In the Fire Cloud Kingdom, the Black Stone Mountain Range lay in the kingdom's southern region. The entire mountain range was black, and rough, black-gray rocks could be seen everywhere.
There were several thousand peaks of varying sizes. The larger peaks towered ten thousand zhang high, while the smaller ones were only a hundred or so zhang tall. The mountain range was scorching hot. It had once been a cluster of volcanoes, but beginning more than a thousand years ago, the volcanoes stopped erupting magma and all became dead volcanoes.
The Fire Cloud Sect, the greatest sect in the Fire Cloud Kingdom, had established a market on the outskirts of the Black Stone Mountain Range. The area was rich in fire spirit energy, and some spirit medicines rarely seen elsewhere grew there. There were also many Fire Attribute demon beasts, attracting numerous cultivators who came to hunt demon beasts and gather spirit medicines.
Deep in the Black Stone Mountain Range stood a thousand-zhang-tall mountain. From a distance, its shape closely resembled the forked branch of a V-shaped tree. More than fifty cultivators had gathered at its foot.
All these cultivators had a river pattern on their clothes. It was the symbol of the Profound Water Palace, the greatest sect in Xi Kingdom.
Three men and one woman stood at the front, while everyone else followed behind them.
An azure-robed elder with crane-white hair and a youthful complexion held a somewhat tattered parchment scroll. It contained a Terrain Map. A green-skirted woman in her early thirties, a yellow-robed elder in his early fifties, and a Red-Robed Giant stood on either side of the blue-robed elder. They were all Core Formation Cultivators, with the blue-robed elder having the highest cultivation, at Core Formation Layer 7.
A pale-blue water curtain enveloped them. They