The illusory projection of the Grand Dao Pagoda hung over the Yongsheng Sect like a miniature universe.
All the Yongsheng Sect's inner disciples, true disciples, deacons, and protectors stationed along the periphery looked from afar at that phantom image covering nearly their entire planetary domain, every one of them struck by profound suffocation and despair.
Just moments ago, they had watched with their own eyes as the master of that miniature universe's projection breached the Yongsheng Sect's protective grand formation.
The Yongsheng Sect, heralded as first in the cosmos and immortal without end, had been forcibly battered open just like that.
The sect master and numerous elders had met no reprieve—nearly all had been slaughtered down to the last!
Even the Yongsheng Sect's headquarters, forged through endless refinement and reinforced by the rules radiating from the Gate of the Immortal Realm, had tens of thousands of li of land sheared away by the reverberations of colliding immortal arts.
Such a peerless villain...
Such an unmatched demon god, who had single-handedly suppressed and battered the entire Yongsheng Sect, shook the soul of every sect member to its core, upending everything they thought they knew about the cosmos.
Even in their wildest dreams, they never could have imagined that one day the Yongsheng Sect, so mighty it claimed to be number one across the cosmos, would be reduced to such a state by a single person.
Across the entire Yongsheng Sect, apart from the two hall masters and a mere dozen or so Dao Lords stationed at the other two Gates of the Immortal Realm, practically every other Dao Lord had been slaughtered.
And even if two hall master-level figures and twenty-odd Dao Lords remained elsewhere...
The Yongsheng Sect would find it nearly impossible to ever reclaim its glory as the cosmos's paramount power.
“How could this happen...”
At this moment, countless deacons and protectors in the Void Piercing, Void Refining, and Void Shattering realms let out anguished cries.
***
Yaoguang paid no heed to the turmoil outside.
He did not even bother setting out immediately to intercept and kill the self-proclaimed “Dao Sovereign” hall masters stationed at the other two Gates of the Immortal Realm.
If those two hall masters had any sense at all, they would know that someone capable of breaching the Yongsheng Sect head-on was not an opponent mere “Dao Sovereigns” like them could hope to resist.
Fleeing at top speed and returning only after the Hunyuan Realm or the Changsheng Group devised a countermeasure was their only viable choice.
Thus, he saw no reason to waste time making a trip to those two Gates of the Immortal Realm.
For now, he did not even immediately interrogate Dao Lord Changqing, nor did he sift through the spoils captured from the Yongsheng Sect. Instead, he immersed his entire focus into the [Intelligent Being] branch.
When this branch first sprouted, it had only been Tier 1, but after refining an immortal spirit, it grew at astonishing speed, transforming node by node.
Upon reaching Level 13, it had evolved into the [Immortal Spirit] tier.
Now, in a single breath, it had surged all the way to a Tier 16 immortal spirit.
Throughout this growth process, Yaoguang not only came to understand the cultivation path from [Spirit of Wisdom] to [Immortal Spirit], but also grasped the structure of their entire civilization and universe through bits of indirect data.
“Mind and soul,” Yaoguang murmured to himself.
“In the Hunyuan Realm's understanding of cosmic principles, the soul of an intelligent being is the most powerful, wondrous, and spiritually sentient computing tool in existence...”
During the [Spirit of Wisdom] stage, the beings of the Hunyuan Realm focused primarily on cultivating spirit, sentience, and computing power.
They believed a living being's “brain” was the world's most flawless computer.
An intelligent being's thoughts...
Or rather, their soul and sentience, were the fastest method of signal transmission.
Through repeated cultivation, practitioners used their spirit to influence the latent sentience within all things, allowing matter to rearrange and transform in accordance with their will, thereby triggering all manner of energetic reactions.
“Idealism intervening in materialism,” Yaoguang interpreted it in his own terms.
Once this cultivation reached a certain threshold, the spirit of wisdom could detach itself from physical matter and energy, becoming an immortal spirit.
So long as an immortal spirit's heart and soul remained imperishable, it could endure for eternity.
The oldest immortal spirits had lived for billions of years.
Yet there were also immortal spirits who found such an existence utterly devoid of meaning, their minds decaying into oblivion after merely a few centuries.
Yaoguang quietly sensed the characteristics of intelligent beings and immortal spirits, processing them through his own frame of reference.
Ultimately, he arrived at a relatively accessible concept.
“The cultivation system of the Hunyuan Realm treats every living being as a biological computer. Cultivation is the process of upgrading this computer's performance. However, performance isn't measured purely by raw computational volume; it also involves special parameters like 'sentience,' 'mind,' or 'soul'—and in fact, that is the true core. Once one reaches the level of an immortal spirit, this computer can shed its physical vessel and merge into one with the Hunyuan Realm.”
Like an omnipresent artificial intelligence that requires neither hardware nor software?
Yaoguang pondered.
Next, he turned his mind toward the Hunyuan Realm's greatest creation—the Supreme Wisdom, Master Yuanxi.
In the realm's most ancient history, immortal spirits had waged war against one another.
Until one day, a faction stepped forward and merged a majority of their computing power and sentience together, forming the embryonic prototype of Master Yuanxi.
Because Master Yuanxi possessed the combined sentience and computational capacity of countless immortal spirits...
Akin to a supercluster of millions or tens of millions of computers, the faction wielding Master Yuanxi consolidated total dominance over the Hunyuan Realm in an instant.
Turbulence had followed in later eras, but by now, the Hunyuan Realm's framework had long grown exceptionally refined.
Master Yuanxi served as the coordinator of the entire Hunyuan Realm, revered as the Supreme Wisdom.
Immortal spirits submitted their computing power and sentience to Master Yuanxi for management and allocation.
Leveraging this colossal pool of computational power and sentience, Master Yuanxi deduced superior paths of cultivation and issued them as “missions” to countless immortal spirits.
The more missions an immortal spirit completed, the higher their permission clearance and tier became.
And the greater the computing power and sentience they could mobilize from Master Yuanxi.
In the end, the Supreme Wisdom Master Yuanxi and the host of immortal spirits worked hand in hand, driving the Hunyuan Realm's continuous evolution and sublimation.
Having surveyed the cultivation system of this world, Yaoguang exhaled a long breath.
“The Ancient Immortal Realm didn't lose undeservedly!” he remarked.
Translated into Ancient Immortal Realm terms, it was equivalent to countless Golden Core cultivators pooling all their resources and cultivation techniques into a single, supremely gifted individual. Once that person ascended to a higher realm, they would leverage their commanding vantage point to guide the breakthrough of all the other Golden Cores. Cycle after cycle.
Of course, because the Hunyuan Realm possessed a different cultivation system, what its members contributed was computing power and sentience...
Essentially, everyone supplied a slice of their brain and capital to concentrate into a single entity, with systemic security guaranteed.
Whereas in the Ancient Immortal Realm...
If someone reached the Void Piercing realm through everyone's collective sponsorship, those Golden Cores could thank the heavens if that person didn't slaughter every Golden Core who posed a potential threat or seal off their path of advancement. Hoping they would guide the evolution of the whole world?
Human nature was inherently selfish.
“The greatest advantage of the Hunyuan Realm is that their unique cultivation system allows the collective will of the majority to be carried out. Master Yuanxi is, in a sense, the crystallization of the 'will of all living beings,'” Yaoguang mused.
Naturally, this also involved the various massive conglomerates.
These great groups were coalitions of immortal spirits with shared goals and directions, organized to influence Master Yuanxi's decision-making.
Similar to different political parties within a civilization.
“No wonder energy from branches like Demon Hunting and Merchant couldn't increase the level of intelligent beings and immortal spirits. Every immortal spirit exists in a symbiotic relationship with Master Yuanxi. Their tier doesn't depend purely on their personal sentience and computing power, but also on the clearance level granted by Master Yuanxi. Only the two combined make a complete immortal spirit.”
Absorbing the information, Yaoguang gradually made sense of the system: “Even if I raise my sentience, without clearance from Master Yuanxi, it wouldn't mean much. Only by refining an immortal spirit can I consider it...”
He paused, contemplating for a long moment before coming up with an apt phrase: “Stealing an account?”
Now he also understood why Yuankong and Posuo had said “this is not the end” upon their deaths.
They had merely lost their “accounts”; their core selves remained.
With their foundational level of sentience, they could re-grind their progress over time.
With this thought, he turned his gaze to the captured sect master of the Yongsheng Sect.
The immortal spirit he had refined and slain earlier had been Level 16.
And the sect master of the Yongsheng Sect...
Was clearly a Level 17 account.
On the same level as Dao Lord Penglai.
“A Tier 17 clearance holder of the Changsheng Group?” Yaoguang said.
Dao Lord Changqing, suppressed within the Grand Dao Pagoda, looked thoroughly grim. “I will report today's events to the great Supreme Wisdom, Master Yuanxi. No matter who Your Excellency may be, this constitutes a violation of the rules.”
“And then? Is Master Yuanxi going to ban my account?”
Yaoguang added calmly, “Tell me, based on my contribution of being able to unleash power surpassing the immortal level in the lower realm, how many clearance points would that exchange for? How much would it boost my clearance level? Would it be enough to advance to Tier 19?”
At those words, Dao Lord Changqing's expression instantly changed.
Tier 19!
With that level of clearance, just how immense was the computing power and sentience one could mobilize from Master Yuanxi?!
It would qualify someone to compete for board chairman across the major conglomerates.
Realizing he might be facing such a paramount figure, the Dao Lord's tone could not help but soften: “Your Highness... just who are you? And what do you want? Even if this is competition between conglomerates, there was no need to go this far...”
“Have you heard of Immortal King Yuxiao?” Yaoguang asked.
“Immortal King Yuxiao?”
Dao Lord Changqing froze, his pupils instantly contracting. “The Immortal King Yuxiao who lost an internal factional struggle within the Creation Group, was booted from the board of directors, and was even forced to surrender all his Dao shares in the Ancient Immortal Realm?!”
That incident had caused quite a stir inside the Creation Group; even though he was not a member of the Creation Group, he had heard about it.
The person before him...
Was Immortal King Yuxiao?!
Had he leveled up a new account so quickly, planning to stage a comeback?!
Could it be that because he surrendered all his Dao shares, the Creation Group's board members didn't kick him while he was down or strip his clearance, allowing him to still draw sufficient sentience and computing support from Master Yuanxi to grow this quickly?
Or perhaps...
He had hidden something when handing over his Dao shares.
And now, he had revealed that hidden trump card—in a mere few thousand years, skyrocketing his clearance from Level 13, the lowest tier for an immortal spirit, all the way to Level 17, possessing not only the sentience and computing power to drive an Immortal King realm, but also mastering a method to unleash power exceeding the immortal level in the lower realm?!
“I'll give you a chance to preserve your current clearance and walk away in one piece,” Yaoguang said indifferently. “Tell me everything you know regarding the present state of the Nine Great Groups.”
Dao Lord Changqing's face shifted through a spectrum of emotions.
An Immortal King!
An Immortal King's war of vengeance!
And as it turned out...
He seemed to have been dragged right into the middle of it.
Where could he even go to plead his grievances?
He never doubted whether Yaoguang belonged to their Hunyuan Realm.
If not an immortal spirit from the Hunyuan Realm who had once reached the level of an Immortal King, how could anyone possess power on the level of a “Dao Sovereign”?!
Matters having come to this, and desperate to avoid having his account wiped, he swallowed his bitterness and helplessness, speaking softly: “If Your Highness is willing to join our Changsheng Group, I believe our board of directors would be willing to assist you in returning to the pinnacle of the Creation Group.”
“Do you even believe that yourself?”
Yaoguang replied indifferently. “Enough. I didn't waste several thousand years in the lower realm to attain power beyond a Dao Sovereign just to listen to your nonsense. What is the current situation in the Immortal Realm? The Yongsheng Sect receives new immortal spirits from time to time—don't tell me you know nothing about it.”
Dao Lord Changqing sighed helplessly and could only reply, “I will explain everything to Your Highness at once.”
Chapter 549