The Eternal Sacred Land had the Five Great Gentlemen among its younger generation. Of these five, the title of foremost genius had once belonged to Sui Chen. Ever since Jiang Chen’s appearance, the former champion had been perpetually annoyed by this new rival’s existence.
When Sui Chen had encountered Xiahou Zong in the tournament of geniuses, he had immediately surrendered without resistance.
The sacred land had allowed them to do so. In fact, that had been part of the predetermined strategy.
The option had been perfectly fine for him to take.
However, when Jiang Chen met Xiahou Zong head-on in battle, he gave an excellent performance by slaying Xiahou Zong on the spot.
The difference between them had caused Sui Chen’s title of strongest to pass onto Jiang Chen. Now the latter was the best and brightest among the Eternal Sacred Land’s younger generation, and unmistakably its heir.
This grand competition between the ten sacred lands’ geniuses would be a new stage for them.
The Eternal Sacred Land knew very well that if it sent only the Five Great Gentlemen, it had no chance of excelling. Only Jiang Chen could decisively win an overwhelming victory.
Among the other gentlemen, numbers two and five – Wu You and Gan Ning – had fought against Jiang Chen before and thus respected his strength. They were on reasonably good terms.
The venerated forefather didn’t travel with them. Instead, the first prime and Elder Ziju led their team alongside a few other elders. The second and third primes stayed back at headquarters.
The fact that the first prime was personally attending showed Jiang Chen how important this competition was to the Eternal Sacred Land. Any one of the three primes would have been important enough to go otherwise. If the venerated forefather wasn’t unavailable because of business, he likely would’ve gone as well.
Even so, he would still make the time to show up when the competition actually began. It was obvious that the upcoming competition was a momentous occasion.
Within the Eternal Sacred Land’s airboat, Wu You and Gan Ning squeezed as much time as they could out of their schedules to ask Jiang Chen about martial and pill dao.
Sui Chen and the other two got along with Jiang Chen a lot worse. Sui Chen especially couldn’t accept Jiang Chen’s takeover of his old title. He knew that Jiang Chen was stronger than him in every area, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t jealous.
He became all the more infuriated when he saw Wu You and Gan Ning consorting with Jiang Chen. Where was their pride? Hadn’t they lost to Jiang Chen? Why were they giving him the time of the day?
Jiang Chen didn’t bother trying to guess at what Sui Chen was thinking. Because Wu You and Gan Ning were incredibly amiable toward him, he also couldn’t just brush them off. The two young men appreciated this opportunity. Every question they asked was valuable to their cultivation.
Jiang Chen was very patient when it came to answering questions. A few hints and suggestions from his wealth of knowledge yielded a tremendous amount of benefit.
The Eternal Sacred Land was happy to see this happen. They wanted Jiang Chen to improve the other geniuses with his presence and help them progress. Perhaps he could also fuel their footsteps through inspiration.
Thus, when Sui Chen and the other two youths gave Jiang Chen the cold shoulder, the first prime didn’t exactly approve. People who had such petty personalities were hard-pressed to succeed even with the talent. For starters, they couldn’t objectively examine the difference between others and themselves.
Wu You and Gan Ning’s humble curiosity on the other hand, was quite appropriate.
When the airboat neared its destination, the first prime suddenly issued a command for it to turn and set course in a different direction.
Surprised, the others asked the reason why. “Myriad Abyss has been restless recently,” the first prime smiled, “and our initial location was a smokescreen. The real location is Sandplain Island.”
“Huh?” Everyone else was shocked.
Jiang Chen nodded to himself. The ten sacred lands were being reasonably cautious. They must have felt the threat from the escaped experts.
Sandplain Island was a very remote place. The airboat headed north for another day or two before reaching its locality.
Sky and sea seemed to meet here in a curtain of endless mist. It would have been very risky to sail through.
Just like the island Divine Kasyapa had chosen, Sandplain Island contained a secret realm as well. It was obvious that the Ten Divine Nations cared a great deal about this competition.
In fact, preparations had probably been in the works for a long time.
After they passed through the entrance to the secret realm, the airboat landed upon Sandplain proper. The island clearly hadn’t seen human life for a very long time with its primordial aura. Jiang Chen marveled at the scenery around him.
As expected of a secret realm. I didn’t expect Myriad Abyss to have so many islands hidden away like this. No wonder it was able to rise above the human domain with the passage of time. Resources are abundant here.
The cultivators of Myriad Abyss came from the various domains of Divine Abyss. There probably hadn’t been many native cultivators, if any at all. Only after two or three hundred thousand years of flourishing had Myriad Abyss achieved its current state.
The Eternal Sacred Land’s airboat attracted a lot of attention the moment it appeared.
Within the vessel, Jiang Chen gasped at the sizable crowd below. So many had arrived already?
“Haha, it seems we’re one of the final arrivals,” the first prime smiled. She didn’t appear to mind this fact. Instead, she was rather proud of it. The late arrivals were often the stars of the show.
It was positively bustling below the airboat. The ten nations’ factions and various second- and third-rate factions had all sent representatives.
Jiang Chen was secretly astonished at the volume of people. He smiled wryly to himself. “With so many participants, the location will get out anyway even with the trick of swapping locations.”
Still, it was probably better to put any troublemakers on short notice. It would require exponentially larger amounts of effort to attempt to disrupt the proceedings here then.
Many factions came forward to greet the Eternal Sacred Land’s arrivals.
