World of Martial Arts

The **World of Martial Arts** was the section of society that primarily focused on the **Great** **Martial Dao** or the state of achieving higher realms of cultivation.

This article focuses more on the aspects of the reality that martial artists face in relation to their martial road. It details the fundamental truths expressed by the author in the novel.

## **Strength**

In this universe, it was the law of the jungle, the strong devour the weak.

If one was weaker, than they would perish under a stronger breed.

These were the cruel and callous rules of the world.

In the face of absolute power there was no mercy or sympathy. In order to survive, one had to pay a high enough price. For example, even the exquisite and beautiful Heavencraft Xiaoxiao, a beautiful woman that could cause the downfall of nations and had near endless resources, even she could do nothing but bow her head before a stronger power. Otherwise, she could only wait for her own destruction.

This was the sorrow of the weak.

This was their never ending plight.

## **Unwillingness**

In the world of martial artists', all of them may have some sort of unwillingness or faith on some things.

### **Death**

For example, their road that defies the heavens. All martial artists are unwilling to be defeated and turn into dust. They would tread the 18 hells and mountains of corpses to fulfill this fervent wish; Immortality.

### **Stubbornness**

Next would be their stubbornness or their belief in their strength, they would think that they were invincible in this world. They would believe that they were destined for greatness, no matter how fantastical this sounded. Some martial artists' would even abandon all pretense of civility, burn bridges and abandon everything behind because of their lofty goals. This was to the point of betrayal. Betrayal to their masters, their friends, to their family, and even their entire race! They would be willing to betray their roots! This type of ambitious people would be likes of Tian Mingzi and Empyrean Thunder Punishment, martial artists' willing to even betray their human race.

### **Idolization**

Another example is their faith and belief in their idols and heroes. They would believe their idols were invincible. Even if their idol wasn’t as strong as they thought, that person still wouldn’t admit it, because recognizing this was the same as denying everything they knew. This was some sort of comfort for those who were weak, people who had long lost hope in the sight of immortality.

### **Attitude Towards Death**

Sometimes, when a martial artist faced a life or death situation, their attitude might veer towards one of two extremes. One would be a desperado, not fearing death nor danger. They would mostly come from poorer backgrounds and rely on this sort of character to grasp lucky chances, finally arriving at a higher boundary.

And then there were those that treasured their own life. These types of people would often come from large sects and would have enjoyed endless resources since childhood. They had already developed an inherent sense of superiority so how would they be willing to die?

## **Youth**

Youth - this was something that many old monsters yearned for. It was to have their youthful appearance be restored, or even partially. Thus, many martial artists' did not only cultivate for the martial path but to also live a longer life that would extend their youthful appearance.

Take the Acacia Faction women for example. With the assistance of the Acacia Faction, they hoped they would step into the Pulse Condensation period, or even the Houtian realm, before their looks began to wither from age. If they could do this, they would have dozens of extra years of life, and they would be able to remain at the most beautiful point of their lives. To those beautiful women, this was a fatal temptation.

In the lower realms or for any realm at that, a person's appearance whether it be at their youth or old age would usually be a point of subjective discretion; meaning that a martial artist could choose to maintain their youthful appearance even as an ancient being.

Only when a martial artist reaches the Life Destruction realm can they burn some of their cultivation to renew their youth. And this is only appearances – it doesn’t lengthen their lifespan. Normally only female martial artists that value their appearance too much would do such things. Men normally wouldn’t. After all, rejuvenating your appearance requires you to burn not a small amount of your cultivation.

Even men were pretty willing to maintain their youthful looks for as long as possible. However, if they were stranded in the Revolving Core realm until their thirties and forties, there would still be a few traces of their age left on their faces, giving off the feel that they were middle-aged in appearance.

If one wanted to keep the vivid vibrancy of youth, one would have to step into the Life Destruction realm at around 30 years of age. However, this sort of person would be a monstrous genius of their era. Without accident, they would inevitably step into the Divine Sea, and would even grow to become an astounding character amongst all Divine Sea powerhouses.

After crossing Life Destruction, a martial artist’s body would be reborn. The only way they could restore their youthful appearance was if they displayed a supernatural power that defied the will of the heavens. But, this young appearance would only be a façade. Their lifespan would not change and their fires of life would continue to weaken with time.

Rather, maintaining a youthful appearance would cause a martial artist’s cultivation to lessen. The price simply wasn’t worth the benefits. Thus, unless it was a woman who valued their beauty and only cared about their looks, a general martial artist simply wouldn’t waste their efforts on such things. Which woman didn’t wish to be beautiful, which woman didn’t wish to have everlasting youth?

If a martial artist could reach the Divine Transformation realm and obtain 30,000 years of youth, just what sort of concept was that? The change of a royal dynasty happened every few hundred years. 30,000 years was enough to see a dynasty change a hundred times. Countless emperors, princes, nobles, leaders, all of them would pass by like clouds. Even Divine Kingdoms would fall during this time.

But they would retain their youthful appearance and vigor. To a mortal, that was nearly immortality.

### **Age Differences**

To a martial artist, superiority through age was highly evident when they were young. When everyone was a hundred years old, even a difference of 10 years was a great disparity.

But when one was several thousand years old, tens of thousands of years old, or even millions of years old, a difference of a few hundred years was nothing more than floating clouds.

### **Discerning Young From Old**

For the Xiantian realm, someone 50 years old would be considered middle-aged. But if one could step into the Life Destruction realm in their thirties, then they would appear in their twenties even if they were 50 years of age. In addition, Life Destruction powerhouses lived for thousands of years. Thus, a 50 year old Life Destruction powerhouse could also be considered someone of the younger generation.

### **Beauty**

In fact, when it came to martial artists, when the beauty of one’s appearance reached an extreme, the disparity between them wouldn’t be too great. For instance, Smokeless herself was as beautiful as the moon, and even if she was inferior in appearance to Sheng Mei, the difference wasn’t too significant.

What Smokeless truly lost in was aura and temperament.

She felt that this peerless woman was a true goddess, the source of all Laws in the universe, the beginning of the heavens and earth. She made all others feel inferior. Thus, even if their physical appearance didn't have too much of a difference, the aura and level she reached made Smokeless pale in comparison.

## Marriage

to a martial artist, discussing marriage in one’s twenties was far too early. For a genius, marrying at 200 years wasn’t too old.

## **Martial Expenses**

The wealth required to walk down the martial path surpasses what one would expect it to be. No wonder it's impossible for a top genius to appear amongst the wandering martial artists, and it's no wonder that even a Great World King level Holy Land would find it difficult to produce another World King successor after hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. This is why so many World King Holy Lands like the Ancient Dragon Clan lack successors!

Lin Ming thought to himself. He thought about the True Martial Holy Lands. Starbind Bank had already been operating for millions of years, and there were also the many trade associations within Immemorial Imperial City that fell underneath the control of the True Martial Holy Lands. Just how much wealth had these businesses earned during this time? Perhaps not even the True Martial World King was sure!

However, up until now, the True Martial Holy Lands had yet to produce a second World King! They had only produced over a hundred ‘successors’ to the True Martial World King.

And to grow each of these ‘successors’ cost a massive amount of wealth! Even so, the chances of them becoming a World King in the future weren’t high at all!

Lin Ming recalled the Ancient Phoenix Clan’s Xiao Daoji and Huo Burning Heaven. They were both extreme characters of their generation. But even then, such characters had been stopped at the half-step World King realm. They hadn’t managed to take that last step forwards!

At that time, Lin Ming had thought this was unbelievable. But now that he thought about it some more, the reason they couldn’t take that last step was not because their talent was too poor and not because the foundation they built during Ninefall and the Nine Divine Shifts was too shaky, but because the Ancient Phoenix Clan simply wasn’t able to afford it!

The basis of the Ancient Phoenix Clan was that they had obtained the secret to finding out where the Ancient Phoenix underwent nirvana and thus were able to obtain the blood of the Ancient Phoenix. However, the Ancient Phoenix Clan didn’t even have enough of this blood to use, let alone trading it away for resources.

As for the Ancient Phoenix Clan’s resource sites, the most valuable one was the God Beast Mystic Realm. But, while the God Beast Mystic Realm was excellent for tempering geniuses and allowing them to find great lucky chances, its ability to produce wealth was still below that of Carefree Island’s Red Desolate Mystic Realm.

Of the four God Beast clans, only the Ancient Dragon Clan had been able to rely on its superior numbers and vastly greater wealth to raise two World Kings in the span of a hundred million years!

Thus, one could infer how gargantuan the amount of wealth one needs to raise peak geniuses to their full potential! Even a base number of a hundred trillion was lacking!

## **Martial Competition**

In the mortal world, there were all sorts of sports that attracted many people. For instance, kickball competitions and other such movements. These sorts of competitions were able to attract a massive number of fans and spectators, all of whom would cheer during the competition, causing the atmosphere to turn crazy with elation.

But no matter how crazy they were, they could never be even a thousandth as crazy as martial artists watching a battle between powerhouses!

In the world of martial artists, there was no one who didn’t practice martial arts. This was the absolute competition that everyone shared between them. The road of martial arts was everything to a martial artist. In this case with such a spectacular fight occurring right in front of their eyes, the impact could be imagined!

When these martial artists all gathered together, the atmosphere was enough to make their blood boil over!

Many of those in the audience were friends or relatives of the competing martial artists. They were senior-apprentice brothers, junior-apprentice sisters, good brothers, and so forth. As they all shouted out together, their voices were collapsing mountains, spreading over the world like an endless tsunami!

The pressure of competition, the pressure of life or death risks, the pressure of cultivation – when all of these pressures were combined together, they really required an outlet to be released. Now that they could howl out like this, all of them were happy and ecstatic!

## Favors

The world of martial artists had the custom of reciprocity. After receiving gifts and favors, if their own sect had someone make a great breakthrough, then others would have to gift them in return. This was a fundemental basis of forming good karma.

## Trivia

* In the martial word, defeating and killing are two completely different concepts.
* Those that walked the path of martial arts were doomed to loneliness. No one would be able to keep up with his footsteps. Parents, family, friends, lovers… the stronger one became, the greater the distance between them…
* The most difficult period for a genius was the time when they were still growing. It was possible for them to die while they were exploring a mystic realm, or perhaps they would be killed by others. Especially those that didn’t have any background, it was even easier for them to stumble into dangerous accidents.
* Where there were people, there was bound to be jealousy. In particular, geniuses hated being surpassed by others. When someone was so terrifying that no one could see their back, these people naturally hoped that something bad would happen to them.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 1210 – Heavenly Demon Metamorphic Art
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 851 – Luosha’s Determination
3. ↑ Chapter 238 - Jiang Lanjian
4. ↑ Chapter 782 – Killing Corpsemancer
5. ↑ Chapter 783 – First Appearance On The Destiny Decree
6. ↑ Chapter 1163 – Crazy
7. ↑ Chapter 1153 – Grandest Event of All Ages