Li Yan didn't think that the information in the memory of the gray-haired old man he happened to catch was false. That would be too ridiculous.
But the information he got was certainly not just that. Why did the black-robed Jindan monk come to capture him? And what were the so-called foreign "evil spirit monks"
The answers to these questions were also found in the memory of the gray-haired old man.
This story begins with the first group of cultivators who entered here. At the beginning, there were no cultivators or monsters in this secret realm. Only some wild beasts with undeveloped intelligence were brought in.
But there always has to be a first. Unknown number of tens of thousands of years ago, a sect with only sixty-odd cultivators, while passing by the "Heavenly Demon Grassland", accidentally entered an illusory restricted area.
At that time, they had just landed on a hilly meadow to rest, and the next moment, they were sucked into an inexplicable space that made them extremely terrified.
The suction was so strong that even the strongest Divine Transformation cultivator among them was unable to resist it despite trying his best.
After the initial tension, they finally discovered that nothing unexpected had happened to any of them.
With everyone's faces pale and lingering fear, they appeared in a strange place intact. Everything in front of them was no longer the hilly grassland before.
This made them feel fortunate, but also made them extremely cautious.
After a quick inspection, they found that this place was extremely strange. Their spiritual consciousness was firmly imprisoned in their bodies. Only cultivators above the Nascent Soul stage could release their consciousness to a distance of about one to two inches when they exerted their full strength.
This made them blind and deaf in an instant, which made everyone feel uneasy and terrified.
They had long been accustomed to using their spiritual sense to explore everything. After the initial panic, they could only gather together and begin to work together to explore the surrounding situation. They did not dare to separate at will.
As they continued their exploration, these cultivators were very surprised to find that after exploring an area of tens of thousands of miles, they only found some beasts without intelligence, and no other cultivators at all.
When they discovered the existence of wild beasts here, they felt a little relieved, because this meant that this place was not a desolate place, and at least there were still living creatures.
Moreover, some of them even believed that this should still be the "Heavenly Demon Grassland" and that they might have accidentally entered an ancient forbidden formation and were teleported to another area.
Once they find the exit, they can try to get out. They cannot release their spiritual sense here, which makes them feel completely insecure.
Their sect is called "Zhenhun Palace" and was originally a sect established for monks who wanted to ascend from the lower world. However, due to the special techniques they practice, they are what others call soul cultivation.
This type of cultivator is the same as the poison cultivator. Because the techniques they practice are too vicious, they often attack the most vulnerable three souls and seven spirits when they make a move.
This kind of attack is often ineffective even with a protective light shield. Even most magic weapons do not have much defensive effect against it. Often, one encounter will either kill or cripple a person.
Therefore, they were feared by other cultivators, but they were also a sect that other cultivators were eager to get information about. Once they could obtain the cultivation method of soul cultivators, it would make their sect even more powerful.
Even the most weak sects and forces will change the fortune of the entire sect by changing their cultivation methods.
If a normal sect viewed this, it would actually be an opportunity for them to strengthen the sect, develop its power, and take the opportunity to recruit more disciples.
But for the soul cultivation sect, it is the most undesirable thing to see.
Of course, there are more than one sect of soul cultivators in the fairy world, but those sects have deep foundations and are extremely hidden, so it is basically difficult for them to show their true colors.
The Soul-Calming Palace was founded by cultivators who ascended from the lower realms. They had long been aware of how difficult it was for soul cultivators to survive, so they had always concealed the sect's background for fear that others would know about it.
But there is no wall that is impenetrable, and eventually someone discovered it and tracked it to the sect, which turned out to be a third-rate sect.
So, after hiding for hundreds of years, the poor Zhenhun Palace finally trained nearly a hundred disciples, but in the end it had to fight a desperate battle with the enemy.
Since the other party knew that they were soul cultivators, they had of course made adequate preparations when they came. They brought three Jindan cultivators and six Yuanying cultivators, but in the end all of them were killed on the spot.
The Soul-Suppressing Palace also lost four Nascent Soul elders, leaving only about sixty people. Among them, the ones with the highest cultivation levels were the sect master and two elders.
The two elders are both powerful warriors in the Nascent Soul stage, and the sect master is the cultivator who ascended from the lower realm, a cultivator in the late stage of the Spirit Transformation stage.
He alone killed three of the other side's Jindan cultivators, including two in the late Jindan stage who were at the same level as him. He was extremely powerful.
But he himself was seriously injured in this battle!
Afterwards, he immediately led the remaining dozens of disciples, abandoned the sect's location, and fled far away.
However, the incident happened suddenly, and the sect leader and the two elders had no plan and did not know where to stay. They could only flee on the road while starting to discuss their destination.
Finally, the three decided to find an extremely remote place and rebuild the sect again, so they thought of the west direction of "Northern Pastoral Realm".
There is a dangerous desert area there, where the living conditions are extremely harsh and dangerous, and usually few people go there.
If we can settle down there, it doesn't matter if our sect's cultivation becomes more difficult, after all, we will have less dealings with outsiders.
But if they want to get there, they have to cross diagonally through the equally dangerous "Heavenly Demon Grassland".
But at that time, the three of them had no choice.
In addition, they were only crossing a certain distance diagonally, and it was common for soul cultivators of different levels to fight each other, so it was okay to be a little more careful.
Even when they actually entered the "Heavenly Demon Grassland" later, they all had the idea of simply staying somewhere and establishing a sect, but this idea was quickly dispelled.
Although there are only level 3 and 4 monsters in some areas, there are too many types of monsters. In addition, the "Heavenly Monster Grassland" is rich in cultivation resources, and there are often cultivators coming and going here, so the possibility of being exposed is still very high. In the end, they decided to go all the way west, but unfortunately they were finally involved in this secret place.
The spiritual energy here is very good, even richer than the spiritual energy where their sect was originally located.
But in addition to the suppression of their spiritual consciousness, they also sensed the power of the five elements of heaven and earth here, and the conversion between them was not so smooth.
But this does not affect their cultivation, especially since they are soul cultivators who mainly cultivate their souls.
After searching here for half a year, they still couldn't find any exit.
Finally, after discussion, the three of them realized that each of them was injured and had been on the run for a long time and had not been able to recover in time.
It would be better to just rest here first, and then make other plans after finding the exit.
So, they chose a place they thought was relatively safe, set up various formations and restrictions, and began to recover from their injuries.
It was not until seven years later that all their injuries were healed. What surprised them was that during these seven years, no monks or monsters appeared in the place where they were.
The spiritual energy here is also very good for cultivation. After their injuries were healed, the three of them discussed and began to explore this secret place carefully.
This exploration lasted for nearly a hundred years, and finally they basically understood the situation here. There are four or five extremely dangerous areas here.
Even the leader of the Soul-Suppressing Palace, who was at the Spirit Transformation Realm, had no confidence that he could enter and come out intact.
In other areas, there are several places with rich spiritual energy, which is even comparable to those of the second-rate sects in the fairy world.
This secret realm, except for a few dangerous areas of unknown size, the entire secret realm covers an area of only about three million miles. For the cultivators in the fairy world, this space range is actually not too large.
At the same time, after about a hundred years, they still couldn't find a way out.
But the more he got to know this place, the more he realized that apart from suppressing his spiritual consciousness, this place was undoubtedly a sacred paradise for the Soul-Calming Palace.
Finally, they simply chose a place with the richest spiritual energy, re-established their sect, and named it "Earth True Realm".
In their view, when they were desperate and had a bleak future, it was the "earth spirit" that guided them here and gave them such a holy place where they could avoid disasters and escape from the world, hence the name "Dizhen".
After that, they practiced here with peace of mind. Of course, they were also looking for a channel to communicate with the outside world. Even if it was not for the purpose of going out, they had to prevent others from entering.
In this way, time passed year after year, and these dozens of monks, both male and female, also started to spread out here.
Gradually, they completely adapted to everything here and even became attached to it. However, what they were most worried about was that they themselves could get here by mistake. What about other cultivators or monsters
There is definitely a chance of being drawn into this secret place.
But what frustrated the monks of Zhenhun Palace was that they simply couldn't find the entrance or exit here. Even after they sent monks to station there for decades, they still couldn't find anything else.
So the sect leader thought that since he and others were powerless to resist when they were dragged into it, the reason was that his cultivation was not high enough and the entrance was extremely hidden.
Perhaps when he reaches the realm of refining emptiness, or even a higher realm one day, he will be able to find the entrance and exit here, and then he can seal it.
But in order to prevent the sudden appearance of other strange strong men, they also began to send people to patrol within a certain range.
Just like that, after another fifty or sixty years, during one of their patrols, they really discovered some intelligent monsters, but the levels of these monsters were only the second or third level.
They immediately captured all the monsters they saw. Although they could not search their souls, their research on souls was unmatched by other sects, and they soon made these monsters lose themselves...
They learned from the monsters that they were fighting in a forest in the "Heavenly Demon Grassland" when suddenly the space twisted and they were inexplicably rolled here.
The Zhenhun Palace became extremely alert about this, but this accident finally happened, so they began to look for these monsters everywhere, trying to kill them all.
Another important reason is that they want to determine the realm of the strongest monster among those that came in this time. It would be bad if a sixth-level monster appeared.
So after some searching, they killed fifty or sixty monsters in succession. The strongest monster they encountered was only level four.
But what also gave the monks of Zhenhun Palace a headache was that these monsters were naturally very sensitive and could sense life-and-death crises or even the breath of a powerful being.
So after they arrived here, they had already dispersed and were looking for an exit to leave.
As a result, the cultivators of the Soul-Suppressing Palace had no idea how many monsters had entered.
Although they have been here for nearly a hundred years and have reproduced, their number has only increased by a dozen or so. After all, it is very difficult for monks to reproduce.
It is impossible for dozens of people to search such a large secret realm in its entirety, especially here, where they cannot use their spiritual sense at all.
In the end, the matter was left unresolved. At the same time, they did not find the entrance mentioned by the monster.
That passage was far away from where the Soul-Calming Palace monks entered, and it also disappeared without a trace...
Several decades later, traces of other foreign cultivators appeared in the "Earth True Realm", which surprised the cultivators of the Zhenhun Palace, so they had to search everywhere again.
This time, they found more than ten cultivators. After losing their spiritual consciousness, these cultivators were already in a panic. They were no match for these soul cultivators and were quickly captured.