Paragon of Sin

The territory of the Golden Life Pavilion was named the Endless Prosperity Domain, a domineeringly ambitious name to say the least. However, very few would ever call into question the likelihood of this name.

After all, the Golden Life Pavilion was renowned as the greatest merchant organization, selling and buying goods, services, and integrated in almost every territory in the Aeternal Sky Starfield.

Their reputation was exceptional, neutral without any antagonistic conflicts. Their upright and fair manner of conducting business, from refunds to quality guarantees, over the tens of thousands of years since their establishment left them trusted by the vast majority. From the humble Qi Condensation farmers to the lofty Ascended of Mystic-tier forces.

The Golden Life Pavilion wasn't simply a business, but they acted as a secondary banking option for the cultivators of the starfield. The first and primary bank was the Skylight Bank, directly ruled and managed by the Imperial Clan. The Golden Life Bank gave out fair-in-interest loans, which have allowed many financially struggling forces to remain above water and survive certain desperate years, and secured deposits with annual interests.

However, the Skylight Bank was renowned for refusing loans to low-tier forces that might collapse. A few Gold-tier forces existed solely because, during their Bronze-tier years, the Golden Life Bank helped support their geniuses, establish cultivation grounds, or trade their resources at a fair, stable price even if the value of that resource was lowered at that time.

These types of investments and kind actions made many forces absolutely adore the Golden Life Pavilion, later allowing them to establish well-developed branches in the depths of their territory, functioning as their main merchants for all their needs. This was why they were given the 'Golden' title, establishing themselves in over 90% of the Aeternal Sky Starfield's territory.

Despite their bank being referred to as the secondary option, they were highly preferred, with many only using the Skylight Bank due to the prestige and respect for the Imperial Clan. It was hard for the Imperial Clan to shut down the Golden Life Bank as it had existed long before the Skylight Bank, before the Imperial Clan became the Imperial Clan. Furthermore, it was too well-received.

Still, many understood that to the Imperial Clan, be it the Golden Life Pavilion or Golden Gate Pavilion, they both were like thorns. If they could remove them, the Imperial Clan surely would.

In the Endless Prosperity Domain, there were only three planets. These planets were absolutely massive, large-sized, enough to house tens of trillions comfortably, with sufficient resources, food, and a healthy environment to match. Surrounding these three large-sized planets were two rings that interconnected, forming an 'X'. These rings moved at fast speeds, releasing faint glimmers of brilliant light.

However, they weren't the only celestial bodies that existed in the Endless Prosperity Domain. Orbiting these planets were various lunar satellites that were called Prosperous Moons. They numbered forty-five, with the slightly larger planet having seventeen, the smallest of the three planets had thirteen, and the middle planet was surrounded by fifteen.

Each of these Prosperous Moons weren't like normal lunar satellites. They were all terraformed to be like pseudo-planets, housing cultivators, miners, farmers, herbalists, and other workers. These Prosperous Moons were used to cultivate materials, provide jobs, and raise geniuses.

If one looked closely, there were faint bridges of light exuding from the 'X' rings to the Prosperous Moons, slowly feeding them highly refined astral essence. This made the environment even richer than some legitimate planets. This exquisite design allowed the Golden Life Pavilion to not just be merchants that facilitated sales, but had materials to sell or trade with others.

They weren't considered as one of the wealthiest forces in the entire starfield due to their business practices, but also their cultivation of resources, essence stones, astral stones, and even the legendary mystic stones.

The planets themselves, however, were not inhabited by trillions despite their size. They contained roughly a few billion cultivators each, all used to maintain the various formations and arrays, using the planet's refinement power to their benefit.

Because of this, there were very few on the planet as its energies, essence, and environment wasn't nearly as great as those forty-five Prosperous Moons. By funneling the essence and energies to those Prosperous Moons, controlling the flow and ratio, the Golden Life Pavilion can control the environment they wished to manifest, manipulate the growth of certain resources, not needing to rely on the planet's whims or innate restrictions.

For example, a heat-filled planet couldn't properly nurture ice-attributed resources, but it still had ice energies, various ice-attributed essences dispersed throughout the planet. By extracting these forces individually, carefully, they could send all these ice-attributed energies and essences into a single area of a Prosperous Moons, likely even nurturing mystic-rank materials as a result!

It was utter genius!

The Golden Life Pavilion didn't lack ideas, and even foresight towards the future, but it didn't stop there. Their Domain didn't lack World Realms. They had 81 World Realms established in the Endless Prosperity Domain, each having their own series of Gateway Doors.

These World Realms were the main housing areas for the hundreds of trillions of inhabitants of the Endless Prosperity Domain, and almost all of them were interconnected via Void Gates, allowing instantaneous travel to each World Realm at minimum cost. Even some Qi Condensation Cultivators could travel freely between World Realms.

It was a well-connected civilization, almost entirely different from the other domains. But it wasn't all bright and gorgeous, as Bronze, Silver, and Gold-tier forces were unable to establish themselves in these World Realms. While they could create branches in these World Realms, to recruit or acquire resources, they had to use one of the near the border planets in the Endless Prosperity Domain to set up their headquarters.

That being said, conflicts were extremely minimal. Almost entirely restricted. If a force tried to stir up any issues, they and all those connected to them were expelled without question. After being banned for a hundred or even a thousand years, they would be allowed to return. It was both fair and ruthless.

-----

It's been six months since the Everlore Domain's trillions were brought over, dispersed amongst the three Domains of the Everlore Domain, Nine Worlds Domain, and Skyrend Domain, and others were integrated into the various Silver and Gold-tier forces.

There were some who chose the second option, yet wanted to explore or were given a mission to locate others. For the former, quite a few made their way to the Endless Prosperity Domain to find prospects with the greatest merchant organization, and some wanted to find a stable environment to work and avoid wars.

As long as intelligent beings existed, so did conflict. This included death and pain. For cultivators, this was amplified even greater. It was unavoidable as they cultivated for life and power, most for the sake of pursuing personal freedom to act upon their innermost desires. These desires could be to find love, to obtain a harem of a thousand beauties, or have their name etched upon history, or to explore the world's gorgeous scenes. It mattered not why, each of them would soon find conflict on their path.

The latter wasn't many, and there was one in particular that was given an extremely important task. An old man in grey robes was currently in the 34th World Realm named after the creator, the Grand Horse Realm.

With a black sack roughly the size of a wash bin hung over his shoulder, Tuo Bihan wiped off the faint sweat on his forehead. He had arrived at the Endless Prosperity Domain nearly three months ago, yet he had to travel a great distance to arrive here. While the World Realms were all interconnected, due to the cheap nature, there were some restrictions.

One such restriction made it so that to travel to certain World Realms from other World Realms directly was impossible. Most World Realms only allowed easy travel to three other World Realms. It formed a network where, if one navigated and planned properly, they could reach all the World Realms for a similar price as going from nearby planet to planet in the Aeternal Sky Starfield's normal Void Gates.

Fortunately cheap, while also a little time-consuming, this wasn't the most glaring restriction. There were certain alignment requirements for Void Gates to reach other World Realms, which meant only on certain specific times can one actually use the Void Gates. It was such a hassle. But the alternative was exiting the World Realms, and traveling to a specific Gateway Door in the Endless Prosperity Domain, which were all on the Prosperous Moons.

But it was absolutely massive! Going from the border to the center of the Domain was roughly a tens of thousand times more costly using a Void Gate, and even using a Voidship might take years, if not decades if your Voidship was just a little too slow. After all, not every Voidship had an expert like Lin Xianxei to provide it with spatial energies to function at maximum speed for months.

Still, he made it here safely.

"The Grand Horse Realm...the homeworld of the Ma Clan," Tuo Bihan had tried to find Ma Zheng, the Third Manager of the Golden Life Pavilion, but that was seemingly an impossible feat. Despite being called the 'third' Manager, it reflected not his rank, but his station of authority. He oversaw the entire Third Branch of the Golden Life Pavilion.

There were four branches: the First Branch, Second Branch, Third Branch, and Main Life Branch. They each oversaw a quadrant of the Aeternal Sky Starfield! An entire QUADRANT! Which encompassed three to four Domains!

It was extremely difficult to pinpoint Ma Zheng's exact location at any point of time. He was too busy tending to various needs and mattersb and even if you did, he might not be there for longer than a few days. Even if Tuo Bihan sought out a meeting with him, he'd be casually dismissed. After all, he was just a Realmlord. If he mentioned Wei Wuyin's name, while it might provoke a response, who knows how long that'll take to reach Ma Zheng, especially if he wasn't taken seriously.

His only option was to go to the source: their homeworld!

With a heft of his bag, he reminded himself of his duty and pushed onwards.. His job wasn't done yet. He had to find out where their headquarters were in this vast World Realm!