[The Present World].
A moment later.
Han Xiao stood there, utterly baffled, staring at the dozen or so elders before him.
The one seated in the center was the leader of their Qianshi Alliance.
Rumor had it the leader had never once stepped outside the Alliance’s main sanctuary; he had always been here, cultivating and comprehending the Dao, training batch after batch of Qianshi disciples.
Han Xiao, of course, had seen the leader before.
When he was a child he would occasionally attend the leader’s lectures.
The creed the Qianshi Alliance held to — that the Heavenly Dao had interfered too deeply with the world and needed correction by the power of living beings — was something the leader had personally explained to him.
Every child raised in the main sanctuary, after reaching First-Rank True Immortal, would leave to gain experience outside.
After making a name for themselves they would publicly announce their joining of the Qianshi Alliance, both to add prestige to the Alliance and to explain why there always seemed to be waves of powerful cultivators appearing.
In truth, the Alliance’s greatest secret was that main sanctuary no one could trace.
And those elders behind the leader… Han Xiao realized he had only ever seen three of them before.