Bombarding Cultivators with Cluster Artillery

Chapter 1378: Chapter 1346: Great Thousand World’s Nine Hundred Twenty-One Domains

Jiang Ding shuttled through the sky, his speed swift—about half faster than regular peak Divine Transformation cultivators, befitting his status as a rising elite from the Minor Thousand World.

Until he completely escaped potential surveillance, he would remain the strongest in the Minor Thousand World, yet weaker than Heavenly Monarch Shuoyang by a margin.

Along the way, mountains and rivers sped past, passing through seventeen mortal kingdoms and five cultivation sects, four of which were Nascent Soul level sects and one Golden Pill level sect. Their cultivation methods shared the same origin, carrying a trace of the fundamental cultivation method “Nine Heavens Thunder Scripture” of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect as their inferior methods.

These small sects were founded generation after generation by disciples of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect. As subordinate forces to the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect, they were responsible for tasks like planting, farming, and mining, forming an industry of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect, though appearing in the form of sects, and not as independent forces.

“The place where the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect is located is called the Thunder Fire Domain, one of the nine hundred twenty-one domains of the Great Thousand World, classified as a Lower Domain.”

“Is the name ‘Domain’ related to how the Nine Great Immortal Sects refer to the ‘Nine Spirits Realm’ as ‘Domain’?”

Jiang Ding silently recalled the memory of a Refining Nothingness named Qinglei True Venerable captured by Xi Yuan performing soul searching.

This is the hometown of the Nine Great Immortal Sects.

There is much that has cultural heritage here, and the things that can be excavated from it are quite numerous.

The Great Thousand World, the term ‘world’ is highly misleading, actually it is a nebula-like area formed by the condensation, compression, and aggregation of various star domains, a rich habitat of numerous life worlds, not a singular world that simple.

“This Lower Domain has two forces, one is the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect, the other is Blood Lake Corpse Bone Mountain. The two sects are in constant conflict, each unable to conquer the other.”

“In fact, they cannot conquer.”

“Because both Refining Nothingness level Taoist sects are protected by an immortal sect—Immortal Artifact Sect.”

“Without permission, or violating the rules, neither sect can annex the other, which the Immortal Artifact Sect is unwilling to see.”

Jiang Ding quickly compared his observations to the political situation in his memory.

“However, the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect and Blood Lake Corpse Bone Mountain are not subordinate to the Immortal Artifact Sect, themselves in a semi-independent state, because there are ‘Domain Barriers’ in the domains of the Great Thousand World, and strong individuals above Refining Nothingness will be greatly suppressed when traversing them, with teleportation formations unable to evade this.”

“This natural geographic advantage leads to intense independent inclinations in various regions of the Great Thousand World, unable to form a unified power, which is precisely the reason why existence below the Immortal Level cannot control the Great Thousand World, as the awareness of the Heavenly Dao suppresses such possibilities, trying to restrict the appearance of highly damaging existences.”

“Historically, there were immortal sects attempting to achieve complete unity and effective control over every place.”

Jiang Ding reviewed his memories.

“For example, distributing elite disciples throughout the domains to act as domain lords, but once a few generations pass, these disciples also transform into semi-independent forces, not fully obeying the immortal sect’s orders.”

“Yet this does not mean the true sects and Taoist sects can ignore the immortal sect’s commands.”

“Once an immortal sect decides to dedicate more focus, willing to operate at a loss to destroy a domain’s force, it can still be accomplished, merely a matter of choice.”

“After countless years of integrating, battling, and slaughtering, this political pattern finally forms.”

“This means numerous true sects and Taoist sects pledge allegiance to immortal sects, offer tribute, serve in the military, etc., while the immortal sects ensure the interests of the many true sects and Taoist sects, occasionally thunderously suppressing one or two sects to declare authority, and prevent sects from harboring dissent.”

“The Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect offers tribute totaling… around eighty percent of its output in Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure!”

Jiang Ding compared the percentage in his memory, secretly clicking his tongue.

“The Immortal Artifact Sect truly shares the nature with the Shangqing Lingbao Sect, never taking nine Spirit Stones if they can extract ten, calculating with exceptional precision.”

“Yet, this is a good thing, the Shangqing Lingbao Sect’s legacy reaches its limit, immortal gates may consider extinguishing it first.”

Indeed!

The sect emerging from the Shangqing Lingbao Sect among the Nine Spirits Realm’s Nine Great Immortal Sects is the Immortal Artifact Sect!

This Near Immortal level force successfully overcame a major crisis, thus highly unlikely to open all its legacy to distant legacy seeds, adhering to the principle of strong trunk, weak branches, at least the Daymoon Sword Pavilion’s legacy clearly stipulates this.

Jiang Ding flew over mountains and rivers, quickly evaluating the surrounding environment.

“Extremely rich in resources!”

“Even without accounting for the eighty-percent tribute to the immortal sect, plus various resources from small-world ascensions, this humble Lower Domain actually yields output comparable to the entire Horned Ming Realm!”

“Incredibly terrifying, as the Horned Ming Realm possesses over four hundred Minor Thousand Worlds along with one Medium Thousand World, even excluding the Dead Silent Starry Sky, its total life-world realm’s size is at least a hundredfold greater than the Thunder Flame Domain.”

“Such a small place yields such a vast amount of Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure, and it’s merely a Lower Domain.”

Jiang Ding’s heart was shaken.

Seeing with his own eyes, he gained deeper understanding of the wealth of the Upper Realm.

This was merely a Lower Domain, aggregating various Middle Domains, Upper Domain’s Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasures, as well as vast starry skies, possessing numerous Minor Thousand World immortal sects—what a wondrous sight!

What foundations might immortal sect Taoist disciples and swordsmen possess?

At this moment, even he felt some setback, despair, soon extinguished by his Materialist Sun Sword Intent, not affecting his Dao Heart.

“The aptitude of human cultivators in the Great Thousand World…”

Jiang Ding swiftly assessed another aspect.

“Mortals without spiritual roots are extremely rare, one in many billions, with such high concentration of spiritual energy here, living beings have evolved generation after generation, lacking spiritual roots becomes an anomaly, not commonly seen.”

“The lowest aptitude is quad-spiritual roots, virtually everyone’s like that.”

“Next are the three spiritual roots, considerable in numbers, twinling roots are less common, sky spiritual roots form a minority, though their absolute number is at least a hundred times greater than in a Minor Thousand World.”

“However… despite such aptitude, the number of cultivators is not abundant, not reaching the point of universal cultivation, the majority remain as mortals.

Jiang Ding felt somewhat puzzled.

He scanned with Divine Sense, uncovering the reason.

“Spiritual energy concentration is too high!”

“In this environment, extremes opposite, leading many living beings to lose sensitivity to spiritual energy, developing some form of dullness, typically causing three spiritual roots to embark on the immortal path, whereas quad-spiritual roots practically become mortals in a sense… does this relate to the control by consciousness of the Heavenly Dao?”

“Preventing the excessive appearance of cultivators, like swarms of locusts, threatening the immortal tao ecosystem?”

“Moreover, various plants, ores, materials… these are uncharted by immortal gates, completely new materials, these natural riches, shall enormously advance the immortal gates’ material science.

Endless treasure trove from the creator…”

Jiang Ding was ecstatic.

Even without further gains, merely these new materials are an immense fortune!

These notions swiftly passed in his mind.

In the distance, a royal city of a mortal nation appeared before his eyes, counting millions of people, several immortal dao technologies had been preliminarily applied, substantially expanding the city’s scale, it was not a purely mortal kingdom.

Jiang Ding chose to land in a corner of the imperial palace, set up a concealment array, and began to heal his wounds with eyes closed, waiting.