"It'll be very difficult if it's on such a large scale." Wu Gui continued hesitantly, "Privately sending so many people into the Myriad Heavens Universe will be tantamount to openly provoking the Thirteen Heavens."
The prestige of the Thirteen Heavens couldn't be sullied. It was one thing for Gu Nan to privately not give Lu Wen face—not many people knew about it anyways—but if he sent 200 people into the Myriad Heavens Universe, then he was afraid the Thirteen Heavens would send people to hunt him down.
If they didn't do this, then it wouldn't be long before this ban became as useless as a piece of paper, and the Thirteen Heavens would no longer have any face to speak of.
Gu Nan fell silent. While it was true that he acted unbridled, he wasn't stupid.
Even when killing monsters, there was no reason for a Level 30 player to try to kill a Level 70 monster. The newbies who had nothing better to do and ran to the high-level monster area to hang out had only themselves to blame if a monster one-shotted them.
Gu Nan didn't know why the Thirteenth Heavens restricted travel between the two worlds, but since he was no match for them right now, he couldn't resolve this using force.
He said after some thought, "If all else fails, I can only leave everyone in the gap first and transport a small group of people back every once in a while."
The Thirteen Heavens mostly turned a blind eye to illegal entries in smaller numbers, or else an organization like the Heaven-God Alliance wouldn't be able to exist.
'Wait, the Heaven-God Alliance!'
Gu Nan's eyes lit up when he suddenly remembered that he was now part of the Heaven-God Alliance. Why not try asking someone from the Heaven-God Alliance?
They were bound to have engaged in more human smuggling matters between the two worlds and may even have experience transporting a large number of people.
It just so happened that he needed to pay Extreme Sword Heaven a visit anyways after returning to the Myriad Heavens Universe—he needed to "check in" with Xue Ren, one of the leaders of the Heaven-God Alliance.
"Do you know anything about the situation inside Extreme Sword Heaven or Xue Ren?" Gu Nan turned to Wu Gui and asked.
Since it was one of the top-tier Heaven Level planes, the outside world certainly knew some information regarding the state of affairs and changes in Extreme Sword Heaven.
But this information wouldn't possibly touch upon Star Ruler Xue Ren himself. Information concerning the major astral worlds' Star Rulers was top secret and rarely made public.
At most, people knew his name was Xue Ren, he was a swordmaster, and a very powerful swordmaster at that. More detailed information would only be known by someone at Wu Gui's level.
"Xue Ren… is very young, a few generations younger than me." Wu Gui frowned in contemplation.
She and Xue Ren could barely be considered contemporaries, but that was already her memories from nine thousand lifetimes ago, so it wasn't easy to recall.
"He's not a very typical swordsman. Although he also has a slight obsession with martial arts, he's more like a scholar."
"Scholar?" Gu Nan raised an eyebrow. The distinguished Star Ruler of Extreme Sword Heaven, one of the most powerful swordmasters in the Myriad Heavens Universe, didn't seem like he'd have anything to do with the word "scholar."
Wu Gui's expression was also a bit strange. "I don't understand his sword Dao, and neither did anyone else at that time. Other people's sword styles pay attention to the unity of essence, qi, and spirit, but he never cared about those."
"Then what did he care about?"
"I can't explain it very well either, but I still clearly remember the name of the first sword manual he wrote after achieving Star Ruler Realm— 'The Wave Properties of the Sword'."
...
Nothing seemed to have changed much when Gu Nan re-entered the Myriad Heavens Universe.
It was still a calm situation with violent undercurrents. All the forces were moving towards their respective goals. Gu Nan's Divine Kingdom was naturally no exception.
White Mist was developing well in White Bones Realm. The brand-new White Mist had both a Star Ruler's backing and its own impressive strength, so naturally it would be able to prosper anywhere.
Several highly promising mission experts even emerged from this side. If Gu Nan activated a new personal dungeon, they would certainly come in handy.
Everything was running smoothly inside the Divine Kingdom. The group of apostles continued to accumulate funds at a steady rate, while the management of the kingdom's populace also underwent some changes.
After learning about the management system of White Bones Realm, Lan Si and Yan Xiaoxiao started trying to integrate what they learned into Gu Nan's Divine Kingdom after a few rounds of trial and error.
Gu Nan was aware of this and didn't intend to oppose it at all. Even in the game, the Divine Kingdom's administrator would make a similar request after the Divine Kingdom reached a certain level.
All the player needs to do is to enjoy the benefits they brought about.
His Evil Value already satisfied the requirement for advancing to Tier 7. Now, he only needed to slowly accumulate points to successfully level up to Tier 7.
But the accumulation of points also had to be efficient. To only have a supply of points from one personal dungeon was naturally the most inefficient method, and to have an additional supply from the second Crescent Moon World dungeon was the second-most inefficient method.
The only way to further improve efficiency would be to launch a Divine Kingdom War. Evil Value along with points could be earned with this method, but the starting requirements were relatively high.
At the very least, he had to wait until the Divine Servants Institute was leveled up once or even after a few more of those structures were built to reach the best opportunity to launch a Divine Kingdom War.
'Crescent Moon World's difficulty level isn't low. If we can maximize its production capacity, then we'll be able to afford some small-scale wars.' Gu Nan calculated in his mind, trying to figure out the most efficient level-up route.
He quickly arrived at the decision to pay Extreme Sword Heaven a visit first and see if there was a way to bring all the vampires over at once.
If that couldn't be done, then he at least wanted to bring over that group of Legend Rank vampires first so that they could start raiding the personal dungeons as soon as possible.
...
Extreme Sword Heaven.
As a large plane that could be ranked firmly within the top twenty planes in the Myriad Heavens Universe, one could imagine how prosperous Extreme Sword Heaven was.
What was a little out of Gu Nan's expectations was that the buildings in this plane famous for its swordsmanship didn't actually have an ancient martial arts style. Instead, it looked like a modern city.
A modern city with the sword Dao as the highest pursuit.
"Quite interesting," Gu Nan gave such an evaluation.
"Many people say that!" A young girl walking in front of Gu Nan smiled while pursing her lips.
Gu Nan was on his way to visit Xue Ren, and this young girl was his temporary guide.
Like all large planes, Extreme Sword Heaven monitored every powerful visitor above Void Cutter Realm rather strictly.
Not only would they try to sound out these visitors' true intentions, but they also wouldn't let them out of sight easily.
After all, the destructive power of Void Cutters was too great for astral worlds that took the route of peaceful governance.
"We're here, My Lord." The young girl led Gu Nan to a pavilion facing the sea. "This is Lord Hongye's residence."
Gu Nan nodded and stepped forward wordlessly.
It's true that he was here to pay a visit to Xue Ren, but of course the grand Star Ruler of Extreme Sword Heaven wasn't someone he could meet so easily.
For a visitor like Gu Nan, Extreme Sword Heaven handled it by finding a spokesperson to meet the visitor first, verify the identity and goal of the visitor, and then decide which ones could meet Xue Ren.
The person Gu Nan was going to meet now was Qu Hongye, who was considered Xue Ren's Martial Niece based on seniority and was responsible for receiving a portion of the visitors like Gu Nan.
There were already four or five cultivators sitting inside the seaside pavilion when Gu Nan entered. There were both men and women, and even a young boy with a buzz cut.
Seeing Gu Nan enter, a young man immediately went up to him with a standard smile on his face. "Lord Hongye is currently taking an afternoon nap. Please wait here for a moment."
His tone was very polite, but his expression was extremely calm, clearly having received many guests like Gu Nan and not really taking this seriously.
"She's upstairs?" Gu Nan raised a brow.
The young man stared blankly, then realized the other party's intentions. This wasn't the first time he'd seen such a guest either, so he sneered, "Lord Hongye's whereabouts is not something we can know."
Although he said "we," his gaze landed straight on Gu Nan. It was obvious that he actually meant "you guys."
To his surprise, the other party's face didn't turn angry. Gu Nan just nodded, then gently waved his hand.
The shadows began to spread; the pavilion began to shatter.