Over on the other side.
Ye Qingxuan’s avatar, the Mysterious Merchant, had already entered the Xuán Mù Realm through the spatial passageway in Star Battle City.
Ever since Star Battle City was established, the entrance to the spatial passageway leading to the Xuán Mù Realm—originally opened by Xuán Tiān Sect’s Sect Master Cen Zhe—had been moved under the unified management of Star Battle City.
“So this is Xuán Mù City?”
Stepping out of the teleportation area, Ye Qingxuan looked at the bustling, crowded city before him and felt a flicker of surprise.
Xuán Mù City was the very first city established by the Xuán Tiān Sect in the Xuán Mù Realm.
It was also the only landing point for cultivators from the Dì Xuán Realm entering the Xuán Mù Realm in the early days.
Because of that, the city was named directly after the realm itself.
The other nine fallen realms followed the same pattern—the first city built in each was named after their respective small thousand realms.
Ye Qingxuan had originally thought that in the fallen realms, where cultivators constantly faced the threat of the Green Demon Race, the cities would be relatively sparsely populated.
To his surprise, Xuán Mù City had just as much foot traffic as Star Battle City.
He glanced back at the steady stream of cultivators pouring in behind him and murmured:
“It looks like quite a few cultivators from the Dì Xuán Realm have been drawn in ever since they restricted the Spirit Severing stage from intervening and fully opened up the Xuán Mù Realm.”
Xuán Mù City now spanned a thousand miles in both length and width—already a fairly large city.
Ye Qingxuan wasn’t in a hurry to leave.
If he wanted to build a city in the Xuán Mù Realm, establish a connection with Xuán Mù City, and set up an interconnecting teleportation array, he would first need to register at the city lord’s manor and receive the array foundation needed to connect to Xuán Mù City’s teleportation network.
Of course, if a cultivator building their own city didn’t want to establish a connection with Xuán Mù City, they could choose not to register.
But unless their head wasn’t screwed on straight, no one would do that.
Successfully building a city didn’t mean they were completely safe.
By establishing a connection with Xuán Mù City and setting up a shared teleportation array, they could not only attract foot traffic to their own city but also leave themselves a backup escape route.
So among the cultivators who had successfully built cities so far, pretty much all of them had teleportation arrays linked to Xuán Mù City.
As for whether cultivators set up shared teleportation arrays between their own cities—that was left to their own judgment.
Moving swiftly through the city, Ye Qingxuan soon arrived at the city lord’s manor.
It was located in the very center of Xuán Mù City and covered a huge area—ten miles long and ten miles wide, practically a city within a city.
The main gate of the manor was always open, and quite a few cultivators came and went to handle various matters.
After all, almost anyone who wanted to run a business in Xuán Mù City had to deal with the city lord’s manor one way or another.
Once inside, Ye Qingxuan followed the signs and quickly found the office for city-building registration.
Stepping inside, he saw a middle-aged cultivator in a red robe—a Nascent Soul stage cultivator—with the Xuán Tiān Sect’s unique Daoist patterns embroidered on his robe.
Clearly, this Nascent Soul cultivator was a core disciple of the Xuán Tiān Sect.
Ye Qingxuan stepped forward respectfully, gave a bow, and said politely:
“Greetings, Senior. This junior would like to choose a plot of land in the Xuán Mù Realm to build a city. I’ve come to register and collect the array foundation.”
The man looked up, glanced at Ye Qingxuan, and frowned:
“Golden Core stage? Kid, don’t be foolish. Do you know that even among Nascent Soul cultivators, only one or two out of ten succeed in building a city here? A Golden Core cultivator like you—aren’t you just throwing your life away?”
Hearing this, Ye Qingxuan let out a wry laugh inwardly.
He should have hidden his cultivation before coming in.
But since he was already here, he had no choice but to seem ungrateful:
“I truly appreciate your concern, Senior, but I have confidence in my ability to succeed. I ask for your permission.”
Hearing that, the cultivator didn’t bother persuading him further.
If the kid had no attachments and no one to worry about, giving a word of caution was already enough.
Since Ye Qingxuan insisted, the man simply got down to business:
“Name or Daoist title?”
“Mysterious Merchant.”
“City name?”
“Mysterious Emporium.”
“City location?”
“That place.”
After registering the information, the middle-aged Nascent Soul cultivator handed Ye Qingxuan a small and delicate array foundation.
With this foundation, when he set up his teleportation array, it would be able to connect to Xuán Mù City’s network.
The teleportation plaza in Xuán Mù City was heavily protected by layers of formations, so there was no worry that members of the Green Demon Race might use lost or stolen array foundations to build a teleportation array and invade the city.
Ye Qingxuan took the array foundation, gave another respectful bow, and left the city lord’s manor.
Once outside, he didn’t linger in Xuán Mù City.
No matter how good Xuán Mù City was, it wasn’t his.
So right after leaving the manor, Ye Qingxuan made straight for the city gates.
When he reached the gate, he didn’t rush out recklessly.
Instead, he extended his divine sense to probe the surroundings for thousands of miles beyond the city walls.
Only then did he shoot out of the gate at high speed, heading toward the areas of the Xuán Mù Realm that were shrouded in demonic qi.
Just as he was about to enter the demonic qi-filled region, he activated a spatial jump and vanished.
When he reappeared, he was already deep within the demonic qi-covered area.
Without pausing, Ye Qingxuan activated the seed of his minor divine ability, Deception of Heaven, and sped forward in one direction.
During the time he spent refining the city components, he hadn’t been idle.
His Explorer avatar had long since left the Number Nine Demon Realm.
After the Explorer avatar reunited with the Mysterious Sage avatar, Ye Qingxuan had arranged for both avatars to return to the Qingxuan Blessed Land one after another.
His main body had already advanced to the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm.
With thirty percent of his early Nascent Soul cultivation, it was enough to raise his avatars to the peak of the Golden Core stage.
After both avatars reached the peak of the Golden Core stage, the Explorer avatar had already entered the Xuán Mù Realm ahead of time to scout for a suitable city-building location.
So far, the Explorer avatar had already found a suitable spot along the border between the active zones of the human race and the Green Demon Race.
So Ye Qingxuan didn’t need to waste time searching anymore.
And during the time he was refining the city components, Ye Qingxuan had also found the time to forge a Town Boundary Tower for his Mysterious Merchant avatar.
After all, things had changed now. In the future, his Mysterious Merchant avatar would be stationed in the city he built in the Xuán Mù Realm.
There might even come a time when one of his avatars would need to make a move.
So the Town Boundary Tower was still an essential magic artifact. Besides, it wasn’t like he was short on resources.
Traveling in seclusion for three whole months, Ye Qingxuan finally arrived at a vast, open plain.
This plain was the spot he had chosen for his city.
With the Spirit Severing stage cultivators out of the picture, his city didn’t need to be hidden.
By building it out in the open on this wide plain, he might even attract the attention of the Green Demon Race—saving him the trouble of having to go looking for them elsewhere.
And on both sides of the plain in the distance lay continuous mountain ranges.
Those two mountain ranges were currently the most active zones for both the human race and the Green Demon Race—battles broke out between the two sides almost every day.
His Explorer avatar was already hunting down Green Demon Race experts in one of those mountain ranges.
Building the city here would make it convenient for cultivators from the Dì Xuán Realm to resupply, bringing a steady flow of people to Ye Qingxuan’s city.
Plus, the plain was massive enough that future expansions would be easy.
With everything settled, Ye Qingxuan prepared to begin construction on the city.
