Lu Yun appointed the four of them as guides in Ascension City mainly because he wanted them to guard the locale. Not only was the treasure a conduit for immortals to travel to the world of immortals, but it was now a two-way portal for their own to visit the lower worlds.

The Ascension Pool was too important to Lu Yun. Although this was an area that he’d split off from hell, he wasn’t wholly confident that it was safe from assault. After grave consideration, he asked Mo Yi and the others to come and be ascension guides. They could welcome the newly arrived immortals and protect the city at the same time.

The four of them had tremendous backgrounds, but apart from Mo Yi, the other three weren’t fully integrated into the immortal dao. Since the Ascension Pool was an important treasure of the immortal dao, they’d be able to more quickly incorporate themselves into the immortal dao if they cultivated by its banks.

Apart from this, the world of immortals was an unknown planet to all of their future visitors. The guides would play a key role in acclimating them to their new surroundings and showing them the way into their new home.

This would be a deed of great merit and shared destiny of good karma. Those who could cultivate to immortality in those ruined worlds were undoubtedly geniuses of enormous determination. Guiding them into their new lives would naturally come with untold benefits.

……

Splaaaash.

A sizable ripple traveled through the Ascension Pool and a ray of golden light blasted out from its center. A young man came tumbling out with it.

Thump!

He dropped heavily to the ground and landed near Lu Feng’s foot.

“Is this the world of immortals?” The young man picked himself up and looked blearily at his surroundings.

“The first to ascend?” Lu Feng smiled gently at the young man and shifted his arm gently, helping their first visitor up. “That is correct, this is Ascension City in the world of immortals. You are the first to ascend from a lower world to the world of immortals.”

He smiled a warm and comforting smile as he looked upon the young man, taking out a nascent spirit jade slip and three premium immortal crystals at the same time.

“Here are three premium immortal crystals and everything you wish to know in the jade slip. Alright now, you may go.”

“These are immortal crystals?” Eyes wide, the young man closely inspected a crystalline chunk that glowed with a milky-white haze. “When I became an immortal, my master rewarded me with only a piece of supreme spirit stone.”

He extended his consciousness into the jade slip, finding an introduction to the nine majors, ten lands, and four immortal seas of the world of immortals. Many places of danger and commonplace knowledge about the world were also recorded within.

“Nian Rufeng thanks the senior for your largesse!” The young man bowed at Lu Feng.

“Nian Rufeng? Our destinies intersect, alright. We have the same character in our names.” Lu Feng smiled again when he heard the boy’s name. “Since we share an affinity for each other, I’ll make a recommendation for you to become an inner disciple of the Dao Academy.”

Nian Rufeng shook his head at the invitation. “In response to the senior, this junior activated the ascent protocol not to join the world of immortals, but to beg for help!”

He looked to be a boy around eighteen years old, but his maturity far exceeded his appearance. HIs eyes were bright and he looked unblinkingly at Lu Feng.

“Senior, the Blue Wilderness Continent is under attack and the boundary that protects the continent is about to fall to the dead spirits. Hundreds of millions will become their food. Please save us, senior!”

Thump!

He fell to his knees and kowtowed frantically at Lu Feng.

Lu Feng’s brow furrowed; he hadn’t expected that the first to ascend would come with a cry for help.

“The Blue Wilderness Continent?” He peered through the Ascension Pool in the direction where Nian Rufeng had come from. There was an enormous dark-blue planet there with a few giant continents floating on the boundless seas. However, all of them were occupied by dead spirits, apart from one with a boundary around it. It endured stalwartly—the Blue Wilderness Continent which Nian Rufeng had spoken of.

The boundary was cracked and peeling, it wouldn’t endure for long. Once it broke, death and mayhem would descend upon the Blue Wilderness Continent.

This was all that Lu Feng could glimpse. He would have to visit in person if he wanted to see more. 

“Don’t worry, the headmaster rebuilt the ascent protocol so that we from the world of immortals could also visit the lower worlds. We do so to protect those of you still living there.” Lu Feng put away his devil-may-care attitude as pity began to well up from his heart.

The world of immortals wasn’t the paradise that denizens of the lower worlds imagined it to be, but compared to their homes, the world of immortals really was a land of magic and miracles.

“In that case, remain in Ascension City. There will come others who follow you back to your world to defeat the dead spirits!” he concluded resolutely.

“Thank you, senior!” Nian Rufeng frantically kowtowed again, like he faced his lifesaver.

Lu Feng remained still, looking at the others standing around the Ascension Pool. Mo Yi, Qing Buyi, and Chen Xiao grew somber. They truly understood only now what Lu Yun’s restoration of the ascent protocol and adding the descent protocol meant to the lower worlds.

Nian Rufeng was their visitor and the first to come with a plea for help. There would certainly be others to come.

Lu Yun valued this issue highly, but he didn’t make an appearance himself. Instead, he shared with others in the world of immortals so that everyone could understand what kind of universe it was out there, and what had happened outside their world.

“The tides of yin spirits that appeared in Azure Province of Nephrite Major weren’t happenstance. The great tomb in Azure Province must lead to space, to where the dead spirits are!” Someone quickly thought of the unholy tide that’d almost once destroyed Azure Province.

The world of immortals boiled over from the implications, with the exception of the powerhouses that’d just awoken. After evading several calamities, they naturally understood the severity of this issue. But to them, the most important task at hand was to recover their strength.

……

Nephrite Lord Zhao Shenguang was the first to react. He came in person to Ascension City to meet Nian Rufeng and understand the specifics of the Blue Wilderness Continent.

There were roughly three hundred million beings on the continent, the majority being human. Approximately one tenth of them were cultivators, and only a few ten thousand of those were immortals. It was these immortals who’d built a line of iron defense in the gaps of the boundary, laying down their lives to protect those behind them.

Legends say that an ancient immortal called Blue Wilderness had created the boundary, so the continent was named in his honor.

“The strongest in the Blue Wilderness Continent is only a High Immortal of the Great Firmament?” Zhao Shenguang mused deeply. “I hereby order General Zhu Zheng to lead a million Vermillion Bird troops to follow Nian Rufeng and exterminate the dead spirits!”

“A million immortals?!” Nian Rufeng leapt up with a yelp.

“Indeed, a million immortals,” nodded Zhao Shenguang. “The Vermillion Bird army is one of the four aces of my Nephrite Major and comprises of millions of golden immortals.”

Thump!

Nian Rufeng fell to a sitting position on the ground.