Imperial Capital.

Deep within the inner sanctum of the imperial palace, the Tian Yuan Emperor sat on his throne carved from a single piece of Primordial Chaos Stone, radiating an oppressive weight that forced the laws of space to bend around it.

The Emperor was a man who looked to be in his early thirties, with long black hair that seemed to swallow the light, and eyes that held the depth of ancient galaxies.

At this moment, he was reading a letter sent to him by the Spirit Hall, the force supported by the Empire to maintain balance in the Eastern Region.

The letter was written on parchment made from the skin of a void-beast, its words glowing with an urgent, crimson spiritual light.

It talked about how the Eastern Region had been attacked by Barbarians from the Vast Wilderness, and how they could barely hold on.

The report described thousands of outer cities turned to ash, rivers of blood flowing through the valleys, and defensive formations shattering under the savage brutality of the wilderness tribesmen who rode upon creatures that swallowed mountains.

The Emperor stared at the letter, looking nonchalant, as if his land wasn’t being conquered.

To him, the loss of a few million mortal lives and a dozen peripheral border provinces was nothing more than the shedding of dead skin.

As long as the Imperial Capital true core of the Empire remained untouched, then even if the Cardinal Regions and the Central Region were to be conquered, he can still take them back.

"Hmm," he hummed, his deep voice echoing in the vast, empty throne room. "This... might be a chance."

A faint, sharp smile played at the corners of his lips as he leaned back against the cold stone of his throne.

"That’s right. Isn’t this a perfect chance to train the geniuses of the Empire?"

He closed the letter, letting the void-beast parchment dissolve into a cloud of dark dust between his fingers.

His thoughts turned to the current state of the younger generation residing within the golden walls of his city.

Although the Imperial Capital’s geniuses were so superior to the rest of the world in terms of resources and bloodline purity, they grew up under the care of their clans, spoiled and never tasted the feel of real battle.

They spent their days drinking spiritual wine, debating poetry on floating pavilions, and engaging in staged duels where their elders ensured not a single drop of precious blood was spilled.

Although their Cultivation was high, many reaching the Peak of the Golden Core Realm or even the early stages of the Nascent Soul Realm at the age of thirty, their combat effectiveness was a hollow shell.

If they fought against someone at the same level but who had crawled through hell and back to reach such a level, then they would certainly lose.

They lacked the killing intent, the survival instincts, and the absolute ruthlessness required to survive in the wider universe.

If this trend continued, the Empire would just continue to regress, eventually becoming nothing more than fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered by the wolves of the outer territories.

They were completely unlike the descendants of the Nine Immortal Clans and The Thirteen Immortal Sects.

Geniuses from those ancient lineages were trained cruelly by their elders from the moment they could walk.

They were stripped of their luxurious robes, denied their family treasures, and thrown into ancient battlegrounds or hidden realms where the mortality rate exceeded fifty percent.

They were even sent to hunt down rogue Demonic Cultivators who practiced forbidden arts, learning how to kill efficiently and without hesitation.

Not to mention the Shen Clan, the head of the Nine Immortal Clans and an existence that even the Imperial Family viewed with deep wariness and respect.

The Shen Clan would routinely send their juniors directly into the depths of the Vast Wilderness to temper themselves against the primordial beasts and savage tribesmen, forcing them to survive on raw meat and blood until their foundations were forged from iron.

Back then, during the earlier years of his reign, he had proposed to the imperial court to have the Empire’s geniuses undergo the same tempering process.

He wanted to strip the young lords and ladies of their protection and forge them into a real army.

However, the old nobles, coddling their precious heirs, had repeatedly rejected him.

They cited "unnecessary risks" and "the preservation of noble bloodlines" to block his decrees, using their combined political weight to keep their children safe in their gilded cages.

Because of that short-sightedness, every time there was a competition between the geniuses of other Empires, and even those from another continent altogether, the Tian Yuan Empire’s showing was embarrassing.

Although they weren’t dead last, their performance was always below average, and they were always mocked by foreign envoys as "greenhouse flowers" that would wither at the first sign of a real storm.

Hell, even those guys from Western Federation ranked higher than them! And they are a bunch of idiots who thinks letting the common people choose their own ruler is a nice move!

In fact, the only time when the Tian Yuan Empire was even able to dominate the entire generation was during the legendary Era of the Three Sisters: Chu Xueyu, Feng Yuyan, and Leng Shuang.

Those three women had been monsters of talent, anomalous existences that defied the common sense of cultivation.

They had suppressed every genius under the heaven to the point they couldn’t even raise their heads.

During their rise, the young heirs of other Immortal Clans and Sects and the princes and geniuses of rival empires could only stand in their shadow, weeping at the absolute gap in their strength.

Back then, he was just a Crown Prince, young and full of his own pride.

Remembering those days, a rare expression of nostalgia passed over the Emperor’s face.

He had even fallen in love with Chu Xueyu and confessed his feelings to her in front of the entire imperial court.

After all, who wouldn’t fall in love with someone of such beauty, talent, and grace?

She had moved through the world like a solitary lotus blooming in a lake of ice.

Unfortunately, her response to his grand confession had been entirely unbothered by his status.

She had just stared at him with a look of profound disgust, as if she were looking at a piece of garbage on the side of the road, and walked away without saying a single word.

The Emperor chuckled softly to himself, the sound echoing strangely in the grand hall.

He had to admit, he actually enjoyed that look.

The memory of her cold, contemptuous eyes staring down at him still brought a bizarre sense of satisfaction to his heart.

He almost wanted to tell her to step on him back then. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how he viewed it now—he had managed to hold back his strange urges and maintained the dignity required of the future ruler of the Empire.

But he was getting off topic.

The past was the past, and the three sisters had long since been so far beyond his reach.

Although he is also a Peak Heavenly Saint Realm expert like them, but this level was artificially reached using the luck of the empire, and he is far weaker than others at the same level.

"Alright. Let’s do this," the Emperor declared, his voice suddenly shifting back to the commanding tone of a sovereign. "I will call upon the geniuses of the Central Region and have them temper themselves in real battle. This time, those old nobles surely wouldn’t be able to object. After all, it is for the sake of the empire’s survival. If they refuse to send their children to defend the borders against the barbarians, they will be branded as traitors to the crown."

With a wave of his sleeve, a blank imperial decree flew onto his desk, ready to be stamped with the golden seal that would send thousands of pampered youths into the meat grinder of the Eastern Region.

*

*

*

Meanwhile, far removed from the political machinations of the Imperial Capital, an ancient structure drifted silently within its own hidden pocket dimension.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, an architectural wonder, a floating fortress covered in rare spiritual flora that had long gone extinct in the outside world, remained suspended in a sea of absolute tranquility.

Deep within the heart of this sanctuary sat its library, a hall containing billions of books, scrolls, and jade slips that recorded the lost history, martial arts, and secret techniques of bygone eras.

Sitting cross-legged on a mat woven from celestial grass, Shen Haoran suddenly opened his eyes.

The moment his eyelids parted, the ambient light in the library seemed to warp.

His once golden eyes had completely changed; they became a swirling, hypnotic kaleidoscope of colors, shifting rapidly through shades of crimson, azure, emerald, and violet before settling into a deep, multilayered iris that looked like a spinning galaxy.

"Finally," he muttered, a brilliant smile breaking across his handsome face. "I’ve mastered the Karmic Light Observation, the eye technique to see through luck."

This wasn’t an ordinary martial art, but a legendary pupil technique that allowed the user to perceive the intangible threads of destiny and fate that governed all living things.

This eye technique allows him to see luck in colors.

With Seven Colors, the color of the rainbow, being the luck of the highest order, the mark of a true child of destiny destined to supress an era.

Six colors for heroines who are destined to shake the world and follow the protagonist, five colors for the brothers and loyal companions of protagonists, four colors for common geniuses who can lead an era but ultimately serve as stepping stones, three or two colors for common people who form the baseline of the world, and one color for villains destined to be crushed by fate.

With this ability, he could navigate the treacherous waters of the cultivation world with absolute foresight, identifying who to cultivate, and who to eliminate before they could grow into threats.

But that wasn’t his only harvest from this period of seclusion.

Shen Haoran closed his eyes for a moment, inspecting his internal Dantian.

There, sitting within a sea of liquid golden qi, was a small, glowing infant that looked exactly like a miniature version of himself.

The infant was surrounded by rings of pure, condensed spiritual light.

That is his infant soul, or nascent soul, a soul that allows those at the Nascent Soul Realm to leave their body once their physical bodies died, allowing them to be reborn in a completely new bodies.

This also grants various psychic skills, such as Soul Search, Telekinesis, telepathy, etc.

"I’ve also broken through to the 3rd Stage of the Nascent Soul realm."

His voice carried a natural resonance that caused the surrounding shelves of the library to vibrate.

To jump multiple stages within the Nascent Soul realm within a single year was a feat that would make even the elders of the Nine Immortal Clans cough up blood in envy.

His foundation was rock-solid, every meridian expanded to its absolute limit, and his spiritual senses could now extend for thousands of miles.

Not to mention he achieved this while he was isolated.

He stood up and stretched his arms above his head, feeling the immense, unbridled power flowing through his limbs.

The simple movement caused the air around him to ripple with distorted pressure.

"It has been a year," Shen Haoran said, walking towards the massive arched windows of the library that looked out into the void of the pocket dimension. "I wonder how’s the outside world now?"

A spark of anticipation flashed within his eyes.

A year of isolation was long enough; it was time to step back onto the stage of the Central Region and see what changes had unfolded while he was buried in his books.