Chapter 406: Direction of Development

For the return journey, Wei Yuan rode a Bao Clan’s flying vessel, specifically a model reserved for the clan’s inner circle. It was even faster than the one had rented on his way there, and the trip proceeded smoothly without a hitch.

With nothing to do along the way, Wei Yuan devoted himself to cultivation aboard the flying vessel, losing all sense of time and space. Before he knew it, half a month had flown by.

One day, the Great Realm suddenly trembled, startling Wei Yuan awake as he regained his connection to Qingming.

Qingming was reactivated by Wei Yuan’s return. Streams of spirit qi surged forth from the Great Realm, reviving the spirit plants and dramatically accelerating their growth. The mortals rejoined, and several thousand wandering souls flew into his Dao Foundation and passed through the All-Gate of Reincarnation, completing their reincarnation.

Most of these wandering spirits were former refugees, with a handful being horse bandits. There were also a dozen or so who had died of natural causes within the realm of Qingming. Before leaving, Wei Yuan had set up a mystic array to temporarily shelter the wandering souls. Those with sufficient spirituality but were unwilling to enter the normal cycle of reincarnation could remain within the array for the time being and await rebirth through Wei Yuan’s All-Gate of Reincarnation.

The Bao Clan’s flying vessel traveled at an extremely high speed. As it drew closer to Qingming, the tremors in the Great Realm grew increasingly pronounced, with streams of spirit spring gushing forth and converging into several small lakes.

The moment the flying vessel touched down in the realm of Qingming, the sea of spirituality within the Great Realm began to boil. The realm stone of Qingming trembled, and a terrifying, colossal figure over 1,000 zhang in size faintly appeared in the sky, gazing coldly down upon the masses below.

Countless mortals and cultivators within the realm looked up in awe. Some even prostrated themselves immediately. Some well-traveled cultivators surmised that it was an Avatar, but they could not fathom what kind of Avatar could be so immense.

The colossal entity was clearly no ordinary being. Its form was slender and elongated, flickering in and out of view in the sky. Its body constantly revealed wondrous landscapes of mountains and rivers as it danced back and forth through the sky.

Wei Yuan could feel the spirituality within the Great Realm slowly rising and converging into the terrible immortal beast in the air. It was even larger than it had been the first time he had naturally started the Avatar creation process and boasted a deeper, more terrifying aura as well. All he needed to do now was to take one step forward to form his Avatar.

However, just like the previous time, Wei Yuan couldn’t shake the feeling that the Great Realm hadn’t accumulated the absolute highest amount of spirituality just yet. Thus, he quelled the ocean of spirituality with a thought, causing the rising energies to gradually subside and return to their original places.

The terrifying immortal beast in the sky was furious—this was the second time Wei Yuan had rejected it. It transmitted Wei Yuan a vague thought: There won’t be a third time!

But Wei Yuan remained unmoved and continued to withdraw the spirituality. The colossal beast in the sky let out one last roar before dissipating reluctantly.

His greatest gain from this trip to the Bao Clan was actually the mortals. No longer mere decorations within the Great Realm, they had organized themselves and demonstrated a genuine capability to solve problems. Moreover, for every research they conducted, both his wealth of spirituality and knowledge were rising rapidly.

Moreover, under the leadership and guidance of Yin Yang, they were no longer a disorganized group. Instead, with her at the center, they established clear divisions of labor and greatly increased the efficiency of their work.

Wei Yuan wanted to wait a little longer to see what these mortals would ultimately evolve to.

As the colossal beast Avatar dissipated and its spirituality scattered, a torrential downpour instantly fell across the Great Realm. Both mortals and spirit plants rejoiced as their individual spirituality rose bit by bit.

Wei Yuan stepped down from the flying vessel and first connected his senses to the realm of Qingming. His journey had taken a total of one and a half months. In a few days, it would be harvest season, and some of the grain fields with richer spirit qi were already being harvested early.

The water in the pool within the realm stone of Qingming had cleared up a bit more, while the decaying patches of land scattered across the realm were gradually shrinking. The Clear Spirit Trees had all taken root and begun to grow normally, gradually transforming the surrounding environment.

As soon as Wei Yuan returned to his residence, he began sorting through the backlog of letters and official documents.

First things first, Western Jin court’s long overdue reward had finally arrived. They granted Wei Yuan permission to establish an additional two towns of border troops. This reward was practically meaningless, but then again, Wei Yuan had never expected them to actually provide anything of use. After all, the state treasury was empty, and even the King of Jin himself had to live frugally.

Hanyang Pass had now returned to the Xu Clan’s control, and its garrison had been reestablished. However, the Xu Clan’s approach this time was somewhat unusual. Instead of transferring elite troops from elsewhere, they had merely dispatched a few hundred officers and then recruited 50,000 new soldiers locally. It appeared they intended to turn the pass into a training base for new recruits.

The rest of the documents were merely routine matters and required no further mention.

After finishing his stack of paperwork, Wei Yuan skimmed through the imperial bulletin once more. One report specifically mentioned the State of Ji, noting that last autumn, the state had experienced a continuous rainfall that waterlogged and destroyed much of the autumn harvest, resulting in a poor yield. Since this spring, there had been occasional unrest within its borders, and refugees had begun to appear in many places once more.

Setting aside the imperial bulletin, Wei Yuan unfolded a sheet of letter paper, intending to write a letter home. However, after a moment’s thought, he put down his brush and instead summoned a cultivator, ordering him to travel to Yong Province and secretly visit his old home. Whatever he witnessed, he was to refrain from intervening and simply report back.

There was a distinction between immortals and mortals. Over hundreds of thousands of years, various models of coexistence had emerged between cultivators and mortal families. The noble clans and distinguished clans operated under a model where cultivators provided protection for the bloodline descendants of their families.

Immortal sects such as the Palace of Absolute Beginning, the Four Sages Academies, the Sword Palace and more operated under a different model: before reaching a certain level of cultivation, a disciple must sever ties with their mortal families. Each sect possessed secret techniques to sever the karmic ties between disciples and their mortal families, and disciples were forbidden from interfering with the lives of their mortal relatives until they had attained the rank of True Lord.

Only after a cultivator had become a True Lord were these restrictions lifted, but by that time, most of the family members they once knew would have long since passed away, and their descendants were no different from strangers to said cultivator.

As a disciple of the Palace of Absolute Beginning, Wei Yuan had exchanged some elixirs and basic Body-tempering stage methods for his family upon earning his first merits. That was also the most he could do for his family; any more would compromise the effectiveness of the secret technique that severed his karmic ties with them.

Such restrictions existed only within immortal sects and grotto-heavens. Ordinary sects and independent cultivators did not place much importance in them.

The reason this practice came to be dated back 80,000 years, when an Immortal Lord Tai Li had emerged seemingly out of nowhere. His methods of slaughter were peerless at the time, and over the course of more than a century, he had terrorized all other races into utter fear.

Later, the Shamans secretly colluded with human traitors and located several unknown surviving descendants of Immortal Lord Tai Li. Using them as bait, they suddenly cast a Great Karmic Curse while Immortal Lord Tai Li was engaged in a fierce battle with a powerful enemy. This triggered the Immortal Lord’s karmic debt and caused him to perish on the spot.

Since then, the human race began researching methods to sever the karmic ties between immortals and mortals. It was to prevent anyone from using mortal bloodlines to cast curses that killed high cultivators. Today, these methods had become quite sophisticated.

For this reason, Wei Yuan dared not disturb his family too much. Only when several more high cultivators emerged among his family, and there was a possibility they might transform into an immortal clan, that he dared to reestablish karma with them.

After reading the imperial bulletin, Wei Yuan began to ponder the future direction of development of Qingming.

The military was, of course, the top priority for Qingming. With the adoption of the new gunpowder, firearms had finally become sufficiently effective weapons on the battlefield. However, the costs were equally considerable, with ammunition accounting for the lion’s share of the expenses.

Add to that the full set of armor for each soldier, and calculations showed that equipping a single ordinary Body-tempering stage soldier cost at least fifty taels of immortal silver, while the ammunition expended in a single battle often exceeded ten. Based on these figures, equipping a standard 10,000-strong unit would cost 500,000 taels in equipment alone. When the other miscellaneous expenses were added, the total exceeded one million.

Elite units cost twice as much as this baseline, while elite cavalry cost four times as much as elite infantry.

The cost of fielding an elite army was simply beyond imagination. Wei Yuan had been pondering this problem for a long time, but no matter what approach he took, he couldn’t escape the two words, immortal silver. The combat style he envisioned—high rate of fire, concentrated firepower, and wide-area bombardment—would only burn through immortal silver even faster.

After much deliberation, Wei Yuan realized he had to find a way to make money.

Just as he was pondering this, the Shadowless Flying Ferret landed on Wei Yuan’s desk and told him it really liked this place and planned to explore a bit. Wei Yuan instructed it not to leave the domain so that he could be notified immediately if anything happened. He also asked it to help search for ore veins if it was really that bored.

Hearing Wei Yuan’s earnest pleas, the Shadowless Flying Ferret felt a pang of guilt and agreed. It then leaped out of the window and vanished.

Just then, a letter arrived from the Palace of Absolute Beginning, written by Founder Xuan Yue. Last time, the Skyblue Hall had sent 300 Dao Soldiers to the realm of Qingming, and Wei Yuan returned over 60 Dao Foundations. This greatly alleviated the pressure on the defense zone under Skyblue Hall’s jurisdiction, and Xuan Yue was, of course, delighted.

Upon hearing this, True Lord Huang Yun acted decisively, immediately dispatching 3,000 Dao Soldiers to Qingming and promising to give three-tenths of the spoils to the Skyblue Hall free of charge once the mission was accomplished. Naturally, Xuan Yue agreed and then assigned the task to Wei Yuan.

Wei Yuan calculated the timeline and realized it would take about ten more days for the 3,000 Dao Soldiers to arrive. He found this to be regrettable because it meant that the soldiers would miss the harvest season and be unable to experience the benefits of honing their mental state and cultivation amidst the fields and countryside[1].

Wei Yuan opened the map again, intending to check if there were any nearby locations that were suitable for battle. However, since the capture of Hanyang Pass, local officials of all ranks had been behaving rather docilely. There were virtually no troublemakers to be found, leaving Wei Yuan with a large army but no opportunity to put it to use.

If all else failed, he would have no choice but to send these Dao Soldiers deep into the mines to hone their mental state. If each one of them spent their days refining their mental state and processing several thousand catties of ores, Wei Yuan’s own mental state would likely rise to a new level within a month.

He was still pondering this when a storm of mystic energy suddenly surged skyward in the distance!

It was a battle between Avatars, and it was so intense that even Wei Yuan was startled! Qingming only had a handful of Avatars; could it be that an external enemy had infiltrated?

Wei Yuan’s figure flickered repeatedly. In the blink of an eye, he arrived at the scene of a fierce battle. There, floating in the air over 100 zhang above the ground, was a storm of mystic energy more than 1,000 zhang in diameter. Within the storm, figures were darting back and forth like lightning and locked in an intense struggle. In fact, it was so fierce that even with Wei Yuan’s keen eyesight, he could not make out who was fighting.

Just then, Wei Yuan noticed that Trueman Chu He was standing nearby. The old Daoist looked deathly pale for some reason. His robe was in tatters, and the mystic sword he was holding was missing half its blade.

Wei Yuan hurried over and asked, “Who are we fighting?”

Trueman Chu He replied, “A ferret. I’ve no idea where it came from, only that when I went over to speak with it, it suddenly started fighting against my cat. Then, my snake joined in the battle as well.”

Wei Yuan was startled. When he looked closely again, he confirmed that the combatants within the storm were indeed the three spirit beasts. Wei Yuan quickly sent a mental thought their way, and after fighting for a moment longer, the battle finally ceased.

The ferret disappeared and reappeared on Wei Yuan’s shoulder, while the cat leaped into his arms.

For a moment, both spirit beasts seemed utterly surprised by the other’s positions. Then, they bristled simultaneously and began fighting again. Wei Yuan himself was sent flying backward by a sudden burst of mystic energy.

Wei Yuan sent another stern mental command, and only then did the cat and the ferret reluctantly separate. The snake coiled in midair, watching the ferret warily. Some of its scales were raised, revealing several deep wounds. The cat kept coughing up fur, though there were even more fur floating in the air. It was also carrying bloodstains on its body.

In comparison, the ferret had only sustained minor injuries.

As Wei Yuan listened to Trueman Chu He’s account and the three spirit beasts’ separate confessions, he finally managed to piece together the general sequence of events.

The incident had begun when Trueman Chu He encountered the Shadowless Flying Ferret and, impressed by its talent, decided he wanted to tame it.

So, he wanted to get a new older brother... Wei Yuan silently filtered out Trueman Chu He’s sophistry so that only the truth remained.

However, the ferret already had a two-legged servant, Wei Yuan. It felt that recruiting another servant would only mean more trouble, so it ignored the old Daoist’s desperate pleas.

However, Trueman Chu He’s cat could not stand this. It didn’t understand why the old Daoist was currying favor with another spirit beast when he already had it. Though the two spirit beasts couldn’t understand each other’s language, they could grasp the general meaning and nuances, and since they naturally disliked each other, it took but an instant for them to come to blows.

After this incident, Wei Yuan felt that it was necessary to speed up the development of spirit beast language. He planned to spend more time communicating with the cat, the ferret, and the snake in the coming days so that the mortals in the Great Realm could collect more data samples. Only then could progress be accelerated.

Just then, a slight commotion arose in the Great Realm. When Wei Yuan swept his perception, he saw a group of mortals gathered in a courtyard, busily hanging a plaque on the main hall. On the plaque were several bold, vigorous, and majestic-looking words:

The Dawn of Heaven and Earth Institute!

1. What he really meant, is that he won’t be able to use the free labor. ( ?° ?? ?°) ☜