[**Rumble-**] [As a fifth-tier Formation Path Celestial Master, you had no difficulty setting up the formation nodes of the Sixty-Nine-Layer Defense Array.] [Within the defensive lines below, hundreds of Fourth-Tier Formation Grandmasters were scattered throughout the area, doing everything they could to assist you.] [Almost all the Human Realm's Fourth-Tier Formation Grandmasters had gathered in the Deep Sea. Formation Path Grandmasters were tremendously useful during wartime.] [After more than half a month, you successfully finished setting up over three hundred formation nodes. The Sixty-Nine-Layer Defense Array fully integrated, becoming a seamless whole.] ["Done."] [You carefully checked it several more times before returning to Heavenly Sword Peak.] [No matter the circumstances, your own cultivation always remained your priority.] [The other Heavenly Monarchs had long abandoned any thought of cultivating further, because their progress was simply too slow.] [But you could bring your cultivation progress back to reality. Even the slightest improvement meant something.]
``` [In the 1,746th year, you were 1,773 years old.]
[Inside your cave abode, you looked inward at your dantian, examining the one hundred and twenty Dharma Talismans within.]
[After one or two thousand years of nurturing, these one hundred and twenty Dharma Talismans had long reached the pinnacle of fifth-tier middle-grade power, only one step away from the fifth-tier late stage.]
["Fifth-tier late stage!"]
[A smile appeared on your face.]
[As with Core Formation and Nascent Soul, the Spirit Transformation Period was divided into early, middle, and late stages, and the gap between the late stage and the preceding two stages was enormous.]
[Late-stage Spirit Transformation Heavenly Monarchs... even during the Primordial Era, they had been exceedingly rare. Throughout those long ancient years, Heavenly Monarchs at this level could be counted on one hand. When the Ascension Passage still existed, they had been all