Helping the King of Zhao ascend to Scenery Command was no passing whim on Wei Yuan's part; it was a crucial step in a broader sequence of plans.
Zhang Sheng's killing tribulation had originated in the State of Ji, and the scheme laid by the immortals in Ji had already become glaringly obvious: reducing the population. Although this scheme was very likely not directly related to Zhang Sheng's killing tribulation, the immortals operating behind the curtain were almost certainly the same group.
Wei Yuan did not know what these immortals sought to achieve by culling people and stripping land, and asking Yanshi and Bai Kaishui had yielded no answers either. However, knowing that the other side wanted to reduce the population, Wei Yuan had to prepare for a rainy day and do everything possible to increase it.
Only a single year had passed, and though the eight capitals of southern Western Pu had barely begun to change, if the mastermind behind the scenes wished to carry out the same culling in Western Pu, the resulting karmic burden would already be multiplied.
Wei Yuan's journey to the State of Zhao was meant to demonstrate to the entire world, through the King of Zhao, that expanding a population could enable a breakthrough to Scenery Command.
Facts had already proven that even someone who appeared as inept on the surface as the King of Jin was far from useless in reality. The monarchs of the Nine Kingdoms spent their entire lives weathering storms; how could any of them truly be good-for-nothing? Forget about being useless—anyone with slightly worse luck would have perished long ago and gone into reincarnation, whether by a well, beside a ferry, out in the fields, or down beneath a mountain.
Seeing the King of Zhao's precedent, Wei Yuan was confident that the rulers of every state would be tempted. Yet there were two critical factors. The first was an immense surge of mortal fortune washing over one's fate. This was not merely the thirty percent that Immortal Zhao Li ultimately retained; all one hundred percent had to flow through the King of Zhao. Such terrifying mortal fortune, through the sheer act of washing over him, could alter his very root bones and fate—just as a great deluge inevitably reshapes the face of the earth.
On this point alone, without the staggering material backing of Qingming, not a single one of the Nine Kingdoms aside from Southern Qi could have pulled it off.
Second, the King of Zhao's innate talent was extraordinarily rare, high enough to reach immortality. With Immortal Zhao Li's tacit approval, Wei Yuan had repeatedly cast secret arts from the Palace of Grand Beginning to inspect the King of Zhao's fate and geomancy, finally confirming this truth. In terms of talent for cultivation, the King of Zhao had no flaws at all; his natural gifts placed him in the same tier as Ji Liuli and True Monarch Xuanyue, held back entirely by the burden of his mortal throne.
Looking across the world, the King of Qi of Southern Qi was the only ruler who satisfied both conditions. Yet while Southern Qi's national strength could sustain generous welfare in the short term, the cost would be exorbitant. Southern Qi's production remained in the same era as the other Nine Kingdoms, meaning basic necessities—including processed food—cost several times more than in Qingming.
For instance, the exact same barrel of processed cured-meat military rations cost at least four times more to produce in Southern Qi than in Qingming.
Wei Yuan had no intention of letting every monarch of the Nine Kingdoms break through to Scenery Command; that would inevitably plunge the world into chaos. All he wanted was for them to see the benefits of growing their populations and plant that yearning in their minds. That was enough.
At present, Splendor of the Many Realms had taken form, but the overarching evolution of Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was still far from complete. With six great grotto-heavens growing simultaneously, none of them developed fast enough.
Furthermore, because the celestial demon was still present, the Celestial Demon Tribulation could not end. Wei Yuan was currently in a wondrous state suspended between dharma idol and Scenery Command: if he wished to be a dharma idol, he was a dharma idol; if he wished to be Scenery Command, he could be Scenery Command. What he was at any given moment depended entirely on what the situation called for.
This state held an unspoken advantage as well: it bottlenecked every dharma idol cultivator in the world who cultivated an invincible heart.
If they wanted their Dao paths unobstructed, they had to beg Wei Yuan to switch over to Scenery Command, and ensure Zhang Sheng was kept in check so she would not come knocking on their doors to pick a fight. By now, certain perceptive cultivators had begun to vaguely realize that the master-and-disciple-cum-husband-and-wife duo of Zhang Sheng and Wei Yuan were genuinely rogues of the immortal path and bullies of the Dao highway—utterly untouchable.
Especially Wei Yuan: having already slain multiple Scenery Command cultivators and even killed an immortal, he kept a celestial demon wrapped around his waist and refused to lift his foot out of the dharma idol realm.
The celestial demon had pleaded with Wei Yuan multiple times to act like a decent human being, all in vain.
With his arrangements in Zhao complete, Wei Yuan plunged headlong into the State of Ji, activating boundary stones one after another to accelerate the transformation of earth qi and enrich the soil's fertility.
It was now the turn of spring into summer, the most vital grain-producing season for the territories of the Mountain Folk. Wei Yuan attached immense importance to this, burying himself in the fields almost daily, eating and sleeping alongside True Monarch Chuhe.
The vast majority of the ten-odd million people were mobilized to clear land and cultivate crops. Wei Yuan even set field rents at half the average of the Nine Kingdoms and supplied immortal-craft fertilizer at dirt-cheap prices.
Cultivators walking the Dao paths of the Wanhua Golden Core and Growth of All Things were both pulled from the rear to Ji by Wei Yuan, dispersed among the newly established territories to adjust earth qi in real time, prospect for minerals, or refine ore. Those truly lacking any specialty were sent to power stations to supply spiritual qi.
Beyond this cohort of cultivators, Wei Yuan also transferred over half of the young Xu scions—roughly fifty thousand in total. Because slight differences in physical strength remained between men and women during the Body Casting stage, Wei Yuan primarily transferred males, leaving thirty-five thousand females behind to guard Qingming.
Ji was newly opened land, steeped in profound karma and brimming with the richest karmic luck. On one hand, Wei Yuan steadily amassed mortal fortune here; on the other, he allowed those he focused on grooming to come and absorb a share of the pioneer karmic luck. Pioneer karmic luck differed from ordinary mortal fortune: it carried a sliver of potential to alter one's fate and open a clear path along the Dao.
The winter grain planted the previous year would soon be ready for harvest. Wei Yuan even planned to bring all the Palace of Grand Beginning cultivators over to assist in the fields. Most mortals were simple and honest; seeing people on the immortal path laboring just as diligently as themselves, many would feel profound gratitude and contribute karmic luck. With mortal fortune bolstering them, their luck would at least improve a bit.
In this newly opened land of Ji, Wei Yuan had numerous concepts waiting to be realized one by one. The region could hardly be called fertile or wealthy, but its room for growth was vast, and it sat on the front line of confrontation against the immortals. It was the ideal proving ground for his vision: "Gathering the might of the multitude can defy heaven."
True Monarch Chuhe had already cleared fifty million mu of farmland in this region. That figure seemed to be a hidden threshold; once it was reached, Chuhe's mind realm miraculously stabilized and began to nurture a true spirit.
Scenery Command cultivation was likewise divided into three sequential stages.
Early Scenery Command primarily involved stabilizing and perfecting the mind realm. The pure ascended while the turbid sank, like an ancient deity hewing through primordial chaos to open a world anew. This stage was called the Initial Establishment of the Mind Realm.
Once heaven and earth were opened, one had to construct a spirit palace and nurture a spark of heaven-and-earth true spirit. The true spirit corresponded to the unique traits of the entire world, varying from person to person, and served as a rudimentary reflection of some Great Dao of Heaven and Earth. This true spirit was the Dao path the cultivator would pursue from then on, as well as the ferry carrying them across the sea to ascend to the immortal heavens. After ascending to immortality, the true spirit became the foundation for wielding heaven-and-earth authority. As for what authority one could master, one could only choose from the vacant authorities within the scope of one's true spirit.
For example, Old Daoist Chuhe's true spirit was Growth of All Things. Simple and straightforward, it was among the easiest true spirits to cultivate. Though it showed little combative might, its applications were remarkably broad. Prominent clans, sects, and even Great Tang and the Nine Kingdoms all needed to cultivate one or two specialists endowed with this true spirit.
This true spirit made for ideal immortal physicians, which every faction required. The pinnacle true spirit for an immortal physician was Creation from the Void, but it was exceptionally hard to cultivate, with only a handful existing in the present age. Even if someone managed to cultivate it, they would not serve as an ordinary immortal physician; after all, such a true spirit bordered on the Dao itself and pointed straight toward an ultimate attainment.
Yet common though Growth of All Things might be, using it to farm the land like Old Daoist Chuhe was entirely unheard of.
Mid Scenery Command mainly focused on constructing the spirit palace and giving birth to a spark of true spirit; thus, it was called the Opening of the Spirit Palace, also known as the Spirit Palace realm. Old Daoist Chuhe had cleared land, grown grain, nurtured people, and raised chickens, leaping into mid Scenery Command in a single year—a feat truly blessed by heaven and earth, staggering the world.
Upon reaching late Scenery Command, a cultivator progressively comprehended the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth. The true spirit grew increasingly complete until every facet of the pointed Dao was mastered, bringing the true spirit to perfection and entering Scenery Command Great Perfection.
At this stage, the cultivator used the true spirit as a pivot to transform and assimilate the mind realm and the various grotto-heavens. Ultimately, all realms returned to unity and became entirely conceptualized, allowing them to be elevated into the immortal heavens in one leap. There, they would fully unfold, turning from ethereal to real, whereupon the cultivator became the master of a world—an immortal.
Late Scenery Command through Great Perfection was collectively known as Spiritual Dominion Over All Heavens, or the Heavenly Command realm.
Wei Yuan's mind realm was named Splendor of the Many Realms. Its six grotto-heavens had suns and moons complete, formed their own cycle of reincarnation, and possessed heavenly tribulation and lightning punishments—truly peerless in the contemporary world.
Yet for such a world, the difficulty of making a breakthrough was equally unprecedented. Back when Wei Yuan advanced from Dao Foundation to dharma idol, the accumulation he required was a hundred times that of an ordinary cultivator; now, it was even more overwhelming.
Relying solely on the normal intake and output of the six grotto-heavens, he would never advance even until the end of time. Since the conventional path was closed, Wei Yuan had no choice but to take an unconventional one. Thus, amidst his grueling schedule, he began leafing through historical chronicles once more, searching for inspiration.
Among the immortals of the ancient Human Sovereigns, some had possessed mind realms scarcely less extravagant than Wei Yuan's. How had they cultivated and advanced? Discussions on this topic were sparse and heavily veiled in rhetorical euphemisms, yet Wei Yuan believed that if he read enough, he would inevitably uncover some clues.
Just then, a minor complication arose: the young Xu scions left behind in Qingming had entered breeding mode once again. Overnight, every mature maiden had become pregnant. What was truly extraordinary this time was that the first generation of boys and girls born back then had fully matured, from external appearance to internal physique. Though their conduct remained childish, they were already capable of conceiving.
From this deduction, even setting aside mutual fusion and assimilation, this lineage of Xu descendants would take at most a few years to reach full adulthood.
Wei Yuan instinctively sensed that this was bound to be a crucial research topic, so he designated a task area within Splendor of the Many Realms to initiate related studies. With over a hundred thousand Xu descendants now, there was ample data to investigate whether it was better for the human race to mature quickly or slowly.
Chapter 1022