Warriors and Cultivators

Ye Qin was astonished.

So the Yellow Sphere was actually a ghost?

Immortals and ghosts existed only in the old folk tales of Ping Province. Ye Qin had never believed in ghosts or immortals. But after so many strange things had happened over the past year, after a Purple Mansion had appeared inside him and he had spent so long in the boundless void, he no longer felt much resistance to all sorts of talk about ghosts and gods.

"Laugh all you like, old ghost. Let's see how long you can keep it up!"

Ye Qin gritted his teeth in hatred. Nan Tianba had gone from being an old bastard to an old ghost. No matter how Nan Tianba tried to sweet-talk him into producing more White Glow, Ye Qin was no longer tempted. He simply sat cross-legged inside the barrier with his eyes closed, no longer letting any White Glow appear and give the old ghost an undeserved boon.

With his feeble power at the second level of the Qi Refining Stage, and without knowing a single spell, he could do nothing to the old ghost at the fourth level of the Qi Refining Stage.

But the old ghost could not break through the Life Primordial Spirit Stele's barrier either, so there was nothing he could do to Ye Qin.

Nan Tianba wanted to consume the White Glow to increase his cultivation, but he could no longer trick Ye Qin into helping him. He was frantic with anxiety.

He had now confirmed that Ye Qin really was the master of this Floating Island and could control those mysterious White Glows. The discovery filled him with rage and jealousy, leaving him bitterly frustrated, yet utterly helpless.

"If only I'd come a step sooner! If I'd arrived earlier and entered the barrier around this Floating Island first, making the Great Stele acknowledge me as its master, perhaps this mysterious Floating Island would have been mine. Then my cultivation would have advanced by leaps and bounds. I might even have broken through to the middle levels of the Qi Refining Stage—levels five or six—and reached the advanced stage before my life was over. What a pity!"

When his physical body was destroyed, he had been forty years old and had just reached the fifth level of the Qi Refining Stage. Then he had wasted twenty years inside the Cyan Jade Pendant, losing a great deal of his vital energy and lifespan. As a result, his cultivation had plunged to the fourth level of the Qi Refining Stage. Casting a fireball spell on the Floating Island had consumed even more of his vital energy, and now he could barely maintain the fourth level.

He had lived for sixty years, and he probably did not have much lifespan left. He had thought there was no hope of ever returning to the fifth level of the Qi Refining Stage in this lifetime. But now he had discovered that he could cultivate on this Floating Island without a physical body. The prospect was immensely tempting.

As soon as Nan Tianba thought of this, his feverish longing surged uncontrollably, and his jealousy of Ye Qin grew even stronger. "Kid, what will it take for you to let those White Glows appear again? Name your price. Whatever it is, I'll agree to it."

Ye Qin kept his eyes closed and said nothing, ignoring him completely.

Nan Tianba flew back and forth in midair, frantic with worry. He tried every kind of persuasion, even swallowing his pride to beg and plead.

But Ye Qin clung to one hard-and-fast principle: if he couldn't get anything from the old ghost, then the old ghost wouldn't get the slightest benefit from him either. He had worked hard to cultivate that vital energy, and letting the old ghost profit from it had taught him a lesson. Once was enough. He would never try it a second time.

Nan Tianba gave up hope.

They drifted about the Floating Island, bored out of their minds.

The old ghost had gone twenty years without talking to anyone. Now that he had finally found someone to talk to, he could hardly keep his mouth shut. He began rambling, telling Ye Qin about cultivators, his Nan Clan, the gangs of Ping Province, and the state of the entire Wu Kingdom, all to while away the tedious loneliness.

Ye Qin listened in silence without joining in. From the old ghost's words, he gradually learned some of the most basic facts.

For example, the difference between warriors and cultivators.

Warriors and cultivators were two entirely different things. Though they lived on the same continent, they usually had little contact with each other.

Warriors cultivated internal energy and roamed the martial world of mortals. The old ghost called them ordinary mortals. They usually formed gangs, recruited large numbers of followers, and banded together to dominate the towns and cities of the mortal world. Their highest goal was to master peerless martial arts.

Cultivators, on the other hand, cultivated immortal energy. At first, they were Rogue Cultivators. These Rogue Cultivators married and had children, passing down cultivation techniques within their families. Over time, those families grew into cultivator clans.

Cultivators pursued the path to immortality: extending their lifespans, refining essence and energy, establishing their foundations, forming golden cores, and ascending to immortality. For this reason, cultivator clans usually lived in seclusion and cultivated in private, rarely appearing in the world. They seldom involved themselves in the affairs of the martial world, contacting ordinary mortals only when they needed something.

To cultivate immortality, one needed to be born with a Five Elements Spiritual Root. People with Five Elements Spiritual Roots were one in ten thousand in this world, and those who could embark on the path of cultivation were rarer still.

The Wu Kingdom was a small country. The cultivator clans in its various provinces and commanderies usually had very few members—some had only one or two, while even the largest had no more than a dozen. Yet their strength was extraordinary.

A cultivator at the early stage of the Qi Refining Stage, levels one through three, could disregard even the greatest martial artists in the world as long as they knew a few low-level spells. If a cultivator reached the middle stage, levels four through six, they could wipe out every warrior in an entire province or commandery. Cultivators at the advanced stage, levels seven through nine, would not deign to appear in the mortal world. It would be beneath their dignity.

And yet, cultivators and cultivator clans inevitably had countless ties to warriors and their gangs.

That was because cultivating required enormous wealth, Spirit Stones, spirit herbs, and spiritual items to aid one's progress. These spirit herbs and Spirit Stones were scattered throughout countless mountains and forests, making them extremely difficult to find.

Cultivators never had enough time to cultivate. How could they be willing to spend so much of it searching for spiritual items in remote, treacherous wilderness? Their only option was to control the gangs of the mortal world from behind the scenes and use the martial world's gangs and vast numbers of warriors to send thousands upon thousands of people in search of precious spirit herbs and Spirit Stones hidden deep in the mountains and forests.

So even though cultivators lived in seclusion, they still kept in touch with the warriors of the mortal world.

The Nan Clan was one such cultivator clan in Ping Province, Wu Kingdom. It had four adult cultivators and one minor. It was considered a flourishing cultivator clan, ruling over more than ten thousand li of Ping Province and secretly controlling its ten major gangs.

However, the Nan Clan's influence was limited to Ping Province. It was not necessarily all that powerful in the Wu Kingdom as a whole.

As the head of the Nan Clan, Nan Tianba possessed the rare single Earth-type spiritual root and cultivated extremely quickly. In his prime, at forty years old, he had reached the fifth level, becoming the most powerful young clan head in the Nan Clan's history.

After reaching the fifth level of the Qi Refining Stage, Nan Tianba's ambitions swelled dramatically. He led the Nan Clan's three adult cultivators into neighboring Ding Province, hoping to expand the clan's territory and obtain more Spirit Stones and spirit wood.

Ding Province belonged to the Feng Clan, whose strength had been about equal to the Nan Clan's for nearly a century. But Nan Tianba never imagined that the Feng Clan had also produced a rare cultivation master in recent years, one who had already reached the sixth level of the Qi Refining Stage and was far stronger than anyone in the Nan Clan.

The result was inevitable. The Feng Clan's head killed Nan Tianba on the spot, destroying his physical body and leaving only his Primordial Spirit to escape. His cultivation plummeted from the fifth level of the Qi Refining Stage to the fourth. By chance, he sealed himself inside a piece of Cyan Jade, preserving his Primordial Spirit from dissipating and becoming a ghost.

As for the rest of the Nan Clan, some were dead and the others had fled.

Nan Tianba had spent twenty years inside the Cyan Jade Pendant, his Primordial Spirit's vital energy constantly dissipating and his cultivation continuing to decline. In another year or two, he would probably fall back to the third level of the Qi Refining Stage.

Twenty years had passed, and Nan Tianba himself had no idea whether the Nan Clan still existed. Most likely, it had fallen victim to the Feng Clan. So when he muttered to himself about the past, he had little reason to hold back.

Damn, the guys in the reviews are bringing some serious firepower—machine guns, howitzers, even bombers. Baili can barely hold them off. I'll add another chapter tonight and speed up the plot. I'll finish Nan Tianba's storyline today.

Please vote!

.