Eternal Thief

The wintery winds were drifting past Ace's body, but he didn't feel any cold and enjoy the refreshing air. He finally left that damn place!

Furthermore, he was very glad about he didn't use invisible bead; it would be a waste because the formation area was just too damn big and he crossed the formation in over two hours with the help of Empty Dream. 

If he were to use soul-shattering eyes, he didn't dare to imagine just how long it would take to find a way out. Nevertheless, he was out of that place and observed the area. After all, he was in the middle lands now!

Ace felt the qi in the air around the area was a hundred times denser than western low lands and finally understand the difference between the two places. 

The qi density was not important to Ace at all though, because he can draw qi even in that sky-changing formation where it was very scant, whether it was heavenly qi or worldly qi. But he still felt it was quite refreshing to breathe in this air filled with denser qi.

After getting used to his new environment, Ace scan his surrounding with heavenly sense and didn't find a soul. "Where should I go?" He mused calmly.

Suddenly, Ace remembered seeing some unfamiliar maps in Dulce and Vance storage rings. 

Every time he stole a storage ring, he always find many other things that the system didn't count as treasure, and maps were one of them. 

With a thought, many maps appeared in Ace's hands. They were not normal and all of them were drawn on some demonic beast hikes and high-quality ones.

Ace saw some of these detailed maps were specifically only of Luminous Kingdom, the Golden Hammered Kingdom, and some other famous kingdoms and store them back because he wanted to know which direction he should go. He was not in any kingdoms at this moment. 

He finally found what he was looking for, a big detailed map of the entire land of kingdoms!

Ace quickly recognized the sky-changing border area and was shocked because he saw just how large this border truly was. It covered hundreds of miles!

Now, he felt somewhat lucky to encounter Empty Dream and left without wasting many years!

Ace quickly concentrated on the map again.

Land of Kingdoms structure differed from the land of cities. 

In low lands, there were east, south, north, and west, but in the middle lands, there were grades of both lands and kingdoms. 

The closest of him were third-grade kingdoms land and furthest was first-grade kingdoms lands and furtherer was the middle sky changing border! 

Ace's attention was on third-grade kingdoms land because it was the closest to him. There was a border forest between him and third-grade land. 

He estimated it would take a month to cross that border forest if he didn't encounter any strong demonic beast and a week more to find the closest town. 

Ace store the map back into the thief's space. 

After activating his lightning steps, he moves in the straight direction like lightning because he will find that border forest eventually and then he can use the map to cross it. 

'Heh, being able to move freely really is a blessing.' Ace thought joyously as he traveled towards his destination at full speed. 

Ace didn't know that where he was, no one came easily because this place was the area of sky-changing border and for centuries no one has ever crossed it. One reason was the sky changing pass, and the other and most important one was, no one wanted to go in that barren place willingly. 

After two days of travel, a large expansion of threes came to Ace's view, and he instantly knows it was that border forest. 

In these two days, he was going through any kind of book on kingdoms that he found in his thief's space. He discovered; almost all the books on those stolen bookshelves of the upper part of the luminous library were about kingdoms.

Ace finally knows the vague structure of a kingdom. 

The entire land of kingdoms was neatly divided between hundred kingdoms! 

In first-grade kingdoms land were top ten kingdoms.

In second-grade kingdoms land were kingdoms that ranked between 11th and 30th.

As for the kingdoms of position 31st and 100th, they were all in the land of the third-grade kingdom. 

The grade distribution was the same, based on the qi density of lands. 

A third-grade kingdom or weakest kingdom in the middle lands has at least two provinces, each containing three or four prefectures. The prefectures were then subdivided into ten to fifteen counties and the counties in cities or towns.

As for a second-grade kingdom, it has at least five or more provinces, and last, the first-grade kingdom can have ten or more provinces under its control. 

For centuries, these 100 kingdoms never become 101 kingdoms.

As for the ranks, the top ten kingdoms were like mammoths; no one can shake their positions. The other ranks depend solely on prowess!

It was like this if you have the power you can challenge any kingdom for their position in the ranking by 'Ranking Wars' but these ranking wars were very rare because defeat means the destruction of the entire kingdom and the entire royal family's death! 

Besides, only a weaker kingdom can challenge a higher ranked kingdom no other way around. 

Ace frowned when he finds these cruel rules of middle lands and became even more vigilant of this place. He has already encountered someone like Vance and Layla in low lands and he didn't want to bump into them any time soon, especially Layla.

After reading every information about middle-lands, Ace's focus finally shifted to Rune Crafting again because the resting period of two days was finally over. It was time to learn the next part of heavenly rune crafting. 

Now, he has Empty Dream insights on rune crafting and wanted to see the similarity between heavenly rune crafting and worldly rune crafting!