“It’s just as fine if Seniors Fog Mountain and Thunder master do not wish to pursue ninth rank. But if you do, then you need to pay an even bigger price to attempt the construction of a dao domain by yourself. This is the way that all ninth ranks must take. It is also the path that the ninth ranks I’m aware of is walking.”

Perhaps one could attain ninth rank through one dao. Who knew?

Li Hao had never heard of it before, at least. The ninth ranks that he’d seen thus far hadn’t depended solely on one day. The true geniuses walked the path of integrating and combining daos.

The Sword Sovereign, Human King, Supreme Zhang, Dragon master...

New Martial geniuses abounded in the four regions and apart from them, Li Hao had once met the Dragon master. They shared similar cultivation directions. The young man had detected that the Dragon master knew at least six thousand daos. If that was the case, he might be the one with the most number of dao rules out of the living ninth ranks that he’d seen thus far.

However... the Human King came to mind.

The Human King had mostly demonstrated the world strength of Yin and Yang thus far. His internal world was also a type of dao domain. Li Hao was suddenly curious how many dao rules that internal world was constructed of.

No one would know if the Human King didn’t speak of it. Perhaps there were a lot of dao rules at hand!

As for Li Hao, he only had one thousand at present. Although they were formidable due to a large infusion of dao strength, they were less than the rules wielded by others from an overall framework perspective.

His were even less than the Sword Sovereign’s and Li Zhu’s. They also possessed a lot of dao rules.

“If I may be so bold...” Li Hao looked curiously at the Exalted Blood Emperor. “Does the senior also walk the path of the dao domain or follow New Martial’s path...?”

He hadn’t been able to read the Exalted Blood Emperor’s dao clearly!

Indeed, it was strange that Li Hao was yet to determine even now if the Exalted Blood Emperor was still part of New Martial’s system.

The Exalted Blood Emperor smiled and looked meaningfully at Li Hao before responding, “I am still part of New Martial’s system for now.” 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The young man was rather surprised. Any New Martial powerhouses with their own aspirations in mind had left the civilization—the Sword Sovereign and Li Zhu were among them. The Exalted Blood Emperor was famed throughout New Martial.

Strictly speaking, based off New Martial’s understanding of New Martial history, the Human King and Supreme Zhang were the core figures of that era. However, the Exalted Blood Emperor and his peers were the main pillars of support. They’d been much more useful than the Sword Sovereign back in the day.

That group had played a critical role when battling the Heavenly Emperor. If the others had left, why had the Exalted Blood Emperor stayed?

Did he lack confidence in himself?

That was most likely not it.

So then why?

“It’s not that complicated,” laughed the Exalted Blood Emperor while Li Hao’s thoughts ran wild. “Whether I leave New Martial or not, cultivation is my business only. There are pros and cons to leaving. Am I unable to pursue a dao domain if I don’t leave?

“Not necessarily.” He shook his head. “Silver Moon has its own dao universe, so you should be aware of this as well. In that case, can a branch of the dao universe not strengthen itself? That’s not the case either. Do you know what great daos I’m adept in?”

“Sword dao, blade dao, and blood qi dao...” Li Hao answered after some thought.

The origin of the Exalted Blood Emperor’s moniker was from his incredibly powerful blood qi. He simply looked ordinary at the moment. There was no blood qi rushing for the heavens.

“It’s still blood qi that is my foundation!” explained the Exalted Blood Emperor. “The blade is the medium and blood qi is the foundation. As for sword dao... it’s my inheritance from the War Sovereign. I’m not skilled at it and can only say that it’s convenient to use the sword.

“Blood qi is my base, but who doesn’t cultivate blood qi? The weakest person out there possesses blood qi. In that case, they can become part of a dao universe and understand more of that dao.

“Everyone has blood qi. If they all interact with this dao river throughout the course of their cultivation, then I will receive a similar understanding as I would from a river of dao. I will be able to incorporate that into my domain of blood qi!

“The dao of the body is much the same way. Who doesn’t cultivate body dao? In that case, someone who practices both body dao and a myriad of other daos will impart a certain understanding to the beholder of that branch. That is the function of a dao river...”

Li Hao mulled over the Exalted Blood Emperor’s words. That was right. These basic daos seemed simple, but if one progressed far enough down that road, it would become very, very hard. Using them as the foundation for comprehending ten thousand daos was an option. There was no pressing need to gain independence and then try to comprehend everything by himself.

“Understood! I have learned a great deal from the senior’s tutelage!”

“This was just a conversation. What tutelage was there to speak of...” The Exalted Blood Emperor smiled warmly. “The Thunder master and Senior Fog Mountain do not need to relinquish their dao universes at this time. The dao universe is an all-encompassing construct! They will learn more inside of it, but can also emphasize certain parts of their learning like you have said...”

Fog Mountain listened speechlessly. I have no dao universe. While I know a lot of great daos, none of them are that strong. So does this mean that I have no hope of making it to ninth rank?

Fine, it’s not like I ever dared hope in the first place.

While Li Hao frequently spoke of ninth rank, Fog Mountain’s greatest wish in the early days was to secede from Skycloud and become an eighth rank. He’d achieved his goals.

Meanwhile, only one ninth rank had been born in the chaos in the last million years. Did the young man really think that everyone stood a chance of becoming a ninth rank?

Fog Mountain set the matter out of mind and heaved a sigh. “Eighth rank is immensely satisfying already. But what you say is also true. If we can vie for that ascension, of course we must do our best to fight for it!”

But if he couldn’t fight for that chance or it proved to be too difficult to attain... then he could give up. He wasn’t cut out for it. There was nothing and about eighth rank.

Li Hao smiled. That was true enough. Some things didn’t need to be forced. Did these eighth ranks really not know how to manage their own ascensions? Did they not know what a dao domain was? Were they unaware of how to construct it?

Knowledge was one thing, it wasn’t the be-all and end-all at times. Everyone knew that seizing an eighth rank dao universe would strengthen them, but how many could actually pull off the deed?

“We speak of one thousand or ten thousand daos, but you’ll be extremely short on dao strength even if you comprehend that many,” Void interrupted. “You have more than one thousand worlds now, don’t you?

“How much dao strength have you consumed in pursuit of that goal? In my eyes, no one should imitate you even if they do focus on the dao domain. You treat dao rules like worlds to be created. Hao Moon, will you be able to break through to seventh rank at this rate, even if the entire four regions are offered up to you?”

“I actually attained seventh rank by simply building a dao domain,” Li Hao laughed. “I think that there’s no difference between me and seventh rank right now. At my level, we can’t simply be defined by sixth or seventh rank...”

Was he a seventh rank?

The greatest difference between sixth and seventh rank was in the dao domain and strength of dao rules. Li Hao’s dao of a thousand worlds lacked a dao that’d reached seventh rank. Hence, to outsiders, he was still a sixth rank.

The same went for Yuan Shuo. Although the old man had crafted a dao domain, his strongest dao was just at fourth rank...

Despite a dao domain being the hallmark of a seventh rank, that did not make him a seventh rank since none of his dao rules had reached that level. This was what a cultivation level was to the rest of existence!

In Li Hao’s eyes, whether one built a dao domain or possessed a dao of seventh rank strength, both qualities made one a seventh rank. He felt that he should be a seventh rank—a real seventh rank—and not the sixth rank that everyone considered him to be.

But since his strongest dao was only sixth rank, that resulted in the general public regarding him to be a sixth rank despite him being stronger than a seventh rank when his one thousand worlds were one.

“You’re right, none of my daos are strong enough by themself,” said Li Hao. “The core of my dao is that of time, but it’s a legacy from the War Sovereign. That’s only sixth rank at the moment!”

If he truly wished to become a seventh rank, it wasn’t just a matter of building more worlds. One of his daos must reach that level of strength. Otherwise, he might one day be able to kill a ninth rank with the collection of ten thousand worlds, but he would still be a sixth rank in the eyes of the public.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be a seventh rank soon!” Li Hao quickly added. “That breakthrough won’t be that useful though, it’ll only cause the enemy to be more on guard against me! The sword dao of calamity that I’ve recently formed seems to be catching up. After I go over it, it might be the one to propel me into seventh rank!

“This place is most suited for me to hone this dao!” He looked around Thunder Region with gratification. “It’ll be hard to perfect all daos, but it’s relatively easy to perfect the sword dao of calamity. I might be able to officially set foot into seventh rank here...”

He would be a bit stronger then, but there would be no qualitative change. If he wanted the latter, he needed to keep creating worlds. One thousand worlds would simply stabilize his footing among seventh ranks. If he wished to be peerless among his level or be on par with the Human King, he would need at least three thousand worlds.

Two thousand would be hard pressed to finish the deed. And once he reached that level, he would be on par with Fog Mountain and the rest. They would match regular eighth ranks.

Three thousand worlds!

And around four to five thousand worlds would be required if he wished to be on par with the Dragon master. The gap was still enormous before Li Hao caught up. Based on the Dragon master’s feat of killing an eighth rank with three punches, there should be around five to six thousand daos within his dao domain.

One did not simply consider cultivation level at Li Hao’s stage.

The young man thought it over some more. Beings such as Red Moon should grasp around four thousand dao rules. If the Light master was on his world, then he was the equivalent of five thousand dao rules.

The Human King was likely four to five thousand. He might be five to six thousand once he officially set foot into eighth rank. Who knew?

But one thing was for sure, and that was that he would be slightly lesser than the Dragon master.

When it came to Li Hao, his one dao was likely the equivalent of 1.5 times that of someone else’s. He’d devoured a lot of dao strength, after all, and turned them into worlds. He should theoretically be stronger, but not all of his worlds were the same level.

Seventh ranks usually wielded two to three thousand daos. Someone like the Human King jumped out of the box because he was a premier seventh rank that rivaled an eighth rank.

With this kind of power hierarchy, Li Hao gained more clarity in everyone’s strength. The Thunder master and Fog Mountain possessed three to four thousand daos. They might be eighth ranks, but they were bottom tier eighth ranks.

The Sword Sovereign had that many dao rules as well, but their quality was slightly less due to his recent ascension. That made him slightly weaker and not necessarily on par with Li Hao. The young man had consumed too many worlds.

Although Void had just set foot into seventh rank, his six daos were of the extremes. His dao domains were ferocious and he boasted of at least two thousand daos. That made him a very strong seventh rank.

Weaker seventh ranks were of the thousand dao level. Those were quite mediocre exalted emperors. Any that were weaker than that were not seventh ranks.