4: Xuanji Building

What Long Yuan didn't know was that at this moment, the night sky of the Great Ming Empire was enveloped in a faint glow. Because the glow was still extremely dim, almost no one could discern it. Only those special places could detect that there seemed to be an unknown energy disturbing the sky above the Empire. This situation was not unusual, as it could happen almost daily, so not many people paid attention to it. However, within a certain building in the South Capital Yingtian Prefecture of the Great Ming, a person dressed in a star-patterned robe looked at the constantly swaying astrolabe before him, a hint of surprise on his face. After watching for a while, he came back to his senses, let out a strange cry, and with a flash of spiritual light in his hand, a delicate green bamboo tube appeared. Inside the tube were some bamboo slips, which he quickly began to shake…

The person in the star-patterned robe looked extremely handsome, with fair skin, a beautiful face, and long legs. The tips of his two ears were slightly pointed, a significant difference from Great Ming people. His long hair flowed like a waterfall, almost reaching the floor. An uninformed person might mistake him for a great beauty, but those who knew him well certainly knew that this person in the star-patterned robe was definitely a man, and moreover, the owner of this Xuanji Tower, named Sabado. He was a prominent figure with high status in Yingtian Prefecture and even throughout the Great Ming, especially well-known in the circles of the upper-class nobility.

The reason Sabado was able to thrive in the upper-class circles was mainly due to his extraordinary divination and prediction abilities. The nobles particularly favored this, wanting to know their fate in advance or for other purposes, they would all come to Sabado for a divination and prediction. Moreover, the Xuanji Tower primarily dealt in information, with its network spread across various large and small bases of the Great Ming Empire, becoming one of the important channels for people to obtain information. Especially in this Xuanwu World, for people to become stronger, besides their own Cultivating conditions, they also needed some external Opportunities. And for Opportunities, whoever got it first, it was theirs. If one could obtain it a step ahead of others, it was possible to be one step ahead, and then always ahead, from then on soaring to great heights, unstoppable. Therefore, information about Opportunities became particularly important. In addition, the Xuanji Tower also had some special channels to obtain a lot of information about mutated creatures, and even some information from outside the heavens, which made the Xuanji Tower appear even more mysterious and its status in people's minds was constantly rising.

Speaking of divination and prediction, in fact, the Great Ming Empire's imperial court had its own astrologers. The astrologers held a very unique position in the court, enjoying extremely high prestige and benefits. However, since the appearance of the Xuanji Tower several hundred years ago, the Great Ming's astrologers suffered a considerable blow, because they were at a disadvantage in several confrontations with the Xuanji Tower, and even lost very badly. As a result, their reputation plummeted, and almost all the nobles thereafter went to the Xuanji Tower for divination and prediction. Although the Great Ming's astrologers still held their positions, their doors were cold and deserted. Besides appearing for some necessary royal ceremonies, few people remembered them anymore…

At this moment, Sabado intently shook the green bamboo tube, and at the same time took out a pair of dice. He chanted something under his breath and then threw them down with a "bang," landing one face up and one face down. "It's done!"

He immediately drew a slip from the tube and, upon closer inspection, saw "Star Movement"!

"Star Movement?!" Sabado's eyes narrowed.

After thinking for a while, he casually flipped the slip over and saw "Star Fortune"!

"Star Fortune?!" Sabado was stunned, almost completely thrown off. The same slip, why did it show different characters?

Was it "Star Movement"? Or "Star Fortune"?!

Sabado checked repeatedly and found that there was indeed a problem with the slip. Logically, the characters on the front and back of the slip should be the same. Why did the slip he drew have two different characters?!

Looking at the divination text again, the "Star Movement" side read: "Heavenly Dao is unpredictable, fortune and misfortune in an instant, starlight dim, blood and wind." This was definitely a "worst possible omen." The "Star Fortune" side read: "Heaven is strong, Star Fortune is deep, a gentleman should strive for self-improvement." This seemed to be a good, auspicious omen.

Sabado stared intently at the "Star Fortune" side, trying to discern some clue from it, because the "Star Movement" side no longer needed further examination; the information was very clear: the Great Ming Empire, or rather, this Blue Star, was likely facing an impending disaster. So, to avert the calamity, it seemed the solution lay on the "Star Fortune" side. "The so-called gentleman should be the one who answers the call of destiny!"

Just as he was pondering, he suddenly noticed that the information on the "Star Fortune" side slowly faded, and then slowly reappeared with the same information as the "Star Movement" side!

"What's going on?! Star Fortune? Where did Star Fortune go?!!!" Sabado was startled, his eyes wide open, but no matter how wide he opened his eyes, he could no longer see any information about "Star Fortune."

With a "snap," the slip fell. Sabado's hands trembled slightly, his face pale, the shock in his heart inexpressible.

This was the first time he had encountered such a bizarre event. The shock to his heart had definitely reached its peak, leaving his mind blank for a long time.

After regaining consciousness, he thought for a moment, then opened a secret door on the bookshelf and slipped inside. This was the core of the Xuanji Tower. Through here, he could contact the next level of Xuanji Tower…

This secret location was actually an open-air platform, closer to the sky than any surrounding area. In the center of the platform was an Advanced stargazing room, filled with stargazing equipment, and of course, communication equipment.

Such equipment would absolutely not be found in any country on Blue Star, because they simply did not have the ability to produce it. If Long Yuan were here, he would find that the exterior of this observatory resembled an astronomical observatory on Earth. However, the equipment here was driven by unknown energy and covered with various mysterious runes, each likely having its corresponding function.

Sabado walked into the stargazing room and found that the instruments here all seemed to exhibit similar behavior to the astrolabe downstairs, and even more intensely. After checking, he dared not delay, carefully organized the information he had just obtained, and then packaged and sent it out via the communication equipment. The reason he did not choose video communication was that it was too expensive; with his authority, he had very few uses, and those, of course, had to be used wisely.

Looking up at the slightly dim night sky, Sabado couldn't help but sigh, "Blood and wind, fortune and misfortune in an instant. It seems that the superficial peace on Blue Star won't last much longer. Are the days of the Great Ming coming to an end soon? Other countries are probably the same. What kind of disaster will affect this remote, low-level planet?"

He was well aware that this Blue Star he was on was actually in a low-level, unranked wilderness in this spacetime, because the people here were still unable to leave this planet. But beyond Blue Star, there existed more Advanced civilizations. They possessed more powerful Cultivators, had better warships, and could traverse the starry sky, coming and going. And this Xuanji Tower came from an alien world. One of the races behind it was the Elven race. The Elven race possessed powerful strength, but they yearned for peace even more, and therefore always adhered to the principle of neutrality, never proactively initiating war. This also helped them expand their business to various planets, becoming a relatively unique existence in the starry sky.

Of course, there were many other peace-loving races, and some had also developed powerful networks, but very few people on Blue Star knew about it.

In reality, Xuanji Tower was just the name used on Blue Star. Its true name was Tianji Pavilion, an intergalactic super-power spanning countless stars. When Blue Star was first discovered by them, and after defeating three waves of competitors according to intergalactic principles, they declared its occupation. Subsequently, they established Xuanji Towers within several major countries on Blue Star, stationed Cultivators from their sect to manage them, and gradually developed the Blue Star market. That is why Blue Star has not been invaded by powerful alien immortal Cultivating civilizations for so many years, and Blue Star people are not even aware of the existence of alien civilizations, let alone that aliens not only Cultivate Profound Qi but also have powerful immortal Cultivators who Cultivate Spiritual Qi.

Currently, the threats faced by the various countries on Blue Star, apart from other nations, are only the mutated creatures on the planet. These mutated creatures began to mutate after Blue Star's environment drastically changed and Profound Qi appeared. Before the mutation, humans dominated Blue Star, at the top of the food chain, and various creatures could end up on human dinner tables. However, after the mutation, the situation changed dramatically. Those creatures had a Physique and Bloodline more conducive to Cultivating, so their rate of becoming stronger was much faster than humans. Their overall strength would surge every now and then, gradually catching up to humans. This made the pressure on humanity increasingly immense, and their territory was constantly being compressed under the attacks and erosion of the Strange Beast, with both sides slowly entering a seesaw, stalemated phase, with mutual advances and retreats.

Although humans were constantly suppressed by the mutated creatures, they initially held a complete advantage. Long-term development also allowed humans to far surpass the mutated beasts in intelligence. Therefore, powerful individuals always emerged among humans. These powerhouses could suppress the mutated beasts on high-end battlefields, forcing them to retreat. This allowed humans to maintain a relatively advantageous situation. Of course, the top figures of humanity knew that the evolution speed of the mutated beasts was much faster than humans, and the future threat would only grow. Therefore, under their leadership, the entire human world began to enter a Profound Qi era centered on martial Dao, where the functioning of society was to produce more and more powerful Xuan Practitioners, enhancing the overall offensive and defensive capabilities of the country to cope with the even more terrifying mutated beasts in the future.

Fortunately, the situation established by those strong individuals bought human society a lot of time. At the very least, the current human world has seen the emergence of more Xuan Practitioners, as well as more and more powerful Profound Energy war weapons. On the other hand, the mutated beasts have not made much movement for several hundred years, and the entire world appears more peaceful and stable than before.

However, for Sabado, who knew the inside story, he scoffed at this, because several hundred years ago, it was these Xuanji Tower Cultivators who secretly helped humanity repel the mutated beasts. And the mutated beasts had been secretly accumulating strength for several hundred years, attempting to overthrow human civilization in one fell swoop. And this misjudgment by the top echelon of the human world was simply utterly foolish, both in the past and now. After the appearance of today's strange and unclear information, Sabado speculated that an era of chaos was about to begin, and whether Blue Star's human civilization could survive this anomaly was a huge question mark.

If the strong human individuals of Blue Star could leave the planet and come into contact with more alien civilizations, they would know how weak Blue Star's current humans are. Without the protection of a powerful immortal Cultivating civilization, they could very likely be annihilated by a small blow…

… …