[During a council meeting, you heard the female Heavenly Venerable, Venerable Na, say worriedly.]
["Once this thing grows, it will be terrifying. If we fail to control it, it could destroy the entire Void Realm!"]
["It's only a scrap. It doesn't have that much power."]
["I think we should inform the World Master."]
["No! If the World Master learns we've fought this hard, he'll definitely order us to withdraw and send another army! Then what were all those losses for?"]
[Without a doubt, Venerable Xia was trapped by something called "sunk cost."]
[So he went all in and used some kind of taboo weapon.]
[During your time undercover, you specifically investigated why the Dragon Person Race could pay lifespan as wages.]
[Whenever the Dragon Person Race conquered a world, they would strike that world from the rolls.]
[In truth, "striking it from the rolls" was the result, not the purpose.]
[The Dragon People first seized the Five Elements Root Artifact and fused it into their world's Root Artifact, strengthening that world's Five Elements foundation.]
[Next, they refined the Earth Spirit.]
[Finally, they slaughtered every living being to release Mortal World Qi, then transferred all of that Mortal World Qi away.]
[Once a world had been destroyed to such a state, it was naturally struck from the rolls. It no longer had any reason to exist.]
[During this process, the Dragon People gained an additional harvest.]
[As mentioned before, the Earth Spirit was tied to the evolution of a world's living beings. Even their lifespans were related to the Earth Spirit.]
[When Dragon People refined the Earth Spirit, they extracted vast quantities of "Longevity Source" from it.]
[Take note: it was "source," not "years."]
[Longevity Source could not directly become lifespan. Cultivators had to use their own power to slowly convert