"Fellow Daoist Li, Fellow Daoist Zhu, how did things go on your end?"
"Not too well..." Li Chen shook his head.
Zhu Yishan said, "Not too well? We had no idea until we looked, and what we saw gave us quite a fright! I never imagined the situation here would be so desperate. It truly hasn't been easy for the managing elders and steward disciples fighting on the front lines all this time. Even the rogue cultivator Demon Hunters and Ruins Seekers who came seeking profit have made tremendous contributions to resisting the demons and the Outer Dao."
Qi Maigu chuckled, then turned solemn. "I feel the same way."
Two days had passed by then. Li Chen had concluded his brief inspection tour and returned to Golden Light City.
Golden Light City floated in the boundless void like a Heavenly Palace inhabited by Immortals and Gods. No mortal or low-level cultivator on the ground could detect it, much less imagine that, during this Grand Artisan assessment, a hundred or so Puppet Master Grand Artisans and Grandmaster Artisans were jointly watching over every outpost.
Only now did they truly begin to feel that they had stepped beyond the chessboard to play a game encompassing the world, no longer unable to see Mount Lu's true face because they stood within the mountain itself.
"I think I understand the Grandmaster Artisans' painstaking intentions now. If we kept building carts behind closed doors within our own domains, ignorant of the state of the world, we could never understand this world properly..."
"In that case, even if our cultivation and attainments reached the level of a Grand Artisan, what contribution could we make to the Dao Path?"
"But what exactly should we do now to earn an excellent evaluation from the Grandmaster Artisans?"
Zhu Yishan