Demon Slaying

Winds rose and clouds surged; the human heart was unfathomable.

At the Myriad Dao Academy, all cultivators had gathered. They were all senior figures of the Academy. Aside from those stationed in various regions, everyone else was here—over a thousand in total. Ninety percent were Void Immortals of the Calamity Realm, while the remaining hundred or so were True Immortals. This was the accumulation of an age of governance, the fruit of ten thousand years.

When the time came, Heaven and Earth lent their strength; when fortune departed, even heroes were no longer free. The Academy had governed the world for tens of thousands of years, favored by Heaven and Earth and supported by the people's hearts. Its calamity fortune was abundant, its merit immeasurable, allowing its disciples to advance by leaps and bounds in cultivation. Even Heavenly Tribulations and the disasters of inner demons were far less severe than for ordinary cultivators.

Coupled with proper farming and breeding methods, sound means of production, the aid of skill traits, abundant resources, and Xu Yang, the Dao Master, constantly preaching the Dao, educating his disciples, answering doubts, and resolving confusion, the cultivation progress of the Academy cultivators was easy to imagine. After tens of thousands of years, over a thousand Tribulation Immortals and nearly a hundred True Immortals were only to be expected.

This was also why the great divine systems and major lineages had remained embroiled in endless conflict. It was a struggle for incense offerings, but even more a struggle for fortune—enough to determine the rise and fall of a lineage, even an entire divine system.

The great flourishing of Dao Law, the great flourishing of Buddhism, or the era when Confucian technique stood supreme in history were all results of this struggle for fortune. Behind history's splendor lay