It had been a full month since Chu Feng first appeared inside the mountain range.
Though his cultivation was suppressed, his speed remained terrifyingly fast.
And that, in turn, only proved how vast this mountain range truly was—far beyond what Chu Feng had anticipated.
If a single mountain range was this expansive, one could only imagine how enormous the entire Upper Realm's landmass must be.
No doubt, even if you took every last acre of the Lower Realm—the Ancestral Martial Lower Realm—and transplanted it here, it would still be nothing more than a drop in the bucket compared to the Upper Realm.
Then again, that was only to be expected. After all, the martial cultivators of the Upper Realm operated at a level of power that those of the Ancestral Martial Lower Realm simply couldn't compare to.
If the Upper Realm's territory were roughly the same size as the Lower Realm's, then these powerful cultivators would have precious little room to move about freely—which would hardly be fitting for beings of their stature.
…
Along the way, Chu Feng had yet to encounter anything remotely dangerous. What was worth noting, however, was that everything inside this mountain range—the flowers, the grass, the trees—looked perfectly ordinary. Even the creatures living here were equally unremarkable.
There were only mundane animals here. Not a single spirit beast with the ability to cultivate could be found.
Even the natural energy of heaven and earth was pitifully faint—arguably even weaker than that of the Nine Provinces Continent back in the Ancestral Martial Lower Realm.
This defied all logic. In the Ancestral Martial Lower Realm, the Martial Sacred Land's natural energy far surpassed that of the Nine Provinces Continent. Yet even the Martial Sacred Land couldn't compare to the Hundred Refinements Mortal Realm's energy.
Natural energy was the most fundamental element that nurtured martial cultivators. That was why the Lower Realm produced fewer powerhouses than the Mortal Realm—and similarly, the Mortal Realm produced fewer powerhouses than the Upper Realm.
At first, Chu Feng had assumed this was some Upper Realm. But the laughably weak natural energy here had planted a seed of doubt in his mind.
"Could it be that I'm not in an Upper Realm at all, but have somehow ended up in a Lower Realm?" Chu Feng muttered.
"Which Lower Realm could possibly have a mountain range this vast? Don't tell me the entire Lower Realm is just one big mountain," the Queen said.
"It is strange. No matter—I just need to find someone and ask around. That'll clear everything up," Chu Feng said.
The situation here was genuinely abnormal. This mountain range was enormous to a frightening degree, a scale befitting the Upper Realm. Yet the natural energy was as feeble as anything you'd find in the Lower Realm.
So Chu Feng truly couldn't determine whether he was in some Upper Realm or had stumbled into a Lower Realm.
Right now, he was all the more desperate to leave these mountains and find someone—anyone—who could give him answers about where he was.
Though Chu Feng was moving cautiously, scanning his surroundings with sharp vigilance, he failed to notice one thing.
Ever since he had emerged from that wasteland, a dark, shadowy aura had been silently trailing behind him.
The aura was eerie. Chu Feng couldn't detect it, and it didn't seem to harbor any intent of harming him either.
No one knew what its purpose was.
…
Finally, Chu Feng emerged from the mountain range. And by sheer coincidence, he spotted a caravan of people at almost the same moment.
They were riding war chariots, several hundred strong, their bearing imposing and aggressive. These were clearly no ordinary folk.
However, despite the massive size of their chariots, they weren't traveling through the air. Instead, they were following a wide road at the base of the mountains.
They were martial cultivators, all at the Martial Ancestor realm. The majority were first-grade Martial Ancestors, and even the strongest among them was only a sixth-grade Martial Ancestor.
That level of cultivation was nothing to scoff at, but standing before Chu Feng in his current state, it looked rather pathetic.
"Those cultivation levels… Could this be some Mortal Realm?"
Chu Feng was taken aback. The opponent's cultivation wasn't exactly weak, but it wasn't particularly impressive either—it was precisely the sort of level one saw most commonly in the Hundred Refinements Mortal Realm.
"Who cares? Just ask and you'll find out," the Queen said.
"Right. Let's go ask." With that, Chu Feng sprinted down from the mountains and planted himself squarely in the middle of the road.
"This feeling—?"
The moment he stepped off the mountain and onto the road, Chu Feng froze in his tracks.
Not only had the power that suppressed his cultivation vanished the instant he descended— He could now sense extraordinarily dense natural energy all around him.
This natural energy was several times more concentrated than what he had felt inside the mountain range.
If the energy inside the mountains had been even weaker than the Ancestral Martial Lower Realm's, then what Chu Feng was sensing now was far more potent than even the Hundred Refinements Mortal Realm's.
Such a dramatic shift left Chu Feng momentarily dazed. Almost involuntarily, he turned to gaze back at the mountain range behind him.
"Who goes there?!"
Just then, the caravan had spotted Chu Feng, and a sharp shout rang out.
After all, having someone suddenly appear on the mountain road with a weapon in each hand was more than a little startling.
In an instant, every last person in the caravan leaped off their war chariots, gripping their weapons tightly as they fixed Chu Feng with hostile stares.