Chapter 474 Three Years Later
On this unfamiliar island, Zhang Zhixuan and his two companions were more cautious. Because they did not speak the same language, they did not dare to communicate with the islanders easily. They could only hide in the dark and observe every move on the island.
The sun rises and sets, spring goes and autumn comes, and in the blink of an eye, three years have passed since the three of them were teleported here.
During these three years, Zhang Zhixuan and his two companions have been hiding in the dark, practicing hard in the underground cave, learning the local language and writing with the help of the invisibility talisman, and investigating the surrounding situation.
This deserted island is called Dafang Island. It was just a deserted island more than 300 years ago. Because the core of the island is solid and there has been no earthquake for tens of millions of years, it was chosen by Liu Xuanyan to build an underground cave.
After the underground cave was built, Liu Xuanyan saved some monks and supported them to gain a foothold on the island. Because the underground spiritual veins leaked, a spiritual vein gradually formed in the center of the island, and also attracted some scattered cultivators who failed in the nearby competition.
After years of operation, these people have cultivated the spiritual veins on the island to the third-grade upper grade, and the spiritual energy is already quite good.
So far, there are seven foundation-building cultivators and more than 300 Qi-training cultivators on the island. These cultivators have multiplied and formed 17 families.
These 17 families live together on an island. Because of limited resources, there will of course be conflicts, but when facing foreign enemies, they can put aside their conflicts, unite to resist foreign humiliation.
In the past three years, Zhang Zhixuan witnessed a fierce battle.
The cultivators on Dafang Island fought with one heart and soul, repelled the invasion of a small treasure ship, and defended their own gates.
In this battle, more than 40 Qi-training cultivators on the island died, and even two foundation-building cultivators died and three were injured. After the war, the island also rewarded meritorious service and did not deprive those families that suffered heavy losses and were insufficient in strength of their interests and territories.
The environment of Qingli Sea is different from that of Nanyazhou. There are vast seas everywhere, and scattered islands are dotted on the sea.
Most of these large and small islands are deserted islands, and only a part of them have spiritual veins, which are suitable for cultivators to garrison.
The stronger the spiritual veins on the island, the more powerful cultivators can be cultivated, the more advantageous position can be occupied in the competition, the stronger the sect and the more developed the family can be.
Therefore, in the Qingli Sea, in order to compete for the spiritual island, very cruel and fierce battles often break out.
Because the distance between islands is long, except for the main spiritual veins controlled by the big sects with teleportation arrays, most of the spiritual islands communicate through treasure ships.
Treasure ships use spiritual stones as energy and countless rare materials. It is extremely difficult to refine. It often requires dozens of cultivators such as weapon refiners and array masters to cooperate with each other and spend a lot of time to refine.
It costs more than tens of thousands of spiritual stones to refine a small third-level treasure ship, which is much more difficult than cultivating spiritual veins.
Compared with the popular spiritual boats in Nan Yazhou, treasure ships have many advantages and specific shortcomings.
A small third-level treasure ship can carry at least thousands of people. The internal space is far greater than Zhang Zhixuan’s fourth-level spiritual boat floating cloud boat, and it is better at transporting goods than whale pack beasts.
Secondly, the treasure ship was built with a lot of materials. It is not only large in space, but also very strong. It can withstand the violent waves on the sea and the terrifying beasts underwater.
Without the escort of the treasure ship, ordinary ships cannot leave the island at all. Even if they barely go out to sea, they are easily attacked by monsters in the sea, and the ship is destroyed and people are killed.
In the environment of Qingli Sea, except for the giant island occupied by the Yuanying period cultivators, the area is like a vast continent. There is no shortage of land, and countless fertile fields can be opened for self-sufficiency.
Ordinary small islands are limited by the area of the island and cannot support too many people.
For example, Dafang Island had a population of more than 30,000 three Jiazi years ago, but there was not enough land on the island, and there was no blueprint for building a treasure ship. It could not go out to sea to obtain resources, so it could not support too many people.
Almost two hundred years have passed, and the mortals on the island have not increased much. Instead, the number of cultivators has increased a little, and there are a few more foundation-building cultivators. As a result, a war returned to the starting point, and hundreds of years of hard work were in vain.
The reason why Dafang Island has developed to this point is that the island's skills are well inherited, which was inherited from a very powerful predecessor three hundred years ago. The first few foundation-building cultivators on the island received her help.
The second reason is that it has absorbed a large number of unsuccessful independent cultivators. The competition for Qinglihai Lingdao is very common and cruel.
If a spiritual island that has developed smoothly is unlucky and encounters a powerful monster or a large treasure ship, it may be accidentally defeated, lose the spiritual island where it lives, and become an independent cultivator.
The rules in Dafang Island are free to come and go, and these cultivators who failed in the competition can easily integrate into the island. There are constantly foreign cultivators entering the island to improve their bloodline, which leads to the island's population bloodline getting better and better. On average, one hundred mortals can give birth to a child with spiritual roots. This probability is far higher than that of the Nanyazhou Xiuxian family.
The population of the Zhang family and the Liu family exceeds 300,000, and the number of cultivators trained is only 400. The population of this small island is only 30,000 to 40,000, and the number of cultivators on the island is only one level less than that of the Zhang family.
If there were no foreign monks to improve their bloodlines and intermarry with the people on the island, the bloodlines of the mortals on the island would become worse and worse, gradually becoming ordinary, and would lack stamina after one or two hundred years.
The treasure ship is not only large and very sturdy, but also has a speed that is not inferior to the flying spirit boat in the sky. However, compared with the flying spirit boat in the sky, the treasure ship can only sail on the water and can only be moored in the port.
Moreover, the spirit boat can be enlarged and reduced, stored in the storage bag, and even used as the life magic weapon, refined into the dantian for warming. However, once the treasure ship is refined, it cannot change its shape, let alone reduce its volume. It is stored in the storage bag, and it requires a large number of people to move and operate.
Compared with the spirit boat, this is the biggest shortcoming of the treasure ship.
In addition, the treasure ship has refined extremely powerful magic weapons and special formation protection, which can play the advantage of a large number of people and gather the magic power of many people. It can often defeat the strong with the weak and defeat the masters whose cultivation is far superior to itself.
A third-level upper-grade treasure ship usually carries three fourth-level God-killing crossbows. The God-killing crossbow uses medium-grade spirit stones as energy, and the crossbow arrows fired are not weaker than the six-yang demon-killing crossbow used by Qing Chan in the past.
If the foundation-building cultivator is not careful, he may be killed in one shot. Even a Purple Mansion cultivator would be in a panic if attacked by three fourth-level God-killing Crossbows at the same time. If his cultivation was not good enough, he might be injured.
As long as the spiritual stones carried on the treasure ship were sufficient, a third-level high-quality treasure ship with only five foundation-building and thirty Qi-training cultivators stationed on it could compete with a Purple Mansion cultivator.
Of course, a third-level high-quality treasure ship could never be a match for Qing Chan, nor could it beat a Purple Mansion master like Zhang Zhixuan, or even Han Yan. However, if it encountered a Purple Mansion early stage cultivator like Wei Bohan, it could deal with him and compete with him until the spiritual stones on the treasure ship were exhausted.
