Qingming Immortal City had once again turned into a colossal construction site, with the primary works concentrated on the Hall of Mountains and Seas. Around the Hall of Mountains and Seas, eight Halls of Mountains and Rivers of identical size were being erected in close proximity. Once refined and fused into a single whole, the existing Hall of Mountains and Seas would expand to nine times its original size.
This was a staggering undertaking. Upon completion, the Grand Hall of Mountains and Rivers would be a magnificent structure a hundred and fifty zhang across and eighty zhang tall, clearly visible from a hundred li away.
Once the entire Hall of Mountains and Rivers was finished, the topographical map within it would be able to cover all nine states of Great Tang, as well as portions of the surrounding regions. Wei Yuan had even reserved plots around the hall so that another ring could be built later, expanding it to sixteen times its original size.
At present, the Hall of Mountains and Seas was rather cramped; if it displayed Western Jin, it could not display Yizhou, and it was no longer sufficient for their needs.
The Hall of Mountains and Rivers was itself a dharma artifact. Because of its immense scale, Wei Yuan had originally asked True Monarch Xuanyue to intervene just to barely forge it, though its overall quality was quite low. Now, once the nine halls were constructed, forging them into a unified artifact would require Immortal Monarch Yanshi's assistance to merge the nine into one.
However, the primary difficulty of this dharma artifact lay in refining the entire structure into a unified whole; its initial quality was not particularly important. Thereafter, it would merely require constant refining and polishing with Dao power, and its quality would gradually improve. At the Dao Foundation artifact stage, it only needed Dao Foundation cultivators to slowly refine it.
During the dharma artifact stage, as its quality rose, the range of perception covered by the Hall of Mountains and Rivers would grow ever wider. At this stage, it could reflect real-time shifts in the earth veins and celestial timings of Qingming and its surroundings. At the Dharma Idol magic treasure stage, it could cover Western Jin, the State of Zhao, the State of Ji, and Yizhou. Once upgraded to the Scenery Command numinous treasure stage, it would encompass all nine states of Great Tang and detect general shifts in geomancy and karmic luck.
If it could ever be refined into an immortal artifact, who knew what divine abilities it might possess?
Returning to the immortal city from New City, Wei Yuan paused in midair for a moment to admire the construction site of the Hall of Mountains and Rivers.
The construction site was extraordinarily bustling at the moment. Tens of thousands of template Dao Foundation cultivators flew up and down like bees, maneuvering pieces of building materials into their designated positions.
Multiple Golden Core Dharma Idols floated in the air, either employing their powerful divine senses to oversee and direct the overall progress of the project, or drawing upon their immense individual strength to hoist and install oversized, heavy components directly into place.
Clinging to the exterior facade of the original Hall of Mountains and Rivers, thousands of Dao Foundation cultivators were refining the hall section by section. Every time every part had been refined once through, its overall quality would advance a notch, continuing until it reached the perfection of a dharma artifact.
This was work that template Dao Foundation cultivators were capable of doing; it required no exceptional talents. Back before Wei Yuan attained the Dharma Idol realm, his individual Dao power was equivalent to that of a thousand template Dao Foundations, which had indeed appeared shocking at the time.
Yet in a monumental project like the refinement of the Hall of Mountains and Rivers, the impact Wei Yuan could have was no longer conspicuous. Qingming now possessed hundreds of thousands of template Dao Foundations; at the Hall of Mountains and Rivers alone, ten thousand template Daoist cultivators rotated in shifts to conduct the refinement, equivalent to ten Wei Yuans of old working around the clock.
From the perspective of grand engineering projects, Wei Yuan was indeed dispensable to Qingming now.
Once the Hall of Mountains and Rivers was elevated to a perfected Dao Foundation artifact, Dharma Idol cultivators would take over the refinement, first refining it into a magic treasure and then advancing it step by step.
Qingming currently had just over a hundred Golden Core Dharma Idols, but the number increased with every passing year. In the foreseeable future, a thousand Golden Cores would be no mere dream.
Wei Yuan watched the construction progress for a while before entering the Hall of Mountains and Rivers.
On the sand table within the hall, three great roads could be seen extending outward from Qingming: one went straight to the Jin capital; another headed north along the edge of the Xu family's territory toward the northern frontier; and the third ran east from Hanyang Pass, traversing the southern five commanderies toward the State of Zhao.
On the map of the southern five commanderies, though covered in snow and ice, clear layouts of farmland could be seen. Along many rivers were construction sites large and small, where extensive water conservancy projects were underway. Mining operations had also begun appearing in the mineral-rich regions, accompanied by multiple roads winding into the rugged terrain.
To extract minerals from these areas, roads and wharves had to be built first, and primary smelting workshops set up on-site so that what was transported out would be refined ingots.
Qingming now had mature, comprehensive procedures for engineering and construction. Furthermore, every few months—or a year at most—new technologies would emerge and replace the old.
Flourishing of the Many Realms had compiled statistics showing that most of the new techniques originated from front-line template Dao Foundation cultivators. Consequently, Wei Yuan had established various incentive programs specifically to encourage innovation among front-line cultivators.
Standing in midair within the Hall of Mountains and Rivers, Wei Yuan felt as though he were gazing upon the actual land of the State of Jin. The transformation of the southern five commanderies had already yielded initial results; in just the past season, several million people had migrated into the southern five commanderies from various regions, and even more would follow.
Among the seventy million people currently in the southern five commanderies, over five million strands of human luck had already been contributed. Once Wei Yuan completely resolved issues of food and warmth and promoted Body Casting and enlightenment, he could harvest another twenty to thirty million strands.
Yet the main contribution of karmic luck still came from Qingming and Yizhou. At this moment, the azure qi surged within Wei Yuan's body, churning into an azure ocean and turning the entire vault of Flourishing of the Many Realms a deep, greyish azure.
Beneath the one hundred million strands of human luck that Wei Yuan displayed for the immortals in the heavens, another one hundred million strands lay hidden.
Thus, as Wei Yuan overlooked the land of Western Jin, he was brimming with confidence. Once this region's transformation was complete, it too would become a fertile land with a population of over a billion, capable of contributing upwards of a hundred million strands of human luck.
By now, Qingming's grand momentum had taken form. Wei Yuan no longer bothered to hide anything, expanding outward brazenly and transforming one region after another. Holding two hundred million strands of human luck in his grasp, Wei Yuan could already unleash two immortal-slaying strikes.
If Cangwu had previously harbored any lingering illusions of luck, in the face of two consecutive immortal-slaying slashes from Wei Yuan, Cangwu was unwilling to even poke his head out.
Looking across the world, immortals were neither few nor many. Every immortal believed themselves to be unique, each holding more or less authority over heaven and earth; none of them was willing to sacrifice themselves just to deplete Wei Yuan's immortal-slaying strikes.
Therefore, armed with two hundred million strands of human luck, Wei Yuan's power snowballed. If he was not stopped now, it would not be long before he commanded three hundred million, four hundred million, or even more strands of human luck, becoming completely unstoppable.
This was an open gambit; this was the majestic, unassailable momentum of the grand trend.
In the midst of his satisfaction, Wei Yuan carefully extracted several tens of thousands of strands of human luck and sent them across the distance to the King of Jin. This was not because Wei Yuan was breaking his word or being stingy, but because Western Jin had recently generated far more human luck than Wei Yuan had anticipated. In many places, people had yet to see any tangible benefits; merely hearing that the Prince of Wei was coming had sent them into raptures of joy, offering up wave after wave of human luck.
Many literati sighed with emotion, noting that this was precisely what was meant by "welcoming the army with baskets of rice and jars of wine."
No sooner had the literati finished their lamentations and praise than the writing fees from the Development Bureau arrived.
Though the amount was modest, the literati accepted it with jubilation. After all, this was compensation from the superior state of Qingming. The sum did not matter; it represented validation: "This gentleman is someone who receives Qingming silver!"
Wei Yuan naturally had no idea of such trivialities. All he needed to do now was sit firmly in Qingming, completely unmoved by the eight winds, focusing entirely on expanding his army and preparing for war.
Meanwhile, in the State of Ji, Li Zhi's military might grew sharper by the day. He had repeatedly repelled multiple suppression campaigns by the main Ji army, firmly holding the four southern commanderies and beginning to encroach upon two neighboring commanderies.
The King of Ji accelerated the fulfillment of his secret pact with Wei Yuan. All manner of arms and military equipment began flowing continuously from the State of Zhao, while unit after unit secretly re-equipped and trained. Yet the King of Ji held back, watching passively as the southern Ji armies suffered defeat after defeat, refusing to deploy the new army to the battlefield. Instead, he kept training them and expanding their ranks.
The mighty figures seated high in the immortal heavens were also growing restless, playing trump cards and covert moves one after another.
Wei Yuan naturally did not know that this had a great deal to do with him. By this point, someone had already realized that Wei Yuan's grand momentum was nearing completion, and was preparing to strike to halt his burgeoning momentum.
Soon, two pieces of news reached Wei Yuan almost simultaneously. First, True Monarch Zhu Yan, the master of the Haotian Abbey of the Palace of Grand Beginning, experienced a sudden premonition—he felt that the moment of his ascension to immortality had arrived!
Second, Immortal Zhao Li had issued a summons, urgently inviting Wei Yuan to the State of Zhao for a meeting.
Chapter 1115