Immortality: Starting with a grave, I'm invincible when burying corpses.

Similar to the dragons, the spirit race, which dominates the order of the lifeless realm, is also a race with unique advantages.

The original spirit race was nurtured by the earth's veins and water veins. They were born as elemental beings and, upon reaching adulthood, possessed power only slightly weaker than that of a true dragon, with a lifespan of three thousand years.

If an adult Spirit Race member can merge with the earth's veins and water veins, they can extend their lifespan to four thousand years.

If one can attain the Heavenly Fruition, one can go a step further and extend one's lifespan to six thousand years, which is even longer than that of a Dragon King of the same rank.

Those who attain the positions of Heaven and Earth are also called Holy Spirits, who are the protectors of the Spirit Race and the leaders of the Spirit Palace.

Unlike the true dragons, which are distributed throughout the Nine Realms, the Spirit Race mostly gathers in the Realm of No Life, with the sacred site "Spirit Palace" as its center, where they live in groups.

Of the vast Nine Domains, apart from the Ancestral Land of No Life, only the Yin Extreme Domain and the Western Spirit Domain each have a settlement of the Spirit Race.

Although the individual combat strength of the Spirit Race is not as strong as that of the Dragon Race, and their population is relatively small, they can possess great power upon reaching adulthood.

This characteristic makes the Spirit Race's strength rank second among the many races in the Nine Realms, second only to the Human Race.

The Spirit Race, born alongside the spirits of nature, dislikes fighting and rarely participates in wars within the Nine Realms.

Furthermore, due to the scarcity of the Spirit Race, the entire race is extremely protective of its own. Any force that harms a Spirit Race child will be attacked by the Spirit Race.

This time, the spirit race kingdom of "Flash Spirit Kingdom" in the Yin Yin Domain sought help from the Spirit Palace, and immediately received the attention of the thirteen holy spirits within the Spirit Palace.

The three Holy Spirits, along with twelve adult Spirit Race members, traveled to the Yin Yin Domain to oversee and protect the sixteen young Spirit Race members within the Spirit Kingdom.

With the arrival of the two Dragon Kings and six True Dragons, the top combat power of the two forces in the Yin Yin Domain reached a relative balance for a time.

Out of caution, the demon race of the Myriad Spirits Domain did not immediately send out troops, but instead stationed their forces on the archipelago at the junction of the Myriad Spirits Domain and the Yin Extreme Domain, watching the war between the Heavenly Demon Alliance and the Hundred Kingdoms Alliance.

……

The war had just begun when the armies of the Heavenly Demon Alliance and the Hundred Kingdoms Alliance clashed on the vast plains of the Yin Yin Domain. The scale of the battle far exceeded that of the war between the Great Qi and the demon race of the Myriad Spirits Domain.

In the first month of the war, both sides committed more than five million troops each, stretching the battle line for thousands of miles.

In the third month of the war, the total number of troops involved exceeded 20 million, and the battle lines were further extended.

In the thirteenth month after the war began, both sides increased their troops to thirty million each, and the battle line stretched for eighty thousand miles.

In the second month after the outbreak of war, news of the start of the full-scale war reached the Tianmo Alliance naval branch, which was fighting against Daqi. Unable to continue fighting on multiple fronts, the Tianmo Alliance expeditionary force was forced to withdraw.

Busy with recuperation, Daqi did not take this opportunity to intercept the Heavenly Demon Alliance's expeditionary force.

However, when passing through the South Sea, the Heavenly Demon Alliance's expeditionary force was attacked by the sea creatures.

The Heavenly Demon Alliance expeditionary force engaged in a fierce battle with the sea creatures in the Southern Sea, a battle that lasted for a month.

Despite having an advantage in equipment, the Heavenly Demon Alliance's expeditionary force still suffered a major defeat.

Fighting sea creatures at sea is undoubtedly the most foolish thing to do.

In just three days, the Heavenly Demon Alliance's expeditionary force was forced to retreat to the islands.

A steady stream of sea creatures emerged from the ocean, surrounding the archipelago where the Heavenly Demon Alliance army was stationed.

Their numbers are incalculable; they can only be described as overwhelming.

In the vast ocean, sea creatures are everywhere. Even the true dragon who leads the sea creatures does not know how many subordinates they have, only that the number is too large to count.

In every battle, the True Dragon Clan never considers troop deployment or logistical needs. As the rulers of the ocean, they are only responsible for issuing orders to various sea areas.

The sea creatures in the ocean will take care of the rest themselves.

Its main features are convenience, ease of use, and automated operation.

Within a month, hundreds of millions of sea creatures launched an attack on the Heavenly Demon Alliance's expeditionary force.

The relentless attacks for twelve hours caused the Heavenly Demon Alliance expeditionary force to completely collapse, and the entire army was wiped out in just one month.

……

The sudden change also gave Daqi, whose finances were on the verge of collapse, a chance to breathe.

Under Jun Huayang's leadership, the court established a new agency called the Cabinet to assist the emperor in handling government affairs.

Twelve students from Datongdao who participated in the Qingzhou disaster relief efforts were promoted to the cabinet.

Unlike the Great Harmony Dao originally founded by Zhuangzi, which has undergone several changes, the Great Harmony Dao has now split into multiple schools and academies.

The students of Datong Dao in the Daqi court banded together for mutual support and established a new Datong Palace, which was larger than the Datong Academy inherited by Wanshu.

Their ideology has also changed a lot over the years, integrating into the court of the Great Qi Dynasty and becoming more adapted to the times.

Apart from still holding onto the ideal of bringing peace to the world, the students in the Datong Palace were no different from other court officials.

If Zhuang Sheng and Wan Shu were idealists back then, then Da Tongxue Gong today is a true pragmatist.

The twelve leaders selected for the cabinet were also known as the Twelve Scholars of Datong.

A century ago, Zhuangzi was used by Jun Cheng'an to push forward the first reform, which quickly failed.

A century later, Jun Huayang took out the reform book written by Zhuang Sheng that had been hidden away by Jun Cheng'an and handed it over to Zhuang Sheng's disciples and grand-disciples.

After carefully reading Zhuangzi's book on reform, the twelve scholars of Datong were all greatly shocked.

A century later, Zhuangzi's book on reform still has great guiding significance. Apart from some content targeting imperial power and official power, most of its theories can be applied to the present day.

It is hard to imagine what kind of wisdom their founder, Datongdao, possessed that he could have foreseen all the possible problems that might arise from the reform a hundred years ago.

If the situation hadn't been so complex back then, with both the emperor and his officials vying for power and their ancestor being persecuted, the Great Qi Dynasty today would likely be completely different.

After months of discussions, a plan with a 100-year timeframe was put into effect.

……

In the spring of the twenty-sixth year of Qiming, at Jun Huayang's behest...

The Twelve Scholars of Datong initiated a top-down reform during the Great Qi Dynasty.

Reduce corvée labor, decrease taxes, combat corruption, and ensure people's livelihood...

What Zhuangzi failed to accomplish back then has been taken over by the Twelve Scholars of Datong today. Following Zhuangzi's original plan, they are spreading it throughout the entire Daqi Kingdom using relatively mild methods.

At first, the officials did not take it seriously. Everyone thought that this reform would be rejected by the Wenchang Hall as before, and would not cause any waves.

A month later, contrary to its usual practice, the Wenchang Temple remained silent and did not respond at all.

The civil and military officials then became anxious and, after making numerous inquiries, finally learned the truth.

Two months ago, the literary sage Meng Yan had some insights and decided to go into seclusion for several years.

Before going into seclusion, Meng Yan specifically instructed the core members in the Wenchang Hall to focus on assisting the emperor and governing the country well.

Now that the emperor wants to implement reforms, the Wenchang Hall naturally has no reason to stop him.

A reform that was more than a hundred years overdue was thus launched, and the Datong Palace officially stepped onto the stage of history.