"All Knowledge is noble. Let no stone go unturned in search of the truth."
These words from the founder of the Noble Knowledge Sect were perhaps less monstrous than they now seem.
For thousands of years we have kept guard over the Sect, maintaining the Poison-Crushing Siege as an attack seems impossible. Even the mightiest bear cavalry die with ease against their poison arts, and while we can slaughter them on the field, they do not take to the field. Their fixation on gaining knowledge at all costs means that mortals, cultivators, and loyal Spirit Beasts all fall before their monstrous experiments.
Harvesting secrets, creating new techniques, and
sharing them is the true terror of the Noble Knowledge Sect.
When they flense a mortal's flesh from their bones with a new searing poison, they write this down and share it with their fellows. To push one another forward is one of their highest values - no, not to push one another forward, but to push knowledge forward. Their entire Sect is based around the sharing of knowledge, and by sharing knowledge one is permitted to dip deeply into that well of stored wisdom. The knowledge is stored, as far as we can tell, within the Insidious Poison Maze itself, each tree, each shrub, each vine storing a part of the Sect's collective knowledge. In addition, it stores much Qi, absorbing it from the air around it. A cultivator can easily exchange knowledge for a massive boost of Qi with the Maze, or pay Qi for knowledge if they are so inclined.
So even the weakest Noble Knowledge cultivator is likely to have access to poisons that slay realms above them, methods of scrying that use the bones and blood of fleshly-slaughtered mortals in ways we will not countenance and cannot replicate. They are dangerous beyond belief, and only their fractious nature and eternal pursuit of greater knowledge that keeps them from banding together and becoming a desperate danger to the entire region.
This map we have evaluated is not a true measure of their terrain. The Insidious Poison Maze shifts and shifts continuously, with a thousand thousand pathways moving and changing to the wills of those around them and to try and kill those who walk them. There are a few paths and places that seem to remain regardless, and they constitute many of the most important parts of the Noble Knowledge Sect. As such, we have represented the paths we know remain stable, not the many cities and towns that might be cut off by the blighted swamplands simply changing one day.
The most important thing is the
Insidious Poison Maze. Outside of this maze, the Sect are vulnerable and weak. Inside it, not even a coalition of Nascent Souls can remove it all. It grows relentlessly, and only ceaseless effort from all surrounding sects sees it burnt back. It resists all methods bar immense raw force on a Nascent scale, fire, or lightning. Fire is the easiest, and yet it does not burn easily, constant fire required to burn it back. Our Torchbearer Army exists solely to burn back the Maze, using the great Flame Cannons carried in the hands of our bear allies to throw endless flames and keep the Maze from growing.
Until recently we had reached an equilibrium.
Now...
you can see for yourself.
At the west sits the
Eye of Poison. An old tower reputedly dating back to the days of the Sea-Conquering Army, it has been enhanced so it emits a low-level poison aura for nearly three hundred
li around it, the aura shifting every few weeks. This prevents the Demonic Sect and ourselves from entering or leaving - they require antidotes to leave, and we require them to invade. Consequently no real changes are seen here, with our
Poison-Crushing Towers emitting a flame aura that prevents the Maze from growing nearby.
If you were to make it past the Eye of Poison, you would reach the
Noxious Pits. Mines that spit out Spirit Stones and horrid fumes, the Noble Knowledge Sect harvest these fumes and stones as recipe ingredients, using them to wage war and experiment. The Noxious Pits are more dangerous than the Eye of Poison, though the poison there is more reliable. Infiltrating this deep is possible, though difficult.
If you made it to there, you would reach the City of Experiments,
Chunwang. Nearly thirty million mortals live here, one of the largest cities in the region. Mortals are bred like cattle and owned by cultivators, each used for varying experiments. Some live as assistants, others experimental subjects. Blood Path heretics are monsters, but the deaths they give are measured in hours at most. Days for the worst. The torture inflicted in Chunwang defies belief. When Bear-Lord Tarkos infiltrated this place, the Spiritual Jades he sought out were sealed, and are required viewing by the Bear Enslavement Sect Elders. Any who seek to rule the Sect must know the monstrosity of what we face. Constant, horrific experimentation, children and adults alike begging for death, elders weeping over their daughters and sons while cutting them apart for the creatures who rule them, hoping this will be the last time they are forced to do such things, knowing that it will not.
There is no worse place than Chunwang.
Onwards are the
Searing Poison Plains. The Plains exist within the Maze, and are an accumulation of poison the Maze seems to reject. It spews out massive torrents of poison, easily harvested by the enterprising and suicidal cultivator. A poison-torrent might wipe out a small village or town easily, but they are mostly predictable and easy to navigate by oneself.
From here, the
Mother of Poisons. A Nascent-level spider, spinning its webs in the middle of the plains. It, at its fancy, kills passers-by, though no more than one in ten. Mostly it sleeps, and when it does from its fangs drips the most potent poison one can easily find. Capable of slaying those who merely look at if they are weak enough, that poison has been responsible for three Nascent deaths in the Siege over the centuries.
Sixty Li Deep is literally as it sounds. A tower that stands ten li tall, and sixty deep into the ground. It is there that the foundations of the Noble Knowledge Sect lie, but not even their Nascent Elders are able to enter it. It has defied even Spirit Severing existences, and from it, we speculate, grows the Maze.
Now we examine the west. The
North-South Tower is peculiar. Going north, one can pass it. Going south, one can pass it. But once you have passed it in one direction, you can never travel the other way. If you travel north, you cannot return south past the tower, and vice versa. You simply find yourself turned around, space changing and spitting you out the way you came. In this tower live the Seers of the Sect, the most powerful among them able to see to a limited degree the future and past, as well as knowledge from their enemies and friends.
The
Western Poison Plain is a lesser version of the Searing Poison Plains. Created after an invasion of sea monsters, the poison torrents are smaller but more frequent and more dangerous, making it virtually impassable by those without many antidotes.
Transformation Forest is a place with many mirrored trees, each tree reflecting light, cleansing poison. As one walks through it, however, the oddities in the place begin to change you. Slowly at first, and then faster, until you reach a point it finds it can change you no longer. Modelled on the portal in the Desert used to transform men into beastmen, Transformation Forest creates new oddities among mortals for the Noble Knowledge Sect to study.
Darknest is a place for those transformed who cultivate, or those who transform themselves so they might gain greater understanding. A million beastmen, spider-men, and the like live there, some of tremendous strength, some mere mortals to be experimented upon. A brutal and unforgiving place, it is lawless and the experiments there are largely useless - though the Twisted Legions did arise from there six hundred years ago when the Noble Knowledge Sect gained the eastern half of its territory, the twisted creatures standing at Foundation strength despite mortal origins, sweeping their way across the Sect before they all died in the year of life permitted to them.
The
Righteous Zither Lighthouse is the former prize possession of the Divine Tunists, and was corrupted in the recent War. Seized by Noble Knowledge, the Righteous Flame Zither that once protected the lands there was poisoned by a hideous Dao-poison, becoming the Soul-Corrupting Zither. Around it, it now spreads relentlessly a poison of the soul, driving one to madness and slaughter. Though the Noble Knowledge fiends cannot go near it, neither can our allies, making it impossible for them to assault the Sect from the south.
Lastly are the lands they have spread into with the destruction of the Thousand Arrows and Flowers. The
Corpse Catapult Gates used to be their guardians, throwing old preserved corpses of their enemies stuffed to the brim with poison at those opposing, creating deadly clouds that slew any who shared their blood.
They have created there a new and horrific experiment, the
Ghost Serpent Blighted Lands. Obliterating thirty-five million people for these monstrosities, they created poisons capable of bringing hallucinations and inducing torture, sufficient to bring millions of mortals to utter vengeful desire. With two great artifacts, they poured the ghosts into the corpses of two sea-serpents that they had slain upon the creation of the Western Poison Plain, infusing them with sufficient ghostly energy to turn them into obedient ghosts themselves. Both of these ghosts stand above the Core Formation level of strength, though beneath a true Nascent, and can be commanded by the Noble Knowledge Sect. They are tremendous dangers, and we do not know how to counter them.
As it stands, we simply hope to try and encircle their spread to the north, to prevent them from seizing all the old Arrow and Flower lands, otherwise even if we win this war the cost will be more than the Plains can truly bear.
