According to the Evergreen Hermit's account in the Evergreen Gazetteer.
The Western Wasteland was a vast region shaped roughly like a spindle laid on its side.
The spindle's westernmost end extended deep into the Cloudmist Mountains, its tip marking Windmist Immortal City, where Li Ping lived.
The Evergreen Hermit recorded in his book that, upon reaching the Immortal City, he had wanted to venture farther into the Cloudmist Mountains and discover what lay at their far end.
But after traveling tens of thousands of li into the Cloudmist Mountains and sensing the oppressive auras of more than one Demon King whose power rivaled a Core Formation cultivator's.
He discovered that his curiosity was not quite as strong as he had imagined, and chose to turn back.
Later, after consulting records left by cultivators of earlier generations, the Evergreen Hermit learned that a Core Formation cultivator had already explored the Cloudmist Mountains.
That cultivator had ventured nearly a million li into the Cloudmist Mountains, yet all he could see were boundless mountains with no end in sight.
Only when his supplies were almost exhausted had he finally been forced to return.
From this, the Evergreen Hermit concluded that the Cloudmist Mountains were far larger than the Western Wasteland. Perhaps only a Nascent Soul Cultivator could truly determine their extent.
To the south of the Western Wasteland lay the Forbidden Deathlands, utterly devoid of life.
Legend had it that, in ancient times, cultivators wielding great divine abilities had fought there, and every living thing in that region had been reduced to dust by the shock waves of their battle.
Countless years had passed since then, yet their lingering power still prevented any life from surviving there.
At first, the Evergreen Hermit believed the tale of battling cultivators was merely a rumor passed from mouth to mouth by ignorant mortals. Even the legendary Spirit Transformation cultivators could not have extinguished life across such a vast area with the shock waves of a battle.
To test this, he had even made thorough preparations and entered those vast deathlands, attempting to discover why nothing could survive there.
He found the reason quite easily.
It also left him utterly horrified. Every part of those deathlands was saturated with a destructive aura, and the farther he ventured, the more terrifying it became!
Any mortal who came into contact with that destructive aura would instantly have all their vitality drained away and die.
Even he, a Foundation Establishment cultivator, had taken fewer than a hundred steps before he dared go no farther.
The Evergreen Hermit remarked that the legend was not entirely without foundation.
To the east of the Western Wasteland, several nations at the spindle's other tip were the territory of Demonic Path cultivators.
The Evergreen Hermit valued his life. For his own safety, he had not traveled through those nations, but his gazetteer contained a considerable amount of information he had painstakingly gathered.
Based on that information, the Evergreen Hermit vaguely suspected that the Demonic Path cultivators were not native to the Western Wastes Cultivation World, but had crossed the Endless Vast Sea Desert to the east and entered the Western Wasteland from beyond.
Behind these Demonic Path cultivators, there seemed to be another cultivation world even more extensive than the Western Wasteland.
And their large-scale entry into the Western Wasteland seemed to have been an attempt to flee from something.
At the end, the Evergreen Hermit expressed his concern over the Demonic Path cultivators' invasion of the Western Wasteland.
He believed that unless the nations of the Western Wasteland united early to resist the Demonic Path invasion, the entire Western Wasteland would eventually fall under the rule of Demon Cultivators.
To support his argument, he also offered an example.
Over a hundred years earlier, the Demonic Path's Bloodshadow Sect had invaded the Nine Chariots Kingdom. The nations of the Western Wasteland had stood by and watched. In the end, the Heavenly Profound Sect, which had originally ruled the Nine Chariots Kingdom, was destroyed, and the kingdom was occupied by the Bloodshadow Sect.
At this point, Li Ping's expression finally brightened. Sure enough, beyond the Western Wasteland lay an even larger cultivation world.
Perhaps that cultivation world beyond the Endless Vast Sea Desert to the east had the conditions needed to produce Nascent Soul Cultivators, or even Spirit Transformation cultivators!
The Western Wastes Cultivation World did not even have a fourth-tier spirit vein. After breaking through to Core Formation, he would probably have no choice but to travel to that cultivation world to pursue higher realms on the path to immortality.
What a pity. Those Demon Cultivators who apparently came from elsewhere, along with the Endless Vast Sea, have cut off contact between the two cultivation worlds. Otherwise, I could learn more about that other cultivation world. At this thought, Li Ping could not help sighing inwardly.
Since he had resolved to be a cultivator who kept his head down and played it safe, he naturally would not rush recklessly into unfamiliar places.
If the day ever came when he truly set out for that cultivation world, he would certainly gather more information about it beforehand.
Recovering from the shock of learning that another cultivation world existed beyond the Western Wasteland, Li Ping turned his attention to the example the Evergreen Hermit had given.
The Evergreen Hermit lived a hundred years ago, and this happened over a hundred years before his time. In other words, the Bloodshadow Sect destroyed the Heavenly Profound Sect more than two hundred years ago. Li Ping looked thoughtful. According to the records, Windmist Immortal City seems to have been founded around that same time.
Vaguely, Li Ping could sense it.
There seemed to be some connection between the destruction of the Heavenly Profound Sect and the founding of Windmist Immortal City.
But he had too little information. Though he had several guesses, he had no way to confirm them.
Shaking his head, Li Ping continued reading the Evergreen Gazetteer.
The Evergreen Hermit had spent the most time in the nations of Liang and Yan in the northern Western Wasteland.
These two nations lay at the boundary between the Western Wastes Cultivation World and the Far North Grassland. Numerous tribes of the Tuluo People were scattered across the grassland to their north.
The grassland's soil was barren, and cultivation resources such as spirit stones and spirit materials were extremely scarce. Thus, from time to time, these Tuluo tribes would gather at the command of their tribal cultivators and march south to plunder, sparking great wars with the two nations.
Whenever war broke out, beacon smoke rose everywhere along the two nations' borders, which stretched for tens of thousands of li.
Cultivators fought cultivators, and mortals fought mortals. The slaughter often lasted for decades before subsiding.
The Evergreen Hermit's account of the Tuluo People surprised Li Ping considerably.
He had originally assumed that the relationship between the Tuluo People and the people of the Western Wasteland was much like that between ancient nomadic and agricultural peoples. Though their ways of life differed greatly, they were actually members of the same race.
Yet that was not the case.
To study the Tuluo People, the Evergreen Hermit had spent half his life in those two nations, collecting and reading a great deal of material from the Tuluo People during that time.
According to the Tuluo People's records, their people had come into being when the world was born, whereas humans had appeared much later, suddenly crawling naked out of the soil at dawn one day.
Thus, the Tuluo People and the humans of the Western Wasteland were actually two entirely distinct races.
Moreover, Tuluo legends spoke of ancient times when spiritual qi filled heaven and earth, and precious spirit materials could be found everywhere.
Back then, cultivators had not needed spirit veins to cultivate, because the spirit vigor anywhere in the world had been richer than that of even the finest spirit veins today.
Only after a great upheaval in heaven and earth had the cultivation world gradually developed into its present form.
Li Ping was reluctant to readily accept the claim that humans had suddenly crawled out of the soil one day.
But he did find some credibility in the claim that, following a great upheaval in heaven and earth, the cultivation world's conditions were no longer what they once had been.
Perhaps the cultivation methods he had previously seen in the Wang Family's Secret Arts Pavilion were methods practiced by cultivators in ancient times.
Now, however, heaven and earth had changed, and cultivators had abandoned those methods, leaving them worthless.