The sun was at its zenith, and not a single cloud dotted the sky, yet the ground below was shrouded in pitch darkness, devoid of even the faintest ray of light—a description not even "so dark you cannot see your fingers in front of your face" would be an exaggeration.
Above the sky, tens of thousands of dragons danced, their enormous wings covering the entire sky, endless and overwhelming, blocking every last sliver of sunlight that tried to reach the ground.
Standing atop the dragon's head, leaning lazily against one of the huge, backward-curving, sharp horns as thick as a human, Xin Yun looked dazedly at the ethereal figures surrounded by myriad dragons.
As a transmigrator, Xin Yun was undoubtedly successful, but this success was only relative to ordinary people. In fact... in Xin Yun's view, his life had been an utter failure.
Transmigrators usually are successful, given their evident advantages. Compared to the people of this world, transmigrators always have an extra world's worth of experience and knowledge. They can usually find untapped virgin land, business opportunities, and wealth by comparing two different worlds, thereby soaring to great heights and even optimizing combat tricks to develop an almost invincible fighting technique system. That is the advantage of being a transmigrator.
But, everything has a flipside, and for transmigrators, there are often significant downsides. As one of them, Xin Yun was acutely aware that the disadvantages seemed to outnumber the benefits!
For instance, Xin Yun found himself in a completely different world where he indeed identified many undeveloped projects and created vast wealth. He had also optimized his combat skills multiple times and developed his own system, and one could say... he had fully leveraged the advantages of being a transmigrator.
However, at the same time, Xin Yun could not avoid the disadvantages that came with being a transmigrator, without exception. In fact, many things were simply unavoidable.
When he first arrived in this world, faced with a different world, different order, and different moral standards, Xin Yun was immediately submerged in a sea of beautiful women. Confronted by alluring and coquettish beauties, Xin Yun did not resist for long and quickly indulged himself. To this day, even he can't count how many women he has been with—one thousand? No! Probably even ten thousand would be an underestimate...
The result of indulgence goes without saying; Xin Yun did not cultivate the Path of Vital Essence Cultivation, which directly led to his current middling status. Although also strong and considered one of the experts, he was nothing compared to the real greats.
With a deep sigh, Xin Yun closed his eyes in pain. Even though he had been with many women, today, there was not a single one by his side. It's the same in any world: those who play with emotions are inevitably played by emotions.
"Boom..." Lost in thought with his eyes closed, a violent roar suddenly erupted. Startled, Xin Yun opened his eyes to see a blazing white explosion rising amidst the dragons, with a roaring shockwave that swept through the air and past. Dragons that were too close lost their stability and were tossed out like toys for tens of thousands of meters before they could barely come to a stop, covered in wounds and utterly disheveled.
Fortunately, Xin Yun was far enough away, so when the shockwave hit, its force had already decreased by eighty percent. Nevertheless, the ordeal was extremely difficult for Xin Yun, even described as tumultuous, as the shockwave slashed deep gashes across the body of the dragon he stood on.
Looking at the deep scars on the dragon's body, Xin Yun's face was filled with bitterness. In fact... his remote position was not due to his intelligence; the real reason was that his power was insufficient. Barely counted as an expert, he did not qualify to approach the core area, which was reserved only for the top experts to occupy.
The bitterness Xin Yun felt was due to the fact the earth-shattering explosion was merely a casual strike by someone, who probably didn't even use one-tenth of their power. Yet even so, just the shockwave alone had seriously injured Xin Yun, who was far as ten miles away.
Finally resisting the shockwave, Xin Yun instinctively looked towards the core area. What he saw was an elegant butterfly with nine colors, proudly spreading its wings. That butterfly was so exquisitely beautiful that it was to the extreme. On its wings, there were nine pairs of iridescent halos, each made up of nine rings of light. From the outside to the inside, they were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, black, and white—nine colors that together made the most beautiful dragon known as Yi Luo Xiang!
Of course, Yi Luo Xiang, the Flash Butterfly, was not just beautiful. The qualification to stand in the most central area was not something one could achieve through beauty alone. In fact… this was a world where strength reigned supreme. To stand there, one must have the strength as proof. Besides that, nothing else mattered.
Only nine people were allowed in the core area, who were the contemporary Nine Great Experts, and the one who had launched the attack was none other than the sixth-ranked Yi Luo Xiang!
Xin Yun watched the woman standing on that beautiful butterfly, his Divine Sense momentarily dazed. Speaking of which, this woman and he had quite a connection. In fact... they both came from the same village, which was precisely the Starting Point where Xin Yun had transmigrated.
At this thought, Xin Yun sighed once again. Being a transmigrator, there were many disadvantages. One naturally tended to face this world with the habits of their former one, which quite obviously was the wrong choice most of the time.
As a transmigrator, Xin Yun gathered wealth and built up power like he was used to in his original world, forming a large armed force that could be described as a military. But what then? This world didn't care about sheer numbers. Taking the Nine Great Experts as an example: if they wished, any one of them could easily annihilate millions of 'experts' like Xin Yun. In their eyes, Xin Yun might be called an expert, but he was no different from an ant.
Now, at this time, Xin Yun finally realized that relying on numbers was useless. Ultimately, one could only depend on oneself. Otherwise, no matter how many helpers one had, it wouldn't really be one's own power, nor would it make a difference. Of course, it didn't mean that he needed none of them. If possible, having a few of those super-experts was necessary, but there definitely wouldn't be many—much like the limited number of legendary generals and advisors in the Three Kingdoms.
While he was pondering, a booming voice suddenly echoed, "Let's stop fighting among ourselves. We all gathered here today to vie for positions. Since that's the case, let's just show our true skills through battle!"
Hearing this voice, Xin Yun's heart surged with excitement. Looking up, indeed… the voice came from a brilliantly colored Peacock Dragon. Looking closely, a tall young man stood proudly atop it—he was the world's third-ranked expert, known as the most dazzling dragon, Peacock King Ming Xuan!
Although ranked third, Ming Xuan was in fact Xin Yun's most admired idol. In terms of strength, he wasn't necessarily weaker than the first two experts, but his background was not as impressive. That's why he had to settle for the third place.
In fact, each of the Nine Great Experts had their signature skills, and it was difficult to determine who was more powerful. Even if they were to really fight it out, it would likely be hard to tell the victor. At their level, they had nearly reached immortality. Victory or defeat was merely a matter of face and who seemed to be at a disadvantage.
Immortality here meant they could not be eliminated or killed, and their signature moves, once executed, could not be countered by anyone other than the Nine Great Experts. This might sound simple, but in reality, only these nine could achieve it.