Now, of the Four Great Divine Beasts, Jiang Chen had already obtained three. Although the True Dragon clan and the Taisui White Tiger clan were still in their juvenile stages, their strength far from fully matured.
But Jiang Chen was well aware of their growth potential. At this stage, Long Xiaoxuan and Xiao Bai's rate of power increase was already far from slow.
The reason they hadn't shot up in strength all at once was simply because the environment of the Human Domain was no longer what it had been in the ancient era.
After the Ancient Demon-Sealing War, spirit veins across the land had been shattered, and the overall spiritual energy level had plummeted by several entire grades.
This was exactly why the various powers in the Human Domain saw their strong grow ever fewer, with no successors to fill the gaps.
At its root, the spiritual grounds that had once nurtured Heavenly Rank powerhouses simply no longer existed.
To put it bluntly, this was an Age of Dharma Endings—a time starved of spiritual energy, depleted of resources, with every aspect languishing at its lowest ebb.
It wasn't just the human race. Every living being that drew breath upon this land was bound by these pitiable conditions. No one could escape it.
That was precisely why Jiang Chen was so desperate to raise his cultivation and journey to Myriad Abyss Island.
From what Huang'er had described, Myriad Abyss Island should be something akin to the ancient Divine Abyss Continent—overflowing with spiritual energy, teeming with powerhouses.
A man must climb toward higher ground.
Though the Human Domain was Jiang Chen's root, by this stage it had clearly hit a bottleneck.
Jiang Chen asked himself: if he stayed in the Human Domain any longer, it would be difficult to achieve further breakthroughs. The barren spiritual energy here would inevitably become a shackle on his pursuit of the Heavenly Dao.
Therefore, Jiang Chen had to venture out.
But leaving required prerequisites. If his strength hadn't reached the proper level and he charged out recklessly, he wouldn't even know how he died.
Opponents would not go easy on him just because he had been the Son of the Heavenly Emperor in a past life. Nor would past-life memories guarantee that everything would go his way.
Trouble would still come. Crisis would still arrive. And sometimes they would come so suddenly, so irresistibly.
Take this trip to Sinking Fragrance Valley, for instance. Whether it was the three Heavenly Rank powerhouses from the Nandou Li clan or the Celestial Demon Lord, had Jiang Chen faced any of them alone, he would have suffered considerably—and might even have run into catastrophic trouble.
"The Divine Abyss Continent is boundless. From ancient times to now, the world has shifted beyond recognition—I can't even begin to count how many changes have occurred. Perhaps the Human Domain is nothing more than a sesame seed in the grand scope of the Divine Abyss Continent. Look at the Nandou Li clan—in the ancient era they were far inferior to the human race, yet now they can casually produce three Heavenly Rank powerhouses. It seems the true layout of the Divine Abyss Continent far exceeds my imagination."
After the Ancient Demon-Sealing War, the Boundary Stele had appeared, and the human race had effectively been cut off from the outside world, shutting itself in behind closed doors. They knew virtually nothing about the world beyond the Human Domain.
Jiang Chen possessed vast knowledge from his previous life, yet thinking it through carefully, even now—as the young lord of the Profound Jade City, commanding the entire Human Domain's situation—he still felt like a frog at the bottom of a well.
Grow stronger. Grow stronger!
That was the most powerful cry in Jiang Chen's heart right now.
……
This period of closed cultivation was the longest since Jiang Chen had embarked on the path of martial cultivation—three full years.
Inside Guo Ran's palace-cave, three years spent in seclusion here rivaled several decades of effect in the outside world.
"Time flies," Jiang Chen murmured softly. "In the snap of a finger, three years have passed. But these three years were not wasted."
He felt the changes coursing through his body, the surging flow of powerful strength spiraling within him, his frame brimming with vigorous vitality. He looked noticeably stronger than before.
"Imperial Realm, sixth stage. Still short by that last breath—I can't break through to the upper tier of the Imperial Realm."
Over these three years, Jiang Chen's strength had absolutely skyrocketed. In one push he had surged up two full stages, reaching the peak of the sixth stage of the Imperial Realm.
Unfortunately, when he tried to press on and assault the seventh stage—the upper tier of the Imperial Realm—he discovered he was still that one breath short.
The martial path was like this: you had to break through in a single surge.
If you failed to do it in one push, the next attempt would likely yield even worse results than the first.
Jiang Chen did not force himself. He decided there was no need to rush this particular moment.
He would rest a while longer, seek out some inspiration, accumulate and settle. Perhaps when the time was right, this bottleneck would simply fall away.
The gap between the sixth and seventh stages of the Imperial Realm was a formidable hurdle.
For Jiang Chen, it was by no means an insurmountable tribulation. But the momentum he had built during this closed cultivation had been stretched to its absolute limit.
Another push was clearly beyond his current capacity.
At this point, to keep hammering away would simply be a waste of time and energy.
Of course, three years was not particularly long in the world of martial cultivation. But for Jiang Chen, these three years felt somewhat drawn out.
Because out there, many people were still waiting for him.