Take these three to register at the mining area.

Li Fan and his soul-cultivator Dao companion stared at each other, their faces filled with utter disbelief.

Forging... a Heavenly Dao transmission?

Senior, what nonsense are you sprouting?

That is the Heavenly Dao!

It is the supreme ruling will of this realm!

Let alone forging it, even the slightest disrespect could draw heavenly punishment, erasing one's body and soul entirely.

Li Fan opened his mouth, feeling his throat go dry.

"Senior... this... this is probably..."

He gritted his teeth. "Simulating the Heavenly Dao's voice isn't the hard part."

"The hard part is fooling everyone in the world."

Su Ji continued, ignoring their shock. "I will teach you a method later, and you just need to follow it."

"Remember, you must create a tragic and heroic atmosphere that I have perished, but my heroic spirit remains immortal, using my last obsession to declare my will to the world."

"You must make everyone believe that I, Su Ji, resolutely went to my death to pave the way for the cultivators of Great Xia."

"Understand?"

Li Fan was thoroughly confused, but he still nodded heavily.

"Understood!"

Although he didn't know why the senior wanted to do this, as long as it was the senior's command, executing it was the right thing to do!

Su Ji looked at these two laborers who had been thoroughly duped by him and nodded in satisfaction.

He turned around and was about to leave.

"Senior!"

Li Fan's voice came from behind again.

Su Ji paused and looked back.

He saw that Li Fan's serious face was now covered in tears, filled with absolute reverence.

He gave Su Ji a deep, full-body prostration.

"Senior, on this journey... take care!"

"If there is a next life, Li Fan is still willing to serve you!"

Su Ji was speechless.

He waved his hand, his figure flickering a few times before disappearing from their sight.

...

Back mountain, broken cliff.

Su Ji returned to the distorted spatial rift.

He did not look back, nor did he hesitate.

He took a step forward.

Buzz—

In an instant, the world spun.

Indescribable tearing and squeezing sensations came from all directions, as if his physical body and divine soul were going to be crushed into powder by this violent spatial power.

Fortunately, this process did not last too long.

When Su Ji opened his eyes again, he found himself standing on a circular high platform built of pure white jade.

Around the platform, clouds and mist lingered, and immortal qi was dense.

In the distance, he could even faintly see several immortal mountains suspended above a sea of clouds, with immortal cranes crying and spiritual energy turning into rain.

In his mind, the childish voice of the miniature Su Jiu rang out with a bit of awe.

"Senior brother, is this the world outside Great Xia? It's so beautiful..."

"It's fake."

"Wait, didn't you say you couldn't contact the outside world?"

"Ah? Are these all fake? I never said I couldn't see anything."

Su Ji's gaze swept over the seemingly peaceful scenery, but his mind was completely clear.

He knew that all of this was to confuse the newly ascended cultivators in the first place, making them immerse themselves in the joy of ascending to immortality, thereby ignoring some crucial details.

For example, the spatial rift that was slowly closing.

If someone with a meticulous mind found something wrong, it was entirely possible for them to risk their realm dropping and forcibly escape back to the lower realm at the last moment before the rift closed.

Not far in front of Su Ji, there was a simple wooden table.

Behind the table sat a middle-aged man in grey cloth clothes, looking bored as he picked his ear with his little finger, looking like he hadn't fully woken up.

Su Ji's heart stirred.

It was time.

He suppressed the surging thoughts in his mind and stepped forward.

"Name?"

The middle-aged man didn't even bother to lift his eyelids, his voice revealing a lingering impatience.

Su Ji was silent for a moment, then spoke in a deliberately lowered, hoarse voice.

"Su Hao."

The alias Wang San was not domineering enough, nor was it auspicious.

Su Ji decided to change his name.

"Mm."

The middle-aged man picked up the jade book on the table and made a few strokes on it with a pen that looked like it was made of some kind of beast bone.

Then, he waved his hand impatiently.

"Alright, next, don't block the way."

Su Ji obediently stepped aside.

The whole process went much smoother than expected.

He had even prepared himself for the other party to question him carefully.

It seemed that his previous speculation was correct.

The source of all conflicts was Su Jiu.

Without the top-grade asset that was Su Jiu, he, Su Ji, was just an ordinary nobody among the many ascenders in the eyes of these upper-realm cultivators.

Just then, the spatial rift behind him rippled again.

Two figures, also shrouded in thin mist, staggered out.

One of them had a tall and straight figure, a steady aura, and seemed to be about the same age as Su Ji.

He first looked around, and when he saw the scenery of the sea of clouds and immortal mountains, his eyes hidden behind the thin mist visibly lit up.

He walked to the wooden table, cupped his hands at the middle-aged man, and spoke in a tone that was neither humble nor arrogant.

"Fellow Daoist, may I ask what sect this place belongs to?"

"How are the powers distributed on this continent?"

"If it is suitable, I would be willing to join your noble sect and serve it."

Hearing this, the middle-aged man finally deigned to remove the little finger picking his ear.

He raised his head, looking the young cultivator up and down with an expression as if looking at a fool.

"You think you're worthy?"

He sneered and pointed to a pile of rusty tools stacked in the corner not far away.

"Later, find a handy hoe yourself and honestly go mine spirit ores."

"Where did all this nonsense come from?"

The young cultivator's pupils violently shrank.

Mining?

He had imagined countless possibilities, even thinking that the upper realm might be more cruel and competitive than the lower realm.

But the only thing he hadn't expected was that the word mining would be waiting for him.

He suppressed the shock in his heart, his voice still steady.

"Isn't your behavior a bit inappropriate?"

"We are, after all, geniuses of the lower realm. We went through untold hardships to ascend, how can we..."

"Noisy."

The middle-aged man seemed to have completely lost his patience.

He casually raised his hand and, from several meters away, slapped the air in the direction of the young cultivator.

The movement was light and airy, as if he were just swatting away an annoying fly.

But that young cultivator instantly felt an indescribable terror completely envelop him!

He could no longer maintain his composure, shouting fiercely as the dazzling eighth-grade Golden Core inside him roared into action!

"Let's fight!"

A brilliant blue light erupted from his body, and the aura of a Golden Core expert swept out!

"A Golden Core cannot be humiliated..."

However, before he could finish his prideful words...

Slap!

An incredibly crisp sound suddenly rang out on the high platform.

That seemingly light palm print ignored the distance of space and the layers of protective spiritual light in front of him, landing solidly on his face.

Pfft—

The young cultivator flew out sideways like a kite with a broken string.

He spewed a large mouthful of blood mixed with ruptured organ fragments in mid-air, then smashed heavily onto the ground dozens of feet away, leaving spider-web-like cracks across the hard white jade floor tiles.

He struggled to climb up, but the moment he moved, another mouthful of blood sprayed out.

He could clearly feel that his rank-eight Golden Core, which he had forged by exhausting the resources of the entire lower realm, was now covered in fine cracks, as if it would completely shatter at any moment.

His pride, which had dominated an entire era in the lower realm, was entirely obliterated by this single slap.

The companion who had arrived with him was already paralyzed on the ground in terror, his whole body trembling like a sieve, unable to utter a single word.

He looked at his companion—a man whose words were absolute law in the lower realm, who even boasted the glorious battle record of defeating a Foundation Establishment cultivator while only at the Qi Condensation stage—now lying on the ground like a dead dog, his mind completely blank.

His boundless ambitions were entirely reduced to bubbles at this moment.

The middle-aged man retracted his hand, even wiping it in disgust with his sleeve, as if he had just swatted something filthy.

"I don't know where you get all this drama from."

"A mere Golden Core, and you dare address me as a Daoist friend?"

Su Ji stood to the side, taking all of this in.

He did not feel a shred of sympathy.

He only sighed silently in his heart.

Mine slaves and black slaves really had no difference.

They were all just cargo that could be beaten and killed at will.

And right now, he was one of this batch of cargo waiting to be sorted.

Just then, the gray-clothed middle-aged man shifted his gaze away from the half-dead young cultivator, letting it fall upon Su Ji and the companion who had long been scared silly.

He casually waved his hand at another guard dozing off not far away.

"Lao Wang, wake up."

"Take these three to the mining area to register."