Many cultivators travel to and from White Jade Capital, most of whom have reached the Late Qi Refining, and occasionally a few cultivators at the peak of Qi Refining Perfection appear.
It seems that during the years I was in seclusion, Divine Land's development speed has been quite rapid.
It wasn't just the improvement in the cultivation levels of most people; they also gradually began exploring other planets beyond Earth Star.
Although they are currently only exploring a few planets relatively close to Earth Star, Li Xingkong believes that the pace of this exploration will only accelerate.
Passing by the bustling crowd of cultivators, Li Xingkong arrived at the passage leading back to the surface from White Jade Capital.
Upon arriving at White Jade Capital, Li Xingkong contacted the Earthly Capital to inform them that he had emerged from seclusion. Although the procedures for cultivators to enter and leave Earth Star were now much stricter, and they generally had to use the passage through White Jade Capital, Li Xingkong's journey there was unimpeded.
No one stopped him to ask about any procedures or anything like that. The moment Li Xingkong stepped onto White Jade Capital, the relevant surveillance equipment on White Jade Capital had already identified him.
With all the lights on, Li Xingkong even saw many other people returning to Earth Star undergoing scans by various formations as he passed through.
The universe is vast, and there are countless strange things, including many viruses and microorganisms that are not originally found on Earth Star. These need to be disinfected in White Jade Capital before they can be brought to Earth Star.
After all, cultivators can ignore these things, but ordinary people can't.
Most of these inspections are aimed at protecting Earth Star's native ecosystem and the many ordinary people living on Earth Star.
After passing through several light gates formed by arrays, Li Xingkong quickly arrived at the passage. Unlike the simple and brutal way he had just fallen directly into the atmosphere when he traveled back and forth before, Divine Land had directly used the pair of spatial gates that they had used to attack the Eagle Country.
Once you walk through this door, you can go directly from White Jade Capital to the ground.
Of course, Li Xingkong can't leave right now because he has other spatial items on him.
He could only resort to the cumbersome method of jumping off the space station, breaking through the atmosphere, and entering Earth Star.
After several years, the entire Earth Star looks completely different from what it used to be, as seen from space.
Most areas have lost their former prosperity and beauty. In fact, the glaciers throughout the north and south of Earth Star have expanded considerably. Even some places that were once countries now appear as a vast expanse of white when viewed from space.
It seems that nuclear weapons have indeed caused considerable damage to Earth Star.
Although the dust that previously covered the globe has dissipated, the lack of direct sunlight over the past few years has caused a significant drop in temperature across the Earth Star, and the ice caps at the North and South Poles have expanded considerably.
If it weren't for the Nation-Protecting Grand Formation, and the abundant direct sunlight that shone on the land of Divine Land in those years, the situation on Earth Star would probably be even more severe now.
Even so, the entire Earth Star is irreversibly heading towards an ice age. Although there has been intervention from cultivators and human civilization, such a planet-wide change is far beyond what humanity can currently handle.
Even in Divine Land, they can only use various formations to ensure the normal lives of their own people. It is currently virtually impossible for Divine Land to directly reverse the changes of the entire Earth Star.
However, compared to the dire situation in other regions, the situation within Divine Land as a whole is much better.
After all, the great array blocked the way, creating a stark contrast between the territory of Divine Land and the outside world. Within the array, a prosperous scene unfolded, with boundless lights visible from space, spreading across the entire land of Divine Land.
After plunging into Earth Star from space, Li Xingkong Earthly Capital greet Old Tang and the others.
The Imperial Capital today is completely different from when Li Xingkong visited before. The size of the Imperial Capital has nearly doubled, and a large area surrounding it has been incorporated into the Imperial Capital.
Because of the cultivators, the city's area has now expanded to a level that would leave ordinary people in despair.
If an ordinary person wanted to walk from one side of the city to the other, it would probably take them a month or two.
As soon as he entered the skies above the Imperial Capital, Li Xingkong noticed that the streets below seemed to be very lively.
As he flew closer to the ground, just as he had expected, a large number of people were arguing noisily in the street below.
After taking a quick look at the groups arguing, I realized they were mostly ordinary people without any cultivation, with even a few low-level cultivators mixed in.
They formed a medium-sized group and were causing trouble around an office.
Li Xingkong carefully examined the signs in their hands, wanting to see what their demands were.
After glancing at it a few times, Li Xingkong was completely dumbfounded.
The signs displayed slogans such as: "Strongly demand that the pregnancy period be limited to a maximum of 10 months," or "Fairness in childbirth, leveling the playing field."
Li Xingkong had never seen these slogans before. He had only seen slogans about the one-child policy and the three-child policy before. This was the first time he had seen slogans appealing for this kind of policy.
Instead of rushing into the Earthly Capital capital, Li Xingkong landed on the ground, looked around, and approached a middle-aged woman who seemed kind enough to be watching the commotion.
"Sis, what's going on with these people?"
The older woman was holding a handful of sunflower seeds, watching with great interest.
"Hey lad, you've come to the right person. Let me tell you, these people are just bored."
As soon as the old lady saw someone come to ask her a question, her Eight Trigrams box automatically opened.
"Our Divine Land has been promoting cultivation for all for a long time, at least 20 years. Most of the old Divine Land People are already cultivators. These troublemakers are basically newcomers to Divine Land People, and their ancestors may not have been foreign devils from somewhere."
"So these are all people who joined Divine Land later?"
Li Xingkong glanced at them; these people didn't look like foreigners at all. They had yellow skin and black eyes; they were clearly from Tie Divine Land People.
"You wouldn't believe it, several years ago the moon malfunctioned, turning completely bloody. I heard that if you just glanced at it, you'd instantly transform into Divine Land People with a 'bang'. The scene was terrifying."
"The two foreigners who rent my house, if they hadn't pulled out their ID cards, I would have thought they'd been possessed."
"Um, I see..."
Li Xingkong scratched his head. "Moon, this sounds familiar. What's going on?"
"Later, we saw that these people were exactly the same as the Divine Land People, so we accepted them in. But they hadn't been tested by us, so we certainly couldn't open up all cultivation opportunities to them."
"That belongs to us Divine Land People; how can we give it away so easily?"
The old man listening nearby nodded. What he said made sense. Just because someone changed clothes doesn't mean they're from Divine Land People. That's far from the truth.
"After so many years, we've come to hate the qualification cards for cultivation. Since very few people have obtained them, they've started to have other ideas. They want to rely on their next generation to obtain the qualification for cultivation, so they've started having more children than they can imagine, and every family has several children."
"They originally thought that with more children, there would be a few with talent for cultivation who could fight against us old Divine Land People. But what they didn't expect was that most cultivators, once they became parents, couldn't bear to let their children go through the hardships of cultivation again. So, many cultivator couples would get pregnant for three to five years at a time, and the children would be born at the Qi Refining Stage, and they wouldn't play with them from birth."
"Hehe, the current situation is that the longer the pregnancy lasts, the higher the woman's talent for cultivation, and the stronger the child's cultivation will be at birth. For example, I've heard that some cultivators from major families have been pregnant for almost 5 years, and their children will probably be born at the Middle Stage of Qi Refining."
"Like begets like, and the difference between them and ordinary families is naturally even greater. So they started making a fuss, demanding that everyone only be able to carry a child for 10 months, and that the baby be born when the time comes, because they want fairness."
"If you ask me, these people are just being pretentious. When we were sharing weal and woe with Divine Land, they were just some tiny, insignificant country. Now that Divine Land is stronger, they're trying to reap the benefits. I'm the first to disagree with that."
The woman was quite talkative, but from her words, Li Xingkong managed to get a general understanding of the current situation.