Chapter 454 - Three Martial Realms

Immortal Sea, Divine Phoenix, Martial Overlord...

Long Chen committed these names to memory and asked nothing else. He started walking towards Yellow Martial City with Jiang Cheng. “Brother Jiang, do you know anything about the Martial Alliance’s bounty board?”

“The Martial Alliance is the largest organization in the Divine Martial Empire. It leads all of the other organizations as well. They are the core of the Divine Martial Empire, and everyone listens to them. Of course, there are people who refuse to submit to them. Some of them even commit all kinds of atrocities, so the Martial Alliance came up with the bounty board. Those with their names on it are the enemies of the Martial Alliance and must be killed on sight!

“You will get a reward for killing the cultivators on the bounty board. Those in the top ten spots provide a reward of more than ten million Heavenly Passage Pills. If you kill anyone in the top three, they will even reward you with royal crystals! The royal crystal is an important resource for those at the Three Martial Realms to cultivate. It’s even more rare than Heavenly Passage Pills!”

“Ten million Heavenly Passage Pills?” Long Chen was shocked. He never knew that the Martial Alliance was that big and influential. To think that they would put out a reward of tens of millions of Heavenly Passage Pills just to kill a single cultivator.

Long Chen also never heard anything about royal crystals and the Three Martial Realms.

Jiang Cheng knew how shocked Long Chen was after seeing his expression. “You probably don’t know what royal crystals and the Three Martial Realms are, don’t you?”

Long Chen shook his head. He wasn’t even at the Heavenly Passage Realm, so he naturally didn’t know about the Three Martial Realms.

Jiang Cheng smiled and explained, “Then let me explain it to you. You have Four Basic Realms: Dragon Vein, Divine Core, Heavenly River, and Heavenly Passage. Above that are the Three Martial Realms: the Earthly Martial Realm, the Heavenly Martial Realm, and the Divine Martial Realm! Each realm is separated into nine stages. So the Four Basic Realms and the Three Martial Realms encompass all of the cultivation realms. You are still considered a junior if you are at the Heavenly Passage Realm. You are only considered an expert once you reach the Three Martial Realms.”

Long Chen was shocked to learn that. “How many people in the Divine Martial Empire are at the Three Martial Realms?”

“Do you think those stronger cultivators are so easy to find?” Jiang Cheng smiled helplessly.

He excitedly explained, “The Demon Emperor of the Ancient Demon Domain, the Huangfu family, and even the Martial Overlord are only at the Earthly Martial Realm. Of the Ten Great Empires, only the strongest one has two cultivators at the Heavenly Martial Realm! No one is at the Divine Martial Realm here. We’ve only heard of their legends in the past!”

Long Chen was putting on an excited face, but he was secretly calm as he noted what Jiang Cheng had explained to him. He soon had a better picture of the world here. He knew that the Heavenly Passage Realm was the basic strength of those at the Divine Martial Empire, while those at the Earthly Martial Realm were the strong cultivators. The Heavenly Martial Realm were probably people at the highest echelons of the Ten Thousand Nations Territory, and there were no Divine Martial Realm cultivators there.

Jiang Cheng thought Long Chen was from the boonies, but Long Chen had actually encountered a lot of strong people.

That means Ling Xi’s grandmother, father, and mother are probably at the Divine Martial Realm, or maybe even stronger?

“Brother Yang, you might be the strongest in your birthplace, but you are nothing here. Once you get your identity token, you have to keep a low profile and increase your strength. You might have a chance to become strong one day. It’s best if you join a good sect, as they can support you in your cultivation.” Jiang Cheng looked at Long Chen earnestly.

“You are right. I’ve heard of the Ancient Demon Domain and wanted to go there.”

“Ancient Demon Domain?” Jiang Cheng’s expression changed subtly.

“What’s wrong?” Long Chen was confused.

“Nothing ... The Ancient Demon Domain is good, and the Demon Emperor Jiang Wuxie is not only strong, but he also has the same surname as me ...” Jiang Cheng chuckled.

Long Chen nodded. He knew something was wrong, but he said nothing as they traveled to the city.

“Brother Jiang, what is a royal crystal?”

“The royal crystal is a special crystal that contains martial essence. You can only absorb it once you are at the Three Martial Realm. It accelerates your cultivation speed. If you have a lot of them, your strength will increase at a rapid rate. Royal crystals, emperor crystals, and divine crystals are the treasures of cultivators at the Three Martial Realms. They each correspond to what realm they are best suited to use, with the royal crystal at the Earthly Martial Realm, the emperor crystal at the Heavenly Martial Realm, and the divine crystal at the Divine Martial Realm. But there are not a lot of emperor crystals here in the Ten Thousand Nations Territory. They have only been recorded to exist in ancient times.”

“The royal crystal is also used as a currency, right?” Long Chen knew that items that could help with one’s cultivation were almost always used as currency.

“Of course. A single royal crystal is equivalent to ten million Heavenly Passage Pills! That is an incredible amount of wealth. Killing someone at the top ten spots on the bounty board would set you up for life!”

Long Chen smiled. “Some of the people in the top ten spots are at the Earthly Martial Realm, right?”

“Yes. The top three are all at the Earthly Martial Realm. Even the elusive Long Chen at the third spot is at the Earthly Martial Realm! Long Chen only reached the third spot on the bounty board in the past few months. He killed someone important in the Martial Alliance to achieve that. The Martial Overlord got so angry that he swore to give a hundred royal crystals to those that killed Long Chen!” Jiang Cheng’s eyes were filled with admiration and greed.

Long Chen was stunned. He thought the middle-aged cultivator from before was just toying with him. How could his cultivation match with the Long Chen on the bounty board? To think that the man was serious about it.

“Brother Jiang, what about demonic beasts, spiritual herbs, and Divine Arms? How are they categorized here?”

“Heaven-tier demonic beasts, techniques, and spiritual herbs are the most common. They are everywhere here. Anything above the Heaven-tier is considered a treasure. Demonic beasts that surpass the Heaven-tier are considered to be at the top of the ecosystem. The Divine Phoenix is one of them. Just like cultivation, the spiritual herbs, demonic beasts, Divine Arms, and techniques are separated into three categories: king, emperor, and divine. Similar to the crystals, we don’t have any Divine-tier items in the Ten Thousand Nations Territory, while most of the Emperor-tier items are controlled by the few strongest individuals. Emperor-tier demonic beasts can destroy their surroundings with ease! As for King-tier ones, most of them are considered treasures that people covet. The Divine Phoenix is a King-tier demonic beast.”

“So above the Four Basic Realms are the Three Martial Realms? Demonic beasts, Divine Arms, spiritual herbs, and techniques can be separated into the king, emperor, and divine tiers. Is that correct? There’s also the royal crystals, emperor crystal, and divine crystal.” Long Chen felt his head pounding from all the information.

“That’s correct.”

Long Chen nodded because he had learned a lot from him. He also had a framework of how the world worked from here onwards.

“Thank you very much.”

“No need to thank me. That said, where did you get your demonic wolf?” Jiang Cheng looked at Xiaolang, revealing a hint of greed in his eyes.

“It’s from my hometown.” Long Chen wasn’t sure why Jiang Cheng kept talking about the wolf.

“I wonder, where is your hometown?” Jiang Cheng wanted to know.

“I can’t say. We’ve just met.” Long Chen couldn’t fully trust Jiang Cheng yet. He was afraid that Jiang Cheng would bully the Cangyang Kingdom with his superior strength. He had already realized the problem when he was fighting earlier, so Long Chen had killed those who had heard him say that he came from the Cangyang Kingdom.

“Sorry, I was too rash,” Jiang Cheng said.

“It’s alright. Do you know the name of the demonic beast?” Long Chen turned the question around.

Jiang Cheng smiled bitterly and shook his head. “I was interested in it because I had never seen it before. I’m actually very interested in demonic beasts and read a lot about them, but I never saw one with an engraving of the sun on the forehead. I do know the weaker Moon Devouring Wolf though.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t sound like he was lying, but Long Chen still raised his guard.

I still need to keep my guard up around him because this is not my home. He might be kind enough to explain so much to me while even preparing a golden identity token for me, but there’s no harm in being careful.

Jiang Cheng looked up and said excitedly, “Brother Yang, look! We’ve arrived at Yellow Martial City!”