The Purgatory Calamity
Chapter 175 - 160 Sects, Noble Clans, Individual Cultivators._1

Chapter 175: Chapter 160 Sects, Noble Clans, Individual Cultivators._1

At the Stone Path.

"Individual Cultivator, scions, Sects."

Pang Jian pondered as he watched Cultivators emerging from all directions.

Through Luo Hongyan’s storytelling a while ago, as well as his recent conversation with Gao Yuan, he had roughly understood the cultivation situation in the Third Realm.

In the Third Realm, the strongest forces were naturally the Raging Sun Sect, Blood Moon, Red Mountain, Star River Alliance, and the Yin Spirit Temple—these five major Sects.

Then, there were the so-called families.

The families of the Third Realm were mostly rooted in Universe Heaven and Black Nether, the two continents, where they built cities and controlled the ordinary people.

The families depended on the Sects!

Within all the major families, any scion with talent in cultivation would be sent to the Sects.

The Elders of the Sects, besides absorbing disciples through the families, also selected suitable talents from the cities controlled by the families.

After the catastrophe erupted in the Lower Realm, the various Sect forces of the Third Realm only made advance arrangements in many Fragment Lands.

If nothing unexpected happened, the Cultivators from the seven great families of the Lower Realm should all be arranged in the Fragment Lands.

—And not in the rich lands of Universe Heaven and Black Nether.

The reason for this was that the families of the Third Realm would not allow the seven great families of the Fourth Realm to compete with them for resources on the two continents of Universe Heaven and Black Nether.

Beneath the Sects and families, there were the Individual Cultivators.

Those who could not catch the eye of the major Sects nor were born into families were collectively called Individual Cultivators.

The status of Individual Cultivators in the Third Realm was not only lower than that of the major Sects but also less than that of the Cultivators born into families.

Of course, Great Cultivators like Cao Mang and Lei Kun, whose fame shook the world, were a different story altogether.

"No wonder Yuan Fei ended up so miserably, and Gao Yuan felt so insecure..."

Pang Jian’s thoughts were manifold as he watched the ceaseless stream of attendees climbing the mountain from different positions.

He quickly noticed that those from strong backgrounds like the Raging Sun Sect, Star River Alliance, Blood Moon, who occupied other peaks, were in no hurry to come to the first peak.

He immediately guessed that the meeting in the previous days probably wouldn’t attract those people.

Observing for a while, Pang Jian, who was about to climb the mountain, suddenly realized that Han Ting, who had greeted him, had remained silent the whole time.

With a puzzled turn of his head, he noticed Han Ting’s eyes filled with indignation, fixated on a group of five people.

They were four men and one woman.

They also appeared to be Individual Cultivators, climbing from the first peak’s Secluded valley with a Token, starting from the first layer.

The five of them seemed to be joining the gathering as well.

The leader was a man with a short beard, dressed in a blue robe, with thick eyebrows and large eyes, looking like he was just over thirty.

The man had a storage bag hanging at his waist and was talking and laughing with a petite woman by his side as they walked.

The petite woman had some attractiveness, but her figure was somewhat skinny and could not compare to Han Ting’s voluptuousness.

She looked meek and weak, and when she spoke to the man in blue, she would sometimes cover her mouth and giggle demurely.

The other three lingered behind, chatting with each other and looking around at the nearby Individual Cultivators.

When they encountered someone they knew, they would nod and smile from a distance to greet them.

Han Ting’s eyes, filled with outrage, followed the group of five continuously, her attention focused on them, which is why she was in no hurry to start climbing.

Pang Jian pondered thoughtfully.

"Pang Jian, I need to use your cave dwelling!"

Han Ting bit her lip lightly.

Without waiting for Pang Jian’s response, she pushed open the stone door and entered, then immediately locked it from the inside.

A few moments later.

Han Ting stepped out of the cave dwelling dressed in a new pale blue skirt robe and lightly applied makeup, accentuating her slender waist with a belt, which further exaggerated the curves of her upper body.

Her naturally loose black hair was also fixed with an exquisite hairpin, fully revealing her enticing and beautiful face.

"Let’s go!"

She took the initiative to pull Pang Jian toward one of the stone staircases on the nineteenth layer that extended from the summit all the way down to the foot of the mountain.

And this staircase was not the one closest to Pang Jian’s cave dwelling.

"Just wait for me for a moment," she urged.

Pang Jian nodded, his expression stern.

"Eh, Han Ting!"

"Isn’t that Han Ting?"

"I heard you pocketed Zhang Bin and the others’ loot and fled injured to the first peak, don’t you know that Zhang Bin has arrived too?"

"..."

Han Ting, standing still on the staircase, was spotted by familiar Individual Cultivators climbing up, and continual greetings came her way.

Pang Jian noticed that the majority of male Cultivators were ogling Han Ting’s provocative figure with lust-filled eyes.

A portion of the female Cultivators, while appearing polite in their small talk, were mostly filled with malice.

Han Ting remained composed.

She had obviously grown accustomed to this and did not even bother to explain, letting others gossip as they pleased.

Until...

The five individuals she had been closely watching as they climbed the mountain along this staircase finally saw Han Ting from afar.

At that moment, Han Ting’s breath became somewhat unstable, and her calm demeanor clearly wavered.

"Sister Ting..."

The petite woman at the lower end of the stone staircase timidly greeted Han Ting in a soft voice.

She, who had been leading the way, couldn’t help but shrink to the back, making the short-bearded man in a green outfit step forward.

"Sister? I can’t shoulder this responsibility!"

Han Ting pursed her lips and said sarcastically, "The grave injury I suffered was thanks to you, and it was I who found you the spell of the Flame Fire Poison Palm. Yet I could never have imagined that you would mix it with so many vicious poisons and slap it on my body when I was unprepared!"

"Sister Ting, don’t falsely accuse me, you clearly intended to hog all the gains—that’s why..."

Fang Xin shook her head and softly began to explain.

"You know full well what you’ve done!"

Han Ting sternly retorted.

Many of the climbers ascending the stone steps stopped because of their quarrel, casting curious glances their way.

The scions from various sects above were also not in a hurry to climb up; they watched the commotion among the Individual Cultivators with interest.

"That woman... What an enticing figure!"

"Yeah, although her looks aren’t peerless, her curves could make one salivate."

"Too bad she’s just an Individual Cultivator, lacking the backing of a sect. Her background is a bit lacking."

Quite a few scions made light of the situation and freely commented.

"Do you recognize the black-clothed youth standing next to Han Ting?"

Zhang Bin, who had stopped climbing the steps, asked Fang Xin in a quiet voice, without showing any sign of his thoughts. "I’ve never heard you mention such a friend among the Individual Cultivators."

Fang Xin sighed inwardly.

She knew that Zhang Bin was still not over Han Ting; seeing an unknown man by Han Ting’s side, Zhang Bin didn’t ask anything else and went straight to inquiring about the man’s identity.

"I don’t recognize him; I’ve never seen him before."

Fang Xin glanced at the black-clothed young man who was a head taller than Han Ting and also taller than most of the Individual Cultivators on the nineteenth layer.

His tall, refined physique, his cold and rugged face, set off by a pair of calm eyes, made Fang Xin subconsciously compare him with Zhang Bin.

Upon comparison, she felt that Zhang Bin’s appearance and demeanor seemed not to match the other’s, but fortunately... Zhang Bin was in the late stages of the Innate Realm, on the verge of breaking through to Hollow Profound.

"All else is useless; only profound cultivation and realm are truly substantial," thought Fang Xin, who had always been subtly competing with Han Ting. She hummed to herself, yet still appeared weak and timid. "I’m a bit afraid she’ll hitch a ride on someone’s coattails and seek revenge against us with their help."

Zhang Bin’s eyebrows furrowed.

After contemplating momentarily, he immediately continued to ascend the stone steps.

Soon, he reached Han Ting and first let his deep gaze wander over Pang Jian before saying to Han Ting, "The things you took, as long as you hand over the portion that belongs to us according to the agreement, we won’t make it difficult for you."

"I almost died, and yet you’re saying you won’t make it difficult?"

Han Ting curled her lip mockingly. "Don’t play that game with me! Zhang Bin, you think I can’t see what’s in your mind? You want both my things and me, right?"

Zhang Bin shook his head and said, "I can’t be bothered to talk much with you."

He took the lead and continued upwards along the stone steps.

"Heh, targeting both the things and... the person, huh. That’s fine. Fights and killings among Individual Cultivators have always been this cruel and merciless."

"If it were me, I would probably only want the person; the things would be irrelevant."

"Time to go, time to go, the show’s over, folks."

The scions above didn’t care at all about the feelings of Han Ting, Zhang Bin, and others, and after a round of loud comments, they began to climb the mountain, only when they felt bored.

Han Ting remained unmoved; she just stood in place, silently watching Fang Xin.

She watched as Fang Xin changed pathways mid-climb, joining three other Individual Cultivators who also coveted her body, moving toward the higher parts of the First Peak.

"Phew!"

After taking a deep breath, Han Ting then said to Pang Jian, "Sorry for delaying your time, making you witness this farce."

Pang Jian shook his head but said nothing.

"Individual Cultivator..."

Through the conversations of the scions and the words and expressions of Zhang Bin and Fang Xin, he had a rough idea of what had transpired and gleaned some understanding of the situation among the Individual Cultivators of the Third Realm.

The two of them continued to ascend the mountain steps.

Along the way, Han Ting, caught up in her thoughts, didn’t say anything else, while Pang Jian, preoccupied with his own concerns, remained silent as well.

Upon reaching the thirty-fifth layer, after showing their Tokens, they arrived at the First Peak of Yuanmang.

As soon as they reached the summit, Pang Jian heard the noisy clamor and saw hundreds of people who had arrived earlier, scattered across different areas, talking among themselves.

Before he had a chance to look more closely...

"You two know the rules, right?"

"Keep your Tokens on you at all times, to facilitate our people listening to your conversations. For every transaction completed, whether you’re the buyer or the seller, you need to give ten percent of the trade value."

"Furthermore, during the first three days, the internal trading area will not be open; you can only trade on the outside."

"..."

A sweet-voiced woman in white clothes, sitting in a wooden tower at the end of the stone steps, introduced the rules to Pang Jian and Han Ting.

"I understand the rules; it’s not my first time attending," Han Ting quickly said.

"That’s good."

The woman in white smiled and nodded.

Pang Jian then noticed that nearby, there were many wooden towers with women in white explaining the rules to those who were making their climb from below.

Many of the participants nodded frequently, listening intently for fear of missing anything.

These people were evidently attending such an event for the first time.

On the stone steps leading to the base of the mountain, even more cultivators with various dress codes were ascending to the summit like ants in a colony.

...