Gu Zhen Ren
With all the venerables reviving and restoring their cultivation, is this going to have consequences? Fate gu dictated that only one person could be venerable at any given time. It strictly enforced the laws of life and death. Was this to protect the foundation of the world? If Venerables suffer chaotic disasters every century, maybe they become flaws in the world’s defense against the chaos outside? If dao lords can refine all the dao marks of a given path in the world, then could multiple conflicting dao lords bring the dao marks at the world’s foundation into conflict? It seems like Limitless was on the verge of reaching rank 10 (which the venerables call eternal life). Or perhaps, despite his strength, he failed because he was still fundamentally rank 9. Just as Fang Yuan, no matter how powerful he became as a pseudo venerable, would still fall short of rank 9. Perhaps, as more venerables revive and (possibly) other immortals also become venerable, the world will destabilize and Fang Yuan will need to achieve rank 10 to survive its collapse. If so, refinement path actually gives him a huge advantage, because he can first refine rank 10 gu and use them to gain some understanding of the rank 10 realm and how it differs from rank 9. Rank 10 sovereign aperture gu in particular will force him to understand the structure of the world in a way that Limitless probably did not.
This is a real milestone achievement, much more impactful that 90% of similar novels where MC reaches the apex cultivation level, then proceeds to fight with cabbages coming out of the authors butt by the thousands, millions, all at the apex level. It's the equivalent of our Lord FY reaching Venerable, when 500 new Venerable appears outta nowhere.