Immortal Ascension Pavillion
When Immortal Ascension Pavillion was besieged by the opportunistic alliance, everyone in the sect believe that the siege will not last. As long as their enemies can't break the sect protecting array, their enemies will sooner or later give up and leave.
However, their assumption has been proven wrong. The sect leader's disciple betrayal ran deep. A year into the siege, the mortals and outer sect's disciples started dying en masse. The traitor had smuggled into the sect a number of trojan horse artifacts that has been releasing slow acting poison all over the outer sect area ever since the sect closed its door. By the time the sect manage to resolve the poison, the whole mortal population and disciples with cultivation lower than the forth great realm has been decimated. As a cultivator's realm grow higher, their fertility will inversely get worse. It is among this group of the population that the sect has depended upon to replenish their talent pool and population while turtling up within the sect. The demise of the sect will now be just a matter of time if they can't solve the population crisis that has now became a ticking time bomb.
The mastermind that cooked up the conspiracy without a doubt has deep pockets and has been planning the downfall of Immortal Ascension Pavillion meticulously and patiently over the past thousand years. The poison used to kill all those in the outer sect is a new invention never seen before in the immortal realm. None of the security measures in the sect was ever triggered because the poisoning mechanism was specifically designed to circumvent all known detection technique to date. Those participating in the siege also became increasingly more organized and sophisticated as years turn into decades. Though the sect's spy network has been kept relatively intact throughout the whole upheaval, the news they sent back has been dire. Their enemies has been vigorously inspecting all new forces of unknown origin throughout the immortal realm. It is clearly a hunt to ensure Immortal Ascension Pavillion has no way to replenish their population and disciples.
A glimmer of hope has been found when the sect's diviners conducted a great ritual burning their lifespan to get a glimpse into the branches of the future. Nonetheless, the divination obtain is a rather bizarre one as they need to seek out a civilization in a world cutoff from the immortal path in the lower realm. Could a civilization even exist in such a world? Where should the sect even begin to start looking?
Since there is a need to traverse the vast cosmos, only a cultivator that has ascended to the sixth great realm will be able to get the job done. However, the immortal laws of the lower realm will deny the full presence of any cultivators that has grown beyond the fifth cultivation great realm. They will be forcefully returned to the immortal realm when discovered. The only way for such cultivators to circumvent this restriction is to descend using an avatar while locking up the vast power they can channel. It would be plain misery for whoever willing to take up this arduous task of travelling the vast cosmos in an avatar that is only allowed to use a fraction of their strength while searching for something that no one has any idea what it is, where it is or when will it ever be found.
In the end, the sect's surviving grand elder decreed that any disciples that are willing to take on and managed to complete the task will be next sect leader of Immortal Ascension Pavillion.
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Acting Sect Leader Maximus Radcliffe
Maximus has been regularly monitoring the transmission artifact since the game known as
Thus, the site for the beginner base had been carefully selected for ease of future expansion and upgrade to support a much larger player base. It is located near a rich spirit stone vein that will last for hundreds of years even if it is being intensive mined.
The world it is on has also been carefully selected. The base is on a hidden minor world in the lower realm exclusively owned by Immortal Ascension Pavillion. The minor world, Eldorin used to be a training ground and herb sanctuary for the outer sect disciples. On the note of the world's name, Maximus do wonder about the civilization's naming sense on the third planet of the solar system. They gave their planet the humble name of Earth while labelling themselves as earthlings?
"Sect leader, two hundred earthlings have now joined our sect. Based on current trajectory of players sign up, we should have a thousand players by end of this week." The transmission artifact spirit reported.
Maximus was one of the cultivators that has volunteered for the task back then. Thinking back to the years he had spent drifting aimlessly through the vast cosmos, it has been the darkest moment of his cultivation journey. After drifting in space for more than a thousand years, he even began to doubt his very own existence and mission. The constant reminder that his sect's survival is dependent on the success of this task that had kept him going.
It was two thousand years later in his journey that the first most important event in his journey took place. Caught in a sudden spatial turbulence, he was swallowed up by a spatial crack that sent him to the very universe he has been searching all this while.
A universe where he can't absorb even a trickle of spirit energy because there was none to be found. Moreover, his senses of the immortal laws and karmic ties has also been greatly impeded. With renewed hope, he went wandering aimlessly for another two hundred years before he stumbled upon the solar system. It is on the third planet of the system where he finally found the salvation to the Immortal Ascension Pavillion plight.
With a population of more than seven billion mortals, it will not be difficult for the sect to recruit a batch of promising disciples to replenish its talent pool. However, he will have to be especially careful with first contact. Past history had shown that simply revealing the existence of cultivation and openly recruit disciples might not go overly well every time. Some civilizations' old order had collapsed into anarchy making recruitment highly inconvenient. Immortal Ascension Pavillion could not afford any mishap this time round. The recruitment of new disciples must succeed for the sect to survive. This will involve careful planning and nothing can be left to chances.
Maximus return was one of plain agony. After inscribing the locator beacon for this planet, he no longer has enough spiritual energy reserve for the return spell. With no spiritual energy to draw upon, his only recourse is to burn his own soul as fuel to make up for the energy shortfall required for the return spell. With the completion of the task, the sect will definitely reward him with all the necessary rare medicines needed to heal his damaged soul.
The entire sect has roused upon his return. Afterall, none of the candidates sent out to the lower realm have ever return over the past thousand years. His report has finally lifted a heavy weight burdening all the sect's top leadership. In the past two thousand years, the hunt for any vestiges of the Immortal Ascension Pavilion across the whole immortal realm has been relentless. Even the lower realms that those lofty immortals usually deign to ignore as insignificant will have spies monitoring all disciples recruitment events.
Maximus return has finally solved the sect's greatest crisis. With the possibility of recruiting new disciples out of the prying eye of their enemies, it has boosted the sect's top leadership confidence in outlasting their enemies' siege.
After months of observation, the sect finally came up with a plan to exploit the planet's population love for computer games. Though VR games have not gone fully mainstream yet, it was the ideal scenario for the sect as they could only recruit a small number of disciples at the early phase. This was how the game known as