Meanwhile.
In the Great Xia Immortal Dynasty, within the forbidden grounds of the Imperial City.
On the top floor of the Heavenly Fortune Pavilion, nine layers of protective formations operated year-round, their spiritual radiance flowing without cease.
This was the heart of the Great Xia dynasty's repository of ancient history and classified intelligence. Ordinary members of the imperial family had no right to set even half a foot inside.
At that moment, an old man in gray robes sat in a high-backed chair within the pavilion.
His hair and beard were white, his frame lean, yet the pressure he inadvertently radiated caused faint wrinkles to form in the surrounding void.
Jiang Daoxuan, a great cultivator of the fourteenth realm and a supreme guest elder of the Great Xia imperial family.
Three middle-aged men in purple robes embroidered with dragons sat beside the long table before him.
All three were imperial princes who wielded real power. Even the weakest had entered the twelfth realm, and ordinarily, they held the lives of countless cultivators in their hands.
But at that moment, all three wore exceptionally grave expressions.
"Elder Jiang, you specifically summoned us today. Is what you said truly accurate?"
The Prince of Martial Suppression, seated in the middle, spoke in a low voice, his brows tightly knitted. "There really was such a person deep among the ancient books in the Imperial City's Sea of Literary Abyss?"
Jiang Daoxuan lifted his teacup and took a light sip of spirit tea, his fingers trembling slightly.
Recalling that chance encounter several months ago in the Imperial City's secret archive, he still felt an uncontrollable chill rise in his heart, despite his composure as a cultivator of the fourteenth realm late stage.
"When have I ever joked about something like this?"
Jiang Daoxuan set down