Chapter 114: The World Of Cultivation
"Wow... quite a complex world I would say," Liam muttered under his breath, as he closed the last of the books he bought.
He had spent the last few hours poring over every single one the books, with his Perfect Memory storing every word, every sketch, every detail.
But even with his eidetic recall, his mind still reeled from the amount of information it had just received. The more he read, the more he realized that this world wasn’t just vast—it was volatile.
A gunpowder keg. A storm waiting for the smallest spark.
Blackstone City itself, where he currently is, was nothing more than a small dot in the grand scheme of things.
According to the records, it was considered one of the "border cities," pressed up against the Thousand Mist Forest, a place crawling with beasts of unimaginable strength.
Its population of one million would have been considered enormous by Earth’s standards, but here? It was small. Very small.
"Hard to imagine. One million people... and they call this small," Liam murmured.
By comparison, the cultivation cities were sprawling hubs, each housing populations many times larger, ruled by sects with deep foundations and ruthless authority. But the truly staggering detail lay in the major cultivation cities.
There were five of them. Only five.
But each of those cities was described as being the size of an entire continent back on Earth. They weren’t just cities in the way Earthlings understood them—they were civilizations, realms unto themselves, fortified strongholds where tens millions upon millions of people, cultivators and mortals, lived under the shadow of sects that had existed for tens of thousands of years.
"The scale is ridiculous. A single city the size of a continent. No wonder the books made Blackstone sound like a village by comparison," Liam said, with a small laugh.
Then there were the minor sects, clans, and families.
The minor sects are no different from major sects, except for the fact that they haven’t produced a single immortal in the last hundred thousand years or never.
Unlike sects, families didn’t produce immortals. Their power lay in wealth, bloodline inheritance, and influence. They held armies of mortal soldiers and disciples, and while their peak experts could rival Core Formation or even Nascent Soul cultivators, but that’s their limits.
The clans were a step higher. They had ancient bloodlines, some dating back tens of thousands of years, and had produced a handful of immortals across history.
A clan with two or three immortal ancestors to its name could dominate entire regions, even rival a major sect.
And then there were the sects.
Nine Heavens Thousand Blades Sect—the one Zhou and his master belonged to—was considered minor, with influence stretching only across its single city. Minor sects like it numbered in the dozens. But the major sects... they were monsters in their own right.
Each one controlled a major cultivation city and each one had multiple immortal ancestors, each one had a treasury of arts and techniques so vast that even their "discarded" manuals would be considered divine treasures to the families here.
Just imagining the weight of history behind such institutions made Liam’s blood stir.
Then there was the organizations. This part added yet another layer.
There was Thousand Elixirs Halls, an alchemy-based organization. According to the texts, they held dominion over everything medicine-related. Pills, herbs, prescriptions, healing arts — if it was alchemy, it passed through their hands. Not even sects dared to openly oppose them, because they controlled the supply of pills necessary for cultivation breakthroughs.
Then came the artifact and blacksmithing association, Divine Armament Pavillion, an organization that controlled all matters of forging — weapons, armor, talismans, even formation arrays. The book said that their forgemasters could hammer divine runes into metal, birthing weapons that could split mountains or cleave rivers.
And above them all, looming like a spider at the center of the web, was the Chamber of Commerce.
Liam smiled to himself as he read. The Chamber didn’t just trade. It can be said that they owned the trade. Auction houses in every cities, major and minor, and to even the Imperial City, control of merchant guilds, caravans, and resource routes.
The Crimson Pavilion, where he had purchased his books, was one of their branches. In truth, this made the Pavilion more than just a bookstore. It was a hub of intelligence gathering. If one wanted to know something, anything, the Chamber either already knew it or could find it for the right price.
"No wonder they dominate. They control the information, which is indirectly the control the flow of everything else," Liam said to himself.
And yet, all of these — sects, clans, families, organizations — were nothing but waves beneath the shadow of a single, immovable mountain.
The Great Yan Empire.
The books had precious little detail about it, which, in itself, was telling. The Empire was not something one studied lightly. Even minor mentions of it were laced with awe, fear, and reverence.
It was described as the mammoth that stood above all else. The ruling empire is locates in the Imperial City. The city is twice the size of a major cultivation city.
The Empire controlled every clan, every sect, every organization — not through constant interference, but through sheer, undeniable might.
No one knew the full strength of the Emperor, but rumours and speculations claimed he stood at the threshold of the Immortal Realm. And if the Emperor was one step shy of godhood, then the Imperial Family was no less monstrous.
Liam was actually curious about why these sects and clans haven’t colluded to overthrow the current empire, and the next part told him what he needed to know.
The records spoke of it plainly: in the last ten thousand years, the Imperial Family had produced more than ten immortals who had ascended beyond the mortal plane.
Liam’s hand froze as he read that line again. Ten immortals.
In contrast, each of the major sects had produced only three to seven immortals in that same span of time. The clans had produced at most two. And the families, and minor sects? None.
And then there was the Imperial Academy.
Founded by the Imperial Family, the Academy rivaled the major sects in prestige, but its reputation carried an even sharper edge.
It was said that its disciples, though fewer in number, were monsters among monsters —prodigies who left sect geniuses in the dust. The academy was the Empire’s furnace, refining raw talent into titans who carried the Imperial banner across the world.
Liam sat back, staring at the ceiling of his room.
"The Empire rarely interferes. "LBut when it does, even a major sect can vanish overnight," he murmured, quoting the book
He let out a low whistle. That one line alone told him everything he needed to know.
The word cultivator lingered in his mind.
That word had once been just fantasy. Term from the novels he had devoured, tales of otherworldly heroes walking paths of endless struggle. But now... they were real.
His body tingled as he whispered the word to himself again. "Cultivation..."
The thought sent a thrill down his spine. He could actually walk this path. Not in a game or in fiction, but in reality.
He couldn’t help but imagine himself soaring through the skies, wielding blades of light that could cleave mountains.
But he pulled himself back quickly. He couldn’t afford to lose himself in fantasy.
Conventional cultivation was nothing but boring. Sitting for hours, days, weeks and for so long to make a breakthrough. He doesn’t want that. Secondly, he can achieve flight in the future with his superpower. But still, it didn’t lessen the allure of cultivation.
Liam’s eyes sharpened as he refocused.
What do I want here? What do I intend to achieve besides cultivating immortality?
The answer came quickly.
Establishment. A name. A legacy.
He thought of the sects, the clans, the families. Of their power, their influence, their sheer weight in the world. If they could carve out such dominion, why couldn’t he? With the system backing him, with Lucy’s guidance, with his enhancements, why couldn’t he carve out his own place in this world?
The thought was exhilarating. He pictured himself at the head of a force — a clan, a sect, maybe even something greater. A banner that would shake the cultivation world. A name that would echo for generations.
But he knew the road would be drenched in blood, not just chaos, because this was not Earth.
Earth was indifferent, yes. Cold, yes. But it had laws, systems and safety nets, however flawed.
Here, there was no such thing.
This was a true dog-eat-dog world. Where the weak were prey and the strong wrote the rules. Where fairness was a joke and justice was whatever the powerful declared it to be.
And weakness? Weakness was not just shameful. It was a capital sin.
"Seems like I already have my goal," he said softly.
Establish himself. Grow his strength. Walk the path of cultivation. And one day, perhaps, stand shoulder to shoulder with immortals.
The thought sent a shiver of excitement through him.
"Alright then. Let’s see just how far I can go," Liam whispered, closing his eyes.