864 The Nine Wonders

Alex next read the political structure of the land, and while it was informative, it wasn't really something he was excited to learn about.

It only talked about the tensions between some minor sects that he would never have anything to do with. The bigger sects that ruled the land never really tried to attack the other State and start an all-out war. That was just not profitable for them.

Alex ignored that book and moved on to the talismans he had.

The next talisman he had was something that apparently noted down many famous spots to visit in the continent, including what was known as the 9 greatest places, which was also known as the 9 Wonders of the Northern Continent.

The talisman had information on two mountain peaks that were side by side where one spewed out lava, while a glacier flowed down the other one.

There was mention of a place so dense in water Qi that it was forever misty.

There was a restaurant in a city called Frost Haven Restaurant where they made delicacies using only ice made up of spirit waters that apparently someone had to test.

There were places with arenas where people went to go to fight and earn money for themselves.

There were tombs and locations where people from before the war many thousands of years lived. Of course, they were empty now, but people could still visit if they wanted.

There were also the Forever Isles that were to the south of the Northern continent. It was a set of many islands that seemed to stretch forever into the ocean.

Along with that, there were many more 'normal' locations that the talisman said that people had to visit.

After reading through what was basic in his eyes, Alex finally reached the end of the list that contained the 9 wonders of the Northern Continent.

The first one was the Secret Realm of the Ruler.

"They really do know about it," Alex thought as he read.

The talisman made note of land in the far north of the State of Xue where a monument stood. If one activated the monument, they would be transported to the realm where the ruler lived or at least had once lived.

The people weren't sure if the ruler was still alive or not, but they knew where he was and cautioned people against going to that area without any preparation.

The next location on the talisman was something known as the Endless Tunnel.

About 2500 years ago, when the Heaven's Frost sect and the Frozen Heart sect realized that the mountain range between the State of Xue and the State of Dong was too treacherous for even normal cultivators to travel, let alone mortal merchants, they decided to open up a tunnel through the mountain range.

On either side, the Saint realm cultivators attacked the mountain to break it down, and they did manage to break off a decent amount of it, they soon realized that their attacks were useless.

The mountain range was formed out of some incredible material that was named to be Starforged Tungsten. Even just the metal ore was so incredibly tough that it took multiple saint realms to attack it and break just a small part of it.

The saint realms soon found out that they had come upon an incredible treasure and instead of opening a passage, they decided to mine it.

Since the tunnel that was supposed to open never did open and would take forever to open given how tough the ore was, it was named the Endless metal.

Since the sects couldn't spare Saint realm cultivators to harvest the ores due to how incredibly time-consuming it was, they allowed anyone to simply come and harvest it themselves, so long as they gave 50% of what they harvested to either the Heaven's Frost sect or Frozen Heart sect depending on which side of the tunnel they were on.

The next wonder of the Northern Continent was the Lightning Peninsula. As the name suggested, it was a Peninsula located in the south of the State of Shuang, where Lightning rained as if it were snow.

It was a natural phenomenon that started not very long ago. No one knew how it started or why, but experts could only guess that it was due to some weird magnetic fluctuations around the bay there.

The next wonder was to Alex's massive surprise, the Intercontinental Teleportation formation of the Northern Continent.

"Right, they have one," he thought. Due to the Western Continent no longer having one, Alex had for some reason thought that no other land would have it either.

But they did, and Alex wondered if he could use it to go back home. However, when he read up on the information in the talisman, he got dejected.

The resources used to run the teleportation formation, now that there was no midway point in the central continent, were so massive that a normal person simply couldn't expect to use them.

Even the ancient sects would have to bring out a good chunk of what they had in their treasury to activate it, and even then they could only go to the Eastern continent or the Southern continent.

For most people who could afford to use this formation, it was much easier and cost-effective to simply fly over to the Eastern continent and then cross that land to fly over to the southern continent.

Alex was dejected that he couldn't use the formation as it was now just a relic of the past. Something one would only use in the worst emergency cases.

He shook his head and continued reading.

In the same State as the teleportation formation, the State of Re, there was a group of volcanic mountains.

There was exactly a dozen to be precise where the best Fire elemental materials grew.

Even though the Blazing Sect was right next to it, the mountain ranges were public to everyone. However, these weren't the mountains that were considered the wonder of the continent.

In between these mountains was another mountain, hidden inside a secret realm, known as the Thirteenth Volcanic Mountain. It was a place with much more fire elements and resources that one could just not get.

Alex made a mental note of this place as it would be an important place to go once he was a Saint realm cultivator.

In the State of Shuang was a massive forest filled with beasts from the Skin Tempering realm, all the way up to the Saint Soul realm.

It was known as the Forest of the Demonic Beasts and was the only place on the continent where one could find almost every kind of beast.

The Blue Spring sect, the ancient beast-taming sect got their beasts from precisely this forest.

Next up was the Dao mountain. Even from just the name, Alex could understand what the mountain could be about. However, he didn't want to trust his intuition and instead decided to look at the description.

However, to his pleasant surprise, the explanation was exactly what he had hoped it would be.

The Dao mountain was a location at the northeastern corner of the Land of Dong where one had an easier time learning the Dao.

The opportunity apparently came from some sort of fragrance created by some flowers that blossomed on the mountain every year. So every year, a set amount of people were able to go up the mountain to smell the flower, fall into a trance and learn some Dao.

Unfortunately, according to the talisman, the Dao mountain was hard to enter without becoming a Saint realm. Alex wondered what the problem was, but there was no other explanation.

"I will have to check it out on my own," he thought.

Next up was a place known as the Domain of War that lay on the southeastern corner of the State of Dong. Alex got curious and read further.

This place was a land torn by battle from ancient times, where intents, Qi, and aura from all types of attacks and weapons still remained in just that part of the land.

Since they came from Immortals apparently, the intents wouldn't just disappear and instead, people could go to it and train against it.

That was a brilliant place for anyone trying to hone themselves, and Alex needed just the type of place too.

Finally, the last location was a place known as The Nine Wells of Time. It was located on a hill in the State of Bing where one could go and drink water from these wells, and depending on the well, one could see their past or a potential future.

Alex was truly surprised after hearing about a place like this and couldn't wait to visit here.

After reading the 9 different locations, Alex couldn't help but be excited about most of those lands, but those would have to wait until he reached the Saint rank.

'I have to hurry up,' he thought. He put away the talisman and brought out another one.

This was the map of the Northern Continent, and Alex read it.

There were 5 states divided among the 5 different sects. Alex searched for the Ruler's realm that was so popular and his eyes nearly fell out when he realized just how far in the north he was.

Most of the cities and sects were towards the south, near the hotter areas, and he was here in the north where there were barely any people living.

"Yeah, I really need to hurry up."

<P.S. Yes, I know it looks like the USA. That was not intentional.>