Azure Sky World, the border between Yongzhou and Peizhou.
Two female cultivators took a leisurely stroll, climbing upward side by side.
The Daoist nun's features were indistinct, wavering like drifting clouds and flowing water.
She wore a robe of water and clouds, its folds layered with immortal mountains.
She was Wu Zhou, one of the few Fourteen Realm Cultivators, and had attended the last riverside council.
At her side followed a bewitchingly beautiful young woman, wearing an Emperor's Crown and a yellow dragon robe.
She was Zhu Xuan, the current Emperor of Yongzhou's Fish Talisman Dynasty. In Azure Sky World, it was perfectly ordinary for women to ascend the throne and inherit the legitimate line.
A purple swallow perched upon Zhu Xuan's shoulder, while a goldfish, wavering between substance and illusion, circled her. Two genuine dragon whiskers had already grown from it.
Among scaled creatures, the goldfish, and among feathered creatures, the purple swallow, had always been regarded as immortal beings of their kind. Thus, these two types of spiritual creatures found it comparatively easy to cultivate their way to enlightenment. It was said that upon reaching the heights of the Great Dao, the former could undergo a fish-dragon transformation and perhaps become a True Dragon, while the latter could shed its mortal shell and become the legendary "Vermilion Bird." The former were still relatively numerous; the latter could be counted on one's fingers.
The pair climbed the "mountain" together.
Yet this mountain range lay beneath the waters of a great river.
What a vast and bottomless Azure Sky, where sun and moon shone upon terraces of gold and silver.
That a Mountain God shrine had actually been built underwater was also a sight unique to Azure Sky World.
Flying pavilions flowed with cinnabar, clouds steamed and rosy vapors gathered.