“Buzz.” The portal opened, revealing a pulsing light. However, no one has come out just yet.

The runes intertwining inside the portal made its direct connection to the clan apparent.

“Rumble!” The runes on the mound continued to spread until it covered the nearby mountain range.

Next, pavilions and other buildings erected from the ground. They were made of runes and empowered by the strongest imperial blessings. This area quickly became the land befitting that of an emperor.

The crowd shuddered in response. The emperor wasn’t here yet; he could be located at the Mu Clan or any remote region in Imperial Lineage.

In the far reaches of space, he just needed to throw an imperial banner towards the vicinity of Mingluo City. This allowed him to open a portal connecting the clan to Stone Harmony System.

Outside of possessing a great treasure, this also showed the emperor’s power and might, causing many Eternals to feel dread.

More importantly, he wasn’t here in person yet but his grand dao laws have already built a fully-empowered dao land here - allowing the dao to spread without shackles.

“Anything below the realm of an emperor is only rotten wood.” One Eternal lamented.

Even the Eternals with similar battle prowess to Puresword True Emperor were shaken.

This particular phrase made sense to a certain degree since a True Emperor should be stronger than an Eternal, provided that the gap between the two sides isn't overwhelming.

After all, becoming an emperor meant opening twelve palaces, something above the reach of Ascenders and Eternals.

When a Grand True God opened their third palace, they would become an Ascender, a first-level True God. A second-level Ascender would have four palaces, a third-level would have five, and so on and so forth…

After becoming a ninth-level Ascender, they would have eleven palaces. At twelve, they would turn into Eternals with a new world opened up for them.

Though they were called “Eternals”, this didn’t imply immortality or supremacy - hence the phrase above.

True Emperors simply had access to greater techniques and new grand dao unavailable to Eternals. This resulted in better future potential and overall power.

An Eternal had twelve palaces just like a True Emperor, but there existed a fundamental difference. Emperors’ palaces were lit up, allowing for a better concentration of true energy and grand dao.

The admiring spectators were envious of the creation ability of this emperor.

“Looks like Puresword True Emperor has five palaces now.” One person speculated based on the grand dao aura permeating the dao land.

“Right, the fifth one should be lit up now. I heard he was a four-palace emperor already before entering his most recent isolated cultivation.” One old expert said.

“Hmm, that’s when they have access to Perpetual Weapons.” An Eternal sighed with envy.

“From pondering immortality stems the creation of true weapons.” An even stronger Eternal said: “We need to be at the amaranthine level to create them.”

“Not all Amaranthine Eternals can do so, many need to be at the epoch level first before crafting something like this; the success rate can be low too.” An ancient Eternal added.

So after lighting up four palaces, emperors became qualified to ponder the mysteries of eternal life. With that, they could start crafting Perpetual Weapons. Of course, a long and arduous path lay ahead of them.

“That’s normal. Talented men can become Eternals but still don’t have Perpetual Weapons.” One more Eternal said with a tinge of regret.

Not all Eternals were equal. They were graded on a temporal scale. example, a regular Eternal could go back by one generation in the river of time. If they could go back by one hundred generations, they would become a Centurial Eternal…

Thus, the levels were from lowest to highest: One Generation Eternal, Centurial Eternal, Millenium Eternal, Myriad Eternal, Ceaseless Eternal, Amaranthine Eternal, and Epoch Eternal. [1]

“Well, anything below the realm of an emperor is only rotten wood, this phrase is only for us. For the emperors, they might be looking up to the progenitors instead.” Another commented.

“True, there are levels for progenitors too, the grand dao is so long.” One more smiled wryly.

For people all over the world, becoming an Eternal was already incredible enough. However, after actually getting to this level, they realized that there was still a long way to go.

“The dao requires longevity. We need to become an Everlasting before we can talk about truly being eternal.” An old Eternal in the bunch slowly said.

“Everlasting indeed.” The rest murmured.

Becoming an Everlasting is the pursuit of many Eternals, their lifelong goal. Say, an emperor’s goal was to become a progenitor. An Everlasting was an equivalent to a progenitor.

“That’s probably when we’ll be qualified to talk about Perpetual Weapons and the rumored world of immortality.” One Eternal said.

Some believed that an Everlasting could potentially take down a progenitor. This gave Eternals hope in catching up to the progenitors.

Of course, this topic wasn’t easy either for them. Becoming an Everlasting required incredible talents. All the previous Everlastings in history were amazing geniuses.

The juniors nearby were in awe of this conversation as well. They thought that their ancestor was already powerful and famous enough in Imperial. This was their first time hearing about the various levels in this realm. Plus, above the realm of Eternals was Everlasting. It was a throne up in the clouds, impossible to reach.

They finally understood why people said the grand dao was long and arduous.

In their mind, becoming an Eternal was an impossible test already. But for Eternals, becoming an Everlasting was the real achievement. Maybe there were differences among Everlastings too.

This was the case for progenitor as well. Their power level varied despite reaching the grand dao.

“Buzz.” The portal on the mound slowly opened again, interrupting the various conversations.

A youth walked out - a stranger to many visitors. However, the natives of Mingluo knew him quite well. He was Yang Tingyu of Luo Faction, previously defeated by Li Qiye.

“Oh? That brat is Puresword True Emperor’s disciple in name, the strongest expert in Stone Harmony. Becoming the emperor’s disciple is a good indicator of his abilities.” People recognized him.

After all, Puresword True Emperor was too famous. Even just recruiting an in-name disciple was a big deal. That’s why many knew about Yang Tingyu.

An army with great momentum followed right behind him. Not a single weakling was part of this group. These were the experts of the Mu.

1. One gen will just be Eternal. Ceaseless is one million, amaranthine is ten million. A literal translation would have been One Million Generation Eternal and Ten Million Generation Eternal. Not good for readability and brevity later