Capítulo 81: 4th Canyon Battle Temple
Everyone was stunned to learn that there were supposedly close to one million residents living within this 4th Trial Realm!
"Around 800,000 people live on the 1st level. Then there are 130,000 on the 2nd level, 35,000 on the 3rd level, 12,000 on the 4th level, 3,000 on the 5th level, 1,000 on the 6th level, 300 on the 7th level, 72 on the 8th level and six on the 9th level."
Seeing the mixture of stunned and dubious looks made the guide laugh.
"Well, the numbers on the lower levels are just approximate. However, the numbers on the 7th, 8th and 9th levels are known for certain, since the people on those levels are all ranked on the main headboard."
Yaan remained silent, listening to the talkative guide go on and on about everything he knew regarding the 4th Trial Realm, or rather, the '4th Canyon' as the residents here called it.
The reason that people here referred to this world as '4th Canyon' was quite simple - this was the 4th Trial Realm, and the entire place was like an enormous, nine layered canyon. For many of the residents in the 4th Trial Realm, this was their permanent home, they were born here, lived their lives here, and they would die here. As such, they didn't like calling it a 'trial realm' since it made their home feel too impersonal, hence the coining of the name '4th Canyon'.
Yaan half expected that he would be given a name badge or a tracking treasure, but apparently, the realm itself tracked the inhabitants, monitoring their achievements silently and without their notice.
Soon enough, the group of 23 were brought to their new 'homes'. Unlike the other small temples on the 1st level, these 'homes' were extremely primitive wooden huts.
In fact, this entire village was a run-down shanty town, occupied entirely by similar wooden huts! There were thousands of these huts in total, all closely cramped together.
As new arrivals in the 4th Trial Realm, they were to be given their own abode, but clearly, the starting abodes were not exactly lavish.
"Unacceptable." Zue Yin spat out the moment she looked inside. She didn't even go in, instead turning around and directly heading towards the Battle Temple!
"Eh?" When she turned to the side and found that Yaan had joined her, she felt surprised. A moment earlier, he didn't seem enthusiastic about joining her, nor did he seem to care about the lowly conditions in his abode.
"There was a rat in my hut…how am I supposed to read in peace when there are rats in my home?" Yaan sighed miserably.
"Pfft…" When she saw his expression, Zue Yin couldn't help but laugh. Honestly though, if she had found a rat in her home, she definitely would have had a more extreme reaction.
"Anyway, it seems like many of those on the 1st level are mortals. Those living in the nice temples on the 1st level should be weaker cultivators." Yaan summarised.
"Mm." Zue Yin nodded. "I imagine that many years ago, even the 1st level would have been filled with those at the Innate Qi Realm, with Qi Temple Realm Cultivators moving up to the 2nd level."
"True, but don't underestimate the people on higher levels." Yaan reminded her. "This trial is designed for body temperers. As a Qi refiner, you'll be extremely suppressed on higher levels compared to body temperers."
"Surely the difference can't be that extreme though?" She retorted, thinking that Yaan was exaggerating the differences between body temperers and Qi refiners.
She couldn't be blamed for her way of thinking. The only body temperer that she knew was Yaan himself, and he obviously wasn't a good example of a typical body temperer. Zue Yin saw Yaan as a freak, someone who couldn't be assessed using normal standards. As such, she believed that normal body temperers shouldn't have much of an advantage over her.
After a moment of silence, Yaan sighed. In this trial, he didn't know anybody, and he certainly didn't have anyone that he could call an 'ally'. Even though after his experience in the 3rd trial, Yaan was now extremely wary of considering anyone his 'ally', he understood the importance of having others to support you.
Right now, the only person he could somewhat trust was Zue Yin. She had proved her nature and her usefulness in the 3rd trial, and for now, it would be better for him if she remained alive.
"Remember the 2nd trial, the misty stairway?" Yaan suddenly asked.
"Of course, how could I forget? I barely even made it to the 100th step with the help of grandfather's talismans."
"Mm. I used no talismans. I reached the 600th step."
"Oh, I see." She nodded.
"The 600th step, hmm…" She muttered absentmindedly
"Wait…the 600th step?! Seriously?!" She suddenly turned to him and practically screamed in shock as she finally processed his words.
"Stop yelling!" Yaan glared at her, silencing her right away. "And yes, really. As I said, you shouldn't underestimate the advantage of body temperers in this place."
For a while, the two walked in silence. Zue Yin seemed to be seriously reflecting upon her own weaknesses, which Yaan was glad to see.
Zue Yin was the sort of ally he needed right now. She understood alchemy, and despite her young age, she was superb at identifying all sorts of materials.
Most importantly, she seemed too naive and stupid to betray him, for now at least.
Finally, after leaving the shanty town and crossing the barren plains, they found a large temple stationed in the middle of nowhere. At least hundreds of people were gathered around the temple, all engaged in various discussions and exchanges. Yaan and Zue Yin's arrival drew some attention, causing the general chatter to quieten down as they walked past.
Yaan examined these people closely, his eyes lighting up when he observed at least a few body temperers! However, they were all extremely weak, mostly limited to 1-Star Realm body temperers.
Although it looked strange for such a large and busy temple to be located in the middle of a barren wasteland, when Yaan squinted his eyes and looked around, he realised that it was positioned in a central location, an equal distance away from the various settlements on the 1st level.
The pair ignored the curious crowd, who had clearly been informed of their arrival from the outside world, and walked into the temple.
Right away, they were welcomed by two young men at the door. Both young men wore official looking robes which matched the red and grey colour scheme found in the temple, so when they expressionlessly asked for a toll fee, Zue Yin immediately took out her money.
Yaan narrowed his eyes and glared at the two young men, whilst stretching out one arm and preventing Zue Yin from handing over her money.
"Scram for me, or I'll challenge you and kill you both here and now." Yaan released his aura, causing the Qi Gathering Realm duo to become scared senseless and flee.
Even though it was impossible to kill someone outside of an official challenge, it wasn't smart to anger those who were significantly stronger than you. Clearly, the two young men had heard news of the new arrivals from the outside, and they planned to extort the ignorant outsiders of their money. However, when they realised that Yaan had seen through their act, and that he was so powerful that they almost collapsed on the spot, they felt truly fearful. After all, he was currently ranked lower than them, meaning that he had the right to challenge them directly.
Even if they refused the challenge, they would still lose everything they owned!
"…Thanks." Zue Yin sighed, feeling embarrassed that she'd fallen for such a simple ploy.
"Don't mention it." Yaan walked past Zue Yin. She stared at his back in a daze, before smiling and hurrying after him.
The battle temple was quite large, but at the same time, it wasn't huge, given that it supposedly catered to the 1st level's 800,000 residents. There were a dozen or so people in this place right now
"Welcome to the 4th trial's 1st level Battle Temple! Would you like to browse through the leaderboards?" He was greeted by a young looking woman, with the appearance of an attractive twenty something year old. She wore a polite smile and a red and grey uniform, a uniform which the two young men from before had clearly copied in order to perfect their scam.
"Show me the leaderboard with the strongest 25 people that I'm permitted to challenge." Yaan requested.
"Right away, sir. Your current overall ranking is 984,003. You are ranked 802,765 on the 1st level, putting you in the lower 50% of the 1st level. You may challenge anyone within the 1st level, or the lower 2nd level."
"I see." Yaan nodded. "How frequently can I issue a challenge? How often can I fight?"
The woman behind the counter was a spirit of the trial realm, but she was sentient and intelligent. She nodded and smiled politely as she listened, before replying with an almost rehearsed sounding answer.
"You may issue a single on-on-one challenge per half-level per day, for a maximum of three challenges per day. For example, today, you may issue challenges to those in the lower 1st, upper 1st and lower 2nd levels. You may also issue a single multi-opponent challenge each day. In these challenges, each opponent must reside within a different half-level. All challenged parties must accept the battle for the battle to go ahead. If any individual declines, they will lose by default and must accept the usual penalisation for declining a challenge. The other challenged parties who accepted will not be penalised. Lastly, if you are challenged by someone else, there is no limitation on the number of challenges you may accept."
After asking a few more questions, Yaan nodded slowly, more or less understanding how everything worked now. Basically, he could challenge at most six people each day - three one-on-one battles, and a single one-on-three battle. The multi-opponent challenges were limited to challenging three people, since he could still only challenge those at most two half-levels above himself, and he could only challenge one person from each half-level in this type of challenge.
"Well then…" Yaan glanced up at the clock on the wall.
There were clocks placed all around the 4th Trial Realm due to the operation of the challenges.
When you issued a challenge, you needed to state a time of challenge. The person being challenged could either accept this time, or, they could choose to fight exactly 24 hours after the proposed time instead. The challenged party was forced to either accept one of these times, or to admit defeat without fighting.
The only issue in all of this, was of course closed door cultivation. It became impossible to enter a period of focussed seclusion, when you could be challenged at any given moment, and you might have as little as a single day to prepare.
That said, there were ways around this issue. After winning a challenge, aside from winning your opponent's belongings and abodes, you would also win a single day of immunity. This immunity could be activated right away, or it could be saved and stacked up. After accumulating enough immunity, you could potentially enter seclusion for a set period of time.
Anyway, right now, Yaan was more interested in battling than entering seclusion. He had some books to read through and many resources to sort through, but this could be done between battles.
"Can you find me the richest out of all these people?" Yaan glanced at the attendant after briefly reading through the leaderboard of the strongest people on the 1st level.
"Apologies sir, but I am not at liberty to disclose this information."
"I see…well, I suppose the highest rankers should be the richest. Ok, I want to issue a challenge to this person." Yaan pointed at the name ranked highest on the lower 1st level.
"Time of challenge?"
"Today, 8pm."
"Of course sir, the challenge has been sent. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Mm. Can I set a challenge now, to be issued in one hour?" Yaan asked curiously.
He asked this because he couldn't issue both issues right now, incase both of his challenges were accepted at the same time, 24 hours from now. Challenges needed to be issued at least one hour apart from each other in order to prevent mishaps like this from occurring.
"This is indeed possible sir, but there is a cost involved. The cost for this is a single 1-Star Astral Crystal."
"Ugh…" Yaan slumped slightly. This was the local currency, which he obviously had none of right now, and there was no way to exchange goods within this Battle Temple.
In the outside world, recovery pills were used as a standard currency, and whilst those pills did still exist here and could even be purchased in the 1st level pagoda, 'Astral Crystals' were the standard currency in the 4th Trial Realm.
Astral Crystals themselves were not particularly impressive, they were essentially just natural sealing treasures. However, the mysterious entities contained within these shimmering black objects intrigued Yaan deeply.
An Astral Crystal was actually a sealed 'astral spirit'. As for what an astral spirit was…he had no idea! But what he did know, was that these astral spirits could be devoured and absorbed into the body, forming an astral tattoo on the physical flesh, providing the body with additional strength!
Vital Energy…fleshly body cultivation…blood essence…astral tattoos…the connection between all of these things confused Yaan, but he wanted to understand it. And now, he had the feeling, that this realm was where he may find his answers.
The Battle Temple spirit attendant drew Yaan out from his musings, giving him a recommendation for getting started in the 4th Trial Realm.
"Sir, if you visit the 1st level pagoda, you will be able to exchange common goods for Astral Crystals."
"Right…thank you."
Before leaving, Yaan watched Zue Yin step up to the front desk and immediately challenge someone in the lower 2nd level abode.
As they left the Battle Temple, Yaan cast Zue Yin a dull look. Did she not listen to him at all before? Did she not value her life?
"Look, I know what you said, but I want to move up and out of this level as soon as possible! This place is too miserable, and I can't stand looking up, knowing that the people on the higher levels are looking down on me!" Zue Yin actually glared up as she spoke, making Yaan feel speechless.
This girl was simply ridiculous.
Zue Yin seemed to lack all common sense regarding basic survival. However, her childish wilfulness assured Yaan that she was not the type of person to scheme against him. Besides, if she ever attempted such a thing, he felt certain that he would be able to see through it immediately. After his experience in the last trial realm, this was the only sort of 'ally' whom he felt like dealing with right now.
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