Responding to the Enemy

Time flew, swift as a white colt flashing past a crack; thirty years passed in the snap of a finger.

Those thirty years were thirty years in which Earth's civilization sprinted forward and shed its old skin.

"Universal cultivation of immortality" was no longer a slogan, but a reality that had seeped into every corner of society.

In the skies above the cities, streams of light from sword-flight and all manner of flying artifacts had become a common sight.

The transportation department had specifically designated "cultivator aerial corridors" and "civilian spiritual-energy vehicle routes."

The outer walls of the high-rises of the past were now covered in Spirit-Gathering Vine, which could spontaneously gather and purify spiritual energy.

In the parks, children romped and played inside Basic Body-Forging Formations, their muscles and bones growing strong without them even realizing it.

Daoist Academies sprang up everywhere, running parallel to traditional mathematics, physics, and chemistry education, becoming cradles of talent for the new era.

Under the catalysis of spiritual energy, the tech tree had also sprouted strange branches.

The Heavenly Dao Sect had already become the undisputed leader of the global cultivation world.

Its believers were spread everywhere, and incense burned flourishingly in its Daoist temples.

Though the three sect leaders, Zhou Qing, Lin Yan, and Long Aotian, lived in deep seclusion and rarely appeared.

Every public lecture they gave could still make cultivators across the globe listen "immersively" through Virtual Network Pods, with tickets impossible to obtain.

With the strength of the whole planet behind them, resources poured in without regard for cost; with the three supreme experts teaching without the slightest reservation; and driven by the pressure of survival from powerful external enemies.

Earth's cultivation world welcomed an explosive surge.

Refining Essence into Qi had become the common level of outstanding high