Sage of Humanity-Chapter 500 - 498 Hunting Grounds

Several hours later, the purple spirit circle dissipated. Lu Ye examined his own river of spirit force and noted an increase in its volume, yet he was still far from advancing to the Level 4 realm.

After emerging from the secret realm of the Ten Thousand Beasts Domain, he had ascended directly to Level 3 by exchanging nearly thirty thousand battle merits for a spirit fortune stick. He had substantial accumulation at the Level 3 stage, but as a cultivator progresses, the required resources increase exponentially.

From his own estimation, within the realms of Cloud River, if spirit fortune sticks were to serve as a resource proxy, advancing from Cloud River Level 1 to Level 2 would require just one gold-hued spirit fortune stick, from Level 2 to Level 3 would need two such sticks, from Level 3 to Level 4, perhaps three or four, and going from Level 4 to Level 5 would require even more...

Therefore, even with his considerable accumulation at the Level 3 stage, a single purple spirit fortune stick was insufficient to effect any change in his cultivation.

However, Lu Ye was quite satisfied with this.

Since his entry into the Cloud River battlefield less than two months ago, he had achieved the cultivation of Cloud River Level 3. While not unprecedented, such a rate of cultivation was rare in a century, giving him little cause for dissatisfaction.

Just as he was about to set off, a deep humming sound from an unknown source suddenly filled the air, instantly altering the color of the heavens and the earth.

Instinctively, Lu Ye raised his hand to grip the hilt of his blade, alert to his surroundings.

Before he could discern what had occurred, a dazzling light suddenly rose in the distant horizon, as bright as a newborn star.

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Yet unsettlingly, this brilliant light emitted a blood-red hue.

The crimson light climbed to great heights, growing ever more intense. At that moment, cultivators within hundreds of thousands of miles could surely see it clearly.

Gazing at the ominous red light, Lu Ye furrowed his brow, pondering the various pieces of intelligence he had purchased from Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union.

He did not know what it was, but such tremendous disturbances were clearly not of human doing. On the battlefield of Cloud River Realm, cultivators of Cloud River did not possess such formidable powers.

If it was not man-made, then it must be a display of heaven's will.

Quickly, Lu Ye recalled some intelligence he had seen before. His expression changed abruptly. He turned around without summoning his spirit ark, instead activating the wings spirit runes. Fiery red light unfurled behind him, forming a pair of wings. With a flap of his wings, he soared skyward. Moreover, he augmented himself with the Move-Like-The-Wind Spirit Runes.

In that instant, Lu Ye maximized his speed, utterly disregarding the furious consumption of his spirit force as he fled in panic, as if pursued by a flood beast.

"Lu Ye, what's wrong?"

Amber's voice carried from within Yiyi, who was unaware of why Lu Ye seemed to be fleeing from pursuers. Sensing their surroundings, she detected no trace of enemies.

"We'll talk later!" Lu Ye was too busy fleeing for his life to explain further.

If this truly was as he suspected, then this was no place to linger, despite the potential opportunities it might offer; the dangers were far greater.

As a cultivator of Cloud River Level 3, it was best for him not to get involved in such matters.

Lu Ye fled in disarray, and behind him, the star-like brilliant red light hovered in the mid-air for at least one incense stick's time without any change until after one incense stick's time, the red light suddenly exploded. Immediately from that point, visible red spirit lines radiated outward in all directions.

Looking up, the sky seemed to be undergoing a meteor shower, with streaks of blood-red light slashing through the heavens, their range immensely vast.

In the time of one incense stick, with both the wings and the Move-Like-The-Wind Spirit Runes, Lu Ye had flown at least around two to three hundred miles!

Just then, Yiyi's alarmed voice reached him, "Be careful!"

The dazzling red light suddenly dropped into his field of view, plunging directly ahead and instantly transformed into a red spirit force screen.

Lu Ye's eyes narrowed. He had no time to slow his pace and could only cross his arms in front of him while twisting his body sideways.

With a boom, Lu Ye's body collided with the red spirit force screen, akin to hitting a wall. The red screen remained unmoved, while Lu Ye was violently bounced back, crashing heavily onto the ground, dazed and in pain all over.

Rising awkwardly, as he faced the red screen again, Lu Ye felt conflicvably complicated emotions.

He had failed to escape after all... and the red screen appearing right before him seemed too coincidental.

After moving his body to ensure there were no fractures, Lu Ye turned to look up, seeing a layer of red screen enveloping the sky. The bright big sun was obscured.

If viewed from high above, this red screen would resemble a huge, inverted bowl, completely enclosing this land within tens of thousands of miles, isolating it from the outside, with Lu Ye currently at the edge of this inverted bowl.

Now that he was trapped here, he no longer needed to search for the Giant Armor.

Yiyi emerged, looking at the vast red screen with shock. The screen seemed to flow with red light, like blood circulating, exuding an ominous presence of doom and slaughter.

"Lu Ye, what is this?"

"A hunting ground!"

As Lu Ye spoke, he handed the intelligence jade slip he had previously purchased from the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union to Yiyi. Explaining the complexity of the hunting ground in a moment was feasible, so he let Yiyi explore it on her own.

Yiyi took it and immersed her mind to explore the information about the hunting ground within.

Meanwhile, Lu Ye was surveying his surroundings.

If before he had only suspected, now he could confirm that this was indeed a hunting ground.

He just hadn't expected that he would encounter such an event.

The hunting ground is a term as well as a type of sudden event unique to the Cloud River battlefield, signaled by the rise of a red star and a curtain of blood covering the heavens.

The scope of a hunting ground can vary greatly, and the pattern of their occurrences is difficult to predict; sometimes they may not appear for a year or two, while other times several may appear within a single year.

The location of their emergence is completely random, but once a hunting ground appears, there is no leaving the area covered by the blood curtain until the hunting ground vanishes.

In other words, cultivators can enter a hunting ground from outside, but cannot leave until it disappears.

Judging by the expanse covered by this blood-colored light screen, this was undoubtedly a large hunting ground, as it instantly covered hundreds of thousands of miles.

Even for the cultivators of the Cloud River Realm, this was a vast area, yet relative to the entire Cloud River battlefield, hundreds of thousands of miles were but a trivial part of it.

Being called a hunting ground, there naturally wouldn't be a shortage of strife and slaughter.

On regular days, when unfamiliar cultivators of the Cloud River Realm met, conflicts were rare as no one knew which faction the other belonged to.

However, in the hunting ground, as soon as cultivators came within a certain distance of each other, their affiliations were blatantly exposed.

This aspect was somewhat similar to declaring war on the Spirit Stream battlefield.

On the Spirit Stream battlefield, when one sect declared war on another, the affiliated cultivators of both sides would reveal their own factions upon encountering each other, aiding unfamiliar cultivators in discerning friends from foes.

Since entering the Cloud River battlefield, aside from killing a few cultivators from the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge when reclaiming the spirit ground, Lu Ye had not killed anyone else.

This wasn't because he had cultivated his disposition; rather, he hadn't had the opportunity, as even if he encountered other cultivators in the wilderness, conflicts were unlikely to arise without clear knowledge of the other's faction.

But in the hunting ground, it was different; as long as the distance between each other was close enough, their affiliations were instantly clear, which could easily trigger conflicts and killings, especially when there was a vast difference in their cultivation levels.

This was also why Lu Ye had wanted to escape as soon as he sensed something was amiss.

As a Level 3 cultivator of the Cloud River Realm, regardless of his ability to defeat higher-level opponents, if he truly encountered someone from a Level 8 or 9, not to mention fighting them, escaping would likely be impossible.

For him, a sudden event like a hunting ground was far too dangerous.

Unfortunately..., he had not escaped; the scope of the hunting ground had just encompassed him, making him strongly suspect that he had been targeted, otherwise, it made no sense that he was only a few steps short.

Undoubtedly, the emergence of the hunting ground involved the workings of Heaven's Augury. Lu Ye felt Heaven's Augury to be elusive when he first encountered it, but as his cultivation increased and his horizon broadened, he gradually realized that the workings of Heaven's Augury were omnipresent in a cultivator's journey.

Though the hunting ground was rife with conflict and slaughter, correspondingly, it also held immense benefits and opportunities.

Not to mention anything else, the most commonly occurring items in the hunting ground were Heaven-bestowed spirit fortune sticks, and gold-hued spirit fortune sticks were likely to appear.

Heaven-bestowed spirit fortune sticks did not always contain gold-hued ones.

Just like when Lu Ye first entered the Cloud River battlefield, at that time, the clouds that appeared were only four-colored, so the highest-quality spirit fortune sticks that appeared were only purple.

Only five-colored clouds could bring forth gold-hued spirit fortune sticks.

Correspondingly, if there were three-colored clouds, then the highest-quality would be blue spirit fortune sticks.

If there were two colors, then only white and green spirit fortune sticks would appear.

Not only that, every emergence of a hunting ground was accompanied by the birth of a Hunting Ground Kills Ranking. Like the Spirit Stream Ranking, the top hundred spots were awarded by Heaven's Augury; as for what those rewards were, Lu Ye did not know, as the intelligence jade slips from the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union did not record that detail.

Besides, Heaven's Augury selected one person in the hunting ground every day to bestow a gold-hued spirit fortune stick.

Do not think this was a fortunate event; for cultivators of low cultivation, it was simply a nightmare.

Because the gold-hued spirit fortune stick bestowed by Heaven's Augury was a special kind of spirit fortune stick, it could not be used directly or even stored in a storage sack. Only after twenty-four hours would this special gold-hued spirit fortune stick turn into a regular one, and only then could it truly be owned and used.

In other words, if a cultivator bestowed with a gold-hued spirit fortune stick wanted to keep it, they must possess it for twenty-four hours.

If it were only that, actually, it wouldn't be too hard, because if one could find a completely concealed place, hiding for twenty-four hours would suffice, something ghost cultivators excel at.