Great Zhou Immortal Dynasty, Great Wall Prefecture.
The first heavy snowfall since winter began had fallen thick and fast for three full days. The land, wrapped in silver and white, should have exuded stillness and wintry severity. Yet today, inside and outside Great Wall Prefectural City, it was like a volcano set ablaze, every inch of air seething with irrepressible frenzy and shock.
All because, half a day earlier, an urgent official spirit-talisman transmission of the highest rank from the Great Zhou Immortal Dynasty had struck the desk in Great Wall Prefecture's City Lord's Manor without warning, like a savage thunderbolt from the highest heavens.
The message was extremely brief, yet enough to make any Great Wall Prefecture cultivator who saw it wonder whether he had fallen into an illusion.
"Chu Bai, County Magistrate of Anping County in Great Wall Prefecture, took first place in the Qingzhou Purple Register Heavenly Examination.
He single-handedly fought through the Heavenly Abyss Fragment Realm, a deathtrap with no hope of survival, accomplishing a feat for the ages and bringing an entire realm's territory and hundreds of thousands of soldiers back into Great Zhou's fold! The Qingzhou Prefect personally bestowed the supreme Violet Ordination upon him, granting him unparalleled authority!"
When this message spread through official channels, layer by layer, to Great Wall Prefecture's major aristocratic clans, sects, and cultivator markets, the entire prefecture went utterly mad.
Several months earlier, Chu Bai, the Anping County Magistrate who had risen to fame throughout Great Wall Prefecture, subdued Longwind County with thunderous force, and created the Black-Armored Guards, had certainly displayed astonishing talent. But in the eyes of the prefecture's true upper ranks, he had still been merely an "up-and-coming youngster" with a few tricks up his sleeve.
Even during Great Wall Prefecture's recent allied campaign against