“It won’t be that hard,” Li Hao said when an idea struck him. “If we can have these corpses walk the cycle of life and death and erase their memories... they’ll be living beings without a consciousness. That would make them a special existence, what do you think?

“You’ve walked the cycle before—we retain our memories after it. What if we don’t awaken their memories in the process?”

“Wouldn’t we be resurrecting them, then?” Lin Hongyu blinked.

“Not resurrection. I mean that if we focus on death qi in the star of life and death, then build a system of reincarnation in your hell of death, we can reconstruct all those who enter it.

“That’s the general idea, more or less. The specifics are up to you. You’ll be starting from scratch and will even be able to use their dao to build your hell of death. You can try to fully turn it into a dao domain...”

The others listened quietly as Li Hao spoke for a while, all of them inspired by what he said. Using the daos of the dead to build their own dao domain? To build a system of reincarnation... no, a system of death!

“Your curved blade is also interesting,” Li Hao grinned. “It bears some kind of resemblance to the reaping hook of the god of the dead that’s talked about in myths and legends. Does that make you... a connate death god?”

Lin Hongyu blinked. My curved blade... being a reaping hook? She soon smiled. “That... makes sense. Since you’ve put the idea on the table, then my blade is the scythe of the death god in the future!”

A world domain of death?

Building a cycle of death and borrowing the daos of the dead to build her own domain...

Li Hao wasn’t just running his mouth without thinking. The group was starting to understand more of the young man’s genius. It took just a few words to establish the foundation for a seventh rank’s cultivation.

The caveat to that was Lin Hongyu could successfully fashion a domain. That was a exchange and passing on of dao heritage.

He Yong squeezed out of the crowd. He’d long reached peak third rank, but found it difficult to reach fourth rank. Seeing that Li Hao had given Lin Hongyu solid direction with just a few words, he called out urgently, “What about me, Li Hao?”

He didn’t usually call the young man by his full name anymore—he did so now because he was in a hurry.

I’m peak third rank! I shot straight into this level thanks to the world origin last time, but the road to fourth rank has been seriously challenging! I’ve experienced a few fights since then and absorbed countless dao crystals, but I still can’t do it!

I can’t break through to fourth rank!

It wasn’t only him. Apart from the two dao masters and Panther, there was no other fourth rank in all of Silver Moon at the moment. Yuan Shuo was included in that number, but all Yuan Shuo needed was the time to accumulate energy and experience.

Those such as He Yong, on the other hand, lacked a sense of direction in their great dao.

Li Hao glanced at He Yong. Southern Fist’s boxing method centered on the fire attribute and boxing intent. It wasn’t hard for the man to enter fourth rank, but neither was it easy for him to make the accomplishment.

“Compared to third rank, much more knowledge of dao is needed for fourth rank,” Li Hao said after a moment of consideration. “Silver Moon has its own unique advantage—the aura!

“Silver Moon’s aura is a type of spirit. The strength of the spirit is the strength of great dao...” The young man paused to think it over. “The aura is a leverage point if you want to become a mid rank. There’s inherent advantages to comprehending dao, but at this stage, it’s very hard to understand more dao unless you kill large numbers of seventh ranks and seize their dao crystals.

“In that case, we need to change our way of thinking. Instead, we’ll pursue the aura to strengthen our spirits and dao. That is how we can break this barrier...”

He Yong became urgent at what he heard and scratched his head. “But this all sounds very surreal without specific cultivation techniques. The aura sometimes grows strong for no reason at all, so how do we focus on developing it?”

This was more mysterious than comprehending dao!

At least they knew what the great dao was and one could study seventh rank dao foundation crystals. But the aura? He really didn’t know how to fortify it!

Li Hao looked at his teacher. Yuan Shuo was currently staring at Number Two and seemed to want to... touch the cat. He was very bold!

The old demon was the old demon after all. He returned to his senses after registering his student’s look. Number Two flicked a glance at the old man out of the corner of its eyes.

I’ll whip you to death with my tail if you dare touch me!

“I don’t know how you guys can get stronger.” Yuan Shuo shook his head when he saw everyone look at him. “I grew stronger through combining the Five Styles! I nurtured my auras and fortified my spirit!

“These are methods I’ve been using since the early days. They’re still functional, but very inefficient!”

“So how did you build a dao domain so quickly then?” He Yong grumbled. “You’re just keeping the best parts for yourself! You don’t want us to be better than you!”

Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. Screw you! He rarely did things like that. Well, now. He would’ve done so before.

“Something like the aura is partially nurtured and partially trained through battle! Purely nurturing it leads to slow improvement. Mine grew strong so quickly because I combined the Five Styles. I improved its quality through sheer quantity!

“If you guys only have one aura that’s strong, then I recommend you to fight more!”

This advice was as good as useless. Yuan Shuo was forced to add, “Then I have another suggestion of nurturing a world!”

Blank looks stared back at him. What did he mean?

“Find a minor world that’s a good match for yourself,” Yuan Shuo explained. "Use your aura to nurture it and vice versa! Try building a simple domain yourself, one that’s not a dao domain!

“In my eyes, there’s a massive advantage to being a master of the world. You can become the heavenly will! To me, a major benefit of being the heavenly will is that you can comprehend the domain!

“But sadly, current world masters seem focused on pursuing dao universes. They don’t view dao universes as a way of expanding the domain...

“Li Hao dismantled a lot of dao nets for us, so everyone should’ve gotten in-depth glimpses at them. Although he didn’t dismantle any dao universes, a dao universe is a dao net compromised of countless great daos.

“We can start with a minor world and build up our domains from it. Once a domain reaches its zenith, it will be a dao domain!”

The crowd listened quietly to the old man. Yuan Shuo was the first person to build his own dao domain before becoming an exalted emperor, so his reflections were very helpful and a source of stimulation.

Li Hao thought it over before saying, “These are viable methods, but are you guys able to nurture a world...” A headache brewed at his temples when he looked at the assembly. “There’s a lot of you. It’s not a guarantee that you’ll find a world that is a suitable match. Even if you do, you’ll need more than fifty... ai!”

I can’t afford to support you all! You guys figure it out!

Sharpening the ax would not delay the woodcutting. Li Hao’s conversation about the great dao would facilitate fast progress toward third rank. Third rank was simply an accumulation of energy. Entering fourth rank was the real challenge.

It was a significant test as to whether or not these people could set foot into fourth rank. If they could, that meant they wouldn’t have many issues up to sixth rank. He had many low ranks under his command, but his mid ranks were still stuck at third rank. That was true even for Lin Hongyu, who’d ascended long ago.

Things were simply for the two dao masters—they wouldn’t run into major issues prior to seventh rank. The myriad of daos in their dao universes was strong. They could sit back and enjoy the gains from those.

But there was only so much relaxing they could do—seventh rank would be a challenge as well. Although dao universes were standard issue for seventh ranks, there were many sixth rank masters of dao bottlenecked at that level as well.

......

Li Hao quickly began his setup after the discussion was over. There was no need to devour two sixth rank worlds this time, he utilized Earth Dragon major world as the foundation. It would be a fake dao universe to lure endless powerhouses to come forth.

Five days had passed out of one month. He also needed some time for the word to spread and for chaos beasts to make their way over. The chaos was so vast that it was truly unknown how many worlds would make it over in time.

It would also be a problem if too many exalted emperors came. How would he lure them into the trap and kill them one by one? He couldn’t kill them all in one go because no matter how strong he and Void were, they could not eliminate several hundred exalted emperors at once.

They needed a plan!

A faint ripple from a dao universe started traveling from Earth Dragon major world. A massive earth dragon hovered over the world and blotted out the sky!

As more ripples dissipated, the first to pick up on them were nearby sixth rank worlds. Their world masters were both surprised and delighted. They were surprised that a dao universe was about to form in Earth Dragon major world, and they were delighted because they knew the world master was actually a seventh rank.

Since the Earth Dragon master was a seventh rank... then the only use the dao universe would be for it was just to purify dao strength. Didn’t that mean... the dao universe could be lent out to an aspiring sixth rank to try and reach seventh rank?

That wasn’t outside the realm of possibility!

General surprise reigned at the idea of Earth Dragon reaching seventh rank major world status. As strong as the world master was, his comprehension of dao was mediocre, as was his governance of the world.

Who would’ve thought that he’d be able to make the leap?

Earth Dragon stood a lesser chance of breaking through than Desolate major world!

There was no time to consider that further. Sixth rank worlds in the vicinity drew closer. While they wouldn’t have dared approach any other world, they were all on the same team here. Being part of Dragon Region together, it would greatly add to their knowledge and experience to simply be able to observe the birth of a seventh rank dao universe.

Dao ripples continued to stretch forward!

Few among them had ever seen a mid world rise to the ranks of major world. As the dao ripples continued onward, more and more exalted emperors sensed them.

In order to further spread the news, Li Hao even took the risk of sending Panther back to Black Dog’s territory and sharing the news there. As for why a Phoenix territory world master would know the development before those in Dragon’s sphere of influence did... was not the foremost concern on everyone’s mind.

Perhaps the Phoenix world master had notified her subordinate?

Who knew!

Some exalted emperors who were previously unaware of the news were quickly caught up to speed. Earth Dragon major world was about to become a major world. A dao universe was forming!

The information spread like it had wings!