Cultivation: But Not a Game-Chapter 46 - 22: River God Temple, Chained Demon Stronghold
"Mr. Su, wanna team up?"
Early the next morning, Su Yu received a message from He Shoucheng.
"Where to?"
"Chensha Town."
"There’s a River God Temple at the Chensha River there. We can level up while grabbing some quests at the temple."
"When are we going?"
"Afternoon?"
"Where do we meet?"
"Chensha Town, I guess."
"Just us two?"
"Maybe one or two more. My girlfriend’s coming too."
"???"
"You have a girlfriend and you’re still inviting me?"
"There are lots of good quests at the River God Temple, and they’re quite tough. It’s hard to do them with just a few people."
"Alright then."
Closing the communication, Su Yu shook his head speechlessly, left his house, and boarded the Spirit Fish Shuttle heading east.
A few hours later, he arrived at the Poisonous Mist Swamp and saw a small town under construction at the mouth of the swamp where it met the Yuanjiang River. This was a guild outpost, serving not only as supply for guild members but also monitoring the area.
The shuttle didn’t stop and plunged directly into the swamp.
Half an hour later, he saw a small island and the base on it.
The shuttle landed, and Zhuang Zhuo came over with a chuckle, cupping his hands:
"I was wondering who it was; turns out it’s one of the top ten newcomers! Sorry for not welcoming you from afar!"
"If you know you’re guilty, why don’t you kneel?"
"Damn!"
The two laughed and went inside together.
"Mr. Su, aren’t you going to take off this time? Any squad recruiting you?"
"Yes, the second main group’s second brigade."
"Oh, the main group is pretty good."
"By the way, I heard that the deputy leader of the second main group, Mr. Chu, is a real beauty. Have you seen her?"
Zhuang Zhuo asked, looking all gossipy.
"Uh, I have seen her."
"Is she really that beautiful?"
"Quite beautiful indeed."
"Well, you’re lucky then."
The two chatted as they went to the back of the base to the Poisonous Insect Refining Pit, seeing Shi Ning and Gu Zhiqiu refining poisonous insects. The two squatted by the main pit, while a few unfamiliar players squatted by the two smaller pits.
He looked back in confusion, and Zhuang Zhuo immediately explained:
"We have enough ordinary insects. The cost to refine Golden-winged Flying Centipedes is too high, so we can’t do it on a large scale for now. Since the pit would be empty anyway, we might as well open it to others and charge a site fee."
"That’s a good idea."
They stood by for a while, waiting for Gu Zhiqiu and Shi Ning to finish refining a Golden-winged Flying Centipede and come over, then asked:
"I’m planning to go to the River God Temple near Chensha Town with a friend to grab some quests. Anyone interested?"
Everyone looked at Gu Zhiqiu, and he laughed, saying:
"Perfect, I’ve run out of money, and I can’t refine the Golden-winged Flying Centipede anymore. Let’s go together."
"What about you guys?"
Shi Ning and Meng Chen shook their heads:
"We’ll pass. We’ve got to guard the base."
"Alright then."
A few minutes later, a Spirit Fish Shuttle soared into the sky, disappearing into the horizon.
The shuttle didn’t fly to Thousand Feather City but headed southwest, planning to cross the mountain range directly to Chensha Town.
Seated in the Spirit Fish Shuttle, looking out from high above, the endless mountains stretched on and on. Spiritual Qi and miasma mixed to form fog shrouding the mountains, with columns of colorful demonic energy in the deep ravines, and occasionally, huge shadows flitted between the mountains.
Vast and wild.
However, the high sky wasn’t desolate. From time to time, flying ships with players could be seen skimming through the air, and higher above, occasionally a sword light spanned the sky, a hundred feet long, lingering in the heavens, its master unknown.
The mountains beyond civilization were the realm of the beast clan and spirits, becoming more desolate the deeper into the Taihu Mountain Range.
But their current location was the edge of the Taihu Mountain Range, within the area humans had begun to develop, so there were plenty of people.
Human expansion in the Blue Mountain Archipelago started from the estuaries of the three major rivers on Blue Mountain Island, gradually moving inward. One generation after another pushed up the main tributary of the Yuanjiang River, branched along other tributaries, like the veins of a leaf, delving deeper into Blue Mountain Island.
The Thousand Feather Guild occupied one of these tributary nodes, with its core influence centered at the mouth of the Chensha River into the Yuanjiang River, radiating to the surrounding area.
To the east, due to occupying the Poisonous Mist Swamp, the guild’s influence extended seven thousand kilometers.
Southward, the Yuanjiang River marked the boundary, with the opposite bank under another major guild’s influence.
Westward, it was just over four thousand kilometers.
Northward, following the Chensha River upstream, extends more than ten thousand kilometers.
Compared to the wide and deep Yuanjiang River, with high-level beasts, the narrower Chensha River, with lower-level beasts, was more suitable for the guild’s development.
Now the guild’s main development strategy was to establish a foothold at the Yuanjiang River, with a focus on developing the Chensha River.
However, many other guilds had the same idea, with five or six guilds of various sizes contesting along the seventy-thousand-kilometer stretch of the Chensha River’s middle and lower reaches. Adjacent to the Thousand Feather Guild was a large guild named Frostfire.
Its strength was slightly inferior to the Thousand Feather Guild, with frequent skirmishes at their borders.
Chensha Town was located around ten thousand kilometers upstream from the Yuanjiang River mouth, named after a River God Temple located there and served as the base for the second main group of the guild.
The first main group of the guild stayed at headquarters, the second’s base was Chensha Town, and the third’s newest base was the Poisonous Mist Swamp.
Near Chensha Town, a small river named Liushui, about a dozen kilometers wide, flowed from the Taihu Mountain Range into the Chensha River, forming a vast alluvial plain where many ordinary people lived, forming a kingdom called Daliu.
This kingdom was native to the Other Shore World, not Earth humans.
However, with human expansion to this area for over a thousand years, annually, people retired for various reasons, and many settled here rather than making the long journey back to their human homeland in the Divine Land Archipelago.
