Condemning the Heavens

"Your clothes are rather foreign. I cannot recognize the material," he said with a nod of his head. "The style is different, and the armor is also quite different."

"Your strength is passable, definitely not a strength that you should have been able to achieve with only two eyes at your tender age."

"Where are you from?"

The man had examined him and came to the conclusion that Xue Wei was not lying; he was indeed a stranger to their continent and the three-eyed man could not help but feel curious about the outside world.

"We come from the continent of Chang’an," Xue Wei answered honestly. He doubted that his name would resound all the way from the continent of Chang’an to this continent, but he was still not sure about where they were.

"Chang’an?" The man looked puzzled and seemed to contemplate for some time. "I have never heard about that continent before. Can’t be a very big or important one," he concluded, leaving Xue Wei and the others coughing. One thing was to think it, but to say it directly, was this not a bit too rude?

"Come with me," the man said and waved for them to follow him. With a look at each other, the four of them quickly nodded their heads. No words were spoken, all of them felt that they could follow this man, for now. They felt no hostility from him so following him seemed like a safe choice.

The three-eyed young man led them across the plain. He moved as fast as them, but a look at him told them that his Qi level was rather low, at most around the Heavenly Warrior rank. This was puzzling.

Still, in half an hour, the group arrived at a rather sizeable camp. It seemed to be housing around a thousand people. As to whether or not they were all experts, Xue Wei did not know. He had no knowledge about this continent so he dared not even make any mindless guesses.

There were other three-eyed cultivators standing guard at the camp, and Xue Wei even saw a four-eyed cultivator walk inside. The guards were extremely polite, to the point of being submissive, towards this individual.

"Wait here," the guard said as he entered the camp. Their group was quickly noticed by others and many looked at them. For some reason, they all showed looks of disdain towards their group of four. It was clear that they were being looked down upon.

"There are so many eyes," Hei Gou said with a low voice, and the other three nodded their heads. It was indeed confusing to see people with this many eyes. Was this really the Demon Phoenix Continent?

They were all puzzled and realized that they had been told nothing about the continent they were to enter, only that the Vermilion Bird Clan existed here.

Did they also have more eyes than normal?

While the four of them were in deep thought about the many-eyed people, confused about where they might have ended up, the guard that had led them there returned, this time with an elderly man who had four eyes.

The man was being treated extremely respectfully by everyone on his way over, so Xue Wei understood that he had a high standing.

He stopped in front of Xue Wei and his friends. His eyes swept over them and although there was a slight sense of superiority in his eyes, he did not show direct disdain for them.

"I hear you are from the Chang’an Continent?" he asked. Xue Wei nodded his head and answered, "Yes, we hail from the Continent of Chang’an. Could you, sir, perhaps tell us where this is?"

"This is Yan Dalu." the man said, causing Xue Wei to be completely confused. "Yan Dalu?" he asked. "Not the Demon Phoenix Continent?"

The four-eyed elder snickered when he heard this. He shook his head. "I am afraid that if you were going for the Demon Phoenix Continent, then you will be disappointed. This continent is called Yan Dalu."

"Yan Dalu is not far from the Demon Phoenix Continent, but it takes around a year to travel across the sea. Not to mention that you would have to cross the entire continent first. Also, your strength is not bad, but compared to the strength needed at the Demon Phoenix Continent, it is definitely insufficient."

"I think you should praise the lucky star that you arrived here and not on the Demon Phoenix Continent. Had you arrived there, you would have been in for a lot of trouble."

"It was not a lucky star that brought us here, but Lan," Xue Wei muttered, but his voice was so low that no one heard him. The four-eyed elder continued talking unabated. It was clear that he was feeling excitement because of these people who came from outside the continent.

"Yan Dalu is quite different from most of the other continents," he began. "First, let me tell you a bit about the history of the world from way before it became a continent. Around ten thousand years ago, it was possible to have mixed races. Many different halfbreeds and mutations were produced, no one really cared about what race you were: as long as there was love, there would be a way."

"The ancestors of Yan Dalu were such figures. They were a mixture between Golden-Crowned Five-Eyed Lions and humans. The Golden-Crowned Five-Eyed Lion is now an extinct race, but they were a Primordial Beast. The king of all Primordial Beasts, even."

"Many of these descendants had a mutation. They seemed human, but they had more eyes than normal humans. The more eyes one had, the purer one’s bloodline was."

"One’s bloodline does not only determine one’s ability and achievements in the future, but it also gave us outstanding powers and innate abilities."

"All of these descendants ended up becoming overlords of a region of the world. Then some thousand years ago, the world was split into continents, and that was when our region was turned into a continent of its own."

"On this continent, one’s rank in society is determined by how many eyes one is born with."

"One eye means that there is something wrong up there, and they are usually considered retards."

"Two eyes is normal. ninety percent of the population has two eyes. Some of them are normal humans, some of them just do not have a lot of the bloodline. Either way, they are all third-rate citizens."

"Three eyes means that you have some talent. It is guaranteed that you will one day unlock the first of our three innate abilities."

"Four eyes mean you are outstanding. It is rare to be born with four eyes, and when you have four eyes, you have to accept a rank of nobility alongside responsibility for certain tasks."

"Finally, we have the five-eyed experts. They are children sent from the heavens. All the upper echelons of our society belong to the five-eyed experts. They are second to none when it comes to natural talent, and they have managed to unlock all the innate abilities."

"Now, I have explained to you the basic understanding of Yan Dalu. Why don’t you come with me to the camp? We would be very happy if you would accompany us back to the Garden of Shadows later, but first, we must finish our training here. You can participate if you wish."

"Oh right, I forgot to tell you, but I can sense from you that three of you specialize in Qi and not spiritual energy. In our world, spiritual energy is the king. Qi is also trained, but never to the degree of how much we train spiritual energy. Everyone with three or more eyes has a great affinity with spiritual energy due to the psychic nature of the eyes."

Xue Wei did not consider much. This man had been incredibly accommodating and they had understood a lot of things thanks to him. If he had any ulterior motives, he would not have been so welcoming, so joining him would be much better than leaving on their own and getting lost.

Seeing that Xue Wei had decided, the other three quickly consented as they had the same opinion as him.

As they agreed, the smile of the four-eyed man turned brilliant and he introduced himself, "I am Elder Sun. I am the Vice-Principal of the Garden of Shadows."

"We, the higher-ups of the Yan Dalu, are fond of visitors from overseas, so we look forward to hearing about what kind of continent Chang’an is."

Xue Wei nodded his head. He had no reason not to tell them about Chang’an. As long as he elegantly glossed over the fact that he was a wanted man, everything would be fine.

It also seemed as if the Chang’an Continent was rather isolated compared to the other continents. Here on Yan Dalu, they knew the location of the Demon Phoenix Continent, and they might even know more about the other continents as well, whereas on Chang’an, most people thought that the other continents were just old folklore.

"Well, while you are here, although you are outsiders, we cannot look past the fact that everyone will look down upon you due to how our society works," Elder Sun said with a slight grin on his face. "Although our Yan Dalu is unlike the rest of the world with our many eyes, the truth is that everyone with only two eyes, whether they are from our continent or not, will be treated the same way. It means that you are either an ordinary person or one with subpar bloodline purity."

"So, what is the relationship between humans and beasts on this continent?" Xue Wei slowly inquired. There were two beasts on their team, him included. If this continent looked down on beasts as well, then he was likely to get into trouble.

"Beasts?" Elder Sun paused. "Well, Fierce Beasts are not worth a lot," he said after contemplating, "but Primordial Beasts, depending on their heritage, are treated as three- or four-eyed experts. Outsider Primordial Beasts might not have the bloodline of the Golden-Crowned Five-Eyed Lion, but they have their own abilities and strengths."

"Are any of you beasts?" Elder Sun asked curiously, but Xue Wei’s only response was a shrug. He was not going to reveal their secrets just yet. Although he had a good impression of this man, he could not say for sure what the public opinion about Sovereign Beasts was. If he got trapped here, he could only blame himself for not being cautious enough.

Elder Sun could see that he was not willing to answer, and nodded his head. He did not get insulted by their lack of reply. He had expected it. Although he had been very accommodating and welcoming, no one should let go of their guards just like that.

"Come with me into the camp, I will introduce you to all the main experts of our camp,and then, if it interests you, you can join us on our field trip from tomorrow onwards. I can highly recommend coming with us - we will even provide you the best accommodations for it. This way, you will have both a place to stay and something to do, right?"

"There are quite a few experts who are very interested in the outside world, but leaving the continent is harder than it seems. We do not have anyone strong enough to create a normal space tunnel, and not even close to being able to creating a trans-dimensional tunnel, and if they sail out on boats it will take them ages to arrive at the right place – and most of those who sail out never return."

"A few outsiders have come to our continent throughout the history of time, but those experts either traveled further or gave up and stayed as guests of Yan Dalu."

"The only continent we have contact with is, luckily for you, the Demon Phoenix Continent."

"I understand that your plan is to travel to the Demon Phoenix Continent, and if you make some contributions to our people, we can help you get onboard the envoy that goes to the Demon Phoenix Continent once every tenth year. You are in luck because the next envoy is only two years away from now."