The perfection realm cultivators started hunting down transmigrators because of the danger of a world invasion; ironically, their attack on transmigrators caused the world invasion to happen. Daoist Firepower and his partners were not necessarily invaders; if the perfection cultivators were willing, both sides could have reached a compromise. However, the incentives for negotiating were low.
Firstly, the wizards saw the newcomers as enemies, so there was little appetite for negotiation.
Secondly, Daoist Firepower, who held a leading position among the elemental cultivators, had a grudge against the cultivators of this world.
Thirdly, the war may not only be about knowledge, which could be copied and spread to the masses but also about resources, many of which may be exclusive to this world and of limited quantity.
Fourthly, only one side had the ability to invade the other, meaning the elemental cultivators could invade the perfection cultivators, while the perfection cultivators had no way of retaliating. This power imbalance made a deal much harder; after all, one side had a complete advantage and the safety of their base, so why even bother negotiating?
Negotiations happen because both sides fear losses; if one side is completely safe, the chances of peace would be greatly reduced.
Some things never change regardless of the world; it follows the logic of self-interest with no emotions and bias involved; the way for peace is to have forces capable of destroying each other; it has already been proven in many worlds: if both sides fear great loses, they won't start wars; even mortal forces in modern cultures which invent extremely terrifying mass destruction weapons usually maintain peace out of fear of mutual destruction; of course, everything has advantages and disadvantages; in case the leader of one force with mass destruction weapons turn out not to be logical decision maker, the whole world may be destroyed.
Basically, it's either low-stakes constant wars that can make life miserable for people but cannot destroy the whole world or a safe world with a low possibility of war among major powers, but if the war happens, everything would be destroyed; most worlds are one of those.
If the perfection cultivators of this world find a way to attack the elemental cultivators, that would significantly increase the chances of a compromise. In the current state, however, a compromise would have to be very biased toward the elemental cultivators; anything that is truly a fair deal would be rejected.
...
Daoist Firepower looked at the world from which he had fled the last time. He smirked and then looked at those around him.
Elemental cultivation was quite simple.
There are nine main elements: Fire, Cold, Steel, Liquid, Solid, Light, Dark, Positive, and Negative. At each stage of cultivation, one must control an additional element; for example, a one-element cultivator controls one element, a two-element cultivator controls two elements, etc. This means a nine-element cultivator controls all elements.
After the nine-element realm, the only way to advance is to create a sub-element by combining two or more of the main elements. Each ten-element cultivator is a shining star; their traces will forever be observable in the world. Once they invent a unique sub-element, it will remain far after their death and enrich the world.
When fighting, the most important factor is to surprise the enemy; concealing one's information and trump cards to prevent them from being countered is common sense. Ten-element cultivators have invented their own sub-elements and undoubtedly have the most secretive weapons. Ten-element cultivators keep their sub-elements secret throughout their lives, only passing it to their younger generation when they are close to dying of old age.
Now that they are here, their next courses of action would depend on the results of a few experiments; if the immortality technique is compatible with their elemental cultivation, they could return and implement it in their own world. However, if the technique is specific to this world, they have no choice but to fight.
Daoist Firepower had been researching this exact matter, but the perfection cultivators found him and attacked him. In fact, he was planning to stay here and develop two incarnations, one in this world and one in the elemental world, allowing them both to cultivate the technique of this world to determine if it is exclusive to this world or not. To really test it, he would have to reach the perfection realm with his incarnations, which would have taken a very long time.
If the technique were exclusive to this world, Daoist Firepower would have abandoned his original world; even though he has many descendants and relatives there, nothing would be as important as his own lifespan and survival. However, the perfection cultivators attacked and prevented him from living here peacefully. Now, he has no choice but to fight for what he wants.
One of the elemental cultivators around him, known as Daoist Coldpower, also a ten-element cultivator, felt the energy in the air and said, "About the same as our world. Let's not delay any longer. What do you all think?"
Nine people, five women, and four men were called the Nine Power Rulers: Firepower, Coldpower, Steelpower, Liquidpower, Solidpower, Lightpower, Darkpower, Positivepower, and Negativepower. These nine people were considered the most powerful of the elemental cultivators.
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The elemental world, where Daoist Firepower and others lived, was not ruled by a single force; there were many forces and sects, kingdoms, empires, republics, tribes, clans, and all sorts of governments. The Nine Power Rulers were not lords of the entire world; their titles were awarded by consensus among the world's top forces. They were like political appointees who had enough personal strength not to be underestimated.
Their role was to maintain peace. Even the strongest forces don’t want conflict; however, the wrong people may occasionally take control of some forces, waging war for their personal benefit. In that case, the Nine Powers Rulers are responsible for warning them and, if necessary, rallying others to defeat them. Their other duties include peacefully resolving disputes among super forces and responding to worldwide disasters.
As one of the Nine Powers Rulers, Daoist Firepower got in touch with the other powers and discussed the matter of immortality and the portal to another world with them. The Nine Powers agreed, all united in their desire to obtain immortality, and spoke with the heads of the super forces.
All super forces were extremely eager for it; persuading them was unnecessary. They got their thing and hit the ground running; who wouldn’t want immortality?
One of the most critical reasons that so many of rank nine mages, cultivators, elemental cultivators, demons, angels, etc., wanted so badly to reach the tenth realm is the infinite lifespan.
After living for millions of years, the prospect of actually dying would be extremely terrifying. One might think that if one lives for a long time, one would get tired of the world and actually die in peace. That may be true or false for normal people, but that is nearly always completely false for rank nine beings.
Beings who manage to reach rank nine are not your ordinary Joe; they are extremely determined, with steel minds and unimaginable resolve. They worked so hard, for hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years, to get to where they are; how could they accept death? They would do anything to advance, to survive, to obtain immortality.
But how hard is it to become immortal? Chances are hopelessly slim; it mostly depends on luck and fortune. No matter how hard one tries or how much talent one has, luck is the most important factor in reaching rank ten. When presented with a chance to extend their lives by millions or billions of years, they would put aside everything for even a small chance of success; no matter how small, it would be countless times higher than the chance of reaching rank 10.
The perfection cultivators of this world are 'immortal,' but their immortality is dependent on the world's existence. They are not, in fact, truly immortal; if something happens to the world, they will die along with it. Still, having the same lifespan as the world is something nobody can look down on.
Like most things, worlds also have an expiration date; it can vary widely from world to world. A rank ten world's lifespan can be from one billion years to hundreds and hundreds of quintillions of years, or even longer. It depends on a few things, such as the quality of the code, the complete law used, the size, energy, protection against chaos energy, power limits inside, world's laws' protections against corruption of the code, anti-corruption mechanisms inside, the external environment, luck, etc.
But that is rank ten worlds. Rank eleven worlds, such as this one and the elemental world, are made of multiple thousands, or even millions, of complete laws. Unless the world's creator intentionally lowers its lifespan, even if nobody maintains it, it can last for at least thirty-digit numbers, so long of a time that it is unimaginable even to rank nine beings; maybe only rank twelve+ beings can even comprehend such a long time. A chance at living that long, of course, they went crazy over it.
As a result, nearly all nine and ten-element cultivators of the elemental world signed up to be included.
They didn’t come empty-handed; they brought their best weapons, formations, and special techniques. Fortunately, this world is extremely similar to their home world, which was one of the reasons so many signed up. If the immortality method works here, it will likely work there, too. The elemental cultivators who came here kept most of their powers; some techniques became inoperable due to changes in the world's laws, but most remained in effect.
Hearing what Coldpower said, the other eight powers nodded; they are usually unanimous in votes.
Seeing things were decided, Coldpower sent down the order using a mental message to the relevant people. Quickly, with the coordination of thousands of powerful elemental cultivators, four massive formations were set up.
The first was called 'Impenetrable Base Ground', a powerful defensive formation compatible with this world's laws. It was tough on its own, comfortably taking attacks from ten-element cultivators without being seriously damaged. But its most powerful ability was called 'Homeland'; it gave all allies a boost in power. It had no effect on enemies, but in close battles, even a bit of increase in the strength of spells could mean a lot.
Battles of perfection and ten-element cultivators were unlike normal fights; distance didn’t really matter to them. For example, if perfection cultivators wanted to attack, they could do it from the other side of the world; there is no need to get close at all; because of this, this little boost in the spell's strength can be used in defense and also in offense.
It's nearly certain that by now, perfection cultivators know of the existence of powerful invaders; it's just that the perfection realm cultivators of this world are not united and most likely look at them from afar without intervening. The disunity of perfection realm cultivators is what gives elemental cultivators a chance to win.
The second formation was called the 'Nine Element Formation'; this formation also worked fine with this world's laws. It only had one function: to provide raw elemental power. It was crucial because this world doesn’t have natural elemental energy.
The third one was called 'Big Caster.' It was a formation that had the ability to cast infinite spells as long as it had enough elemental energy. It worked perfectly with the 'Nine Element Formation.'
The fourth one was called the 'Second Life' formation. If one puts a piece of their soul and a part of their body in the formation, they will come back to life, no matter how or where they die. They would come back to life in the resurrection space of the formation. There are downsides; as a price for the resurrection, the pieces of the soul and body that were put inside would be consumed. It leaves both the body and soul damaged; even though these damages could be repaired, it would take time. Repairing the damaged soul of a ten-element cultivator would be very time-consuming.
It remains to be seen whether these will be enough to defeat the perfection cultivators, but they will surely be enough to put up a fight.
With this, the battle started.