(POV: Iris)

In the Ancestral Dragon Plane, the dragon clan’s ancestor has ordered his clansmen to search for a bronze mirror. The dragon ancestor is already five thousand years old, stuck at the peak of Nascent Soul, unable to advance into the Dao Pursuing realm.

Watching this, I ask him, “I am the deity of progress, Iris. I can help you advance to the Dao Pursuing realm if you lead your clan into worshipping me.”

Of course, he will naturally have doubts. To convince him, I release a strand of my aura, scaring him so much that he collapses on the floor. Luckily, no one was watching him, or he’d have a hard time regaining the respect of his clansmen.

After this, he naturally accepts my proposal. I tell him to build an altar for me and bring the clan’s most talented genius to me. He brings a twelve year old child at the early stages of Foundation Establishment. Not bad.

He asks, “What do I do now?”

I respond, “Place the child on the altar and chant a prayer.”

He does as I say, and the child vanishes when prayer ends. Meanwhile, in my divine kingdom, a confused child appears.

True to my word, I help him break through to the early stage of the Dao Pursuing Realm.

Before leaving, I say, “If you perform the ritual with another child of similar talent, I will help you advance your cultivation again.”

A similar event is happening across a myriad of mortal planes, and countless talents appear in my divine kingdom.

The children that appear in my divine kingdom are confused, but feeling dense magical energy, they begin to cultivate.

Before they start cultivating, I make sure to tell them, “The top ten percent be able to enter the palace and cultivate in ten years. The rest will be eliminated.”

Hearing this, the children start to cultivate faster than ever.

Ten years pass in the blink of an eye. With the abundant energy inside my divine kingdom, all of the children have reached the Nascent Soul realm, while the top ten percent have reached the early to middle stages of the Dao Pursuing realm.

I lead those talented geniuses into the palace and show them their rooms. As we enter, one of them asks, “Why is this room called the breeding den?”

Gesturing towards the breeding den, I say, “This is the room you’ll be staying in.”

The children obediently walk in, and before closing the door, I answer the child’s question, saying, “You’ll find out why it’s called the breeding den soon enough.”

Shutting the door, I activate the mechanism, releasing pink mist into the room.

At first, the geniuses think this is a test of mental strength and resist the mist for as long as they can. Unfortunately, the mist is remarkably potent, and they soon find themselves losing control.

After a round of breeding, I remove the mist, and they begin to regain their sanity. I increase the concentration of energy in the room and tell them to start cultivating.

They might be traumatized for a while, they’ll accept it eventually.

As for the weaklings, I’ll chuck them back down to the mortal planes. After all, in the mortal planes, Nascent Soul at twenty or thirty is considered an absolute genius. Before throwing them down, I tell them that if they spread my religion far enough, I’ll let them come back. Of course, I have no intention of letting that group of trash back.

Nine months later, a group of newborns appears in front of the palace. I instruct my servants to take care of them, and to bring them into the palace if they reach the late stage of the Dao Pursuing realm by twenty.

Meanwhile, in a certain room of my divine palace, a pink mist is once again released.

Ten thousand years later, the first human in the mortal plane has reached the peak of the Dao Pursuing realm, ready to break to the next stage.

I tell him, “If you offer sacrifices to me, you’ll have an easier time surviving the lightning tribulation. The more sacrifices, the safer you will be.”

After a moment, I realized that he didn't know what a lightning tribulation was, so I explained, “The lightning tribulation happens when one reaches the peak of Dao Pursuing and breaks through to the Immortal stage. The better your talent, the stronger the tribulation will be.”

And from then on, it became a tradition for those about to undergo their lightning tribulation to offer sacrifices and pray to Iris, the deity of progress.

(POV: Skyler)

I inspect the ship before smiling. I don’t know how long my clones and I spent on this ship, but now it’s finally finished. Checking the time, I realize it’s taken me more than five hundred million years to complete this ship.

Normally, building a ship would only have taken a few seconds, but void beast hide is surprisingly difficult to work with. It can’t be manipulated by magic, so my true body needed to have a physical form to work on the ship. After contemplating for a while, I decided to take the same form as Iris. Why? Because if someone manages to see me, they will think that they saw Iris instead of me, keeping my existence a secret.

However, the issue that took the most time was integrating my soul with the ship. To better control this ship, I sacrificed one of my clones and inserted its soul into the ship. Thus, my elven clone is no more.

Shrinking the ship down to the size of a speck of dust with spatial magic, I go to meet Iris.

Entering her divine kingdom, I’m shocked to see a group of children in the Grand Unity realm.

After a cultivator breaks through to the immortal stage, they reach the Immortal Body realm. In this realm, their body becomes immune to aging, and they theoretically become immortal. However, this cannot be considered true immortality.

After the Immortal Body realm, there is the Immortal Soul realm. In this realm, the soul can survive outside of the body, so these cultivators can live on even if their body is somehow destroyed. However, Immortal Soul cultivators are not truly immortal.

One can only become truly immortal when they reach the realm of Immortal Will. If one lives forever, they will eventually become tired of life, and their minds will collapse. Only after reaching the Immortal Will realm can one temper their willpower, so their will can survive the test of time.

Only after one passes the realms of Immortal Body, Immortal Soul, and Immortal Will can one become a Grand Unity Immortal. Grand Unity immortals combine the body, soul, gaining a massive increase in combat power.