Time flew by. When you were immersed in cultivation, it really did pass quickly.
In the blink of an eye, Feng Hui and the others had been traveling through higher dimensions for over a month.
"We'll reach the Eastern Domain Great World soon. Get ready."
Teacher Wala's voice reached the ten young people in their separate rooms aboard the ship.
"Are we finally there?" Feng Hui opened his eyes and slowly stood up.
Everyone soon gathered in the ship's main hall.
A moment later, the ship slowed down and left the higher dimensions, reappearing in the normal emptiness of the universe.
"Is this the Eastern Domain Great World?"
The ten young people stood aboard the ship, staring through the cabin at the view before them, deeply shaken.
Far away in the void, an immense world hung silently.
From the ship's cabin, they could see a continent beneath a rounded sky. The land stretched so far... Although the ship was still an incredibly long way from it, Feng Hui couldn't see its edge even from aboard the ship.
The Eastern Domain Great World was vast and boundless, like some enormous beast from ancient legends, lying silently in the embrace of the void.
The continent's outline flickered in the light of the distant sun, as if telling the tale of its ancient and mysterious history.
Compared with this immense world, an individual seemed more insignificant and powerless than ever, as though their existence were no more than a tiny brushstroke in this grand painting.
It truly was one of the five supporting worlds in the Holy Land Universe's structure.
Gazing at the immense world before him, Feng Hui finally understood why Teacher Wala had said that once they saw a true great world, they would understand why the Jia 312 Plane was merely a small plane.
In his human form, Feng Hui had been to the headquarters of the Virtual Universe Company, visited Chaos City in the Primordial Universe, and seen supercontinents floating in the starry sky. He had seen his fair share of the world.
And yet he was still deeply shaken by this immense world.
It wasn't the continent's area or size that shocked him, but the concentration of cosmic essence and the abundance of the world origin gathered there.
Even from a great distance, he could still sense cosmic essence converging there, as if the great world before him were one of the universe's cores.
This was the difference between the two universes.
In the Prime Universe, the main territories were planets, star systems, star sectors, and star regions... These were the lands that the various races of the Prime Universe fought over.
Though there were also strange places such as Cosmic Secret Realms, the mainstream was still made up of countless planets. Those were where the Prime Universe's essence lay.
In the Prime Universe, it was like plants needing enough sunlight to grow. If they grew too densely, none of them would thrive.
The same principle applied to the formation of life in the Prime Universe. It was an extraordinary process. Whether flesh-and-blood life, mechanical life, plant life, or any other kind... all life absorbed the "essence" of the entire universe as it was nurtured.
Life was born and grew by absorbing the universe's special energies.
For example, if there were only one life-bearing planet within a thousand light-years, with ten billion people living on it, then nearly all the cosmic energy within that thousand-light-year range would go toward nurturing that single planet.
Yet in a "Cosmic Secret Realm," a population comparable to that of a Cosmic Kingdom might be crowded onto a single massive continent. The population density would be many times higher, so the "cosmic essence" each person received would naturally be far lower.
As for "Divine Kingdom Humans," their Divine Kingdoms lay in the cracks between spaces, outside the Prime Universe itself. The cosmic essence they could absorb was pitifully little—less even than what people living on the supercontinents in Cosmic Secret Realms received.
Thus, in the Prime Universe, people of the Cosmic Kingdoms who lived on life-bearing planets were the fewest in number, yet occupied the most territory and produced the greatest number of powerful beings.
Those who lived on the supercontinents in Cosmic Secret Realms received much less cosmic essence and found it difficult even to become Universe Venerables.
As for those who lived in Divine Kingdoms within the cracks between spaces, they received so little cosmic essence that, without some special opportunity, they were destined never to become Immortals.
But in the Eastern Emperor Holy Land Universe, the Eastern Domain Great World was one of the five supporting worlds in the universe's structure and a center where the Holy Land Universe's essence gathered. Naturally, things were different from the Prime Universe.
The Eastern Domain Great World looked much like the supercontinents in the Prime Universe's Cosmic Secret Realms, but in truth, they were worlds apart.
The Prime Universe had no master, only a simple Origin Will formed by the laws governing its vast operation.
But the Eastern Emperor Holy Land Universe had a master. Dongdi Ancestor, the universe's ruler, had deliberately shaped it around the Endless Divine Realm, supported by the five great worlds of the east, west, south, north, and center, with countless planes supplementing its structure. There was no way he would allow the universe's essence to be distributed evenly at random.
For the Holy Land Universe, having more clan members whose potential capped out at World Lord or Immortal was meaningless. Better to have fewer with greater potential than more with less.
Here, each Dongdi Clan member received roughly the same amount of cosmic essence. It was just that small planes had fewer people, so less essence gathered there overall, while great worlds had more people and thus more essence gathered in total.
This arrangement maximized the potential of the Dongdi Clan members. They wouldn't be like the Divine Kingdom Humans or the people on the continents in Cosmic Secret Realms of the Prime Universe, who could only cultivate to the World Lord or Immortal level. That allowed the Holy Land Universe, despite its weak universe origin and limited space, to continually produce generation after generation of young geniuses—and, in turn, generation after generation of powerful beings.
Of course, the Eastern Emperor Holy Land Universe was far, far smaller than the Prime Universe. Given the same amount of time, the quality and number of geniuses it produced couldn't possibly compare to the Human Race, one of the Prime Universe's six pinnacle races, which occupied vast stretches of its territory. It was simply that the Holy Land Universe offered a more complete system of cultivation and inheritance, allowing its geniuses to develop more fully.
Natural talent was certainly important to a genius, but later training and inheritance also played a tremendous role.
That was one of the Holy Land Universe's advantages.
Rumble! The ship began to descend rapidly.
Soon, with a whoosh, the hatch opened, and Teacher Wala led Feng Hui and the other nine students out.
The ship had landed on a huge plaza with no end in sight. It had to be tens of thousands of kilometers long and wide.
Many ships were already parked on the plaza. It seemed that plenty of people competing in the Eastern Domain Tournament had arrived early.
Now and then, young Dongdi Clan members stepped off the parked ships. Their appearances and scale colors varied, but all of them gave off the aura of Cosmic Levels.
"According to the notice I received, this year's Eastern Domain Tournament has over eighteen million contestants, but only the top ten thousand will be allowed to stay in the Eastern Domain Great World. And to receive special training and enter Dongdi Tower to inherit its teachings, you'll need to place in the top five hundred at the very least."
Teacher Wala glanced at the other ships on the plaza, then turned to Feng Hui and the other nine.
"Among the ten of you, everyone except Feng Hui will find it extremely difficult to stay in the Eastern Domain Great World. It's almost impossible."
"But... nothing is absolute. If you perform exceptionally well, even if you fail to place in the top ten thousand, you might still be taken on as a disciple by a powerful being in the Eastern Domain Great World and be allowed to stay."
"So... give it everything you've got!
Before you continue