Not long after Fuxi returned to the human race, Shennong, who had already reached the peak of the Grandmaster level, broke through to the realm of Grandmaster of Martial Arts based on the improved version of the "Martial Canon" by Fuxi.
Over the next few decades, all the races on the Tianyuan Continent continued to develop and grow stronger.
Although occasional frictions occur between the various races, they generally maintain peaceful coexistence.
The concentration of spiritual energy on the Tianyuan Continent has been slowly increasing.
As the spiritual energy of heaven and earth grew increasingly abundant, more powerful individuals began to emerge. Members of various races successively broke through from the first level of the Transcendent Realm to the second level. Among them, the most outstanding individuals were almost on par with the founders of cultivation systems like Feng Yan and Fu Xi.
These powerful beings expanded the territory of their respective races, and the expansion of these races, in turn, made them even stronger.
The most important factor in evaluating the strength of a race is no longer the number of its members, but the strength of its members.
During this period, as more and more powerful individuals emerged, the demand for resources also increased. Although the increased concentration of spiritual energy in heaven and earth led to the appearance of more rare and precious treasures, for all races, the more resources they had, the better, and they would never allow themselves to be given to outsiders.
Against this backdrop, the relationship between humans and orcs gradually became more delicate, no longer as close as before.
Because the interests of the merfolk and the winged races did not overlap at all, their relationship did not become strained; on the contrary, their cooperation became even closer.
Because of the endless treasures of the sea, and at the behest of the merfolk sages, a large amount of resources began to be traded to the winged race at extremely low prices through barter.
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Chapter Twelve Rebellion
Ninety-seven years after Yuanhao fell into slumber, the first city on the Tianyuan Continent was born.
This city was built by the human race, and it is located in the narrowest part of the southern gap in the Origin Mountains.
The main reason the humans built this city was to prepare for a possible attack by the orcs in the future.
More than a decade ago, due to increasingly fierce competition for various resources, the orcs and humans had several minor conflicts in the gap in the southern part of the Origin Mountains.
Subsequently, the human race's leadership issued a ban on the merchants who were gradually rising within the race, prohibiting them from selling important resources such as ironware and food to the orcs.
The prosperity of commerce is mainly due to the emergence of a certain item.
More than a decade ago, due to the excessive concentration of spiritual energy in the world, some crystals formed underground after the spiritual energy was highly condensed. These crystals gradually became spirit stone mines and were dug out by people.
The first to discover the existence of spirit stone mines were the dwarves, who were dependent on humans. Because of the dwarves' extraordinary talent for mineral exploration and mining, other races only gradually discovered the existence of spirit stone veins after humans had stored up an enormous quantity of spirit stones.
After the appearance of spirit stones, due to their unparalleled aid in cultivation, the higher-ups of various races gradually began to use them as a form of currency. Because of their portability, spirit stones were frequently used for settlement in transactions with other races.
After experiencing the various conveniences of trading with spirit stones, the leaders of each tribe wanted to develop a currency similar to spirit stones for daily transactions among their tribes.
After a period of discussion, the various races used three primary magical metals—gold, silver, and bronze—that were widely used in the magical realm to create currency for trade.
With the widespread adoption of currency, trade among different ethnic groups became easier. Under these circumstances, the profession of merchant began to flourish.
In recent years, the increase in spiritual energy concentration on the Tianyuan Continent has gradually stagnated.
With the increasing number of powerful individuals, the demand for resources among all races is also growing. Against this backdrop, friction between humans and orcs is intensifying, and small-scale conflicts between the two races are occurring more and more frequently.
Just a few years ago, when relations between the orcs and humans were becoming increasingly tense, a powerful human suggested that, in order to prepare for a possible large-scale orc attack in the future, humans should set up some defensive measures to resist the orcs within the southern gap of the Origin Mountains.
After much discussion, the human race's leadership decided to build a city—Blood War City.
Bloodbath City has only two walls, one on the east and one on the west. The north and south sides of Bloodbath City are towering cliffs that form natural walls.
The westernmost city wall of Bloodbath City is located at the narrowest point of the southern gap in the Origin Mountains. The wall is only three or four hundred meters wide, but more than 200 meters high.
The walls of Bloodbath City are entirely constructed from massive stones, each tens of meters in size. These stones are neatly shaped and uniform in size, and were all transported from various places by powerful human warriors.
On the west side of Bloodbath City, apart from the main gate in the very center, there is nowhere else to pass. After the city walls were built, the humans used molten iron to cast them, and in addition, the walls were covered with barbs.
Behind the westernmost city wall, every few hundred meters, three identical city walls were built in succession, following the same standard as this city wall.
The widths of the last three city walls were 500 meters, 700 meters, and 1 kilometer, respectively. Behind each wall was a military camp where thousands of human warriors were stationed. In addition, the towers and passageways of each city wall were filled with large war machines crafted by dwarven masters.
As for the eastern side of Bloodbath City, the human race only built a simple stone wall, 10 meters high and nearly 10,000 meters long. Viewed from the sky, Bloodbath City appears as a funnel shape.
After the establishment of Bloodbath City, Shennong, the leader of the human race, moved the core of the human race from the ancestral land of Fire Cloud Valley to the newly established city of Human Holy City in the center of the human race territory.
During this relocation, Fuxi and Nuwa chose to stay and continue to worship the deity Haotian in the Haotian Temple.
In the 101st year after Yuanhao fell into a deep sleep.
Humans built city after city around various tribes, and now the human territory is filled with cities.
In that year, Shennong, the leader of the human race, proclaimed himself emperor, becoming the first human emperor. After becoming emperor, Shennong appointed the leaders of various human tribes as lords of their respective cities.
After Shennong became the Human Emperor, relations between the various races on the Tianyuan Continent became increasingly tense. Small-scale clashes between the races occurred more and more frequently, but the leaders of each race restrained their people, keeping the situation unchanged and preventing it from escalating further.
Time passed slowly, and thanks to the efforts and restraint of the high-ranking officials of various races on the Tianyuan Continent, the overall situation on the Tianyuan Continent remained peaceful.
After this eerie peace lasted for more than a decade, something happened that shattered it.
In the 128th year after Yuanhao fell into slumber, the various sea creatures in the Western Sea, dissatisfied with the rule of the Sea Emperor, began a long-planned rebellion.
This rebellion was massive in scale. The races that organized it had been secretly operating for a long time, quietly contacting many sea-folk groups. Once the rebellion began, it swept up more than half of the sea-folk groups.
The merfolk, who had been completely unaware of the attack, were caught off guard and suffered heavy casualties before their leaders could even react.
After the merfolk finally organized a decent defense, they had lost most of their territory, and more than half of the Western Sea Islands were no longer under their control.
After the merfolk organized the sea creatures that had not yet rebelled to join the battle, the war between the merfolk and the rebels slowly reached a stalemate.
After the merfolk had gradually stabilized the situation, they sent a request for help to their allies, the winged race.
Upon learning the news, the Feathered Clan swiftly dispatched reinforcements to support the Merfolk. With the arrival of the Feathered Clan reinforcements, the tide of war began to turn in favor of the Merfolk. Under the combined forces of the Feathered Clan and the Merfolk, the rebel army suffered heavy casualties and was forced into a series of retreats.