“Matriarch, are you sure?”

“Yes, stop bringing this up; he can wipe his own ass!”

“Of course, please forgive my impudence, Matriarch!”

A woman bowed before a beautiful lady seated on a large chair within the palace. Behind her were characters representing the word ‘victory’. Many other individuals within this expansive palace were adorned in extravagant white cultivator robes, with the same words embroidered onto their backs.

“I will not let the lives of my Victory Sect be thrown out in vain.”

The person that was bowing started removing themselves from the throne room while whispering with one of the people they had arrived with.

“Is the Matriarch still angered about that issue?”

“I think that could be the case, she hasn’t been able to win against her brother ever since for at least a hundred years now…”

“But it’s her brother and the current Emperor, there is no shame in …”

Before the two could continue with their talk they felt a massive spike in spiritual energy pushing them down to their knees. The Matriarch that they were talking about had overheard their whispers and focused some of that rage onto them.

“What are you two whispering about?! Are you badmouthing your Matriarch!”

“N-no no such thing!”

“If you don’t stop blabbering, I’ll reduce your salaries by fifty percent!”

“No, anything but that! M-my cousin is getting married soon, I need that for her gift! Please show mercy!”

Everyone within the chamber began narrowing their eyes and scrutinizing. Their Matriarch was a peculiar person who typically punished her sect juniors by stripping them of resources or playing strange pranks on them. Initially, it seemed preferable to physical punishment, but after a while, they realized that these punishments were far more insidious in the long run.

“Yeah, I bet you are! Now choose! Either your spirit stones get halved, or you spend two months out in the glacial fields!”

“N-not the fields!”

The two people who were previously whispering collapsed onto the ground. The choice was between hard labor or having their wages lowered by quite a significant amount. However, before the two could make a choice and plead more, another person burst into the chamber.

“Matriarch, I bring important news!”

“Hm? Speak!”

“The battle between the rebels and the Emperor’s army has ended!”

“It ended already?”

The Matriarch, along with the other people in the room, was shocked by this revelation. Their informants looked on from a distance, relaying the information to their sect. It was an order from their leader, who was evidently concerned in her own way about her younger brother. Despite her claim that they wouldn’t be providing assistance, their forces were on standby, and the teleportation gate was ready to be activated at any moment.

“Even if it’s the Emperor… they shouldn’t be able to defeat such a large army this quickly, did the rebels surrender instantly?”

One of the elders spoke out, as they had been previously discussing the whole issue among themselves. All eyes turned towards the messenger, who quickly responded to the inquiry.

“No, someone appeared before the battle started, they drove back the rebels in a show of unfathomable power!”

“Someone? Who could it have been?”

“It was…”

Before this person could continue, a blue light in the form of a compact teleportation gate appeared in the middle of the throne room. Through it, they could see a lone person coming through. He was a handsome man with long snow-white hair and the demeanor of a mighty cultivator.

“Oh, sorry to interrupt your meeting, but I’ll have to borrow my daughter for a bit.

“Is that you, Dad?”

“Indeed, it is me, but we’ll talk along the way Xiu’er”

Everyone was confused about the great ancestor's arrival. He was supposed to have moved on to the higher realm like a few other individuals from legends. They could feel that his power was tremendous and that any resistance was futile. Soon their Matriarch was getting sucked into the teleportation gate along with her throne and withing a second the two were gone.

“Did the ancestor take out Matriarch away?”

“It does seem so…”

The room went silent as everyone just stared at the space that the portal had been previously. No one knew what to do as they could only try to contact the old United Element Sect or someone that knew the Golden Emperor to explain this matter to them.

…

“There we go, you’re the last one!”

“Welcome, Xiu’er”

“Grandpa? … and you two?”

Zhang Jin along with Zhang Jun greeted Xiu with many other people around them gathered on a large circular platform. They were all high above ground and soon they all started floating upwards, passing through the atmosphere that revealed the oval planet to them all.

Zhang Dong observed the confused expressions on the faces of his family, friends, and followers. Flying up to such heights was considered impossible, even for a nascent soul master. In their perception, the world was mostly a flat expanse of land extending up to the borders of the empire - borders they could now see. Soon, they reached their destination, where the artificial nature of their surroundings became apparent.

“Impossible, so it was all a lie? There is no greater realm outside? It’s nothing more than an illusion?”

“Regretfully so gramps, as you can see, everything here is fake and everything outside this sphere is nothing but an empty void.”

“Nothing but empty space? But surely if you flew long enough then…”

“You are mistaken, it doesn’t even go on for that far, within a few days of flight you’d reach the end, a barrier of this dimension. While we can’t consider it small, it pales when compared to a true boundless universe.”

“How could this be…”

“Grandfather? Are you well?”

Zhang Xue, one of his disciples, offered Zhang Jin a shoulder to lean on after he collapsed onto his knees. To simplify matters, he decided to bring his most trusted family members and advisors beyond the bounds of the planet. They could all witness the fake planet and the absence of anything beyond.

The primary group included his disciples, children, and most trusted elders. Huo Qiang, Zhang Zhi, Feng Maling, Zhang Kuo, and Zhang Ya were all present. Revealing the truth was a heavy burden, but he understood its necessity for their comprehension of the world they inhabited.

Without this realization, it would be impossible to expedite the plan involving all of them, including the elderly. While some among them, like his grandfather, were at an advanced age, they could potentially prolong their lives by reaching a higher realm. With a concentrated effort, many of them could likely ascend to the stage of an immortal, and then the real work would begin.

“This will be enough, let us head back, I can now explain to you all what we are facing and what my plans are.”

Everyone was visibly shaken by this revelation, but some remained composed. They all reconvened in one of the old meeting chambers of their sect. The room was filled with a diverse group of people, ranging from young adults who were his grandchildren to old elders he recognized from the past wars they had endured. The gathering totaled around fifty people, a loyal group to whom he could safely explain everything.

Zhang Dong took a deep breath, gathering himself before addressing the group. He spoke of the system, the upper realm, and the mysterious force behind the illusion they had been living in. The revelation was met with a mix of disbelief, shock, and anger.

“So, what you're saying is that everything we’ve known is a lie? Our world, our lives, our struggles… all part of some cosmic game?”

Asked Feng Maling who still had a hard time processing all of this information.

“Yes, but we are not powerless. We have the opportunity to fight back, to break free from this illusion, and confront the force behind it. I brought you all here because I trust you, and together, we can forge our own destiny.”

He explained his plan to empower everyone, remove the limitations imposed by the system, and prepare for the looming confrontation with the enigmatic being in the upper realm. His words resonated with determination and it installed the people here with a newfound purpose. However, a lot of them still remain skeptical of this revelation. Their power was limited and most of them could not fathom becoming strong enough to challenge a foe their great ancestor could not defeat.

“But father, how will we tackle this foe that not even you, an immortal cultivator could hope to battle?”

Zhang Jun posed the question that was on everyone's mind. This was the crux of the problem. The people here had been conditioned to think that the Nascent Soul realm was the limit for them. Zhang Dong knew that it would take some time to convince them otherwise but the fastest way would be to present them with a path forward. After one of them gained a new realm, the others would follow suit and for that, they just needed to be granted a simplified system.

“While one immortal realm cultivator might not be able to, what if there were many immortal realm cultivators?”

“Many?”

“Yes, all of you will be the first to reach a new stage, one above the Nascent Soul realm and I will guarantee it!’

The whispers within this hidden chamber started. Some of them were shocked, others were intrigued and some didn’t believe it.

"I know it's hard to believe, but this limit on your cultivation realms had been artificially created. After I lift those limitations, some of you will naturally break through to the next stage, I won’t even need to help you with that as you had already grasped one lesser Dao to make that jump!”

“One lesser Dao? W-what is the next realm after the Nascent Soul stage, Patriarch?”

Zhang Zhi was the one to speak out. His realm had been at the Great Circle of nascent soul for quite some time now. Even if he tried pushing his body and soul further, he could just not progress anymore. It was the same for all the other older cultivators who had been stuck for hundreds of years at what seemed to be the end of their cultivation journey.

“I had to fiddle around with the options a bit, but the first realm after the nascent soul realm, is called the Dao Foundation realm!”

“Dao Foundation realm?”

“Yes, you will have to grasp one Dao to its fullest before you can hope to ascend and the quality of this Dao will dictate your future but, before all of you can start with your journey, we need to prepare some things.”

Zhang Dong waved his hand to create another portal, this one would take them all towards the new training area where they all would probably spend many years training.