Chapter 5: The Lower Continents (Part 1)

Who knew how many continents and secret realms they had passed through? For a whole month, Qi Wu Zhen kept tearing open spaces to carry everyone forward. Guo Shier discovered a series of coordinates in the Great Cross-Continental Talisman—coordinates that appeared automatically. This talisman could record every place they visited, even if they only stayed there for a few seconds.

Guo Shier felt bitter inside. If he had had such a talisman earlier, he would never have gotten lost. Those automatically recorded coordinates allowed him to return along the same path, eliminating the worry of losing many coordinates after using large teleportation arrays.

One continent after another was left behind. Guo Shier noticed that whenever Qi Wu Zhen created a rift in space and they stepped through it, many continent coordinates would be recorded in the talisman. In other words, Qi Wu Zhen could cross numerous continents without using any teleportation arrays at all. It was unclear how she did it.

After traveling nonstop, Qi Wu Zhen finally felt tired. She created another rift and led everyone into a continent, saying, “Let’s stay on this continent for a few days to rest before continuing.”

Halechi was completely convinced. He understood that such rapid travel was only possible with extraordinary strength. He could barely create space rifts himself, and only a few times at most, but Qi Wu Zhen could do it effortlessly, repeatedly.

Everyone agreed. Although Guo Shier was the team leader, Qi Wu Zhen’s words carried weight—she possessed abilities and strength that Guo Shier lacked. In fact, anyone in the team could be the leader. Nominalmente, Guo Shier was in charge, but he wasn’t the kind to make arbitrary decisions.

It was a continent covered in lush vegetation. Generally, such continents were occupied by spellcraft families or sects. Some continents were entirely desert or steppe, with few professionals there unless they were there to collect materials. Thus, Guo Shier and the others had learned that if a continent had abundant vegetation, it was likely habitable.

Qi Wu Zhen scanned the area quickly with her vast soul and said, “There’s a city over there.”

The team followed her and flew toward the distance. Moments later, they saw a huge city appear. It was a city without city walls, with endless buildings covering the land. There were also vast fields and ponds within the city, and a river flowed through it. Dozens of stone bridges spanned the not-too-wide river.

Halechi was surprised. “Hmm? There aren’t any experts among the professionals here…”

Guo Shier asked, “Lao Ha, in your eyes, are we all considered low-level professionals?”
Halechi shook his head. “How could that be? Experts at the altar level, even those who are altar-level professionals in the form of illusions, are at the pinnacle of professionalism. I’m talking about this city… the highest rank here is just ‘Crazy Master.’ Hmm, it seems there’s no higher existence. Strange—any family should have several altar-level experts to guard it.”
Guo Shier had already figured it out, as he had once lived on such a continent. This must be a low-level spellcraft continent, with probably no pathways connecting to it. He glanced at Qi Wu Zhen—everyone who came here did so because Qi Wu Zhen forcibly tore open space to enter directly.
The low-level spellcraft continent gave Guo Shier a sense of familiarity, and the Eagle Demon and Luo Zhan felt the same way.
Guo Shier said, “We don’t need to fly in. Let’s walk in.” On this low-level spellcraft continent, many professionals couldn’t fly. Perhaps a few had flying spells, but those must be extremely rare.
They walked along the roads into the city. There were no guards here, nor any city gates. Roads stretched out in all directions from the city. This city gave Guo Shier the impression of a village from his past life—just larger, with more people living more densely.
Although it was primitive, there was still a legacy of spellcraft. Along the way, Guo Shier saw some spellmasters, clearly of high status, with large groups following them, looking arrogant.
Recalling his time at the Northern Spell Gate, Guo Shier couldn’t help shaking his head. The Eagle Demon said with a bitter smile, “We were like that too back then.”
Luo Zhan laughed. “Yeah, we didn’t know our place. We thought we were amazing, but when we came out, we realized we were nothing.”
Wang Keer exclaimed, “Is this… a closed continent?”
Qi Wu Zhen replied nonchalantly, “I guess so.”
Wang Keer shouted, “I’m rich!”
Everyone understood what she meant. A closed continent was like a treasure trove—whether it was people or resources, anyone with enough strength could seize it and turn it into their own territory and property. As long as they built a teleportation gate, this closed continent would be doomed, and any ancient family could easily take control of it.
Even if one didn’t have a family, it was still easy to handle—just selling the coordinates could yield a huge profit.
Guo Shier said, “Wang Keer, better not. If you sell these coordinates, the people here will suffer greatly.”

Wang Keer dismissed it, saying, “What’s so tragic about it? Once an ancient family enters, most people will benefit, with only a few suffering losses. On such a closed continent that has remained isolated for too long, the quality of professionals will keep declining.”
Guo Shier also understood this principle. Just like on the continent where the North Talisman Gate was located, if it were annexed by an ancient family, the overall level of professionals would actually improve, and ordinary people wouldn’t suffer any losses—they might even gain many benefits. He said, “It’s up to you. I hope they have good luck.”
Such matters had mixed outcomes. It couldn’t be said that Wang Keer was wrong, but Guo Shier himself would never deal in coordinates—he was in a hurry to go home. There were simply too many hidden continents in this world for him to manage them all; he could only follow the approach from his past life and let things take their course.
Qi Wuzhen and Halechi paid no attention at all. With their strength and skills, it was easy for them to discover a closed continent or hidden realm. In this world, the number of closed continents and hidden realms wasn’t much less than that of open ones—the difference was minimal, but no one could figure it out for sure.
Wang Keer was busy recording coordinates. Guo Shier now had a vague understanding of this world: continents and hidden realms were like a three-dimensional network, with each continent being a node and hidden realms connecting these nodes. As for closed continents, they were isolated nodes without any connections to hidden realms.
The roads here were paved with crushed stones and compacted, making them quite smooth. There were many people on the roads, mostly ordinary folks. Guo Shier and the others stood out sharply from the locals in terms of appearance and clothing. Their garments were extremely luxurious and unique, made from the furs of high-grade mutated talisman beasts, with flickering talisman lights visible from time to time.
The locals wore shabby clothes—Guo Shier couldn’t identify the materials, mostly dull grayish-white, with a few in bluish-gray. Only the professionals’ clothing was passable. After all, professionals could use talismans, so they wore more fur garments.
Although the group seemed to walk slowly, they were actually fast and soon reached the heart of the city.
Guo Shier wondered, “Are there no restaurants or inns here?”
Eagle Demon said, “Let’s rent a courtyard first and rest for a few days before deciding.”
Guo Shier smiled and said, “I guess no one here has talisman money. Well, let’s find a place to exchange some materials for talisman money.”
Luo Zhan said, “That shop seems to be it… I’ll go.”

Guo Shier said, “Let’s go together; it’s a good chance to see it.” Whenever he arrived in a new land, he would take every opportunity to experience the local customs and culture and look for unique products. Fortunately, the writing and languages in this world were similar, as the most fundamental element of culture was runes. No language barriers existed wherever he went; even if pronunciations varied slightly, communicating using runes posed no problem.

The group headed toward the shop. It was quite large, with an empty hall in the front. The floor was covered with bluestone slabs, polished smooth and shiny, clearly worn down over many years of use. Dozens of square cushions were scattered around, and seven or eight clerks were busy working. A few low-level professionals were selling materials obtained from the wild.

When Guo Shier and the others entered the shop, the entire hall fell silent because they were quite special.

A clerk with a large head came forward and asked, “Great masters, is there anything I can help you with?” His attitude was extremely humble.

Luo Zhan said, “Please have your boss come out. You… can’t serve us.” It wasn’t arrogance; if they wanted to do business, they really couldn’t communicate with clerks. The items they brought were probably things the clerks had never even seen, even if they were ordinary materials.

The clerk with the large head agreed readily and told a nearby clerk to go invite the boss, saying, “Great masters, please come to the inner courtyard.”

Guo Shier nodded, and everyone followed the clerk through the hall to the inner courtyard. It was a spacious yard, about a thousand square meters in size, also paved with bluestone slabs. The yard was surrounded by walls, and several thick trees acted like giant umbrellas, blocking out the sunlight and creating a cool atmosphere. Only a few birds were chirping in the treetops.

Wang Keer said, “It’s so quiet.”

But Guo Shier said, “A courtyard like this is very comfortable.” Having spent years traveling in the wild, he really wanted to stop and rest, enjoying the comfort of home, but so far he hadn’t been able to do so. Thinking of the ancestor of the Fire Sect, he couldn’t help but feel a bit envious and understood why the ancestor lived in the Fire Sect—probably because he was tired from traveling outside.

The boss was a fat man. In Guo Shier’s eyes, he seemed like a rune caster. Back at the Northern Rune Gate, rune casters were already considered highly skilled experts, and it was likely the same here. A few low-level disciples followed behind him.

Luo Zhan stepped forward and said, “Are you the boss?” He had suppressed his soul, but even an expert from the Virtual Altar still carried a sense of intimidation over lower-level disciples.

The shopkeeper found that the closer he got to Luo Zhan, the more anxious he became. He looked at the people in front of him with a hint of fear. After all, as a shopkeeper who had seen many people, his insight was different from that of ordinary folks. He immediately sensed something was wrong and became even more respectful, saying, “Elder, I am the shopkeeper here, a talisman master named Zhou Guang.”

Luo Zhan replied, “Shopkeeper Zhou, my surname is Luo. I have some materials to sell. Do you take them?”

Zhou Guang replied respectfully, “We do. Elder, please go ahead and bring them out. Although our shop isn’t the largest in Dingguang City, we have an excellent reputation.”

Luo Zhan raised his hand, and with a loud noise, an eight-grade mutated unicorn rhinoceros over sixty meters long, as big as a small mountain, was released from his talisman storage space and crashed onto the open ground in the inner courtyard. This was a prey he had caught casually; since he didn’t have time to process it, he stored it in the talisman storage space, planning to cut some fresh meat from it later. The only low-grade mutated talisman beast he had left was this one.

Guo Shier also knew that the most suitable mutated talisman beasts to sell here were those at level four to five—level eight was a bit too high. But he didn’t have any of these low-grade mutated talisman beasts either.