Cultivation was the path to immortality!2

For mortals, it was a word of mystical wonder. In their imagination, cultivators lived apart from the world. They rested beneath ancient trees from dawn until dusk, cleansed themselves in clear streams, watched drifting clouds in the heavens, and listened as flowers bloomed and withered. When the whim carried them, they traveled to the Northern Sea at dawn and roamed through Cangwu by dusk[1]. They visited friends and discussed the Dao in freedom.1

In truth, both the cultivation world and the mortal realm were floating in the same boundless sea of misery. If anything, the waves of suffering striking cultivators were orders of magnitude greater.1

Tianlan Immortal City was a blessed land crafted by human hands. It gathered countless rogue cultivators, and each day resources flowed through it in quantities too great to count. The relationships and deals there appeared orderly on the surface, and the competition fair; but in reality, the struggles happening in the shadows were far more perilous than those in the distant markets.0

This was especially true during the decennial city management rotation, when conflicts inevitably erupted in full force. Each decade, countless flourishing small sects and other organizations vanished without a trace, reduced to a ripple in the long river of history....0