Beyond White Pond, past the Desolate Fire Forest.
Azure light streamed through the Great Void, revealing a man in gold-and-jade Daoist robes. Strikingly handsome, he stood with his hands behind his back, carefully studying the strange spectacle farther south.
It was True Person Huan Biao of the Autumn Clarity Gate, a Purple Mansion Late Stage cultivator of the Jia Wood Lineage.
He had entered the Southern Sea and wandered along its fringes for a long time. Now, at the sight of the distant sea's strange spectacle, his heart stirred, and he made his decision.
"It really is the Constructive Wood!"
Huan Biao had cultivated Jia Wood all his life and read descriptions of this immortal tree in countless Daoist Canons. How could he possibly mistake it?
Of the five immortal woods, Jia corresponded to [Constructive Wood], Yuan to [Fusang Tree], and Yi to [Dusk Wood]. These were all firmly established facts. As for Ji and Expansive, one remained secluded from the world while the other frequently suffered encroachment and plunder, so their corresponding immortal woods were difficult to ascertain.
The Constructive Wood stood at the center, an immortal ladder between the realms above and below, directly beneath the celestial sundial. In ancient times, it had stood at the center of the Nine Provinces, but Gao Xu had later felled it.
During the Heavenly Epoch, sacred beings walked the world, and humanity successively produced Great Flint, the Nest-Builders, and Fu Yi. By the Earthly Epoch, the first Human Emperor in the true sense was Emperor Xuan, and his successor was Gao Xu.
The tradition followed by Human Emperor Gao Xu was exceedingly unusual. It was the ancient form of today's "Supreme Rites" lineage, known as "Order Stewardship," and he also held a "Calamity Blessing" retainer position.
The transition from shamanism to