With the changes in the world, the Dao Academy soared to the highest peaks it’d ever known since its founding.

As dean of the demonic school, the demon god assimilated the demonic dao that’d been drifting outside the proper dao of the world of immortals. The Star Demon Sect, Skandha Range, and other demonic factions all emerged from the shadows to take their place on the world stage. Due to congregating in the Dao Academy, the newcomers managed to settle down peacefully in the bigger picture without undue conflict.

Apart from bringing demonic dao into the fold, Qi Hai’s sacred land of pill dao in the South Sea sent an olive branch petitioning to join the Dao Academy. Lu Yun naturally wouldn't turn him down.

When Qi Hai joined the academy, the current dean of pill dao—Gu Xun—immediately vacated his position in favor of this prestigious senior. After a certain degree of polite refusal, Qi Hai accepted the seat as his accomplishments in pill dao were far greater than Gu Xun’s. He still reigned at a lofty pinnacle of pill dao mastery even after all of Lu Yun’s changes to the supplemental path, to say nothing of how he’d dominated the field from the human dao and primordial times.

……

There were more Dao Academy disciples than could be counted twenty years after the institution’s establishment. Even some of the geniuses of peak factions were willing to enroll in the inner academy and become a disciple of various mentors or deans teaching within.

Nothing could be compared to the Dao Academy’s age of glory; it completely outshone the nine majors. In fact, there were many in the world of immortals who knew only the academy headmaster and none of the nine celestial emperors.

For a long time after repairing the immortal dao, Lu Yun spent his days engaged in a mundane routine. He slowly crossed things off on his to-do list and continued working on his book of history, recording what had been buried in the long river of time.

Wanfeng and Ashu joined his efforts as well, filling in the blank period that was the era of the human dao.

In addition, he collaborated with Qing Yu to derive various cultivation methods, combat arts, and secret techniques to pass them onto the world at large. He also held various lectures to circulate the combat arts he’d invented and assorted tomb raiding knowledge.

His lectures weren’t held behind closed doors and limited to academy disciples—Lu Yun sat on the peak of Mount Xuanhuang and orated to the entire world.

Though the immortal dao had left the mountain to meld with the heavens and earth, Mount Xuanhuang was still the foremost sacred peak beneath the immortal dao. One could overlook the entire world of immortals when sitting cross-legged on the mountain, and Lu Yun’s voice could reach every nook and cranny if he spoke from it.

His reputation soared to unfathomable heights after repeated public lessons; the Karmic Tree hung heavy with sparkling karmic fruits and all of hell was awash with golden radiance. There were eighteen thousand fruits glittering on its branches!

What most delighted Lu Yun was the appearance of a second Karmic Tree sapling beneath the first.

Immense goodwill had propelled the Karmic Tree to peak evolution and it’d split off, forming a second shoot of itself.

“Tianqi’s coming back.” An unbidden smile rose to Lu Yun’s face when he thought of the strong and dignified youth of the great wilderness. That the Karmic Tree had given birth to a second sapling foretold one thing—Tianqi was on his way back.

Lu Yun had passed on the Method of Life and Death to his disciple, and the method’s foundation was the Sal Tree of Life and Death, now known as the Karmic Tree. During human dao, Tianqi had used the method to control the Sal Tree and create hell.

Now that he was about to return, the evolved Sal Tree couldn’t go back to his hands, but it could form an offshoot and become Tianqi’s own Karmic Tree.

“However, Tianqi’s circumstances don’t look too good at the moment.” Lu Yun frowned slightly as he inspected the small sapling an inch tall. “The power of reincarnation surrounds this sapling, so if my guess is correct, he’ll come back after it grows up. Maybe… he’ll be reborn from this Karmic Tree.”

Lu Yun’s heart sank. The Dao Tree had concealed the secrets behind the great war a hundred thousand years ago, so he hadn’t been able to observe the truth of the situation. However, he’d sensed Tianqi’s presence in it. If his disciple had been a part of the conflict, who had been his opponent?

Was it the demon of immortal dao who’d killed God, sent the little fox through the reincarnation cycle, and become Ah Zhi’s nightmare?

Fuxi had once said that this demon would be born of the immortal dao, that Luo Houluo and Ji Du were nothing in front of it.

Now that the immortal dao was truly complete and enveloped heaven and earth in flourishing prosperity, its demon would see a tremendous increase in strength as well. Maybe it was already so strong that it couldn’t be imagined.

……

Qing Yu sat cross-legged on the peak of Mount Xuanhuang, in communion with the immortal dao and all living beings. Though she hadn’t entered the cosmos to refine her cosmic dao fruit, her cultivation made giant strides by the day and she’d completely outstripped Lu Yun. However, she focused her efforts on deducing the origin of the curse.

Great emperors had become taboo after Emperors Fall and no one dared call themselves an emperor at all. Whoever did so would be cursed and ultimately die; even Lu Yun hadn’t been able to see a way out of it.

What made the two of them very uneasy was that someone had modified the empyrean realm to be called the great emperor realm, and then forcefully imprinted it into the immortal dao. Anyone who dared set foot into that realm would be executed by the dreadful curse.

There were no exceptions.

Even Tianqi was probably fighting this curse right now.

“I’ve found it!” Qing Yu suddenly brightened and she sprang up, excitement dancing in her movements. “Lu Yun, I’ve found the source of that curse!”

She took a step out and instantly arrived by Lu Yun’s side. Her grasp of formula dao was better than Lu Yun’s—even after he’d visited the great wilderness and been baptized by the Dao Flower. Qing Yu’s comprehension of formula dao had almost reached great perfection.

“Oh?” Lu Yun’s eyes lit up. “Where is it?”

He was confident that as long as they broke the curse, there would be someone who broke through to great emperor under the immortal dao within the next eighty years!

“The Ascension Pool.” Qing Yu’s slender eyebrows knitted together slightly after she calmed down. “The gateway through which immortals of the galaxy and multiverse once ascended through—the Ascension Pool!”

The answer turned Lu Yun’s face dark.

The Ascension Pool was a connate treasure born of the immortal dao and a doorway to the world of immortals. No one had ever placed it as the source of the curse on emperors!

During the thriving period of immortal dao in the Primordial Era, countless numbers of immortals traveled from the lower worlds to the world of immortals through the Ascension Pool. Lower world immortals didn’t mean those from humanity’s ancestor planet, but rather, immortals from elsewhere in the multiverse.

However, the Ascension Pool had mysteriously gone missing after the great war and no one could journey to the world of immortals ever again. All of the immortals on this planet now were natives.

“The world of immortals is a huge tomb and the Ascension Pool the doors to the tomb,” Qing Yu explained. “But now that the great tomb layout has been destroyed, the Ascension Pool has lost its function. If my calculations are correct, it should be in one of the ancient ruins somewhere in the world.”