Chapter 143: Spear Mountain (1/2)

Spear Mountain’s Area Master’s strength actually wasn’t that surprising as both Area Masters and Realm Masters stood at the peak of Limiteers. Although Area Masters were slightly weaker than Realm Masters, they were all still top elites of their academy and the rare few who could potentially battle against a Realm Master.

Apart from Astral-10, the other nine academies all had Realm Masters and Area Masters. There was only one Realm Master in each academy and a handful of Area Masters; they were the true elites of the Astral Combat Academies.

Still, Lu Yin was shocked to hear how powerful Frankfurt was, and he immediately shelved any idea of battling against the Area Master with his current strength. Lu Yin looked at the man. “Why did you ask me to leave when you saw me?”

The guy was surprised by Lu Yin’s question. “Is this your first time in the training realm?”

Lu Yin’s gaze turned cold, and he waved his hand, shattering the remainder of the bridge. A trace of his Skybeast Claw technique grazed past the man’s head, almost drawing blood. The threatening motion prompted him to anxiously answer, “Ancient voices can be heard within the training realm. It could be wails from a battlefield, a warsong, or even skills, but the probability is always very low. Moreover, the more people there are in an area, the lower the chance of hearing anything. Thus, most people don’t want to be in an area with anyone else around within the training grounds.”

Lu Yin finally understood, but he was still amazed. How was this possible? What an amazing place! Would he be able to hear ancient voices too?

Lu Yin released the man shortly after. In the end, this person was just an average Melder from Astral-6. He didn’t know much or even have the qualifications to enter a training ground. Lu Yin had learned everything that he could from the man and was surprised to learn about the number of powerhouses that belonged to the Astral Combat Academy. Fortunately, all of those famous experts were far away from him.

Lu Yin planned on traveling to Spear Mountain to see one of the few training grounds in the Dao of Purgatory. The Dao of Purgatory was a massive region, but all Lu Yin could see was darkness. Lu Yin traveled quite slowly as the gravity was fifty times stronger than normal. He also had to stay on guard for any sudden attacks that might be launched against him. In the Nine Trial Zones, not only were there other students training, but there were also strange beings called war spirits. These spirits weren’t actually living beings. Rather, according to what the student he had interrogated earlier had said, these spirits were the memories of students who had previously fought in the training realms. Additionally, they had the same combat abilities as the fighter at the time of their creation.

Of course, not every battle would create a war spirit, and there was only ever a small probability for one to be created. Otherwise, the spirits would have filled up the entire training realm after all these years.

There weren’t a large number of war spirits even in the entire Nine Trial Zones, so the greatest danger in the training realms was still other students.

When Lu Yin first heard of them, he thought that the war spirits’ existence was very odd. His initial reaction was that they sounded like opponents that had been intentionally created by the designer of the Nine Trial Zones to adjust to the strength of the cultivators training within. If this training area was thought of as a massive game, then the war spirits would be monsters that were custom made in such a way that they scaled to the power of the cultivators while never being depleted. The stronger the cultivators, the stronger the war spirits that would form.

“Could the training realm possibly have been created by some ancient being from the Astral Combat Academies?” Lu Yin guessed. He looked around and saw a gigantic sphere in the sky. It was one of the moons of the training realm, of which there were three, all pure and bright. The realm even had a day and night cycle, so there was a sun as well.

These three moons illuminated a path through the darkness of the Dao of Purgatory.

The number of footsteps along the illuminated path was increasing, and Lu Yin finally found a used path a few hours later, verifying that he was approaching Spear Mountain.

Bang!

The earth shook as gusts of wind blew through the area, uprooting a few of the black trees.

Lu Yin saw two students battling off in the distance. They were both Limiteers and were both using spears.

“Just give up! You’ll never be able to graduate with your ability. As long as I’m here, you shouldn’t even think about reaching Spear Mountain!” one of them shouted proudly.

The student opposite him had a solemn gaze. “I’m free to go wherever I want. I will definitely graduate successfully, and I will even join the Ten Arbiters Council!”

“What a joke. The people who can join the Ten Arbiters Council upon graduation are all elites. You definitely don’t have such qualifications to do so. Just go and die.”

Crash! The earth trembled once again.

There were quite a large number of Limiteers in the Astral Combat Academy. The academies were difficult to enter, but they were even more difficult to graduate from. One could either graduate voluntarily by becoming an Explorer, or be driven out after they became too old to be considered a part of the younger generation. There were many students who had been expelled throughout the academy’s history, and there were probably more expelled students than graduated students since not all students could successfully become an Explorer.

These two Limiteers looked to be no more than ten years older than Lu Yin and were probably around thirty years old. They still had ten more years before the Astral Combat Academy would expel them. If they couldn’t become Explorers within that timeframe, then they would be expelled and their names expunged from the Astral Combat Academy’s student list.

Lu Yin wasn’t interested in their battle, as they clearly had some personal feud that was none of his business. He didn’t hesitate to take a detour east to avoid their battle. Spear Mountain was right before him, and he could see the silhouette of a peak reaching into the sky. The silent mountain towered over the ground, as if it were piercing through the air and cause the sky to collapse.