The Mount Wuling Area was a vast, sprawling wilderness of treacherous mountains, woven together from countless peaks and ravines, limestone caves, underground rivers, streams, waterways, lofty mountains, perilous summits, ancient forests, and bewildering miasma.
Running north to south between the Shu Central Region Basin and the plains of the two lakes, the Mount Wuling Area formed the east-west divide south of the Divine Land's great river.
To its east lay the Eastern Daoist Sect in the broader sense, a land long peaceful and secure, and a rich country of fish and rice in the mouths of ordinary mortals.
To its west, peace had always been scarce. The north was occupied by the Shu Chinese Mysteries, which had gradually established its independence over the past several centuries, while the south was occupied by the increasingly rampant Southern Demon Cult. To ordinary mortals, this was a remote backwater of barren mountains and hostile rivers, with only the Land of Abundance worth speaking of.
Situated at the boundary between east and west, and between three great powers, the Mount Wuling Area held a peculiar position. In one word: chaos.
The Eastern Daoist Sect disdained its crisscrossing ravines and utter lack of immortal grace. Xuanmen also considered it impoverished, with no immortal births or ancient treasures emerging ever reported there. The Southern Demon Cult did not mind and wanted to pour in and seize territory, but that was something neither the Eastern Daoist Sect nor western Xuanmen would ever permit.
Thus, it became a place none of the three governed, but over which all kept wary watch, gathering quite a few rogue cultivators.
The world's largest gathering place for rogue cultivators was in Qingzhou, though its rogue cultivators were largely of these kinds: those brilliant as children but unremarkable as adults, sent away by