My Arts Evolve When Perfected

The Celestial Star Oasis City Arena was a renowned fighting pit, famous throughout the entire Desolate Realm. It even enjoyed a considerable reputation in other worlds. When powerful and wealthy factions came to the city on business, they would often stop by to watch the spectacle.

The nobles who were stationed here long-term also considered the arena a rare form of entertainment and followed it frequently.

At that moment, in the fighters’ quarters of Celestial Star Oasis City, inside a room belonging to a Dao Entry Realm expert, the CLANGING of shackles echoed. Experts from various races peeked through their peepholes and saw that a staff member had arrived to deliver food.

In this arena, the experts who won frequently were still able to eat decent food. It was only the truly weak—members of the Human Race who couldn’t even reach the Dharma Realm—who were housed in the sunless basements.

CLICK—

The electronic lock whirred open, and someone called out, "Number 18, your food is here."

A disheveled, grimy old man lifted his head from the edge of his bed. He watched as a plate of yellowish-green fruit and a cup of water were pushed in. This was the meal provided to a Dao Entry Realm expert.

The wrinkles on his face were as deep as the skin of an orange. Time had carved into his face and body like a knife, leaving behind countless scabbed-over wounds. His gaze was dull and murky.

TAP.

He got up, walked over, and bent to pick up the food from the floor. Sitting back down on the bed, a wave of melancholy and disappointment washed over him. An inexplicable bitterness stung his nose, escaping as an irrepressible, muffled groan. "A hired thug... a slave."

His voice, dry and hoarse, was a testament to how long it had been since he’d last spoken. He had been in this world for over a decade, and in all that time, he had stood as the strongest fighter from the Human Race in the entire arena, undefeated to this day.

To this day, he still couldn’t forget the great catastrophe on Blue Star. An irresistible force had descended from a colossal aircraft that blotted out the sun, pulling him up into its hold.

In the face of that Venerable, Zuo Xuan, his lifelong understanding of the Martial Arts had seemed utterly laughable. Almost no one could have resisted such a powerful being.

Afterward, he discovered just how laughable his pursuit of the Martial Arts truly was. Venerable Zuo Xuan’s fleet had been taking tens of thousands of life forms back to the Nine Venerable Great Realm, intending to sell the prodigies among them as slaves to the powerful factions along their route.

Only then did he realize how vast the universe was—that there were worlds beyond worlds. The Blue Star where he’d come from was nothing more than a single planet in some desolate, minor world.

And Zuo Xuan hailed from the Nine Venerable Great Realm, one of the most supreme Great Realms within this Primordial Great World Community.

While passing through the Desolate Realm, he and many other experts from the Xia Country were scouted by the Celestial Star Oasis City Arena. They were purchased for a hefty sum of Primordial Basic Coins and forced to fight as slaves ever since.

He no longer had any autonomy or freedom. For over a decade, his only mission had been to keep winning. Only by winning could he survive!

He had been severely wounded and thought his life would end soon. Yet, after all this time, he was still alive.

Instead, it was his companions from Blue Star who had all died...

"How much longer can I live...?" the old man muttered. He took a bite of an Oasis Fruit as sorrow welled in his eyes. "The next fight is against the Fire Lizard Race."

He glanced at the Overlord Spear in the corner, then down at the shackles on his hands and feet, and let out a long sigh.

The general of yesteryear had become a slave with no control over his own fate.

’Zhu Weiyi, oh, Zhu Weiyi...’

...

When Jiang Qiu learned that Grand General Zhu was trapped in the arena, a torrent of rage erupted within him. He wished he could raze the entire arena with a single thrust of his spear and rescue the general, just as the man had once rescued him.

However, once he calmed down, he began searching the Desolate Realm’s network for information on the Celestial Star Arena. After reading what he found, his pupils trembled. ’This is an asset controlled by the Three-Life Race?’

The Three-Life Race was a group with a considerable history. Their assets were spread across countless worlds; even in the Yin Yang Great Realm, which rarely opened itself to outsiders, their prestigious name was well-known.

It was safe to say that the Three-Life Race was the most powerful group in inter-world trade. To be able to support such an enterprise, their mastery of the Space-Time Law had to be absolutely terrifying.

After all, while many powerful factions did possess the ability of Space-Time Travel, they used it with considerable restraint. For them, activating an inter-world portal consumed an enormous amount of resources.

For the Three-Life Race, however, who specialized in inter-world trade, Space-Time Travel was a basic operation. Their core members possessed exceedingly advanced Space-Time Travel technology, which they used to turn a profit.

For any Great Realm, items from other worlds were often considered treasures. They signified a different system of Laws, which held immense research value.

The Three-Life Race was the first to bridge this gap. Relying on their unique Space-Time Travel technology, they connected the worlds of the entire Primordial Great World Community and established anchor points in each of the Great Realms...

In fact, the coordinates for the Nine Venerable Great Realm in Jiang Qiu’s possession had been sold to him by a merchant from the Three-Life Race. This entire Celestial Star Oasis City was their property, including the Celestial Star Bank he had just left.

They were one of the most famously powerful noble families in the Desolate Realm, an undisputed powerhouse.

Of course, the race itself was actually very low-key. They enjoyed accumulating capital but never resorted to robbery, instead using barter to trade resources until they reached their current, massive scale.