Youfu Palace could be said to be the supreme authority of the Aoteng Realm. The Seven Great Prefectures covered vast territories and had more cultivators than could be counted, but every prefecture was subject to Youfu Palace's control.
There was no other reason than this: the Seven Great Prefectures had no Mahayana cultivators, while all the Mahayana cultivators in the Aoteng Realm were in Youfu Palace.
This was not to say that the Seven Great Prefectures could never produce Mahayana cultivators. Rather, as long as a cultivator in any of the Seven Great Prefectures advanced to the Mahayana stage, they would join Youfu Palace.
The Aoteng Realm had adopted such a system of governance because of its special circumstances.
In the Aoteng Realm, cultivators were not the dominant force.
Although the Seven Great Prefectures occupied an extremely vast area, any one prefecture, judging by its territory alone, might be no smaller than a domain in the Spirit Realm.
Yet even such vast territory was difficult to compare with the region inhabited by the Ao Beast Vine Demons.
It could be said that large swathes of the Aoteng Realm were occupied by the Ao Beast Vine Demons, while the land inhabited by cultivators accounted for only a tiny portion.
Most crucially, there were Mahayana Existence among the Ao Beast Vine Demons—and more than one.
This meant that the Mahayana cultivators of the Aoteng Realm had to band together in order to contend with the Mahayana Existence among the Ao Beast Vine Demons, who held the dominant position.
Just as the Seven Great Prefectures successively received news that large numbers of Ao Beast Vine Demons were gathering around the various prefectures, apparently preparing to besiege all Seven Great Prefectures, cultivators sitting in wooden chairs and discussing matters inside a grand hall of