39: How giants survive

As the area most severely affected by the great war, the Spiritual Veins of the Eastern Barrens were essentially shattered during that terrifying conflict.

With the Spiritual Veins crippled, they could no longer incubate new spiritual ore veins!

Consequently, the cultivation resources in the Eastern Barrens were slowly decreasing day by day.

Especially the Spirit Stone resources; without the ability to incubate new Spiritual Veins, no new spiritual mines would be born. The Spirit Stones used by Cultivators in the Eastern Barrens were merely old stock.

Currently, among the spoils of war storage rings Long Aotian obtained, there were no Top-Grade Spirit Stones or High-Grade Spirit Stones.

This was true even in the storage ring of the Shi Family's Soul Emergence Ninth Revolution Peak Stage Family Guardian.

Even powerful Soul Emergence Ninth Revolution Peak Stage experts from the Five Great Cultivation Families of the Imperial City had no Top-Grade Spirit Stones or High-Grade Spirit Stones to use. This offers a glimpse into how barren the cultivation resources in the Eastern Barrens had become.

Below the two colossal powers, Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family, were the Three Great Cloud Sects and the Five Great Cultivation Families. The highest cultivation level among the Five Great Cultivation Families was merely a Spirit Division Realm expert.

Poverty limited the growth of the Eastern Barrens!

Otherwise, how could the Long Family's three ten-thousand-year Prodigies, Long Shijie, Long Wudi, and Long Bubai, have such low cultivation levels?

It could be said that if Long Aotian were to truly offer millions of Top-Grade Spirit Stones to the Feng Family as a token of apology, it would absolutely enable the Feng Family to ascend to become the sixth Great Cultivation Family of the Eternal Leaf Dynasty.

It might even allow them to grow to a level second only to Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family.

Currently, in the third-layer spatial world of Long Aotian's Treasure Pagoda, there are tens of thousands of small mountain-like Top-Grade Spirit Stones. If these small mountain-like Top-Grade Spirit Stones were developed into standard circulating Spirit Stone sizes, it is estimated that at least one to two hundred million could be produced. Long Aotian does not plan to touch them, saving them for his own Cultivation.

When mining the small Top-Grade Spiritual Vein beneath Immortal Severing Mountain, Long Aotian developed the scattered Spirit Stone ores that were not small mountain-like into standard circulating Spirit Stone sizes, totaling over twelve million three hundred thousand.

He stored all of these in his Immortal Lord storage ring.

It can be said that currently, in the entire Eternal Leaf Dynasty, no one should be richer than him.

Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family are the two major powers of the Eastern Barrens. Logically, these two major powers should be richer than Long Aotian. However, even the wealthiest powers, after hundreds of thousands of years of living off old stock in this small land of the Eastern Barrens, cannot sustain it.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, Long Aotian's one to two hundred million Top-Grade Spirit Stones would have been nothing in the Eastern Barrens. Now, hundreds of thousands of years later, that small Top-Grade Spiritual Vein beneath Immortal Severing Mountain can almost be said to be the last Top-Grade Spiritual Vein in the entire Eastern Barrens. Long Aotian can now absolutely be called the wealthiest Cultivator in the Eastern Barrens.

In the Eastern Barrens, Cultivation Families like the Long Family, which are at the king city level, basically use Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

Only people from the Five Great Cultivation Families of the Imperial City and the Three Great Cloud Sects have Mid-Grade Spirit Stones available.

High-Grade Spirit Stones are essentially controlled by the two major powers, Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family.

As for Top-Grade Spirit Stones?

Perhaps the two major powers still retain some, but the quantity is definitely not large.

This means that if Long Aotian were to take out his Top-Grade Spirit Stones and distribute them to the Long and Feng Families for Cultivation, he could absolutely create two Cultivation Families that could rival Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family.

As for the argument that the two major powers might have many Tribulation Transcendence Realm Ninth Revolution Peak Stage experts who cannot Ascend to the Upper Realm, possessing profound foundations that newly rising forces like the Long and Feng Families cannot rival?

It is undeniable that Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family, due to their long existence, indeed have stronger foundations than the newly rising forces of the Long and Feng Families. However, Tribulation Transcendence Realm Ninth Revolution Peak Stage experts also have a lifespan limit.

Joking aside, even a powerful figure like Ao Zhan has a lifespan limit. Tribulation Transcendence Realm Ninth Revolution Peak Stage Mortal Cultivators are merely mortals; they are not even Immortals. How could they not have a lifespan limit?

The ten realms of Mortal Cultivators have the following lifespan limits:

Vein Opening Realm, can live over three hundred years.

Foundation Establishment Realm, can live over six hundred years.

Spirit Spring Realm, can live over a thousand years.

Spirit Sea Realm, can live for one thousand five hundred years.

Golden Core Realm, two thousand years is not a problem.

Nascent Soul Realm, around two thousand five hundred years.

Out-of-Body Realm, three thousand years is not a problem.

Spirit Division Realm, four thousand years is not a problem.

Mahayana Realm, five thousand years is not a problem.

Tribulation Transcendence Realm: starting from six thousand years; the more times one is struck by lightning, the longer one lives, but a maximum of no more than ten thousand years.

Of course, this is just a general theory and not an unchangeable conclusion.

For example, people whose cultivation advances rapidly will live longer. Those who Breakthrough to the Golden Core Realm before thirty and those who Breakthrough to the Golden Core Realm at fifty have different lifespan limits. Obviously, those who Breakthrough to the Golden Core Realm at thirty have stronger vitality than those who Breakthrough to the Golden Core Realm at fifty.

Specifically, how many more years can they live?

This has no definite conclusion, not even a general theory.

Take Long Aotian, for example. He is only eleven years old and has already Breakthrough to the Purple Core Realm Ninth Revolution Peak Stage. What is his current lifespan limit?

No one knows.

The truth is, he is too much of a Prodigy. It is even possible that he currently has a lifespan of three thousand years, comparable to the lifespan limit of an Out-of-Body Realm expert.

Life has a limit, and Cultivators also have a limit.

Therefore, it is true that Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family have profound foundations and strong power. However, for hundreds of thousands of years, the Ascension Passage has not appeared. Those experts whose cultivation reached Ascension could not Ascend. At most, after ten thousand years, they would pass away one after another.

The growth of these Mortal Peak-level experts was also built up with cultivation resources. Experts accumulated over hundreds of thousands of years by constantly consuming old stock, unable to Ascend, eventually all passed away.

How many cultivation resources could Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family still have?

Evidently, even if they had some, after so many years of consumption, there probably isn't much left.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for them to publicly claim that their strongest people only have Mahayana Realm cultivation.

Who would believe that?

In Long Aotian's view, Cloud Palace and the Imperial Family, standing at the top of the food chain and ultimately controlling the high-quality cultivation resources of the Eastern Barrens, must still possess a large amount of cultivation resources.

However, these cultivation resources are all under their control.

That is to say, they would not allow too many Tribulation Transcendence Realm experts to suddenly appear within their forces. There are quotas and time limits for using the cultivation resources they control to Breakthrough to the Tribulation Transcendence Realm.

Otherwise, even with vast cultivation resources, they, who can only rely on the Eastern Barrens' old stock, would not be able to withstand such frantic consumption with output but no input.

If the cultivation resources were depleted, then they would truly decline completely.

Only when one batch of Tribulation Transcendence Realm experts dies will a new batch of Tribulation Transcendence Realm experts be born.

Only then can they maintain their hegemonic position in the Eastern Barrens.

Otherwise, if everyone suddenly Breakthrough to the Tribulation Transcendence Realm, depleting the cultivation resources, then even Mortal Peak-level experts would die after ten thousand years, and everything would be over at once.

This is like walking in the desert with only one bag of water. Before finding an oasis and seeing the hope of relief, one cannot guzzle it all down just because of thirst, drinking all the water in the bag for temporary satisfaction.

Otherwise, death would not be far away...