While my clan’s leadership got to work preparing the Wastes, I headed to Blue Wind Pavilion for a chat with an old friend.

As I entered the Pavilion, an attendant stepped forward to greet me, but I didn’t even look at her. I headed straight to the staircase at the back of the hall. This caused the attendant to become a bit flustered, but something about my appearance stopped her from trying to intercept me.

Upon reaching the staircase, I climbed straight to the eighth floor, bypassed the secretary just as I had the attendant, and entered the office of the manager in charge of all Blue Wind Pavilion branches located within the Wastes.

I walked over to the desk, grabbed a chair, and looked at the man sitting across from me. “Chen WuJing, looks like you’ve done rather well for yourself over the years. Already a mid-level King?”

WuJing bowed his head to me. “It is all thanks to you, Ancestor Su. If you hadn’t opened up the Wastes, then I wouldn’t have had this opportunity.”

Not having met WuJing in this life, the fact that he was able to immediately recognize me, especially after all the changes to my body, was a little surprising. However, underestimating the Pavilion’s intelligence-gathering operation would have been a mistake.

“Manager Chen, I have come today to share a piece of vital intelligence that the Blue Wind Sovereign might find interesting.”

WuJing raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that so?”

“Indeed. The next layer of the Wastes’ formations will come down one month after the new year. If he wishes to strike at us before we have a chance to prepare, that would be an opportune time.”

WuJing nodded thoughtfully. Then, he reached into his desk, pulled out an old, yellowed, folded piece of paper, and slid it to me. “Over a century ago, I was instructed to give this to you whenever you came to see me. I had expected you to stop by a bit sooner, but it looks like this is indeed the proper time for it.”

The paper WuJing gave me was not sealed, and there was nothing to indicate who had sent it. It only contained a single line of text.

Wait until the third week of the seventh month.

“Interesting.” I had an idea of who had sent this message, but I wasn’t sure of its purpose.

Thankfully, WuJing was around to explain things. “The details elude me, but I can tell you this. Most of the pills and other products produced by the Pavilion are never sold. Instead, they are shipped off to the Pavilion’s headquarters. We send out one shipment each year, and it must arrive at the headquarters before the end of the sixth month.”

I nodded. “Very well, you may inform your superior that the formations will fall during the third week of the seventh month after the new year.”

This timing might have been a trap set up by the current Blue Wind Sovereign and not Emperor Li, but if so, I didn’t think it would matter. I wanted the Sovereigns to know when the formations would drop so that we would be able to predict when they would attack us. I didn’t care too much about the exact timing.

If this message had been sent by Emperor Li, however, I had to assume that there was a good reason for sending it.

After leaving the Pavilion, I went to meet up with GuiMing and GuiAi.

Over the past few years, they had been working on a new design for my inner world’s city of Chang’an. Their goal was to find a way for 100,000 people to live comfortably in an area of only 2 square kilometers. Since whatever design they came up with needed to be suitable for long-term habitation, this was a nearly impossible task, but I just needed them to do their best.

For our meeting, GuiMing brought me to a large, empty building on the outskirts of Dragon Gate that looked more like an empty warehouse than anything else. However, while the place looked empty, I could see countless formations embedded into the walls. What really set the place apart, though, was the giant 1-meter-deep, 20-meter-wide circular hole in the middle of the floor.

I gave GuiMing a strange look. Was he planning to murder me?

He coughed awkwardly and led me to the edge of the pit.

“Ancestor, this is Chang’an as it stands today.”

GuiMing clapped his hands, and a flash of light burst from the pit. When that light faded, it left behind a 3D projection of my inner world.

“Right now, everyone is being housed in the stone wall that surrounds the city. For a smaller population, this is sufficient, but if we want to house an entire city’s worth of people, it won’t be enough. We need more.”

As he said this, a massive 100-story skyscraper appeared in the center of the city, where there had previously only been a hole.

“I know you have talked of moving Mount Jiang into this hole, but my team feels it would be better if we made something from scratch. This building has a total of 140 floors, 100 above ground and 40 below. The belowground floors might not be suitable as residential areas, but they can still be used as workshops or the like.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

GuiMing snapped his fingers, and four 80-story buildings appeared, one to each corner of the larger building. “All five of these buildings have a square, 200-by-200-meter footprint. This allowed us to maximize the amount of livable space while also keeping as much ‘outdoor’ area as possible. We can place apartments around its perimeter, giving people a view out of the buildings, while the windowless core is reserved for workspaces.”

GuiMing clicked his fingers once more, and two plates appeared—one at the 25th floor of the buildings and one at the 50th. These plates stretched between the buildings and covered the entirety of the city. The edge of the upper plate sat directly on top of the city’s wall, while the lower plate was embedded into the wall halfway up. The areas below them were cast into complete darkness.

“To give people access to more ‘land’ and to try to keep them from feeling like they’re trapped in a cave, we’ve added these two extra floors.” As he spoke, the undersides of these plates transformed into illusory skies. “Our goal is to give people the illusion that there are actually three separate cities stacked one atop the other. As far as anyone should be able to tell, none of the buildings in the lower cities will look to be more than 25 stories tall. Ascending past this point will take one to an entirely different city. In the topmost city, there will be four 30-story buildings and one 50-story building at its center.”

GuiMing waved a hand, and half of the projection disappeared, giving us a cutaway view of everything.

“Even with these two additional ‘ground floors,’ we won’t have much room for farming. However, there is also a lot of space in the ground beneath Chang’an, and we see no reason to waste it. Even with formations, without people being able to use wood qi, things will still be a bit tight, but we should be able to construct a multi-story greenhouse that’s large enough to keep everyone fed.”

I stroked my chin in thought. The idea was ambitious, and it looked a bit insane, but it would certainly hold a lot of people. “How many?”

“That…” GuiMing sighed. “If we house people only along the perimeters of the 5 skyscrapers and give them each a 10-meter-wide space, then that puts us at about 60 to 65,000 people. However, we will likely want to reserve certain floors for official purposes. So, the number will likely be a little less than that. Since the ‘outside’ is illusory anyway, we could look at using illusions to house people in the interior of the buildings as well, but I wouldn’t recommend it. We need that space as storage areas, restaurants, schools, libraries, and, well, everything else.”

He gestured to the encircling wall. “We can still house people in the wall, though, and we can easily fit another 60,000 people in there, bringing us above the 100,000-person threshold.”

I patted him on the shoulder, satisfied. “Good job.”

After I approved of GuiMing’s design, hundreds of Lords and dozens of Kings entered my inner world and began tearing it apart. With so many high-level people on the job, the bulk of the work was completed in only a couple of months. However, the process of refining the buildings and installing things like spirit fires to create water and dispose of waste would take a bit longer.

While these craftsmen worked, I assigned ShouLi the unenviable task of devising a method for determining who would be given a permanent residence. We would be able to temporarily store people in the public spaces during a planned reset, but those who weren’t living in the city permanently would be lost in the event of an unexpected death. So, having such a residence was a symbol of both prestige and safety.

As we worked, time passed, and the start of the new year rolled around.

A couple of weeks later, the Sect Master and Deputy Sect Masters from each of our eight sects visited the Su Clan’s palace complex in Dragon Gate City.

While I was familiar with most of the Sect Masters—they were my Revered Elders, after all—this was my first time meeting most of the Deputy Sect Masters. The only exceptions were the ones from the Twin Mountains Sect.

The current Sect Master of the Twin Mountains was Cao, who helped take over the sect decades earlier. Originally, she had appointed Bao as her only deputy, but after helping her get established, Bao decided to leave for the Verdant Fields.

While I didn’t want to interfere with the sect’s decisions, I felt obligated to make a couple of recommendations. And even though I told her these were just recommendations, Cao immediately followed them.

The position of Deputy Sect Master of the Alchemy Peak was given to Jiao XinYan. During my time in the Twin Mountains’ inner sect, Senior Sister Jiao had helped me a lot and had taught me the basics of Rank 3 alchemy. While that friendship had ebbed, I still wanted to help her out where I could. And, if she was a good fit, I would consider bringing her into the loop to work with Cao in the future.

For the position of Grand Elder of the Alchemy Peak, I recommended Elder Mu. He had helped me improve my fire affinity, taught me how to cultivate as both a Master and Grandmaster, taught me the basics of Rank 2 alchemy, and helped me rise from nominal disciple to inner sect disciple. While I had paid for this by providing him with pills, I owed most of my current success to those early lessons.

Since Elder Mu was a bit of a mercenary, I was less inclined to bring him into the loop, but I would help him where I could. At a minimum, if everything worked out in this life, I could preserve his memories and give them to him at some indeterminate future date.

I hadn’t made any recommendations for the Twin Mountain’s Martial Peak, but I was still familiar with the man who had become its Deputy Sect Master. It was TianLei.

In past loops, TianLei had always worked to destroy the Su Clan, so I had been a bit surprised when I found out that he had become a Deputy Sect Master after our takeover of the Twin Mountains. And even though my overthrow of the Su Clan’s leadership had thrown this timeline into disarray, I was still wary of the man. Still, I had given the job of Sect Master to Cao. I would trust her judgment.

Once the leaders of the various sects were gathered in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, ShouLi walked in and sat on her throne. While the Revered Elders were above her in the clan’s hierarchy, few people were aware of this fact. So, with outsiders present, she had to maintain the façade of being the absolute ruler of the empire.

She looked down upon the assembled Sect Master and deputies. “In six months, we will remove the formations that block Emperors from entering the Wastes. At that time, it is likely that the Sovereign Clans will send their armies against us. We need to be prepared.”

She motioned to the side of the hall where TongBin was waiting with a group of Lords. “Over the next six months, you will be provided with as much Emperor-level karmic energy as you can handle. Ascend as far as you can. Do not rush recklessly, but keep in mind that in a few months, you will need to defend your sects from an army of Kings and Emperors.”