Yan Ruyu and Huangjinwu

As time passed, more and more people entered Chen Xu's magic tower to learn.

During this period, many people from foreign nations crossed the ocean to join this tower-climbing craze.

On the Job-Holder Forum, dedicated threads were created to record and share content regarding the magic tower.

Essentially, there was a specific thread for every single floor.

Chen Xu also drew upon many suggestions from the forum to optimize the magic tower.

After all, Blue Star was his first pilot site. Only by perfecting the magic tower on Blue Star could he later expand it to the myriad worlds to collect all sorts of transcendent knowledge for him.

The first addition was a leaderboard feature; anyone who cleared the first floor would have their name recorded on it.

As the saying goes, there is no undisputed first in literature, but in martial arts, there is no second; yet, competition is something that exists everywhere.

Once the leaderboard was opened, it truly stimulated a wave of tower-climbing enthusiasm, and even the average number of floors cleared was pulled up significantly.

Secondly, he optimized the examiners guarding the stages.

These examiners were mechanical golems automatically generated by the magic tower based on the learning content of the stage. Since they were mindless, inanimate objects, it led to many exploits.

Some job-holders from crafting classes—such as 【Artisan】, 【Machinist】, 【Thousand-Machine】, and 【Engineer】—used their class-specific skills to directly control the examiners and skip the challenge stages.

Naturally, Chen Xu could not tolerate this behavior.

As a veteran gamer in his past life, Chen Xu deeply understood the essence of being a good developer.

That is, bugs beneficial to players must be fixed within seconds, while bugs detrimental to players should be met with a blind eye, as if they don't exist.

Then, on a day when there's truly no new content to use as filler, he would fix them as an afterthought.

Thus, Chen Xu did not hesitate to mobilize a large amount of the power of creation from the Undead Dao Court to bestow sentience upon the 【Necrotic Archmage Tower】, nurturing a consciousness within it.

Furthermore, he actually awakened two artifact spirits at once; perhaps in a moment of excitement, he had gathered too much power of creation, causing it to overflow.

But having two had its own benefits: he didn't have to agonize over naming them.

One was named Yan Ruyu, and the other was named Huangjinwu.

Since the magic tower itself was eternal-tier special equipment, Yan Ruyu and Huangjinwu, as its artifact spirits, were naturally eternal-tier beings as well.

Chen Xu immediately sent them to take over all the examiners in the magic tower, fixing the critical exploit.

The next day, the Job-Holder Forum was filled with wailing; it was mostly the crafting job-holders complaining, while those in other classes were gloating.

After awakening Yan Ruyu and Huangjinwu, the hype for the magic tower in Daxia gradually faded.

This was because the formation of the vanguard was complete, and the first expedition was about to begin.

The attention of everyone in Daxia was basically focused on this expedition; the level of interest was even higher than when they cleared the first ultra-tier dungeon years ago.

At this moment, the members of the vanguard were gathering in batches outside the military academy, entering a teleportation space created by the World Will one by one.

Because there were too many people in the vanguard, the World Will found it difficult to teleport them directly from within the world.

Instead, it used the world power accumulated from devouring dungeons to create a transit station outside the world, transporting people there first before sending them to the target world.

Chen Xu was also in the academy square, rolling a few space fragments he had just picked out from the Heavenly Crafts Academy in his hand while chatting with Xia Qiming.

“Teacher Xia, what was the World Will thinking naming that transit station 'Ancient God Space'?

That name sounds like a bad omen no matter how you look at it.”

Xia Qiming also shook his head; he didn't understand the Blue Star Heavenly Dao's wavelength either.

“I asked about that too. It said it was referencing ancient Daxia myths about a god who created the world named Pangu, so it called it the Ancient God Space.”

“Pangu? Then why not call it the Pan God Space? Surely the World Will knows that the term 'Ancient God' is a bit unlucky in the myriad worlds?”

The Ancient God system, representing the old god system of the myriad worlds, had been swept aside by the Heaven pantheon to serve as a stepping stone for its rise.

After years of propaganda by the victorious Heaven, 'Ancient God' had become a negative term, and Ancient God remnants were long-term targets of Heaven's crackdowns, second only to Hell.

Of course, because the Ancient Gods themselves were somewhat twisted sentient beings, the things they did were indeed terrifying—mutating the creatures of entire worlds, or forcing the spread of their gospel through the self-detonation of their believers to impose faith by force.

In short, even without Heaven's propaganda, few normal civilizations were willing to approach an Ancient God.

Chen Xu was a bit worried; if the World Will used this name, it wouldn't be good if they were mistaken for Ancient God remnants.

“Sigh, I've already told those participating in the expedition not to mention the words 'Ancient God Space' and to just say Daxia.”

As an old hand who had spent time on the Outerworld Battlefield, Xia Qiming understood a bit about the situation and inner workings of the myriad worlds; he was no longer completely in the dark like before.

He naturally knew that the term 'Ancient God' was somewhat inappropriate and had already arranged a gag order.

“By the way, Teacher Xia, have you confirmed the situation in that world? Is it certain that it's a world in a Dharma-Ending Age, heading toward the extinction of transcendence?”

In the face of Chen Xu's inquiry, Xia Qiming nodded.

“We sent people to confirm; the situation is about what the World Will described, so the danger is low.

However, their ancestors were once powerful, so even though the spiritual energy in that world has diminished, they still possess significant combat power thanks to various transcendent items and equipment.”

It seemed the World Will had hand-picked an easy target with low danger, perhaps even none at all.

But to be safe, Daxia still controlled the size of the vanguard, only deploying sixty million people—just one-third of the number of applicants.

The enthusiasm of the masses had surprised Xia Qiming for a long time; judging from this, the full rollout of the Expedition System was a foregone conclusion.

The Daxia authorities could only try their best to control and balance things, avoiding over-investing in any single world to prevent excessive losses.

After watching the assembly, Chen Xu prepared to leave.

He had received an invitation letter from Xiang Longwu for the Dragon-Tiger Martial Arts Hall in the 【Taikun】 world; this was the very same martial arts hall where Xiang Longwu had studied.

Chen Xu planned to send his incarnation to the Taikun world to learn a few things; otherwise, that perfect body would go to waste.

He didn't expect to unleash its full power, but he at least wanted to reach sixty percent—a passing grade.

The magic tower on Blue Star was also on the right track. Chen Xu shared his access to the Job-Holder Forum with Yan Ruyu and Huangjinwu, allowing them to take his place in continuously optimizing the tower's content.

Most importantly, they were to fix various loopholes and bugs promptly to prevent job-holders from exploiting them.

Meanwhile, Chen Xu had received an invitation from the Angel Priest Alifa to attend a banquet in the Xufa World.

As comrades-in-arms who had just finished collaborating to slay a demon, Chen Xu found it hard to refuse, so he decided to go.

As for the group of necrotic archdukes in the Land of the Undead and the soulstone in the Undead Dao Court sealing the soul of Karl, the Demon King of Destruction, they would have to wait a little longer.

Chen Xu put away the space fragments in his hand and looked at Xia Qiming, preparing to say goodbye.

“Teacher Xia, there's nothing else for me to do here in Daxia, so I'll take my leave now.”

“May everything go smoothly.”

A spatial gate opened, and Chen Xu stepped through, arriving in the Xufa World.

With a slight sweep of his soul perception, he discovered the current situation in the Xufa World.

“Holy crap, why are there so many angels?”