The two great Sacred Lands of martial arts had several other obvious traits: they protected their own, they were overbearing, and they did not participate in struggles for supremacy.
Take the Divine Saber Hall located within Yanzhou, for example. Its status was transcendent, and even imperial power could not suppress it. Although Tan Changming was a local tyrant with a great army at his command, he could only maintain a relationship of well water not offending river water with it, and even had to make certain concessions when necessary.
The root of it was that the Divine Saber Hall was a force devoted to the Way of the Saber and extremely protective of its own. Talented saber wielders emerged from within one after another, and it possessed countless experts.
There were even unclear, inexplicable ties between Tan Changming himself and the Divine Saber Hall. Thus, rumors circulated among the common people that the Extinction Cross Slash he cultivated had originated from a supreme technique within the Divine Saber Hall.
According to Lu Hou'er, although the Pudu Cult and the Divine Saber Hall appeared to have no entanglements on the surface, the two sides seemed to share some sort of connection. Because the Pudu Cult held considerable influence among the common people, whenever it found special talents—such as children with Saber Bones, saber physiques, or a natural sensitivity toward cultivating the Way of the Saber—it would send them into the Divine Saber Hall.
First, this drew the two sides closer together, serving as an alternative sort of protection fee.
Second, although those children sent into the Divine Saber Hall possessed astonishing talent, they were often born into impoverished families. Through their connection with the Pudu Cult, they gained a chance to change their fates. Naturally, they would owe the cult a