“Are we building another Colosseum?” Dusksnow Morningstar asked blankly.
“What would we do that for?” Lu Yun shook his head. “I’m a supplemental king and so is Miao. Naturally, we should do what supplemental kings do.”
“Build another Dao Academy?” the little fox asked quietly.
In the world of immortals, Lu Yun had built the Dao Academy on a foundation of supplemental dao, and his endeavor had ultimately been blessed by the immortal dao.
“I don’t want to die that quickly.” He swept a look over the fox. “People already have me in their sights because of my title, but they’re not beating down the door just yet because they’re afraid of time. If I create another Dao Academy, the seventh step kings will definitely jump out and run right over me.
“But… while I can’t do a Dao Academy, I can do an Immortal Academy. My title is the Immortal King anyway, so it wouldn’t be untoward if I established an Immortal Academy.”
“That name won’t work, you’re not planning on taking any disciples. You might as well call it the Immortal Atelier or Immortal Pagoda. We can do business under that name!” chuckled a merry little fox.
“Alright then, let’s call it the Immortal Pagoda.” Lu Yun nodded.
Something with “academy” in the name did sound like a school, and he had no plans to go in that direction. He just wanted to find his footing in the Hongmeng and locate Qing Yu. But with the incredible disturbance he’d caused in Multitude City, his beloved was sure to seek him out soon if she wasn’t in any trouble of her own.
What was currently foremost on his mind was that she might be caught in something she couldn’t handle.
He also thought that he was thinking too much. Hopeless Major was Violetgrave’s faction and she was the personification of the Netherdark Hell. The factions of the third realm would be mere toys to her.
There wouldn’t be any issues with Hopeless Major internally. If Qing Yu ran into any trouble, it’d come from the outside world.
……
One month later.
A building bigger, taller, and armed with more profound formations than the razed Colosseum stood where the latter once loomed. The new structure was only nine stories tall, but every floor was filled with great mysteries and was a world unto its own.
The Immortal Pagoda!
One of the four dens of crystal consumption had vanished from Multitude City. In its place was the Immortal Pagoda! It went without saying that this was the handiwork of the Immortal King, and that many were unaccustomed to its appearance. After all, the Colosseum had stood to the north of the city for countless eons. The city’s denizens were used to seeing it whenever they raised their heads.
“How incredibly arrogant to brazenly occupy the Colosseum’s territory like this!” Scalps ran numb at the display of hubris.
Though the Colosseum had lost twenty kings, hundreds of thousands of superior realm cultivators, and one of its sixth step kings… that was just a slightly deeper surface scratch to the overall faction. It was far from causing the complete collapse of the entire organization. The Human and Blood Kings yet remained!
As long as they were alive, they could easily create another Colosseum at any time or a power on equal level with it.
The Beast King was dead?
He’d been a sixth step king for less than a million years! His strength couldn’t be compared to the other two.
“When the Blood and Human Kings return, they’ll instantly flatten that Immortal Pagoda!”
“What if they’re also afraid of the power of time and don’t dare do anything…?”
“Hah! The Immortal King is just in the common realm. Killing him is as easy as taking a sip of water when he’s caught off guard!”
……
“Lu Yun, to think that you’d come to the third realm and create such an enterprise for yourself!” Jin Gushen tsk’ed with amazement as he stood on the ninth floor of the Immortal Pagoda and looked out over the unending Multitude City.
To prevent any accidents from occurring, Lu Yun had directed the Skyfall King to plant a Resurrection Talisman inside his friend’s body when delivering the purple crystal mountain. In the fallout of the clash between the two sides, Jin Gushen had been crushed to pieces—a state which he smoothly recovered from.
As confused as he was about the state of affairs, he wasn’t fool enough to ask about it. In fact, he destroyed his memories of dying and coming back as soon as he resurrected. He was just an inferior in the Hongmeng, he didn’t even count as an ant.
When Lu Yun first arrived in the realm, Zhuo Bufan hadn’t dared linger around Lu Yun for too long, for fear of dragging down his new master with his ill-advised dealings.
“Each of us have our own opportunities,” Lu Yun chuckled. He’d found out how Jin Gushen had found his way to the Hongmeng.
In the chaos, there were many locations fought with danger that led straight to the third realm. They exited to equally dangerous locales in the Hongmeng.
After the demise of the nine sacred lands, a disheartened Jin Gushen began exploring the various danger zones of the chaos. He entered the Hongmeng through one of them and ran afoul of Colosseum cultivators before he had a chance to collect his wits and observe where he was.
The cultivators had been out hunting for beasts for the Colosseum rings; Jin Gushen was just a capture of convenience as it was hardly a benevolent faction.
The beasts and slaves for its rings hailed from unspeakable sources, but the organization was so influential that no one dared really take them to task for it. Who knew how many celebrated in secret now that it was gone?
“Brother Jin, this is an Eight Treasures Return Pill. You’ll immediately ascend to the common realm without side effects after taking it.” Lu Yun offered Jin Gushen a pill.
He’d planned on selling the remaining five, but now that his friend was here, he would naturally give one of them away.
……
“This servant greets the master!” In a pocket of space on the eighth floor of the Immortal Pagoda, the Beast King and others who’d died to time were on their knees in worship of Lu Yun.
“Hmm? There’s only you guys? Where’s the Windcall King?” Lu Yun’s eyebrows rose with surprise.
Everyone who’d attacked him had been reduced to dust under the power of time, but that level of time didn’t have the right to claim lives from the Tome of Life and Death. Anyone who’d died at the site of the old Colosseum became Lu Yun’s Infernum.
The Spacetime King had called upon his abilities to send a strand of his soul out. What was unexpected was that the cause of it all—the Windcall King—had escaped as well. Lu Yun didn’t even know how he’d managed it.
“In response to the master, the Windcall King has a myriad of replicas and each one is like his primary body. Apart from the one in Multitude City, he also has replicas elsewhere,” answered the Beast King.
“I… see… so it’s a kind of innate talent.”
“That’s correct.”
“Alright then, this is no place for any of you. Go to Immortal City in the south and switch positions with the Tiger Butcher King and others,” Lu Yun said to his newest troops.
“Understood!”
