Chapter 1521: The Monitoring Beacons Left by the Slumbering Heavenly Being Between the Domains

After many old friends ascended to Refining Emptiness, Jiang Ding's life returned to peace.

Busy every day, his days were quite full nonetheless.

Only a few short decades later, the Immortal Gate held another political participation assembly, but this time it was not to deal with any danger — it was to announce good news.

"We have successfully reached the Heavenly Palace Heavenly Domain."

"As we expected, this place has already been occupied by the Badaxian Sect, but now they have begun to retreat, along with their disciples."

Zhenjun Shenji Zhenxun announced: "It is estimated that in another six hundred years, the Immortal Gate Central Group Army fleet will complete the occupation of all eight Badaxian Sect domains within the Ancient God Domain."

"We are unlikely to encounter any obstacles."

"From now on, it will be the Immortal Gate's great phase of development and construction. We must utilize all forty-one domains and build an unprecedented grand system of Immortal Dao industry."

"From now on, the materials for refining our warships will come from over ten thousand worlds,"

"From now on, the Immortal Gate Materials Science Academy will have over ten thousand worlds as raw material bases,"

"From now on, the Immortal Gate's alchemy industry will have spiritual herb gardens across over ten thousand worlds; from now on, the Immortal Gate's cultivation technique development will have Xian Dao Gong Fa technical reserves from over ten thousand worlds…"

"From now on… we shall have everything!"

Zhenjun Shenji Zhenxun announced loudly.

From the very birth of the Immortal Gate, it had been mired in poverty — one spirit stone split into two to spend, scraping and saving — but today, the Immortal Gate has achieved a certain degree of Immortal Dao ideal society, with unprecedented material abundance, and every citizen's personal wealth soaring.

Taking Jiang Ding as an example, his personal wealth has now begun to transcend Harmonization and draw near to Heavenly Being.

Of course, only in quantity — the quality is far inferior.

Because he lacks eighth-tier Heavenly Being-grade heavenly materials and earthly treasures; the Immortal Gate's Immortal Dao industry has not yet developed to such a stage, but in quantity it is already very close.

"From now on, comrades may be more generous in your research."

"We've got plenty of money!"

Senior Wanji Zhenxun said boldly: "Once the forty-one domains are built, the endless flow of heavenly materials and earthly treasures will completely overwhelm our laboratories. If a cultivator's skill is even slightly lacking, they won't even have the ability to spend all the funds allocated to them."

"Rich!"

"We're rich people!"

"The Heavenly Being Array Spirit Plan, the Harmonization Gong Fa Plan, the Stellar-grade Warship Plan — all of these must accelerate, accelerate, and accelerate again. Don't fear waste, don't hoard. We don't know when the Ancient God Dao's Heavenly Being will awaken — don't end up making wedding clothes for someone else."

These old predecessors, one and all, had stars in their eyes, spoke with bold arrogance, and looked every inch the nouveau riche coal boss.

They didn't care about money at all!

Not for

anything else — the Immortal Gate was famous across the domains for its world-building prowess. With two-thirds of the Ancient God Domain's world groups falling into the Immortal Gate's hands, productivity would surely explode several times, even ten times, beyond the past, and the vast quantities of heavenly materials and earthly treasures that the Ancient God Domain's sects of old could never have imagined would be born one after another.

"Hahaha!"

"We're rich now…"

The political participation assembly sank into a sea of joy.

Jiang Ding instantly set new sword-refining standards for himself — all heavenly materials and earthly treasures raised by one tier, and the Great Sun Sword Refining Method must continue to be improved. In the past he hadn't improved it much for fear of wasting materials; materials science is all about repeated trial and error, and the consumption is terrifyingly vast.

Now, he feared nothing — if one experiment wasn't enough, then a thousand, ten thousand, a million!

With abundant materials and the help of the Immortal Gate's materials science system, the Great Sun Sacrificial Sword Method would undergo multiple iterations going forward — higher efficiency, faster growth for the flying sword, and greater strength.

The stellar-grade Death Star ships must also be sped up, standards raised, R&D teams expanded…

All manner of plans instantly surfaced in the minds of these top-tier Immortal Gate cultivators.

A prodigy cultivator's most obvious trait is the ability to spend money — to spend it well — no matter how much wealth you give them, they can reasonably squander it all.

And the Immortal Gate's Refining Emptiness cultivators possessed exactly such ability.

"Right."

"Jiang Ding, is there any unusual activity in the Ancient God Abyss?"

Yuan first cheerfully listed a long string of research plans, then asked.

The Ancient God Abyss was that stretch of the Ancient God Domain's center shrouded in black fog.

The Immortal Gate had been watching it closely from start to finish, with surveillance levels almost comparable to those for the mother star. Every wisp of spiritual energy fluctuation, every shift in the rules, every change in the composition of spiritual energy particles in the Ancient God Abyss could be firmly monitored by the Immortal Gate, not daring to relax even a sliver — because this concerned Heavenly Beings, concerned the very life and death of the entire Immortal Gate.

These past thousand years or so, the Great Sun Sword Lord had been in charge of this matter.

"Still the same — no changes whatsoever."

"Less than a thousand years is far too brief for such an existence."

Jiang Ding recalled for a moment, organized the research data of recent years, and said: "The Immortal Gate Academy of Sciences recently produced an important result regarding the composition of the black fog. The black fog appears to be a special rule-created object — a rule-created object unique to the Ancient God Dao, to the Heavenly Beings of the Ancient God Dao."

"This is a terrifying Immortal Dao achievement — subtly altering the rules of heaven and earth and transforming them into one's own rules — far beyond our current research limits."

"This kind of black fog can only be destroyed by equally subtle alterations to the rules of heaven and earth."

"Theoretically, the Immortal Gate Central Group Army fleet should be able to destroy small amounts of the black fog, but I'm not certain whether this would awaken the terrifying existence at the center of the fog."

"Special rule-created objects…"

Yuan and the others' expressions grew solemn.

The Heavenly Being existence — they had finally caught a glimpse of a clue, yet none of them felt any relief.

On the contrary, the more they understood, the more they grasped the horror of a Heavenly Being — a power that could not be resisted, an Immortal Dao technological civilization utterly crushed by qualitative change.

"I think we may be in trouble."

"Everyone."

Yuan said slowly: "In the deductions of the Central Array Spirit Computer, even though such an existence slumbers to delay the passage of its lifespan, even though it contends with the Son of the Ancient God for dominance over the divine soul, it is still highly likely that it would set up certain monitoring beacons within the world groups, to prevent anything that might threaten its own safety."

"For example, monitoring auras that might give birth to a Heavenly Being, and erasing them in advance."

"The Jiudaxian Sect of the Ancient God Domain never produced a Heavenly Being in hundreds of thousands of years. While this was certainly the result of their internal strife and complacency — all very reasonable — who can say there was no hidden hand of the Ancient God Ancestor, severing at the invisible causal level any possibility of a Heavenly Being's birth?"

"Many coincidences in the Ancient God Domain's past history — for instance, a certain generation's brilliantly gifted Heavenly Palace Divine Lord being jointly surrounded and killed, a certain generation's extraordinarily powerful Taiyou Bright Light Sword Lord being surrounded and killed, every time the great powers' response was so swift… could all of these perhaps not be coincidences?"

"Also, for example,"

"When all invisible karmic ties fail and a force about to unify the entire Ancient God Domain appears, will the monitoring beacon set by the Celestials be triggered?"

The Immortal Gate is precisely such a force about to completely unify the Ancient God Domain.

"A contingency left behind by the Celestials?"

Jiang Ding and the many Void Refinement cultivators' expressions grew solemn.

The Celestials, since they have not yet died, would they have contingencies in place?

Will they hasten their awakening?