The wind rushed through John's hair as he stared at the expansive sect grounds below. Elder Ragur had once again summoned his drake, and it was currently carrying them both to the forest that the Elder had mentioned.
"Elder, how large is the Heavenly Lightning Sect?" John asked, seeking to gather more information regarding the sect.
"In terms of numbers, or land?" Elder Ragur asked.
"Both."
"Hmm, in regards to numbers, we have several thousand Elders, and roughly thirty thousand disciples. There are twenty thousand outer disciples, nine thousand inner disciples, a few hundred core disciples, and a few dozen direct disciples. With workers, merchants, and other professions as well, there are about one hundred thousand members of our sect."
John was prepared to hear a large number, but the number still surprised him. He remembered what Elder Ragur had told him earlier regarding disciples, and wanted to confirm his thoughts.
"Wait a minute, you said that only Heaven Tribulation Realm Elders could have direct disciples..so that means that the sect has dozens of Heaven Tribulation Elders?" John asked, awestruck by such a number.
Elder Ragur chuckled at John's question. "Not every Heaven Tribulation Elder takes a disciple, so there are more than that."
John was stunned silent by the answer.
'Just one Heaven Tribulation Realm cultivator would be enough to dominate my homeland, but this sect alone has so many of them!'
"So how close are you to breaking through to the Heaven Tribulation Realm?" John asked the Elder.
Elder Ragur smiled and stared up the sky as he spoke.
"I'm quite close, within the next year or so I should be able to attempt to break through. Although, breaking through to the Heaven Tribulation Realm is very dangerous, and can easily result in the death of the cultivator, so I must only attempt to do so when I am certain of success."
John was starting to see why everyone called this place the Holy Lands for cultivation. It could allow so many powerful cultivators to rise up.
Elder Ragur continued answering the second half of John's question. "In regards to land, the official land the sect occupies is roughly a few tens of thousand of square miles of land, but that's just officially. As I was telling you earlier, there are four great sects that surround the Qi whirlpool, which is located at the very center of the continent. Each sect oversees the land from the whirlpool to the coasts in an arbitration sort of manner, so any disputes that cannot be handled by the powers themselves in this land defer to the judgement of one of the Four Great Sects. Our sect unofficially oversees roughly one fourth of this continent in such a manner."
John listened to the Elders explanation, and was starting to get a better picture regarding the Holy Lands.
"You keep mentioning the Four Great Sects, and that the Heavenly Lightning Sect is one of them. Who are the other three sects?" John asked curiously.
Elder Ragur chuckled once more at John's question.
"I forgot, you're not from this land, so you wouldn't know these things. The names of the Four Great Sects are known throughout the entire Holy Lands, and they are the Heavenly Lightning Sect, the Divine Soul Sect, the Bloodfiend Sect, and the Supreme Battle Sect."
'Supreme Battle Sect!'
John was completely surprised to hear that name mentioned, and that they were one of the Four Great Sects no less.
'Just how did father manage to get the battle art from such a powerful sect?'
He knew his powerful battle art was from the Holy Lands, but never expected it to be from one of the Four Great Sects. If the Heavenly Lightning Sect was anything to go on, they were quite secretive about their sect, and wouldn't hand out their battle arts to anyone not in the sect.
'Father clearly has his own secrets, being able to obtain such a battle art for use outside of the sect.'
However, the news that it stemmed from the Supreme Battle Sect was troublesome as well.
'The page I have details the first stage of the battle art, which is suitable for Mist Creation and Qi Condensation Realms. After that, it will start to fall off in power and I'll either need to obtain the next stages or find another body battle art...this is going to be troublesome.'
John was sure that he wasn't allowed to join two sects, and so that was off the table. However, the Supreme Battle Art was too powerful to not try to obtain the next stages.
'I'll try to think of a solution later, as I can't do anything about it now.'
The two continued to travel on the back of the drake for quite some time. John suddenly thought of another question to ask the Elder, as he seemed to be very knowledgeable about the Holy Lands.
"Elder, do you know of any sects that use domain techniques that targets the blood and mind of a cultivator? I ran into a junior in my homeland who used such a domain, and he said he was from the Holy Lands."
John needed to figure out which power was backing up the Crimson Valley Sect. The more information he had, the better chance he had to help his Clan out of this situation.
Elder Ragur was surprised that John would suddenly ask such a question, and was also surprised that he had apparently ran into juniors from this land. He wondered if they were there following up on the same information as the Heavenly Lightning Sect was.
"Hmm, there are many powers that have domains that do such a thing. Most of them are situated in the Bloodfiend Sect's land, as many there train in taboo arts related to blood."
"Taboo blood arts? Aren't taboo blood arts forbidden, and all those that use it hunted down?" John asked in confusion.
"Unfortunately, the Bloodfiend Sect and the powers beneath them train in such arts. The situation is...complicated enough to hinder anyone from attempting to eliminate them. As such, the only condition that is in place is that they are forbidden to practice their arts anywhere outside of their own land," Elder Ragur responded in a cold tone, clearly disgusted by such practices.
Elder Ragur shook his head to eliminate such thoughts, before turning to John once more.
"Do you know the name of the domain that was used? Perhaps I can recognize which power it is by the name of the technique."
"The name of the domain was the Crimson Hell Domain," John answered quickly. His memories of the profound domain, used by both Dylan and Jason, was still fresh in his memories.
A look of slight surprise appeared on Elder Ragur's face before it quickly appeared back to normal.
"I'm surprised you ran into someone using that particular domain. That domain is one of the signature domain arts of the Bloodfiend Sect."