Chapter 225: The Three Continents...

"Halt right there! The Clan Library is strictly off-limits during the night!" the guard barked staring at Gu Fan who had decided to pay the Gu Clan library a visit, "Even for you, Seventh Young Master."

To this arrogant guard, it absolutely did not matter how many local tournaments the boy had recently won. In his eyes, Gu Fan was still just the pathetic, crippled bastard of the Patriarch who didn’t deserve a single ounce of respect.

But Gu Fan didn’t even blink as he casually reached into his dark robes and pulled out a glowing purple jade token, shoving the priceless artifact almost into the guard’s face.

It was Madam Li’s token itself which she has long entrusted to Gu Fan in case he wanted things done in the clan.

While she preffered Gu Fan coming to her everytime one of her husband’s loyalists made things difficult for him, but Gu Fan however didn’t give her that satisfaction.

The moment the guard saw the Matriarch’s seal glowing in the darkness, he broke out in cold sweat and without saying a word dropped to his knees.

Gu Fan sneered coldly as he looked down at the trembling guards. He didn’t even need to raise a finger.

Sensing his impatient gaze, the lead guard frantically scrambled up from his knees, his hands shaking in absolute terror as he hastily pulled the heavy ironwood doors wide open.

"Why do you say things when you neither have the power, nor the status to show for it?" Gu Fan casually patted the back of the guards bowing head as Gu Fan strolled effortlessly past him, stepping directly into the dimly lit, incredibly silent library.

He could have slipped into the library using his movement techniques, but always doing things the sneaky way made him feel unworthy now that the system has asked him to establish his own sect.

And precisely to establish his own sect, he needed way more information than his author’s brain could generate about the world outside this pathetic, tiny border town if he was actually going to recruit a thousand loyal disciples and completely conquer the vast cultivation world.

Gu Fan was quick to ignore the sprawling first and second floors that were heavily packed with useless, low-level Mortal-grade martial arts and basic, boring alchemy recipes since that garbage wasn’t even going to be on the shelves of his sect’s library.

Instead, he marched straight up the winding wooden staircase, heading directly for the restricted top floor where spiritual restrictions layered over every cabinet and scroll rack. These were the restricted archives, accessible only to the core bloodline and those holding the highest tokens.

Gu Fan deactivated the final barrier with Madam Li’s token and stepped inside.

The top floor was completely dark and smelled of old paper and moist wood, but Gu Fan simply flicked his wrist to ignite a small, hovering ball of his Purple Nether-Ghost Fire, using the terrifying flame to perfectly illuminate the room.

He walked directly through the rows of neglected bookshelves, ignoring the locked vaults containing forbidden arts, and instead casually pulled several thick bamboo scrolls and highly detailed, leather-bound continental maps right off the open shelves before tossing them onto a large wooden table in the center of the room.

Gu Fan unrolled the largest and most detailed map of the Empire he could find, spreading the heavy parchment completely across the dusty wooden table as his sharp green eyes rapidly scanned the intricate, sprawling ink lines depicting massive empires, treacherous forbidden zones, and towering mountain ranges that housed supreme, heaven-defying sects.

He traced his finger over the massive, sprawling landmasses until he finally found a tiny little dot completely isolated in the far bottom corner of the map.

"Why did I not give birth to Gu Chen near the capital?" Gu Fan sighed as he looked at the map, "Damn these weak to strong stories."

Ever since he had transmigrated into this world and taken over the body of a crippled bastard, Li Wei, now Gu fan had been entirely focused on surviving the immediate threats within the Gu Clan.

Against his scheming arrogant brothers, Sabotaging the "reel" protagonist, dominating his voluptuous stepmother, orchestrating fights among the Bai and Gu Clan and taking advantage of the Song Clan.

But as he stared down at the massive, intricate ink lines depicting the unfathomable scale of the world outside this pathetic little valley that he had once created, the arrogant smirk on his handsome face slowly faded into a cold, highly calculating expression. He suddenly realized that his current playground was laughably small.

"I have been acting like a big shot while getting my hands dirty in a tiny puddle of mud," Gu Fan muttered to himself, tossing aside a useless local map.

Since the system had just threatened to shrink his manhood into a roasted peanut if he didn’t establish a Sect and recruit a thousand disciples within exactly one year, Gu Fan knew he could no longer afford to play petty politics with ignorant, frog-in-a-well elders.

He pulled another heavy bamboo scroll from the shelf and unrolled it on the table. Dust rose into the air as the old material cracked open. The text was written in dense classical script, but Gu Fan’s soul strength let him absorb the information quickly.

He rapidly processed the massive lore dump written on the crumbling bamboo slips, quickly learning that the world was actually divided into Three Great Continents that were separated by vast, treacherous oceans of violently chaotic Spirit Qi.

"Good thing I was lazy and decided to stop at three continents," Gu Fan could not help but wryly smile loking at the information.

The Central Divine Continent sat at the absolute centre. Spiritual energy there was so dense that even the air could nourish cultivators. Ancient holy sects ruled those lands, each one older than most empires and strong enough to erase entire regions with a single decree. The scroll described their experts as unfathomable, beings who had long since stopped caring about the trivial matters of the surrounding continents.

Gu Fan merely scoffed loudly as he read the descriptions of the Central Divine Continent, his lips curling into a cynical sneer because he knew perfectly well that those so-called ’holy lands’ were just massive gatherings of self-righteous, hypocritical bastards hiding behind golden walls, and ancient defense arrays that kept them safe.

And the unfathomable beings were nothing but arrogant saints and untouchable jade beauties who drowned in nothing but debauchery day and night.

To the far west lay the Desolate Demon Continent. That place was a lawless wasteland of cracked earth and endless storms. Towering beast sovereigns ruled there, intelligent monsters with bloodlines pure enough to suppress human cultivators through sheer presence. The text warned that humans who entered rarely returned, and those who did came back broken or enslaved.

"A continent filled entirely with massive beasts," Gu Fan whispered, his eyes flashing with intensegreed. That place was actually a treasure trove.

Along with a massive opportunity to salvage high-tier beast cores, the beasts were also known to horde valuable treasures that could easily make a human kill to just have a quick glimpse at that wealth. And this gave Gu Fan the perfect chance to plunder from that wasteland to feed his 10x Multiplier system.

Finally there was the Azure Dragon Continent in the east. This was the land Gu Fan currently stood on. It was heavily fractured by constant human wars, sect conflicts, and empire struggles. Spiritual energy was thinner here compared to the Central Divine Continent, but it was still rich enough to birth powerful experts and endless ambition.

Gu Fan traced a finger across the Azure Dragon Continent section of the map.

"So this is the real board," he muttered. "And I’ve been playing in a corner."

Gu Fan quickly pushed the scrolls detailing the other two continents aside, focusing his entire attention strictly on the Azure Dragon Continent since he needed to thoroughly understand his immediate surroundings before he started conquering territories.

He traced his calloused finger down a highly detailed, leather-bound map of the Azure Dragon Continent, quickly locating the Great Yan Empire, which was an absolutely massive, tyrannical superpower that claimed dominance over nearly half the eastern landmass.

The ancient texts detailed that the Great Yan Empire was ruthlessly divided into Five Provinces, and as Gu Fan traced the ink borders down toward the extreme southern edge of the empire, he found the Southern Cloud Province, a heavily toxic, deeply barren badland filled with deadly miasma swamps and rugged mountain ranges.

And right at the absolute bottom corner of the Southern Cloud Province, completely isolated from the prosperous inner cities, was Poison Valley Town, looking exactly like a microscopic, completely irrelevant speck of dirt on the massive map.

"We aren’t even a proper city, we are just a pathetic border checkpoint for rogue cultivators and wanted criminals."

"No more delays..."

"I need to start playing the big game."

** ** ** ** **

[A/N: Here’s something for my motivation. Hehehe... Starting every Monday]

[250 Power Stones: 5 Bonus Chapters Next Week]

[50 Golden Tickets: 5 Bonus Chapters Next Week]

[1 Massage Chair: 2 Bonus Chapters Next Week]

[1 Luxury car: 5 Bonus Chapters Next Week]

[1 Dragon: 10 Bonus Chapters Next Week]

[1 Magic Castle: 20 Bonus Chapters Next Week]

[I don’t expect anything more than a Magic castle. Hahaha.]