The moment Shen Yuan said this, the Yunmeng Dragon Lord paused in the middle of sipping his tea.
Those sky-blue dragon eyes narrowed. Beneath his black-and-gold robes, his imposing frame trembled slightly, as though something were building within him.
"Hahahaha! Three thousand years, three thousand years!"
An unprecedented burst of laughter erupted from the Yunmeng Dragon Lord. His dignified face was now filled with irrepressible excitement.
Not even slaying the Jidu Grand Heir in a dream with a crippled Heavenly Dipper Grand Divine Ability had made him this excited.
"Those old immortals relied on the protection of their blessed grotto-heavens. They could use them to evade the millennium of spiritual energy depletion and preserve their dreams of immortality.
"But Dao Lords who had entered the Dao Integration realm, and even immortals of higher realms, had long since merged with the Great Dao of heaven and earth. What they required was not merely spiritual energy, but also the insights gained from merging with the Great Dao.
"Remaining hidden in a grotto-heaven for a thousand years without emerging was already their limit. They would never be able to endure this three-thousand-year period of spiritual energy depletion!
"Not to mention that they had already gone through three such three-thousand-year periods!"
Shen Yuan was somewhat taken aback. He had never expected that, upon learning of the three-thousand-year spiritual energy depletion period, the Yunmeng Dragon Lord's first reaction would be this.
"During those three thousand years, if those old immortals who sought refuge in grotto-heavens chose to remain within, their Dao foundations could only collapse and they would perish.
"If they took the risk of leaving their grotto-heavens to maintain their Dao Integration insights, they would likewise exhaust their final sliver of spiritual essence in this age of depleted energy and perish completely.
"The world's