Ian glanced at Brandon Longwind's corpse, but felt no joy in victory. He said in a low voice, "Take him out and give him a proper burial."
"Yes, sir!"
Two Profound Immortals hurried over and carried away Brandon Longwind's body.
Right now, Flamecrest City was thriving, but what it truly lacked was top-tier combat power. In the future, he'd be facing all the major powers of the Immortal World, and those ancient monsters still in deep sleep.
Granted, he had the Divine Temple.
But not everyone was like him, blessed with the Pangu Bloodline, able to ignore bottlenecks and charge forward through the realms. Especially at the Ancestral Immortal level, further advancement relied on absorbing Heavenly Dao power and deepening one's own Dao comprehension.
Without true insight, even spending thousands or tens of thousands of years in the Divine Temple would be useless.
So, below the Ancestral Immortal realm, Ian could still use the Divine Temple to cultivate followers. But after they reached Ancestral Immortal, apart from providing techniques and pills, there wasn't much more he could do for them.
But the System had only given him five hundred years.
In five hundred years, just how many Ancestral Immortals could he actually cultivate?
It seems I still need to raise my own cultivation, then use the Puppet Mastery Divine Art to enslave more Ancestral Immortals to serve me.
Of course.
The Big Lottery Draw is also a way to strengthen himself.
By opening the Immortalization Pool, adding cultivation towers, and selling pills at low prices, all these measures have made Flamecrest City's citizens wholeheartedly loyal to him. His Prestige has already surpassed ten billion, reaching 10.8 billion.
But Ian doesn't plan to use the lottery right away.
He wants to accumulate more Prestige to use for founding the Immortal Kingdom in the future.
The entire Barbarian Wastes has over three thousand cities and nearly ten billion people.
Ian plans to conquer the entire Barbarian Wastes within ten years.
A year later, Flamecrest City's City Guard expanded to fifty thousand soldiers. At the same time, Ian formed the Golden-Eagle Corps.
This Golden-Eagle Corps was composed entirely of Golden Immortals.
Flameheart City adopted the same measures. In just half a year, most residents from over a hundred surrounding cities flocked to Flameheart City, raising its population to 130 million.
Next, Ian founded five more mega-cities in the southeast, northeast, northwest, southwest, and due south directions.
He named these five cities Goldenridge, Riverhaven, Everpeace, Swansky, and Riverspan, after the ancient capitals of his homeland on Earth.
With the rise of these five mega-cities, they drew in even more residents from nearby cities, bringing the combined population of the seven cities to over one billion.
He had thus brought in a tenth of the Barbarian Wastes' population under his rule.
After that, Ian stopped founding new cities.
Instead, he focused on steadily developing these seven cities.
Ten years passed in a flash.
Over those ten years, the combined population of the seven cities soared past two billion, reaching saturation.
The city guard in the seven cities had expanded to at least one million soldiers.
The Golden-Eagle Corps grew from a hundred to over thirty thousand members.
In fact, these were just Ian's public forces.
Ten years in the outside world...
...but ten thousand years had passed inside the Divine Temple.
With no shortage of techniques or pills, after several decades, all demon cultivators reached the Golden Immortal realm, and ten thousand advanced to Profound Immortal.
The corpses of divine beings helped him grow vast quantities of high-grade immortal herbs, which enabled the refinement of so many Law Pills.
In terms of numbers of Profound and Golden Immortals, even the Eight Great Clans of the Purple Dragon Domain couldn't match him.
Unfortunately, Ancestral Immortals are hard to cultivate.
All his wives reached peak Profound Immortal, but none managed to become Ancestral Immortal.
Kathy Wenren, however, made rapid progress in formation-dao over the years, creating her own unique array and successfully advancing to first-layer Ancestral Immortal.
Over those ten years, Ian himself achieved breakthrough after breakthrough, reaching third-layer Ancestral Immortal.
His soul is now very close to its fourth metamorphosis, and his body, nourished by chaotic primal energy, has grown vastly stronger.
He estimates that if he goes all out, his strength could match an ordinary eighth-layer Ancestral Immortal without defeat.
His Prestige has now spread throughout the entire Barbarian Wastes.
Immortals in other places all eagerly hope for him to come and found new cities.
Thus, after ten years, his Prestige reached over twenty billion, enough for two hundred lottery draws.
"My lord, it's time to continue founding cities!"
On this day, Ian convened a high-level meeting, and Adrian Moon, the City Lord of Flameheart City, made the suggestion.
Now, both Queenie Green and Piper Willow are city lords. With Ian's guidance, their cultivation reached late-stage Profound Immortal, but they are still far from breaking through to Ancestral Immortal.
"Let's found thirty cities at once this time!"
Ian thought it over and said, as long as he founded thirty cities, he could bring all the Immortals of the Barbarian Wastes under his rule, thus indirectly ruling the region.
It took only a month.
After the thirty cities were founded, Ian invited Ancestor Cyrus to join him. Using the thirty-seven cities of the Barbarian Wastes as formation bases, they spent three years constructing a peerless grand array.
Once the array is activated, it can not only draw on part of the Heavenly Dao's power but also absorb eighty percent of the power provided by Immortals who voluntarily support the grand array. Its might is such that even a fifteenth-layer Ancestral Immortal would find it hard to break.
As for those below fifteenth-layer Ancestral Immortal who dare enter the array, Ian is confident he can slaughter them with the grand array.
For this, Ian kept a low profile to avoid attracting attention from major powers, but with the grand array's protection, he could develop in peace.
In a flash, a hundred years had passed since Ian founded Flamecrest City.
His city guard reached ten million.
The Golden-Eagle Corps reached five hundred thousand.
As for the demon cultivators inside the Divine Temple, all advanced to Profound Immortal.
Meanwhile, outside, he formed the Black-Armor Corps, composed entirely of Profound Immortals—ten thousand in total. Their armor was forged by Ancestor Grimm, and Ian and Ancestor Cyrus jointly developed a combined attack array. A hundred Black-Armor soldiers together could slaughter a fourth-layer Ancestral Immortal.
A thousand Black-Armor soldiers together could slaughter an eighth-layer Ancestral Immortal.
Ten thousand Black-Armor soldiers together could slaughter a twelfth-layer Ancestral Immortal.