"So that’s how it is. This is my first time visiting the Mystic Jade Realm, and I know very little about its affairs. I would appreciate it if Fellow Daoist Shen could enlighten me, so that I might avoid offending anyone through ignorance."
A Tribulation Crossing powerhouse like Fellow Daoist Shen, whose cultivation was roughly on par with his own, was considered an ordinary person in the eyes of that cultivator named Yun Zixuan?
The Mystic Jade Realm seemed rather different from the Spirit Fox Realm where Tushan Shanhe came from.
The Azure Frost Gate of the Spirit Fox Realm did not behave with such domineering arrogance, and he had never even heard about the wielder of Heavenfall Immortal Sword.
Furthermore, the organization was called the Azure Frost Sect in the Heaven Origin Realm, the Azure Frost Gate in the Spirit Fox Realm, and the Azure Frost Sanctuary in the Mystic Jade Realm. Could these differences in naming also indicate a hierarchy between them?
Interesting.
A thoughtful expression appeared in Tushan Shanhe’s eyes.
Hearing this, the bearded man, the cultivator Shen from the Falling Star Gate, relaxed somewhat. He immediately spoke in a friendly tone.
"What’s the problem with that? As long as you don’t mind me being long-winded, Fellow Daoist Tushan, I’m more than happy to explain. Ah! Speaking of our Mystic Jade Realm, it’s a rather complicated matter. Our Spirit Realm has an enormous landmass, yet it suffers from a severe shortage of water. I’ve heard that other Spirit Realms have something called an ocean, where vast quantities of water can be found. I’m truly envious! Unfortunately..."
Tushan Shanhe patiently listened to the bearded man’s rambling explanation. After filtering out the meaningless chatter, he learned that the Mystic Jade Realm was quite different from the Spirit Fox Realm. It was a world rich in land and resources, yet desperately short of water.
All the spiritual plants growing on the land were drought-resistant or fire-attributed varieties. The herbivorous demonic beasts were similarly adapted, surviving by feeding on these drought-resistant plants and fire-attributed spiritual vegetation.
Volcanoes and deserts were the most common features of this realm. Despite its enormous size, it did not contain even a single sea. Its greatest water resource was the Ten Thousand Souls River, a river only several hundred meters wide.
The three top-tier sects of the Mystic Jade Realm controlled the water veins of the Ten Thousand Souls River and reserved its water for their own use. Meanwhile, other regions suffered from year round drought and a lack of rainfall.
Cultivators had it relatively easy. With a single Dust Cleansing Technique, they could go a hundred years without bathing. As long as they used water sparingly, the supplies allocated by their sects were sufficient.
Mortals, however, suffered far more. Most people could go their entire lives bathing only twice: once when they were born and once after they died.
Under such harsh natural conditions, water-attributed spiritual energy was exceedingly scarce. With so little water-attributed spiritual energy, people with water-based spiritual roots were practically never born, and water-type spells had become little more than legends.
The bearded man first explained the Mystic Jade Realm’s natural environment and resources. This allowed Tushan Shanhe to understand immediately why the cultivator name Yun Zixuan of the Azure Frost Sanctuary had come to retrieve the disciples of his sect’s branch while simultaneously taking away the main water veins of the Heaven Origin Realm.
Only after explaining these matters did the bearded man move on to describe the distribution of the cultivators and major forces in this realm.
In short, the Mystic Jade Realm’s power structure consisted of three major sects, six prominent gates, nine schools, and twelve great clans.
The three major sects were the top-tier powers of the Mystic Jade Realm: the Thousand Scrolls Pavilion, the Azure Frost Sanctuary, and the Celestial Artifice Palace.
The six gates were second-tier forces: the Crimson Eclipse Gate, the Falling Star Gate, the Silent Lotus Gate, the Heavenly Virtue Gate, the Veiled Blade Gate, and the Sacred Timber Gate.
The nine schools were third-tier forces: the Heavenly Blade School, the Golden Cauldron School, the Celestial Forge School, the Mystic Rune School, the Eight Trigrams School, the Phantom Step School, the Ironbone School, the Nethermoon School, and the Soul Searching School.
The twelve great clans were fourth-tier forces, consisting of twelve prominent family lineages: Ximen, Situ, Murong, Sima, Dongfang, Nangong, Ouyang, Shangguan, Lin, Gu, Ye, and Su.
These forces constituted the mainstream powers of the Mystic Jade Realm.
Perhaps because life was difficult due to the shortage of water, this realm did not distinguish so sharply between the orthodox and demonic paths as the Heaven Origin Realm did. As long as cultivators pursued their respective paths without slaughtering mortals, their practices were generally accepted by the outside world.
Consequently, the various sects, schools, gates, and clans practiced a wide range of cultivation methods. Confucian cultivators, Buddhist cultivators, sword cultivators, demonic cultivators, demon cultivators, ghost cultivators, and practitioners of many other paths all coexisted here. It was almost as if a hundred different schools of thought were flourishing together.
Each of these sects, schools, and clans possessed its own mountain range as a base of operations.
Perhaps because water veins were so scarce, the landmass of this realm was extraordinarily vast. There was no need even to discuss the immense territories occupied by the top-tier sects. Consider the Falling Star Gate, which ranked second among the second-tier forces. Setting aside the total area under its control, the mountain range where its sect headquarters stood, together with the surrounding territories, was already more than ten times the size of the entire Heaven Origin Realm.
The empty stretch of desert where the Heaven Origin Realm had descended happened to be the location of an external mineral deposit belonging to the Falling Star Gate, known as Stormflame Grit. The bearded man, Shen Wenrui, was in charge of this mining site and responsible for overseeing the extraction of Stormflame Grit. Fortunately, when the Heaven Origin Realm descended earlier, it had landed just clear of the mineral deposit, preventing any casualties among the Falling Star Gate’s miners. Shen Wenrui praised Tushan Shanhe’s strength once again for this.