The Imperial Horse Immortal Bureau stood by a river several dozen miles outside Luminous Yang Commandery.
This place lacked the solemn grandeur of the Merit Examination Immortal Office, yet possessed a vast and boundless grandeur all its own.
Rolling grasslands stretched as far as the eye could see, covered in immortal grass suffused with pure spiritual energy. As the wind swept through it, waves of emerald green rippled across the fields.
Upon the grasslands, hundreds and thousands of rare birds and exotic beasts—dragon steeds and phoenix fledglings—either galloped and neighed or lay resting with folded hooves.
They were all mounts and beasts of burden for immortals and gods from every corner.
Their bloodlines were extraordinary, their foundations deep.
Several menial immortal clerks dressed in short gray cloth jackets were laboriously pushing hay cutters, chopping towering piles of immortal grass stacked Gao into sections.
Others nearby carried wooden buckets, drawing spiritual water from the river and pouring it into enormous troughs carved from white jade.
"This sort of crude work really wears a man down."
A younger gray-clad immortal clerk wiped the sweat from his brow, set down the heavy wooden bucket in his hand, and voiced his complaint.
"We are Chessmaster Realm cultivators, at least. Yet after entering the Heavenly Court, we have been reduced to chopping grass and adding water for a pack of beasts, without even earning a second glance."
An older immortal clerk beside him gave a cold snort, his hay cutter never stopping. "Be content."
"You think the threshold of the Imperial Horse Immortal Bureau is low? Who knows how many Rogue Cultivators outside are breaking their heads to get in."
"Though we are merely lowly immortal attendants, unable even to touch the edge of an immortal registry and not considered part of the Heavenly Court's