Qi Hai’s visit caused things to end on a sour note for the founding of the Dao Academy, but that didn’t bother Lu Yun at all. In fact, he wished that more sacred lands would emerge in the world of immortals.

Competition would always be the greatest drive for improvement, which was sorely needed. After all, the World Gates would stand for only another hundred years!

……

An extravagant cluster of palaces emerged halfway up Mount Xuanhuang, forming a dense circle around the great mountain. Those were the Dao Palaces, the true campus of the Dao Academy!

They had once formed the dragon palace that humans had refined for the dragons, containing the nine great treasures of the nine connate divine beasts. Dao City, sitting at the foot of Mount Xuanhuang, became Dao Academy’s outskirts.

On the second day of the first year and first month of the Xuanhuang calendar, namely the day after the establishment of the Dao Academy, two beams of dark light shot heavenward and blended into the...