The dignitary from the Immortal Gate was named Gongye Zhixu.
He was one of the two deputy masters of the Xianwu Hall, and there was even a possibility that he could become the master of the Immortal Gate in the future.
The overall system of the Immortal Gate was quite interesting.
Among the three great halls, the Xianwu Hall managed the mountains and rivers and was the highest authority of the Immortal Gate.
The master of the Xianwu Hall also held the title of master of the Immortal Gate.
Therefore, the deputy masters of the Xianwu Hall were already considered second only to the three great hall masters.
Gongye Zhixu hailed from the Taiyuan Academy, with a Golden Elixir cultivation level, and was not yet two hundred years old. He was in the prime of his life. If he succeeded in Forming a Golden Elixir, there was a great chance he could replace the current master of the Xianwu Hall, who was nearing eight hundred years and retirement.
Unfortunately, in a resource-scarce place like the Earth Element Star, the difficulty of forming an Elemental Infant was akin to climbing to heaven.
Gongye Zhixu was a genius blessed by the heavens. As a youth, because the Taiyuan Academy was close to home, he gave up the opportunity to go to the Mending the Sky Department.
At the age of thirty-three, he completed his Foundation Establishment. In pursuit of resources for Forming a Golden Elixir, he joined the Xianwu Hall. After sixty years of moving through various departments and serving the people from the ground up, he finally obtained the Golden Liquid Jade Return Elixir and succeeded in forming his Golden Elixir in one go.
Regrettably, after forming the Golden Elixir, there was still the challenge of forming an Elemental Infant.
The three types of Elemental Infant elixirs of the Immortal Gate—Nurturing Infant Elixir, Cultivating Infant Elixir, and Transforming Infant Elixir—were all priceless treasures that could not be bought with Good Deeds.
The most orthodox way to obtain them was to serve the people. If one's governance was unanimously recognized by the Immortal Gate, one could receive the Elemental Infant elixirs from the Immortal Gate's treasury.
Gongye Zhixu was a practitioner of this orthodox path.
However, he gradually realized that he was running out of time.
A Golden Elixir had a lifespan of eight Jiazi, which is 480 years. Forming an Elemental Infant before one's spirit, energy, and soul declined from their peak undoubtedly had the highest success rate.
Gongye Zhixu had already passed his two-hundredth birthday. Although he had many life-extending elixirs, the time left for him to form an Elemental Infant was at most a hundred years.
In his hundred-plus years of governance for the Immortal Gate, he had only obtained one Nurturing Infant Elixir.
With the remaining two types of Elemental Infant elixirs, using orthodox methods, time was running short.
Although in the history of the Immortal Gate, there were lucky individuals who succeeded in forming an Elemental Infant with just one Nurturing Infant Elixir, Gongye Zhixu still wanted to be better prepared.
Five years ago, the Immortal Gate's supreme treasure, the "World Gate," began to fluctuate.
This indicated that other worlds were approaching Earth Element Star.
Thus, after consulting the three great hall masters, Gongye Zhixu began preparing for the World Opening wars.
The Immortal Gate no longer had sufficient resources to refine Cultivating Infant Elixirs and Transforming Infant Elixirs and could only hope that the newly discovered worlds would have them.
Although the "World Gate" had detected the presence of other worlds, the two worlds were too far apart to fully open the channel between them.
According to the calculations of the Observing Stars Academy, it would take about a hundred years for the two worlds to completely converge.
A hundred years was precisely the last peak period for Gongye Zhixu.
Not only him, but many Golden Elixir Taoist masters from the Kaiyuan Hall who were struggling with the lack of Elemental Infant elixirs also saw this as an opportunity to advance further.
Even the Elemental Infant masters sitting at the top of the Immortal Gate were awakened by the fluctuations of the World Gate.
After all, above the Elemental Infant, there was the realm of Divine Transformation.
Everyone wanted to reach higher levels.
However, the strength of the other world detected by the World Gate needed to be confirmed as soon as possible before the two worlds converged.
If it was too powerful, the Immortal Gate could only conceal its traces and hope not to be discovered by the other side.
If the strength was average and the resources were abundant, then a World Opening war would definitely be launched.
Therefore, five years ago, the long-peaceful Immortal Gate began consciously cultivating the next generation's awareness of magical combat.
Over the years, Gongye Zhixu had gathered hundreds of top talents from various industries within the Immortal Gate to revive the sealed Minor Red Heaven for this purpose.
***
Before Chen Mobai led the team to the Red City Cave Heaven, he made a special visit to Che Yucheng, who briefed him on the Immortal Gate's main policy directions in recent years.
When he heard terms like other worlds, World Gate, and capture, his eyes and face could not hide his shock.
However, a normal person would probably be more shocked than Chen Mobai upon hearing these secrets, so Che Yucheng did not mind.
Chen Mobai was thinking that the other world captured by the World Gate might be the "Tianhe Realm."
If that were the case, wouldn't it mean he had successfully infiltrated in advance?
But he had been very successful in the Tianhe Realm. If there was a war between the two worlds, wouldn't all his efforts over the years be wasted?
Moreover, the Tianhe Realm had many ascended cultivators, and no one knew if there were still connections between the lower and upper realms.
If the World Opening reached its final stage and the ascended cultivators descended, the Immortal Gate might suffer greatly.
He still needed to find out whether the world captured by the World Gate was indeed the Tianhe Realm.
"What is Minor Red Heaven?"
His thoughts were completely different from his words. To avoid being seen as unusual by Che Yucheng, Chen Mobai asked another question that interested him.
"It's a virtual reality world, the proud creation of the first master of the Immortal Gate during his practice of emptiness. It allows you to project your power into it, undergo various trials, and at the same time, match and spar with each other to improve your awareness and level of magical combat."
"The Immortal Gate has such a thing? Why didn't it come out before?"
Chen Mobai expressed his curiosity.
"This thing is equivalent to a sixth-order spiritual treasure. Once activated, it requires a huge amount of spiritual energy from heaven and earth every moment. The Immortal Gate only activates it before wars of the World Opening level to improve the overall magical combat level of the masses."
Che Yucheng, as a veteran Golden Elixir of the Immortal Gate and a former rotating member of the Kaiyuan Hall, was one of the upper echelons of the Immortal Gate.
Therefore, he was very clear about Gongye Zhixu, Minor Red Heaven, and the World Gate.
When his disciple Chen Mobai came to ask, he did not hide anything and told him everything he knew.
"After the Minor Red Heaven is activated, the spiritual energy supplied to the masses of the Immortal Gate will drop by one level, but the most affected is our Refining Department."
Che Yucheng sighed. He had already received notice that Red City Mountain was forbidden from activating fifth-order spiritual veins from now on.
Because the operation of Minor Red Heaven required a huge amount of spiritual energy from heaven and earth, and among the four fifth-order spiritual veins of the Immortal Gate, only the spiritual energy from Red City Mountain met the requirements of Minor Red Heaven.
So when he heard that Gongye Zhixu was coming, he had already guessed this point.
But when he actually received the red-headed document from the Immortal Gate, Che Yucheng still felt a bit heavy-hearted.
Hearing this, Chen Mobai looked indignant.
But he immediately thought that as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he wouldn't even get to use a fifth-order spiritual vein, so he just verbally condemned the Immortal Gate.
"Isn't the dean going to oppose this?"
The fifth-order spiritual vein of Red City Mountain was undoubtedly under the jurisdiction of the dean of the Refining Department.
If the Elemental Infant master dean disagreed, the Immortal Gate would probably not forcibly requisition the spiritual vein of Red City Mountain.
"The dean has also passed half of his lifespan. The World Opening gives him hope for Divine Transformation, although slim, it's still better than waiting idly for the illusory Divine Transformation."
After hearing what Che Yucheng said, Chen Mobai showed a look of realization.
So it turned out that the dean also supported this World Opening war. No wonder Gongye Zhixu could use the fifth-order spiritual vein of Red City Mountain without showing his face.
"What do I need to do in Minor Red Heaven?"
Chen Mobai asked, and Che Yucheng nodded, giving him a requirement.
"The combat in Minor Red Heaven will display rankings. As the current face of our Refining Department, you can only be the first."
"Teacher, it's not that I don't have confidence in myself, but I've just completed Foundation Establishment. I might be able to beat Zuo Qiushi, but against Lan Haitian or Golden Elixir Elemental Infants, ten of me combined wouldn't stand a chance."
Chen Mobai grimaced, indicating that he couldn't do it.
"Don't worry, Minor Red Heaven has a perfect matching mechanism. You will only encounter opponents of similar realms, and you won't be challenged beyond your level."
"So, the strongest opponent I'll be matched with is the third level of Foundation Establishment. Isn't that bullying?"
Chen Mobai's eyes widened in disbelief.
It wasn't that he wanted to boast.
He just couldn't think of any third-level Foundation Establishment cultivator in the Immortal Gate who could withstand his sword!
"Correct. Of course, if you win too many matches, Minor Red Heaven will increase your hidden score, and then you might be matched with opponents from the fourth to sixth levels of Foundation Establishment. But by that time, even if you lose, you will have already brought glory to our department."
Che Yucheng knew his disciple's combat abilities. Under the Sword Rainbow Splitting Light, Chen Mobai was an invincible force at the early stages of Foundation Establishment.
Indeed, it was a bit of bullying.
However, in the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment, there were still some with deep foundations and extraordinary talents who might not be suppressed by the sword light.
But as he said, as long as Chen Mobai could perform normally, even facing the sixth level of Foundation Establishment and losing would still bring honor to the department.
"Teacher, I feel that below the seventh level of Foundation Establishment, there's no challenge, which is not conducive to honing my combat skills. Moreover, I became the president of the Student Council to spar and exchange insights with the chiefs of the other three departments. If our realms separate us, I regret that I won't be able to test my sword against the world."
Chen Mobai said something that left Che Yucheng speechless.
"First, fight your way through the early and mid-stages of Foundation Establishment. Besides, once they enter Minor Red Heaven, those three probably won't have time for you."
Che Yucheng's words made Chen Mobai very puzzled.
However, when he arrived at Red City Cave Heaven with Hua Zijing and other Student Council officers, he immediately understood the reason.
***
In the central square of the cave heaven, a giant screen was divided into nine sections, some displaying rankings and others showing ongoing magical combat in Minor Red Heaven.
In the three central screens, the chiefs of the three great departments were shown.
In the top right corner of their combat screens, the number 100+ in matching was displayed.
This meant that at least three hundred late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators who had received internal test slots were challenging the chiefs of the three great departments.
Among them, who knew how many were at the ninth level of Foundation Establishment, and there were probably even those at the peak of Foundation Establishment with false Golden Elixirs.
Everyone wanted to make a name for themselves.
Challenging the chiefs of the four great departments was undoubtedly the most eye-catching. If one could fight and win, then one could boast of being more talented than them, and even cast doubt on the value of the four great departments.
No wonder Che Yucheng said the chiefs of the other three departments didn't have time for him, because there were too many people queuing up to challenge them.
"Mobai, you've finally arrived?"
Bian Yiqing, accompanied by Jiang Yuyuan and Meng Huang'er, came over. When they saw him, they visibly relaxed.
When Gongye Zhixu arrived, Bian Yiqing led Meng Huang'er and other artists to sing in the grand theater to welcome him. Chen Mobai was not interested in such things and was in seclusion at home.
After Minor Red Heaven opened, the chiefs of the other three departments were present and were immediately given slots by Gongye Zhixu.
The three proud children of heaven naturally had no reason to shrink back and had already begun to be challenged in a continuous stream by the users.
As the leader of the Refining Department, Bian Yiqing was also given twenty slots by Gongye Zhixu.
Many people from the Student Council had already gone in, and even Zuo Qiushi, who had already graduated, came to get one.
But whether they had slots or not didn't matter, because the chief of the four great departments of the Immortal Gate was missing only their Refining Department.
Since Chen Mobai didn't come yesterday, and some people found out that he had just completed Foundation Establishment last year with only a first-level cultivation, rumors had already spread.
《Initial Evolution》
Cowardice, retreat, timidity, the five-thousand-year reputation of the Refining Department is about to be ruined in this man's hands…
Hua Zijing selectively mentioned some things, originally intending to stimulate Chen Mobai, but the latter was completely unmoved, not bothered at all.
When he was keyboard fighting online, these words were already child's play.
"Isn't Senior Zuo Qiushi also in there? How is his record?"
Chen Mobai didn't rush into Minor Red Heaven but asked about Zuo Qiushi's situation.
"Not bad, five consecutive battles, three wins and two losses, barely maintaining a positive record."
Hua Zijing was loyally devoted to the former leader. Not only did she provide Zuo Qiushi with the internal test account, but she also paid close attention to his record after entering Minor Red Heaven.
When Chen Mobai asked, she knew everything like the back of her hand.
Who he faced in each battle, what level of Foundation Establishment they were, what skills they excelled in, and the reasons for victory or defeat were all recounted in detail.
"Alas, it's good that he ran fast. Otherwise, as the chief of the Refining Department, such a record would be embarrassing to show, and it would disgrace our department."
Hua Zijing was speaking enthusiastically, but when she heard Chen Mobai's words, her face turned from green to white.
On the side, Ming-Yu, Shen Renyou, and other Student Council officers looked down or gazed at the sky, pretending not to hear.
Chen Mobai dared to say this, but they didn't dare to respond.
However, in their hearts, the Student Council members agreed with Chen Mobai's words.
After all, the chiefs of the three great departments had fought ten consecutive battles since yesterday, all of which were resounding victories.
Compared to that, Zuo Qiushi's record was indeed a bit embarrassing.
"President, why don't you give it a try? After all, as the current chief, the department needs you to bring glory!"
When she said the last two words, Hua Zijing was gritting her teeth.
Chen Mobai, however, was full of determination.
"Upholding the glory of the department is our unshirkable duty."
Proofreader & Editor:Peter Pan