Everyone was stunned to learn that there were supposedly close to one million residents living within this 4th trial realm! There were 9 levels here, which seemed to be commonly referred to as ‘abodes’, but still…that was way too many people to live within a single trial realm!

“Mm. Around 800,000 of those are down here, in the 1st level. 130,000 in the 2nd level, 35,000 in the 3rd level, 12,000 in the 4th level, 3,000 in the 5th level, 1,000 in the 6th level, 300 in the 7th level, 72 in the 8th level and 6 in the 9th level.”

Seeing the mixture of stunned and dubious looks make the guide laugh.

“Well, those numbers are just approximate, aside from the 7th, 8th and 9th level abodes since those guys are all on the overall headboard.”

Yaan remained silent, listening to the talkative guide go on and on about everything he knew regarding the 4th trial realm, or the ‘4th Canyon’ as they called it here.

Firstly, the reason they called it the ‘4th Canyon’, was because it was the 4th trial, and the entire place was like one, ridiculously enormous canyon. Well, a canyon with 9 distinct levels of elevation that is.

He half expected to be given a name badge or a tracking treasure or, but it seemed that the realm itself tracked them and monitored their achievements at all times anyway.

The guide was somewhat helpful, but he was only someone who resided on the 3rd level. It seemed that doing this job and introducing newbies into society paid quite well for a part time, half-day gig.

Soon enough, the group of 23 were brought to their new ‘homes’. Unlike the other small temples they had seen on the 1st level, these were practically huts. Wooden huts. In fact, this entire village was just a shanty town, filled with similar wooden huts! There were thousands of them in all, all closely cramped together. At the very least, since they were new arrivals and therefore actual cultivators unlike the other locals to this impoverished village, they were given the huts on the outside of the shanty town, bordering on the barren dry soil.

“Unacceptable.” Zue Yin spat out the moment she looked inside. She didn’t even go in, instead turning around and directly heading towards the battle registry!

“Eh?” When she turned to the side and found Yaan following besides her, she was a bit surprised. He’d seemed a bit unenthusiastic about their partnership, so what-

“There was a rat in my hut…how am I supposed to read in peace when there are rats in my home?” Yaan sighed miserably.

“Pfft…” She couldn’t help but laugh, but honestly, she probably would have reacted far more extremely.

“Anyway, it seems like many of those on the 1st level are mortals. Those living in the nice temples on the 1st level should be weaker cultivators.” Yun summarised.

“Mm.” Zue Yin nodded. “I imagine that many years ago, even the 1st level would have been filled with those at the True Yuan Qi realm, with Qi Temple realm Qi masters moving up to the 2nd level.”

“True, but…be careful.” Yaan warned her. “This trial is designed for body temperers..the higher you go, the more suppressed you’ll be by gravity and spiritual pressure.”

“Surely the difference can’t be that extreme though?” She retorted, shrugging.

After a moment of silence, Yaan sighed. To avoid this girl getting herself killed, he needed to explain the reality of her weakness to her.

“Remember the 2nd trial, the misty staircase?” Yaan asked.

“Of course, how could I forget? I barely even made it to the hundredth step with the help of grandfather’s talismans.”

“Mm. I used no talismans. I reached the 600th step.”

“Oh, I see.”

“The 600th step, hmm…”

“WAIT…THE 600TH STEP, SERIOUSLY?!”

“Stop yelling!” Yaan glared at her, silencing her right away. “And yes, really. But I barely made it with the help of some pills, and I fell back before managing to get the damned reward.”

For a while, the two walked in silence. Zue Yin seemed to be seriously reflecting upon her own weaknesses, which Yaan was glad to see. He knew nobody in this place, and an ally could never hurt…especially one that understood alchemy and was superb at identifying all sorts of materials. Most importantly, she seemed too stupid to betray him, for now at least.

Finally, after walking out of the shanty town and across the plains, they found a large temple in the middle of nowhere. No, when Yaan looked around, he realised that it was actually sort of half way between every settlement. Being a few miles away from anyone’s home made it a fair distance for all residents, but that just made travel equally tedious for everyone.

The pair walked in, looking around curiously. They were welcomed by two gentlemen at the door, who asked for a toll for entry. Zue Yin immediately took out her money, until Yaan scowled at those fellows whilst pushing her hand back into her pocket.

“Scram for me, or I’ll challenge you and kill you here and now.” Yaan released his aura, causing the Qi Gathering realm duo to become scared senseless and flee.

“…Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Yaan walked past Zue Yin as she stared at him in a daze, before smiling and hurrying after him.

“Welcome to the 4th trial’s 1st level battle temple! Would you like to browse through the leaderboards? Or perhaps purchase video recordings of previous contestant’s battles?”

“Show me the leaderboard, the strongest 25 I’m allowed to challenge.” Yaan stated plainly.

He knew that in this realm, ‘currency’ was an extremely strange thing. In the outside world, recovery pills were used as a standard currency, and whilst those pills did still exist here and could even be purchased in the 1st level pagoda, this was not standard currency.

Here, the standard currency was known as ‘astral crystals’. These things were really, truly bizarre. The crystals themselves were nothing to speak of, but it was the mysterious entities contained within the shimmering black objects which intrigued Yaan more than anything else.

An astral crystal was actually a sealed ‘astral spirit’. As for what an astral spirit was…he had no idea! But what he did know, was that these astral spirits could be devoured and absorbed into the body, forming an astral tattoo on the physical flesh, providing the body with additional strength!

Vital energy…fleshly body cultivation…blood essence…astral tattoos…the connection between all of these things confused Yaan, but he wanted to understand it all! And now, he had the feeling, that this realm was where he may find his answers.

“Here you go sir! You are currently ranked 984,003 overall. You are ranked 802,765 in the 1st level, putting you in the lower 50% of the 1st level. You may challenge anyone within the 1st level or anyone in the lower 50% of the 2nd level.”

“I see…oh, I forgot to ask before, how frequently can I issue a challenge? How often can I fight? And is there any benefit to fighting a bunch of weaker people first?”

The woman behind the counter was a spirit of the trial realm, but she was sentient and intelligent. She nodded and smiled politely as she listened, before replying with perfect clarity.

“You may issue 1 challenge per half-level per day, for a maximum of three challenges per day. For instance, you may currently issue challenges to those in the lower 1st, upper 1st and lower 2nd levels today. However, if you are challenged by someone else, there is no limit on the number you may accept. Personally sir, I would say that accumulating your opponents’ wealth is an excellent benefit.”

Yaan’s eyes flashed as the spirit attendant smiled at him. It was as if she was waiting for him to ask something, but couldn’t answer until he asked…

Yaan smiled faintly. From this, he could tell that the spirits were limited to answering his questions, they could not proactively provide him with information. However, it seemed that they desired to help out all the same. Though perhaps this was unique to this particular spirit, he couldn’t say for sure.

“Can I challenge multiple opponents at once?”

“Yes sir, you may issue a single multi-opponent challenge each day, on top of any other challenges. They must all be within a different half-level. All challenged parties must accept the battle for the battle to go ahead. If any individual declines, they will lose by default, losing their property and residence within the abode. The others who accepted but did not fight, will not be penalised.”

Yaan nodded as she spoke. Since he could only challenge those residing on an abode one level above him at most, this meant that he could at most challenge three opponents at once; one from his current lower 1st level, one from the upper 1st level and one from the lower 2nd level.

“Well then…” Yaan glanced up at the clock on the wall.

There were clocks all around the 4th realm, likely due to the operation of the challenges. The challenged party was obliged to accept the challenge within 24 hours of it being issued. When you issued a challenge, you needed to also provide one other time for the fight to potentially take place. The second time would always be exactly 24 hours after the challenge was issued. The challenged party was forced to either accept one of these times, or to admit defeat without fighting.

The only issue in all of this, was of course closed door cultivation. Well, there were ways around that. If you came out victorious in a battle, you were given a day of immunity, which you could activate immediately, or save up and stack up, activating a period of immunity for a time.

Finally…it was rumoured that there was a time stasis chamber on the 4th level. In fact, the 4th level pagoda was said to be a 9 floor tower, each with greater temporal acceleration than the last. It was even rumoured that the 9th floor could accelerate time by 100 times - relative to the flow of time in the 4th realm itself! In terms of outside time, that was a 1,000 fold increase!

Anyway, right now, Yaan was more interested in battling. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was 7pm. With an intrigued gaze, he scanned his eyes through the list of names rapidly.

“Can you find me the richest out of all these?” Yaan glanced at the attendant and spoke.

“Apologies sir, but I am not at liberty to disclose this information.”

“Mm, ok then…well, the highest rankers are probably richest. Ok, firstly I want to issue a challenge to this guy.” Yaan pointed at the person ranked highest on the lower 50% 1st level. “Time…8pm.”

“Of course sir, the challenge has been sent. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Ah yeah, can I set a challenge now, to be issued in one hour?” Yaan asked curiously.

The reason he asked this, was because he couldn’t issue both issues right now, incase both of his challenges were accepted at the same time, at the 24 hour mark.

“This is indeed possible sir, but there is a cost involved. The cost for this is a single 1-Star astral crystal.”

“Ugh…” Yaan slumped slightly…he had none of that sort of currency, and there was no way to exchange goods within this battle temple.

“Sir, if you visit the 1st level pagoda, you will be able to exchange common goods for astral crystals.”

“Right, I guess I’ll just do that…”

Before leaving, Yaan watched Zue Yin step forwards. He wandered what she would do…but she immediately challenged someone in the 2nd level abode. Like Yaan, she also issued the challenge for one hour from now.

“…”

“I heard everything she said to you, but I just want to move up and out of this layer as soon as possible! I don’t like this lower layer, I can’t stand looking up and seeing all those temples and palaces looking down on me!” Zue Yin actually glared up as she spoke, making Yaan feel speechless.

This girl was ridiculous, for one, she seemed to lack all common sense regarding basic survival knowledge. However, it was also this childish naivety that allowed Yaan to rest assured that she wasn’t scheming against him for some end. If she were to ever attempt such a thing, he had absolute certainty that he would see through it immediately. After his experience in the last trial realm, this was the only sort of ‘ally’ he felt like dealing with right now.