Predicament

Lu Ye stared fixedly at the back of his hand, only coming back to his senses after a long while.

Thinking back on everything that had happened, the thing on the back of his hand was undoubtedly connected to the Sect Master stamping it with that Great Seal.

He did not know what it was, but there were far too many things in this world that he did not know. The unknown was not frightening; for now, he could only face it calmly.

The good news, however, was that he had confirmed his location. He was indeed in the Spirit Stream Battlefield.

Merely seeing the battlefield's prefix gave Lu Ye an ominous feeling. If he was not mistaken, this was a battlefield that only those in the Spirit Stream Realm were qualified to enter.

He was just a minor cultivator who had opened three apertures, stranded in this unfamiliar place where danger lurked on all sides. Just now, he had only encountered a pack of wolves—but what if he encountered a group of cultivators?

Since it was a battlefield, there had to be cultivators here!

As for the two sides fighting within this battlefield, there was no need to think about it. They had to be the Vast Sky Alliance and Myriad Demon Ridge.

He could understand why the Sect Master had sent him in. Given the situation then, the Sect Master could not have fought anyone while bringing him along. If he had forced a fight, Lu Ye, a minor cultivator, would certainly have met a grim end. Sending him here had been an act of utter helplessness, a desperate attempt to carve out a path to survival for him.

The Sect Master seemed to have stuffed something into his robes earlier.

At that thought, Lu Ye hurriedly checked.

He quickly found a Storage Bag. Opening it, he took out several bottles, several stacks of paper resembling talismans, several sets of clothing, and then a Jade Slip.

He examined them one by one.

The bottles contained only two kinds of Spiritual Pills: Qi and Blood Pills and Spirit Nurturing Pills. There were more Spirit Nurturing Pills—two bottles holding around twenty pills in all—while there were fewer Qi and Blood Pills, less than ten in a single bottle.

As for the talisman papers, he had never seen them before, though he could vaguely guess what they were.

Sure enough, after examining them, he discovered that they were Spirit Talismans.

Among External Cultivators were those skilled in drawing talismans. Spirit Talismans could aid cultivators in battle or cultivation, but Lu Ye had never had access to such things before, so naturally he had never seen them.

There were many varieties of Spirit Talismans in the Storage Bag: defensive Vajra Talismans, offensive Fire Serpent Talismans, Breath Concealing Talismans for support, and Shadow Folding Talismans for concealing one's tracks. The purpose of every Spirit Talisman had been clearly written upon it, as though fearing Lu Ye would not understand. There were more than thirty in total.

A trace of warmth welled up in Lu Ye's heart as he looked at these things.

Without a doubt, the Sect Master had specially prepared all of them for him. Whether the Spiritual Pills before him or the Spirit Talismans, they were only suitable for cultivators of Lu Ye's level. The Sect Master had no use for any of them.

There was even less need to mention the clothing. It was clearly all made for a young man.

Thinking back to the days when the Sect Master had disappeared aboard the Flying Dragon Ship, Lu Ye understood. The Sect Master must have gathered these suitable items from disciples of other sects during those days.

Perhaps the Sect Master had intended to give them to him after returning to Ao Mountain, only for that incident to occur halfway through, forcing him to hand them over early.

For someone who had only just embarked on cultivation, these things were undoubtedly a tremendous fortune. Never mind the bottles of Spiritual Pills—even those Spirit Talismans alone seemed extremely valuable to Lu Ye.

After all, he had not found a single Spirit Talisman in Steward Yang's or Zhou Cheng's Storage Bags. This showed just how precious Spirit Talismans were, yet the Sect Master had gathered more than thirty at once, with talismans for every purpose.

Drawing in a soft breath, Lu Ye put the items away and picked up the Jade Slip.

If he had not guessed wrong, this Jade Slip should have been the one the Sect Master took out while fleeing with him. At the time, the Sect Master had asked whether he had heard of the Spirit Stream Battlefield. When Lu Ye said he had not, the Sect Master had taken out a Jade Slip and pressed it to his forehead.

It might contain some information the Sect Master wished to leave for him. The situation had been too urgent then for the Sect Master to explain, so he could only convey it in this manner.

Lu Ye circulated his Spiritual Power and poured it into the Jade Slip, but nothing happened, leaving him puzzled.

After thinking for a moment, he imitated the Sect Master and pressed the Jade Slip to his forehead before circulating his Spiritual Power once more.

This time, a flood of information surged into his mind, jolting his consciousness into a daze.

A moment later, he lowered the Jade Slip, his expression complicated.

The Jade Slip did indeed contain information left for him by the Sect Master, concerning the Spirit Stream Battlefield.

Nine Provinces was a world made up of nine great Continents, but the Nine Provinces World did not consist solely of these nine Continents. Beyond them, there were other spaces.

The Spirit Stream Battlefield was one of them.

No one knew where exactly the Spirit Stream Battlefield was located within the Nine Provinces World. Divine Sea Realm cultivators had once tried to uncover this secret, yet through countless years, no one had found any useful clues, and the matter was ultimately dropped.

The conflict between the Vast Sky Alliance and Myriad Demon Ridge was not confined to the Nine Provinces World. Their struggle in spatial battlefields like this was where it raged most fiercely.

To enter the Spirit Stream Battlefield, one had to rely on a Heaven's Mystery Pillar—the Crystal Pillar Lu Ye had seen before. Every sect possessed one. Even if a sect was destroyed, its pillar would remain. Over countless years, too many sects in the Nine Provinces World had perished to count, and thus Heaven's Mystery Pillars scattered through the wilderness were as numerous as Myriad Stars.

After cultivators of a sect entered the Spirit Stream Battlefield through their own Heaven's Mystery Pillar, they would appear in a fixed territory. This territory was generally built up into the sect's own Camp on the battlefield, with powerful cultivators stationed there year-round to prevent surprise attacks.

But if a cultivator did not enter the battlefield through their own sect's Heaven's Mystery Pillar, they would appear randomly somewhere on the battlefield.

Therefore, cultivators generally entered the battlefield through their own sect's Heaven's Mystery Pillar and rarely used those of other sects. Unless they received that sect's approval and had a mark branded with a particular Great Seal, they could not appear at that sect's Camp.

The circumstances Lu Ye and the Sect Master had faced did not allow the Sect Master much choice. Even knowing that sending Lu Ye into the Spirit Stream Battlefield meant courting disaster, he could only take a desperate gamble.

After examining the information in the Jade Slip, Lu Ye understood his predicament.

He was currently somewhere within the Spirit Stream Battlefield. As for where exactly, he did not know, because the Spirit Stream Battlefield was immensely vast, as large as an entire Continent.

The invisible thing on the back of his hand was a Battlefield Mark. Every cultivator who entered the battlefield possessed one, and it recorded that cultivator's origin, cultivation level, and Merit.

This thing also concerned his way out.

His Battlefield Mark had been branded by the Sect Master using the Crimson Blood Sect Sect Master's Great Seal. As a result, the mark shared a connection with the Heaven's Mystery Pillar at the Crimson Blood Sect's Camp. As long as he followed that connection, Lu Ye could reach the Crimson Blood Sect's Camp in the Spirit Stream Battlefield. Once there, he could return to the Crimson Blood Sect!