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"The great sects of the world are all the tip of a spire. The foundation beneath them is made up of ordinary people and these small sects."
By a remarkable coincidence, Kuang Wuxin and the others besieging Kunlun were aboard a pitch-black ship at this very moment, while Luo Bei, who had left Northern Mang and was heading for Zhanzhou Marshland, was likewise sitting silently inside the cabin of a great ship painted entirely black, listening to the rushing water outside.
Zhanzhou Marshland was also known as Southern Zhanzhou, but it lay in the far east. The great ship Luo Bei was on rode the wind and cleaved the waves along a great river, first traveling west before turning eastward. Its hull was entirely plated with riveted iron sheets, each inscribed with runes that gave off faint ripples of magical power. It moved several times faster than an ordinary ship, and the two ancient characters "Blackwater" stood out prominently in relief upon its hull. This was no ordinary vessel, but a ship belonging to an Orthodox Xuanmen sect called Blackwater Gate.
Blackwater Gate was a sect that specialized in helping Orthodox Xuanmen sects trade with one another and profiting as an intermediary.
Tong Bugu had already told Luo Bei that there were at least a hundred sects in the world like Blackwater Gate, operating much like merchant firms and profiting by facilitating exchanges between cultivation sects.
So many sects existed purely as merchant firms because every sect controlled different resources. Some excelled at refining medicinal pills but lacked sufficient ingredients. Some controlled several spiritual mountains rich in medicinal herbs but produced nothing else... Nearly every sect wished to constantly strengthen itself, so trade between them was unavoidable. Thus, sects like Blackwater Gate arose as the times demanded.
For instance,