"Senior, I believe that over the next thousand years, we should build a three-dimensional framework centered on the Nine Provinces. The foremost priority is strengthening ideological education, so that all the human race of the Nine Provinces understands that the Nine Provinces stand united as one, sharing life and death.
"Only with unity of thought can the Nine Provinces become a truly powerful collective, possessed of immense vitality.
"Second, establish faster channels for exchanging information. Build more teleportation formations. Open up air, water, and land transportation routes alike, completing the construction of a unified Nine Provinces from the ideological level down to the material level.
"With this foundation, the next step will be to conduct in-depth analysis of heaven-and-earth spiritual qi, spells, and dharma artifacts. Carry out large-scale, widespread reforms of spells and dharma artifacts; establish unified standards; optimize learning procedures; optimize dharma artifact forging procedures; and make them better suited to the new era..."
Gao Xian had been considering how to deal with the epoch-ending calamity all along. Sister Bai and Ninth Master had both said that heaven-and-earth spiritual qi would steadily decline, and from his own firsthand experience, that was indeed the case.
The greatest impact of declining heaven-and-earth spiritual qi would actually fall upon high-level cultivators.
The hierarchy among cultivators was now rigidly stratified. Fighting above one's level was almost impossible. A single Nascent Soul True Lord could sweep through hundreds of millions of Qi Refining cultivators; the only price was time.
Qi Refining cultivators, meanwhile, had no means whatsoever to counter high-level cultivators. The gulf between their respective levels of power was simply too vast.
As heaven-and-earth spiritual qi declined, however, the gap between cultivators would narrow.
When the epoch-ending calamity arrived, the individual power of cultivators would be severely restricted. Under such circumstances, the strength