Ooom!
Within the mountain cave, the bright myriad-colored radiance extended, consuming Jiang He’s group of six.
***
At the same time, outside the cave.
One of the monks muttered, “I seem to hear that brat musing about the scenery within the Womb Realm… is he taking the Diamond Sect for a tourist spot?”
Then, another monk came behind the head monk and growled, “Brother, Jiang He is exceedingly arrogant and shows utter disdain towards our sect. The Womb Realm is the Secret Realm of the Diamond Sect, and though Wang Hou was promised six entries, we should not have let Jiang He in at all because of his disrespect towards our fellowship.”
The monk was Ciren Deji, one of the ranked monks of the Diamond Sect and the divine-conversion tier lama who had clashed physically against Jiang He in the temple just now.
The head monk turned toward Ciren Deji at that and said, “From this day forth, anyone in the Diamond Sect who would provoke Jiang He shall be treated as traitors against the sect.”
“Ciren Deji, pack your things and leave this mountain. There are many Ferals in the Western Frontier and the Martial Arts Department had only been founded recently, therefore lacking resources and elites. After leaving the mountain, you should pick a city to stand guard, and you may return after three years.”
“Head monk!”
Shocked, Ciren Deji was about to say something else, only for the head monk to wave him off and flatly saying, “Go. This is the will of your guru.”
Gritting his teeth, Ciren Deji bowed and left respectfully.
***
“So this is the Secret Realm of legends?”
“What a fine cultivation spot!”
Beside a stream in the Womb Realm, Cheng Dongfeng’s eyes lit up as he exclaimed in delight, “The Yuan Qi here is at least thirty times more concentrated than the outside, and cultivating seven days here is more than cultivating outside for a year!”
“…”
Jiang He exclaimed in surprise, “Old Cheng, did your biological teacher teach you mathematics? If the Yuan Qi is 30 times more concentrated here, it would mean one day cultivating here is a month of cultivating outside. How did seven days become a year?”
Cheng Dongfeng grinned. “The concentration of Yuan Qi helps a lot for ascending past the bottlenecks between certain tiers. For one, I would have needed up to three months of cultivating out there to rise from rank-seven novice-pinnacle to rank-seven intermediate, but within this Secret Realm, I would ascend in just one day!”
“There’s a bottleneck between rank-seven novice-pinnacle and rank-seven intermediate?”
Jiang He shook his head earnestly. “That’s a blind spot in my knowledge. After all, I’ve never encountered any bottleneck in my cultivation, and only ever get there as naturally as a river flows downstream. Ascending so naturally is such a bother!”
The other five promptly turned to Jiang He with faces blue with shock, with Cheng Dongfeng especially gritting his teeth. “Jiang He, that’s uncalled for—we’re all friends here.”
That naturally made Jiang He retract the words ‘I envy you people, having bottlenecks while my cultivation remains ever dull and boring’ that were on the tip of his tongue…
Hence, he looked around to find trees, flowers, and fields of grass around them and atop the mountains.
While it had been was a little past midnight outside, it was now daytime in the Womb Realm—like the head monk had put it, this was a world in itself unaffected by the outside.
Jiang He looked around, but could not find any clues.
“The Womb Realm may be a Secret Realm left by the Diamond Sect founding masters, so what could a martial arts and immortal path newbie even see?” Jiang He thought, and then looked at the sun hanging high above.
It was very huge, but it did feel ‘hot’ as it usually would otherwise, and was merely ‘huge’ in the visual sense.
Clearly, the sun was created by artificial means. Real suns were stars after all, and no matter how impressive the Diamond Sect founding masters were, they could not have plucked the sun and dumped it into their Secret Realm, could they?
“What are you looking at, Jiang He?”
Chen Jingzhou could not help asking after noticing that Jiang He’s eyes were fixated on the sun.
“Looking at the sun.”
Jiang He had not turned away, but was continuing to stare at the sun as he asked in return, “Old Chen, how do you think that artificial sun was made?”
“Might be some mysterious treasure or something along those lines.”
Chen Jingzhou deduced, before going on to say, “Everyone, our entry into this Secret Realm did not come easy. Seize the moment to cultivate, so that your abilities would take a great leap forward in these seven days.”
With that, Chen Jingzhou left, sword in hand.
It was indeed easier to grasp ‘will’ in here, and he already couldn’t wait to develop his sword will.
“I’m off to cultivate too.”
He Litong said—he had spoken few words on their journey here, and it appeared that this descendant of a founding father and hero was not that good with people.
Zhou Rui and Yang Chengwei had split up as well. They had found themselves an acceptable domain nearby and began to cultivate—the concentration of Yuan Qi in here was mostly consistent everywhere, meaning that it was the same no matter one cultivated, and as long as they were not disturbing each other.
In the end, only Cheng Dongfeng and Jiang He were left.
“Aren’t you going to cultivate, Jiang He?”
Cheng Dongfeng asked, and when he found Jiang He still looking up at the sun above, he could not help adding, “It’s just a manmade sun, what’s there to nitpick about? I’m off to cultivate then.”
With that, Cheng Dongfeng sat cross-legged beside the lake in meditation.
Jiang He hence looked away from the sun to glance at Cheng Dongfeng…
And silently left.
Unlike the other six, Jiang He came here on a pleasure trip to have a breather and relax, and kill the Golden-Crowned Black Eagle for payback to what happened outside Jiangnan City. Having killed two more Feral Kings in the Red Toad King and the Violet-Crowned Golden Eagle, the purpose of his trip was basically more than fulfilled.
And despite the trifling displeasure upon arriving at the Diamond Sect later, the net profit of two hundred and eighty Orirocks meant that it remained a trifle.
“So…”
“My objective of coming here to the Western Frontier has already been met?”
Jiang He hence strolled through the Secret Realm, enjoying the scenery, taking some photos and eating some grilled food.
It took him around a day to map out the surface area of the Womb Realm, which was over ten thousand squared kilometers. That was not vast, but certainly not small—most major cities were two thousand squared kilometers at best, even when their suburban areas were included.
“That said, the Womb Realm is ten times bigger than Lingzhou City… but how big is the mountain behind the Diamond Realm’s temples in comparison?”
“This is a little similar to my farmyard back home.”
This perhaps involved knowledge of spatiality.
Indeed, Jiang He had his doubts—it was claimed that Zero Void-elites could create Secret Realms, but were those elites this impressive?
Did this not concern the fundamental principles of space?
“Maybe I’m overthinking this. It might have been opened by a completely different method instead…”
Nonetheless, it was a surprise delight for Jiang He that night and day were reversed on the inside compared to the outside. After all, his biological clock was usually upended—he never felt drowsy at night, and he simply could not get out of bed during the day.
But when the sun rose again on his second day inside the Womb Realm, Jiang He began to feel bored.
He simply…
Had nothing to do at all.
He tried to keep his patience and cultivate, but he found it dull in less than two hours, and hence grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds as he wandered around the Secret Realm again.
And on that day, he beat up all eight Diamond Sect disciples he encountered.
On the third day, he beat up several more Diamond Sect disciples too.
By the fourth day…
Aside from the divine-tempest elite who entered, Jiang He had already beaten up the other twenty-nine Diamond Sect disciples at least once… Of course, there might be discrepancies with that number, since some of the Diamond Sect disciples were unlucky enough to run into Jiang He in all three days, and were therefore beaten more than once.
Then, on the fifth day…
Jiang He was frowning a little even as he traversed the mountain creeks of the Womb Realm.
Where on earth had that divine-tempest monk gone?
“Since I’ve already beaten up the other twenty-nine, leaving him untouched would make me appear to be biased… I’m so bored anyway, so I guess I’ll look around and beat him up. ”
Meanwhile, even as Jiang He remained ever bored from idleness, the Diamond Sect disciples were losing their minds.
In a cave within the womb realm, all thirty Diamond Sect disciples had gathered, with everyone’s faces green and swollen while their bodies showing various injures… aside from the divine-tempest high monk.
The high monk’s visage appeared slightly younger than Chen Jingzhou. His figure was strapping, and he stood at one point nine meters.
His name was River White Nima.
It was a quite unique name. As a personal disciple of the Diamond Sect’s guru, he inherited ‘River White’ from the guru’s own name, ‘River White Scarlet Fierce’. Moreover, ‘Nima’ referred to the sun here at the Western Frontier, instead of being an expletive[1].
And now, River White Nima was frowning at the many disciples around him. Being a personal disciple of the guru, he was equal in rank to the head monk, and was also the mentor of these disciples’ mentors.
“Master Nima!”
“Master Nima… you have to stand up for us!”
The many Diamond Sect disciples were crying out, with one particular rank-nine pinnacle lama pausing as he grimaced in pain between words, “Master Nima… that Jiang He is too much. If this continues, the thousand-year prestige of the Diamon Sect would crumble under his hands.”
As River White Nima asked them what happened, everyone spoke at once and at length, but in the end, it was clear Jiang He was out looking for trouble.
He would use various excuses to challenge the monks when he met them, and whether they accept it, all of them would suffer a vicious beating.
Fury showing on his face, River White Nima growled, “Continue on your cultivation and do not worry. I shall settle this with Jiang He myself.”
Leaving the cavern, River White Nima went straight down the mountain to find Jiang He.
The opening of the Secret Realm was not easy and it costs a lot, and everyone’s cultivation must not be squandered only because of Jiang He.
Even so, River White Nima was not aware that Jiang He was looking for him too.
Be that as it may, the Womb Realm was quite wide and he gave up after over an hour.
Lying down on the grass and taking out a handful of sunflower seeds, he started munching on them while he stared at the sun above, a curious idea suddenly occurring to him then—
“The sun and moon of the Womb Realm must have manifested from some treasure. Would this place blow up if I get up there and pluck them?
“And if I could pluck them, can I plant them?”
[1] Nima (尼玛) is pronounced the same as ‘your mum’ in mandarin, which is used as a swear word
