Seeking the Dao at the Dao Repository Pavilion, searching for the path to the Purple Abode

Great Wall Prefecture, at the end of the long street.

The last glow of sunset washed the Great Wall Prefecture Dao Academy's white marble archway, weathered by a thousand years, in solemn gold and crimson.

Unlike the clamor and mercenary bustle outside the Cloudrest Posthouse, noisy carriages and horses were strictly forbidden within ten li of the academy, as were private fights.

Even the scions of Immortal Cultivation Clans, usually so overbearing, had to obediently dismount, walk, and straighten their clothes before this archway.

This was the sacred ground of Great Wall Prefecture's cultivation world, and the cradle where countless poor students from humble backgrounds defied heaven and changed their destinies.

Measured footsteps sounded along the silent flagstone road.

Chu Bai, dressed in the blue robes of a seventh-rank immortal official, and Lü Qing, wearing a worn gray robe, stopped side by side before the towering archway.

Looking at the four bold characters on the archway—"Impart the Dao, teach the arts"—their strokes like iron and silver hooks, Chu Bai halted.

A rare ripple of remembrance stirred in his eyes, deep as an abyss.

"It's been years..."

Chu Bai murmured softly.

He still clearly remembered his first step through these gates as a poor student from Anping County, carrying a shabby pack and nursing a yearning for the great Dao of immortality.

Back then, his aptitude had been ordinary, and he had no connections.

After several years of bitter cultivation at the academy, he had only just reached [Qi Refining Third Layer] when he graduated and received his appointment.

Within Great Wall Prefecture's vast sea of immortal officials, he had been the most inconspicuous of ninth-rank White Ordination immortal clerks.

Who could have imagined that in just a few short years—

He would slay a demon god, destroy White Bones, pacify