The King of Zhao successfully ascended to Scenery Command, sending shockwaves through the world. The rulers of the other eight states were especially stirred, while their crown princes trembled with dread.
At the advancement ceremony, Wei Yuan's earth-shattering sword strike intercepting the heavenly tribulation also became the talk of the realm.
The sheer speed of Wei Yuan's rise and the greatness of his achievements gradually spread across the mortal realm, bringing him more than a million strands of utterly bizarre karmic luck before he even realized it.
They were "bizarre" because as his cultivation advanced, his six great grotto-heavens slowly matured, and the Prosperity of All Realms continued to improve, Wei Yuan had grown capable of discerning subtle distinctions between strands of karmic luck and faintly sensing their points of origin.
This million or so strands of karmic luck all came from eccentric, bizarre individuals.
Among them were hermit Dao Foundation patriarchs and junior patriarchs secluded in remote wilds, unrecognized geniuses, untalented individuals blaming fate, maverick eccentrics walking deviant paths, and figures of truly abstract styling. Their one common trait was that every single one regarded Wei Yuan as their lifelong kindred spirit, feeling he was cut from the same cloth. And to have someone like him emerge from their ranks made them swell with reflected glory. Whenever they went drinking and boasting, they would invariably begin, "Let me tell you, I've got this friend who's like this and that—"
Receiving this batch of strange karmic luck brought Wei Yuan no joy whatsoever. For the first time, he realized that he had standards after all and wasn't quite as desperate for karmic luck as he had thought. At the very least, taking in this particular harvest did not make him happy in the slightest.
The King of Zhao's ascension to Scenery Command and the assault of otherworldly demons had far-reaching ramifications. The turn of events had exceeded the predictions of many mighty figures, leaving the overall situation a tangled mess in which every faction had to reposition their pieces. Perhaps only two or three supreme beings truly saw through the board, King Buddha naturally being one of them.
For once, Wei Yuan felt no aversion to King Buddha's approach.
The stakes had been immense. Had the King of Zhao perished, it would not only have dragged Immortal Zhao Li down to perish alongside him, but the unraveling of the Martial Ancestor's overarching design would also have plunged the world into unimaginable turmoil. Furthermore, Immortal Ancestor Zhao Li had always stood by Wei Yuan, meaning Wei Yuan's side would have lost a heavy-hitting Immortal.
At the critical juncture, King Buddha had pierced the veil of illusions, allowing Wei Yuan to see where the mighty figures had placed their pieces. The significance of this extended far beyond the immediate moment; should Wei Yuan ascend to immortality in the future, his understanding of the methods these great figures used to lay their plans would allow him to navigate such schemes with composure.
Moreover, King Buddha had exerted no secret influence during this process, nor used any trickery to coerce Wei Yuan into a predetermined choice, leaving him entirely free to choose according to his true heart.
Perhaps it could be said that King Buddha understood Wei Yuan and trusted that he would ultimately choose to aid the King of Zhao. But at least this time, Wei Yuan had felt respected, and had deeply experienced the staggering weight of responsibility that came with making a choice at a pivotal juncture in history.
In that moment, the fate of the realm had hinged upon Wei Yuan's single thought. Standing at such a fulcrum capable of swaying the world's tides, what he felt was not the thrill of wielding the power to decide, but the crushing weight of responsibility and karma that accompanied that power. For a brief second, a thought had even crossed his mind: if one's talent were mediocre, living a life neatly and transparently orchestrated by mighty figures might not be so bad after all.
Regardless, the stick of incense Wei Yuan had offered at the time was offered with complete sincerity.
Now that all sides were rearranging their strategies, a period of calm was likely to follow. The King of Zhao's ascension to Scenery Command would also exert profound ripples across the royal houses of the various states and even the Tang dynasty itself; the aftershocks had already rippled across the realm, leaving no one untouched.
Wei Yuan took advantage of this peaceful interval to reorganize Qingming once again.
By now, the Qingming territory held seventy million people, including over ten million guilty commoners and military slaves. These people occupied the lowest tier in Qingming's military merit system, required to follow orders and perform various forms of hard labor, while Qingming only guaranteed them food and warmth. To external refugees, however, the mere promise of food and shelter was more than enough to make them pay any price.
Small streams of displaced refugees continuously and spontaneously fled toward Qingming from Western Jin and Zhao. Both states turned a blind eye to this, while Wei Yuan established multiple supply stations a hundred li from Qingming; once refugees reached these stations, they were practically in Qingming.
Over the past ten-odd years, however, most refugees from the two states capable of making the journey had already arrived, leaving few behind. The distance displaced folk could travel was limited, and the vast majority could not trek thousands of li.
Moreover, thanks to Zhao's implementation of a welfare system, the lands bordering Qingming planted vast tracts of mulberry and cotton and produced abundant spiritual wood and medicinal herbs, growing increasingly prosperous. The local populace settled down, no longer willing to migrate.
Because Immortal Zhao Li also needed to gather mortal luck, Wei Yuan stopped drawing refugees from Zhao. Qingming's population growth now relied primarily on refugees from Western Jin and natural reproduction.
In terms of natural growth, the youths of the Xu family from back then had multiplied across several generations, their numbers now nearing five hundred thousand! Among them, over thirty thousand had achieved template Dao foundations alone. The vast majority of the Xu family youths used combat templates, forming the core backbone of numerous military units.
By this time, a new session of the immortal sects' unified examination had concluded. The recruitment quota requested by Wei Yuan's Water Moon Hall was so outrageous that the Palace of Grand Beginning slashed a digit off the end, capping it at just one hundred formal disciples. However, there was no restriction on outer apprentices, so aspirants across the world moved at the mere whisper of the news, resulting in ten thousand outer apprentices being taken in all at once!
Wei Yuan transported all these children to Qingming, where they began receiving centralized, systematic foundational education and Body Casting training. Within a few years, they would become the backbone of Qingming's next generation.
Over the past five years, Qingming had hosted a Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony every year. Candidates from the Mountain Folk territories were gathered and brought to Qingming to attend the ceremony before returning home.
The most recent Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony alone had produced over forty thousand template Dao foundations, thirty thousand of which belonged to Qingming.
Over the five years combined, Qingming had added more than a hundred thousand template cultivators. The realm now possessed ten million Body Casting cultivators and nearly three hundred thousand Dao Foundation cultivators, boasting immense, terrifying strength.
Within the prominent clans and noble families, the prevailing attitude also began to shift as their template Dao foundations increased. Originally, template Dao foundations faced widespread discrimination; coupled with the fact that most disciples who attained template foundations came from branch families, they had initially been treated with disdain in their clans.
However, as Qingming progressively lowered the threshold for its template Dao foundations, the number of template Dao foundations in various clans skyrocketed. The Ji-Zhao Cui family, for instance, had never missed a single batch from the very first session to the latest; their clan now boasted over nine thousand template Dao foundations—ten times the number of regular Dao foundations they had.
All template cultivators traced their training back to Qingming. The reality of shared prejudice and oppression naturally united them, giving rise to an increasingly powerful faction that even the clan elders dared not dismiss. What was more, direct-line Dao Foundation cultivators often had grandiose ambitions beyond their abilities, whereas template cultivators had the doctrine of solid, stable foundations etched into their very bones; when put to work, one template cultivator easily outperformed several direct-line peers.
The templates' contributions to their clans were tangible, and they were obedient and effective, gradually taking control of many lower-level responsibilities and modest powers. This cascade of changes was precisely what Wei Yuan wished to see.
Over these years, Xu Shiba had attained the perfected Dharma Idol stage, and Wei Ying had also successfully advanced to Dharma Idol with a pure Taiyin Dharma Idol, her future boundless. The overall strength of Water Moon Hall naturally rose with the tide, flourishing day by day. Rising right alongside their cultivation were the disciples' coin pouches and their fiery tempers.
At this point, Wei Yuan figured that if Demon Venerable Suchan knew of this in the underworld—seeing disciples flourishing everywhere under his legacy—he would surely feel gratified.
With the explosion of Dao foundations, the Dharma Idol cultivators were not idle either. At a fixed time each year, Wei Yuan led them to the Desolate Realm for a vacation. Now they didn't just soak up the sun; they also fought side by side with the Power Shamans to fend off Flame Demons, and many had become close friends with the shamans.
During this period, two minor episodes occurred. First, Wei Yuan ran into Yao Lan. Reunited once more, Yao Lan was ecstatic, her massive claws swooping down like the canopy of heaven, eager to scoop up this adorable little darling and knead him vigorously in her grasp!
How could Wei Yuan possibly let her catch him now? Dodging left and right, he barely slipped free from her demonic paws.
Only after Yao Lan came to terms with reality and abandoned her improper designs were the two able to sit together and reminisce.
Only then did Wei Yuan learn that after the battle against the Heavenly Pillar, when Ronglong perished and Wei Yuan returned to the human realm, Yao Lan thought he was dead. In her grief, she resigned from all her duties, including that of deputy city lord, and headed to Fengmang Fortress. There, she fought Flame Demons every day, swearing to tear down the Heavenly Pillars, slay every last Flame Demon, and avenge Wei Yuan.
Yao Lan's actions caused a sensation among the Power Shamans; none of them could fathom why someone blessed with Yao Lan's divine, celestial beauty would go to such extremes for an ugly little shaman!
Only the Power Shamans of Fengmang Fortress knew a bit of the truth, and they had gladly welcomed her. Recently, she had even risen to become the Lord of Fengmang Fortress by virtue of her battlefield exploits.
Now, tempered by years of bloody warfare, Yao Lan's aura had undergone an earth-shaking transformation. Sitting before her, Wei Yuan felt like a tiny kitten before its master, as waves of scorching heat, feral wildness, and lethal intensity rolled over him, as if confronting a primeval tyrannosaur. Yao Lan's combat strength now ranked securely among the very top of Desolate Shamans.
Her physique had grown a full size larger, and her exposed skin was covered in scars, yet her eyes remained as bright and clear as ever.
Man and shaman drank and caught up on old times.
In the distance, the three suns merged into one, dyeing half the sky in molten gold and crimson. Their silhouettes stretched long across the red earth, like two dark threads binding the scarlet wilderness and endless skies into a single scroll of art.
Chapter 1079