8,753 Cultivators at the First Level of the Tribulation Transcendence Realm

Gu Changyuan vaguely remembered that when the Celestial Sect was first established, the sect's mountain gate was located on a remote, small hill in the Western Region of the Eastern Continent of the Nine Heavens Realm, named Floating Cloud Peak.

That mountain was not high, its spiritual energy was thin, and there was not even a decent spirit vein within a hundred miles.

The buildings were incredibly dilapidated, not looking like a proper sect at all.

The Heavenly Yao Sect and the Heavenly Demon Sect were somewhat better off. After all, when Gu Changyuan founded those two factions, he already possessed a cultivation base.

Thinking of this, his gaze fell on the personal status panel at the very top of the light screen.

The Cultivation column on the panel strikingly displayed the words Body Forging Realm.

But preceding it was a numbingly long string of numbers, at least twenty digits long, ending with several zeros.

It had to be said, Gu Changyuan had only seen this many zeros in a certain city on the blue planet Earth before he crossed over into this world.

One must know that the cultivation system of the Nine Heavens Realm was as follows: Body Forging Realm, Qi Condensation Realm, Foundation Establishment Realm, Golden Core Realm, Nascent Soul Realm, Soul Formation Realm, Void Refinement Realm, Body Integration Realm, Mahayana Realm, and Tribulation Crossing Realm.

This long string of numbers of his was clearly the total sum of all his sect disciples' cultivation bases converted into units of the Body Forging Realm.

"System,"

Gu Changyuan rubbed his forehead.

"Can this cultivation column be updated? Such a long number is really troublesome to look at. Moreover, the Body Forging Realm as a unit... Right now, I could blow away ten thousand Body Forging Realm cultivators with a single breath."

[Understood, Host. Updating your panel data now... Update complete.]

As soon as the voice faded, the long string of numbers on the panel instantly shortened. The cultivation column clearly displayed First Layer of the Tribulation Crossing Realm, while the previous numbers were simplified into a prefix: 8753.

The total cultivation sum of 8753 First Layer Tribulation Crossing Realms.

It seemed that his thirty disciples from back then must have all become formidable figures dominating their respective regions; otherwise, it would be absolutely impossible to accumulate such a massive total of cultivation.

"Since that's the case, I'll go back and take a look first."

Gu Changyuan composed himself. Just as he was about to circulate his spiritual energy and soar into the sky, his footsteps abruptly paused.

Wait.

He had been away from the Nine Heavens Realm for a full one thousand one hundred years. After such a long time, not to mention the mountains and landscapes might have changed.

Even the familiar regional divisions and faction distributions from back then had probably long since changed beyond recognition.

More importantly, the system's energy was currently depleted, unable to provide even the most basic navigation function. He simply didn't know the exact locations of the three great sects now.

"If that's the case, then I'll find a place to rest first and ask for directions."

Given the current scale of the three great sects, they absolutely couldn't be nobodies. They must be resounding top-tier factions in the Nine Heavens Realm. It shouldn't be difficult to inquire about their whereabouts.

Thinking of this, Gu Changyuan understood.

Perhaps in the eyes of outsiders, the strength of 8753 First Layer Tribulation Crossing Realms was enough to sweep across the entire Nine Heavens Realm and rule over all living beings.

But only Gu Changyuan himself knew that in a place like the Ruins of Disorder, this kind of strength was simply not enough.

Any Chaos Behemoth that randomly jumped out there possessed the combat power to easily crush a Tribulation Crossing Realm cultivator. His greatest reliance to survive in the Ruins of Disorder had never been his cultivation base.

Rather, it was the bizarre cultivation methods and deadly killing arrays he had come into contact with on the brink of death over the past millennium, as well as that endless, inexhaustible supply of spiritual energy.

However, this was the Nine Heavens Realm, not the Ruins of Disorder.

Gu Changyuan took off the mask on his face and then slowly raised his head.

The sunlight poured unhindered onto his face, bringing a long-lost warm touch.

It was a face that looked about twenty-five or twenty-six years old. His facial features were well-defined but not sharp, with sword-like eyebrows slanting toward his temples.

His skin was a cold white from years of not seeing the sun, but it now glowed with a faint luster under the sunlight of the Nine Heavens Realm.

Although it was an extremely handsome face, those eyes that had seen through life and death exuded an oppressive aura that made people afraid to look directly at him.

"I wonder if those few disciples of mine still remember their master."

He muttered softly to himself, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly into an arc.

The smile was very faint, but it made his entire face instantly come alive.

Just as he was thinking this, an obvious fluctuation of spiritual energy came from the southeast, about a thousand meters away.

The fluctuation was chaotic, clearly a spiritual energy disturbance caused by a chaotic melee involving multiple people.

Gu Changyuan raised his eyebrows slightly.

Without hesitation, he took a step forward.

The movement was understated, as if it were just an ordinary step.

But the next moment, his figure vanished from where he stood. When he reappeared, he was already hovering in mid-air a thousand meters away.

Below him was a dense, ancient forest.

In a clearing within the forest, three groups of people were in a triangular standoff, the atmosphere intensely hostile.

Gu Changyuan floated thirty rods high in the sky, his aura completely concealed, his whole person seemingly blending into the surrounding space.

No one below noticed his presence—with his current cultivation, if he didn't want to be found, even someone at the peak of the Tribulation Crossing Realm would find it hard to detect him.

The three groups were distinctly separated.

The clearing was surrounded by ancient trees, and the ground was covered with fallen leaves.

At this moment, the fallen leaves were stained with mottled blood, clearly indicating that a brief clash had already occurred.

Right in the middle was a team of about twenty people. They stood back-to-back in a circular formation, protecting a woman in the center.

The woman looked to be in her early twenties, wearing a moon-white flowing cloud dress. The hem of the dress was embroidered with silver runes that shimmered faintly in the sunlight.

She held a three-foot green longsword in her hand, the blade as clear as autumn water, evidently not an ordinary item.

The woman had beautiful features and a heroic spirit between her brows, but her face was somewhat pale at the moment, and fine beads of sweat seeped from her temples.

Most of the guards around her were injured, their clothes torn and their breathing unsteady, but they still desperately protected her in the middle.

Compared to the ordinary standard equipment on the surrounding guards, hers was like the difference between clouds and mud. Anyone could tell at a glance that this woman's identity was far from simple compared to the others.

Looking at the other two sides.

At the back was a group of spirit beasts—three completely crimson wolf-type demonic beasts, two giant pythons with wings on their backs, and five falcons with claws like blades.

The lowest of these spirit beasts had the strength of the Foundation Establishment stage, and the highest, that crimson wolf, was already at the mid-Golden Core stage.

Beside the spirit beasts stood six cultivators, all wearing dark red leather armor with beast head emblems embroidered on their chests.

They held beast flutes or beast-taming whips, clearly cultivators who specialized in beast taming.

At the front was another group of cultivators, about fifteen in number.

Wearing uniform black clothing, these cultivators all had a black skull token tied to their waists, holding identical ghost-head broadswords, with ferocious smiles on their faces.

Their eyes greedily sized up the woman, as if looking at a piece of fat meat that had already fallen into their hands.

The leader was a one-eyed old man, leaning on a skull walking stick with black mist lingering at the top.

Gu Changyuan could tell the situation below at a glance. It just so happened he needed to find someone to ask for directions; truly, someone was offering a pillow right when he was feeling sleepy.