For ten days of travel, Bao Wuji and the ten elders saw nothing but ocean before their eyes.
Occasionally, one—sometimes two… and at times, even a hundred third-level beasts would leap from the sea like playful dolphins, the only change in the scenery they saw.
That alone demonstrated the danger of that sea, and why cultivators didn't migrate to stronger continents. Not only did it take nearly a lifetime to fly across such a distance, but the danger was simply immense for cultivators of that level.
Even Nascent Soul cultivators had to use certain means and remain alert when crossing that sea. Perhaps a hundred third-level beasts posed no threat to them, but what about a thousand? Or ten thousand? Or even a million?
And drawing attention in these waters through prolonged battle carried a great risk of attracting such a number of beasts. Whatever lay in the depths of that vast ocean was not to be taken lightly.
Fortunately, in this part of the sea, Bao Wuji could travel at such speed that the creatures didn't even perceive his passage, and even if they did, they posed no threat, nor would it lead to a prolonged battle.
It was at the end of the tenth day and beginning of the eleventh that the edge of a vast continent finally began to unfold before their eyes.
The eyes of all the elders lit up at once, showing Aotian's excitement at the sight of land—rich land.
Bao Wuji accelerated, using his final treasure radar use of the day to confirm the safety and nature of the surrounding area.
The map in Aotian's mind began to expand, and glimmers appeared one after another, making his lips tremble.
He had already done a search disabling the display of Refiner-Tier materials, knowing those would be like sand on the beach for this continent. But even with that filter, the number of glimmers appearing in his mind made it difficult to see anything else, and he quickly disabled the display of Founder-Tier items as well.
Even so, there was still much, and even Core-Tier items seemed like they could be found lying on the side of the road just by walking, which made Aotian's heart race.
And the deeper the radar penetrated into the continent, the more items appeared—and the higher their level—further heightening his excitement to reach such a land.
'Yes… this feels more like a cultivation world to me.'
…
Bao Wuji wasn't going to flee immediately after reaching the continent and just leave the elders at the edge.
No, Aotian thought that, while somewhat prudent, doing so was unnecessarily cowardly and disadvantageous.
He first ventured a little deeper into the continent, aiming for a third-level spiritual vein he found with his radar, one that wasn't far from the sea's edge—relatively speaking, of course, considering Bao Wuji's speed.
An hour later, he arrived at the destination and saw a massive city sprawling across a vast plain, with a single mountain at its center—where the spiritual vein resided.
'What a massive city!' Aotian stared in awe at the immensity of the place.
Rihai had told him a little about how things were in the more powerful continents, but seeing was believing.
The ambient energy alone was comparable to the environment of a perfect-grade first-level vein.
And what these cities did was simply use that powerful ambient energy, combined with the raw energy of the vein, to power formations that extended far beyond the vein and condensed second-level energy.
Thus, a vein that originally had space to support only a few tens of thousands of people had become this enormous city that likely housed tens of millions.
And such a city, seemingly extremely populous and arrogant, was probably just the capital of a kingdom that dominated this region. And no, not a cultivation kingdom… not entirely, at least.
Here, among cultivators, mortals also lived. It was simply an ordinary kingdom on a rich and powerful continent—where even common people with weak roots, born of mortals, could cultivate without issues, all thanks to the continent's abundance and wealth of resources.
After repeatedly sighing at how different the extremes of wealth and poverty could be between the two continents—remembering the spiritually desolate scenery of the desert continents—Aotian controlled Bao Wuji to drop the elders a bit farther from the city and silently infiltrated alone.
He searched for a while, then directly infiltrated the royal palace at the peak of the mountain where the third-level vein was located, and roughly examined the place, searching for a target.
It didn't take long to find one. It was a man with a relatively young appearance, possessing late-stage Golden Core cultivation—but his cultivation didn't seem well-built and reeked of instability and excessive pill use.
But what made him Aotian's target was the malice emanating from his spirit.
Bao Wuji, being a Soul Formation expert, was highly sensitive to souls—especially when there were no concealment methods—and so he could feel, without much investigation, that this man was not a good person.
And of course, as an ancestor of the Treasure Pavilion, he was a born merchant and highly skilled at reading people.
The last thing the man saw was an empty corridor as he walked arrogantly forward—before falling unconscious, never knowing what had hit him.
A soul search later, and Aotian couldn't help but be impressed by his own luck.
'Damn, who would've thought I'd catch the crown prince making a nighttime visit to the royal harem, going to play with his stepmothers, saying things like: "Concubine, you wouldn't want the ninth prince to accidentally fall on the tip of a dagger, would you?"... haah… what a pity, it seems I killed a good man by mistake, one who cared about lonely women and feared his brothers suffering accidents…'
Aotian let out a fake, sorrowful sigh after killing the trash prince. In truth, those things were mild compared to what he saw in the prince's memories.
Bao Wuji, with a small smile, removed the prince's storage ring and carelessly tossed it into his own storage space.
When Aotian got his first storage ring after killing Wu Juntian, he discovered he could throw full storage rings into Bao Wuji's storage space, and it would only occupy the space of the ring itself—a nice little hack.
Without another thought, Bao Wuji left the crown prince's body right there in the corridor and departed.
After silently invading a few vaults, he left the continent without looking back.
He hadn't invaded the prince's mind to learn the vaults' locations—thanks to the earlier treasure radar data or simply Bao Wuji's powerful spiritual sense, he already knew where the valuable items were.
No, what he wanted was common sense and insider information from a native of the continent. And of course, a commoner might not have a wide view of the continent's power structure, but someone who lived in the royal palace likely would.
And as the crown prince, no matter how awful he was as a person, he still knew plenty about the powers that ruled the continent.
At least now Aotian had the basic foundation—he just needed to continue exploring calmly.
Before leaving, Bao Wuji left a portion of the recently stolen wealth with the avatars—nothing that would incriminate them in case, by some bad luck, they were inspected by guards.
With Bao Wuji's departure, the ten avatars waited, and at sunrise, headed toward the line forming at the city gates.
Meanwhile, in the royal palace:
"AHHHHHHH!! THE TREASURES, ALL OF THEM, THEY'RE GONE!!"
A shrill scream of horror and shock rang out from the mountain peak, waking the entire castle and throwing everyone into chaos.
It didn't take long before they discovered that treasures, techniques, spells, spiritual gardens, and even paintings had vanished. It looked as if a hurricane had swept through, taking everything with it—almost pulling up the grass from the garden too.
Even the storage rings on the king's own hands had disappeared, leaving everyone stunned and horrified. If this had been an assassination instead of a theft, their king wouldn't even have noticed until it was too late.
Still, guards fanned out across the city searching for the thief. It wasn't that they weren't afraid it had been a powerful expert… but what kind of powerful expert would steal from a bunch of country bumpkins like them?!
If someone that strong had wanted anything, they could've just shown up openly and the people would've handed everything over willingly.
So in the end, they suspected some kind of super technique or a very skilled thief and began a massive citywide search.
…
Over the sea, flying at high speed, Bao Wuji wore a bitter expression as he pulled jade slips out of storage rings and knocked them against his head nonstop.
'Haah… this brings back memories of when I had just become a cultivator and had thousands of jade slips to read… now, what I stole from the royal treasury is hundreds of times more. I need to brace myself for a long migraine.'
Aotian thought bitterly, though the uncontrollable smile on the face of his main body told a different story.
As for fears of causing too much chaos or problems for the civilians by robbing a kingdom, Aotian wasn't too concerned. From the prince's memories, he had learned that the kingdom kept a large portion of its assets in cultivation banks, as well as copies of its inheritances there.
So, although a bitter loss, it wouldn't drive them so insane that they'd start killing and robbing their own people.
…
Back at the sect, while the avatars processed a large volume of information from Bao Wuji, Tian Zhu, the sect leader, was standing before Jian Huiyin, the leader of the Bamboo Sword Sect and an inner elder of the Sword Pavilion within the Infinite Dao Sect.
"Have you made your decision?" he asked calmly and indifferently, sitting on the massive black throne adorned with golden patterns in the vast main hall of the sect.
"Yes, Sect Leader. I beg that the elders of the sect grant my selfish request. Huiyin is willing to offer my entire life in loyalty to the sect. Even though I already owe too much to the sect… I hope the leader can grant this final selfish request of mine, so I may depart and walk the path of immortality in peace."
Jian Huiyin slightly dropped her usually indifferent expression and bowed deeply, speaking with seriousness.
And what she asked for was simple.
She wanted an environmental and defensive formation upgrade in her Bamboo Sword Sect—similar to what had been done in the Infinite Dao Sect.
This would allow her to pass control of the formation to the grand elder of her sect and transfer the position of sect leader, while the new formations would ensure they need not fear external threats even in her absence, giving the grand elder enough time and a good environment to grow and reach the Golden Core realm.
In return, the Bamboo Sword Sect would officially become a vassal force of the Infinite Dao Sect.
Tian Zhu said nothing for a while, letting the heavy atmosphere linger as he observed her coldly, deep in thought.