was also true for Qi refining, but when it came to body tempering, there was a crucial limiting factor; resources!
Without sufficient resources, no matter how talented or diligent a person was, they couldn’t hope to reach a higher realm. Resources were limited within every single tribe, hence, there were few warriors possessing higher levels of cultivation.
As for the Bloody Totem Tribe, they simply did not possess sufficient resources to raise a 4-Star Realm warrior to the 5-Star Realm. In the past, they had such assets, but an elder of the tribe had attempted the ascension 15 years ago…
He failed, and died.
On a side note, Yaan already possessed the funds to allow every Peak 4-Star Realm warrior in this tribe to attempt the ascension multiple times, but he kept that to himself for now.
Anyway, most of Yaan’s assets came in the form of refined pills. Whilst pills were useful to body temperers, for those at the 4-Star Realm and 5-Star Realms, elixirs were countless times more desirable. In fact, the Rank 5 Boundary Ascension Pill wasn’t all that common in this region, because the tribal warriors preferred to seek out suitable elixirs instead.
To reach the 5-Star Realm, the Boundary Ascension Pill was only a portion of what was needed. 5-Star Realm body temperers needed to form their Primal Soul - a mere Boundary Ascension Pill could not help them to achieve this.
After Yaan developed a better understanding of the situation in the Bloody Totem Tribe, he returned his attention to a map laid out on the table in the tribe leader’s tribal mansion. She stood beside him silently, waiting for him to speak.
She had not yet revealed Yaan’s existence to the tribe. Yaan told her to keep this hidden for now, until there was a reason to reveal it.
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Whilst she was the leader of the tribe, she was not the strongest member. There were still the tribe’s five great elders with Peak 4-Star Realm cultivation; each of those five individuals surpassed her both in terms of strength and seniority. The only reason that she was given the position of tribe leader, was because those five elders did not wish to bother themselves with such a tedious position in their old age.
“The War Flower Empire…the Kingdom of Lunar Song…the Star Plain Province…” Yaan muttered to himself softly.
For now, it wasn’t even worth thinking about the War Flower Empire as a whole, the scale of this empire was beyond his ability to even imagine. As for the Kingdom of Lunar Song, it was ruled by the Lunar Song Tribe, which was backed by an immortal…for now, Yaan wanted nothing to do with this tribe.
“Star Plain Province…” He muttered again.
Unlike the hegemony of the empire and the kingdom which were both still beyond him, the Star Plain Province did not have any clear ruler. As such, this vast stretch of grassy plains was named after its environment. It was said that countless stars could be seen at night no matter where you stood in the province, and that on rare occasions, star dust would rain down from the sky…
Seeing countless stars in the sky might sound ordinary, and on the Qi Plane, such a thing really was quite typical. However, the Blood Plane…
The Blood Plane had no stars!
There was only the sun, a single unique star which dwarfed any star on the Qi Plane by countless times.
The fact that stars could be seen in the sky here was indeed very strange. Yaan had tried to investigate this matter earlier, despite the tribe leader reminding him that it was futile.
She was correct, it was useless. The Blood Plane’s environment was too strange, the higher one flew up, the stronger the gravity and Spiritual Pressure became. Even Yaan struggled to fly up by more than a few miles, before he was forced back down by the building pressure.
In the end, he gave up on investigating for now.
The upper environment was beyond his ability to investigate, but the 49 tribes in this province did not intimidate Yaan in the least. Of these 49 tribes, only six possessed 5-Star Realm warriors. Most were similar to the Bloody Totem Tribe, where the height of power was the 4-Star Realm.
As for tribes without 4-Star Realm cultivators?
They didn’t exist!
In the War Flower Empire, weaker tribes were swallowed up by stronger tribes. The war flower law prevented large tribes from completely dominating and massacring everything around them, but the law was such that if a tribe was too weak, it could not survive.
Yaan studied the region in and around the province, paying some attention to the stronger tribes, but still not feeling too worried.
Why was it that he was studying this map, assessing the various surrounding tribes?
Why was it that he had agreed to join the Bloody Totem Tribe as an external elder?
It was because he planned to kill!
Back on Planet Yushu, in the Demonic North, you could kill whomever you pleased, so long as you did not offend someone that you could not afford to offend.
In the Southern Continent, killing was prohibited entirely.
But in this War Flower Empire, killing was actively encouraged…only, it needed to be channeled in a particular way.
Channelled through war.
Yaan had always adapted to his environment, and now, he fully planned to make the best use of this ‘war flower law’.
He wanted to return home, he wanted to overcome his deranged fate, but he was simply far too weak! Yaan was all too aware of his own weakness. He understood that before even thinking about anything else, he needed to become stronger.
In a way, his situation right now was actually quite good.
His dantian and his core had been repaired. He was not being suppressed or targeted by anyone beyond his ability to handle.
And most of all, this war flower law suited his cultivation plan just perfectly…that was, his plan to properly utilise the Fiend Transformation Technique’s primary method!
Even though Yaan had stepped onto the path of the Four Paths Cultivation Technique, his Fiend Foundation still existed; if he killed, he would still devour the Slaughter Aura!
And so, Yaan planned to kill.
He no longer cared to justify his killing, he no longer made any distinction between ‘good’ or ‘evil’. In the world of cultivation, regardless of whether someone was righteous or demonic, good or evil…by a certain point, everyone had committed unforgivable acts.
Not one powerful cultivator could truly be considered innocent, especially on the Blood Plane.
After studying the map until he felt satisfied, Yaan left the tribal mansion once again. He briefly glanced up at the bloody totems, finally understanding these disturbing pillars after investigating them personally and listening to the tribe leader’s explanation.
The totems were all carved with many eyes, whilst blood leaked from each and every one of these eyes, dripping down into the ground. When the blood reached the ground, it soaked into the earth below, before the vitality contained within the blood spread throughout the surface layer of land across the tribe.
These totems were all part of one giant formation. The formation was built by the founding ancestor of the tribe, a 5-Star Realm body temperer with an expertise in this area.
Like in the Rising Sun Tribe, there were sacrificial alters placed in various locations around the Bloody Totem Tribe. The blood was drained from the sacrifices and channelled into the totems, which each formed a network across the tribe, dispersing the vitality from the blood outwards.
This was a method of increasing the land’s Spiritual Power.
The Blood Plane lacked atmospheric Spiritual Energy, making Qi refining near impossible. However, the land was filled with a similar force known as Spiritual Power, allowing elixirs to grow freely. By increasing the Spiritual Power in their tribe, the Bloody Totem Tribe was able to grow elixirs…unfortunately, they did not possess any elixirs at present.
Elixirs took a long time to grow, and even in the entire Bloody Totem Tribe, they only had six elixir trees.
As he thought about elixirs and recalled the elixirs that he had used back in the 4th Trial Realm, Yaan’s mind drifted towards the Rising Sun Tribe.
He remembered that elixir above the alter, the blood red fruit that was nurtured by the sacrifices on the alter below.
Yaan looked up into the sky calmly, before turning his head and looking in a certain direction. When he finally spoke, the tribe leader jolted upon hearing his words.
“Announce my acceptance into the tribe. I will be destroying the Rising Sun Tribe tomorrow.”