That calamity ash could also undergo change was a conclusion of immense significance to Wei Yuan. It meant that the dead world beyond the heavens might still have a chance at revival.
For hundreds of thousands of years across multiple generations, immortals had been utterly helpless before calamity ash. Who could have thought that today, a minor template Dao Foundation cultivator would bring a glimmer of dawn to this hopeless world?
Wei Yuan immediately exercised his authority, raising the evaluation of each of these papers by one grade while allocating five thousand taels of immortal silver in matching research funds.
Indeed—a full five thousand taels. Within Qingming, matching research funding followed established regulations. For template cultivators like Wen Guantian, standard wages were roughly ten taels of immortal silver per month. Because he concurrently served as a research elder for major projects like the power loom, he received an additional elder's stipend, which was substantially higher; combined, his monthly pay came to around a hundred taels of immortal silver.
The project Wei Yuan approved fell under pure theoretical research and consumed essentially no materials. Research grants were thus benchmarked against the researcher's annual salary, in principle not exceeding ten times that amount.
Wen Guantian's base annual salary was merely one hundred and twenty taels. Wei Yuan granting five thousand was already the result of exercising his authority as Realm Lord, supplemented by tagging the project as both "multi-person" and "vital."
Though anxious in his heart, Wei Yuan understood that haste made waste. Moreover, Qingming had over a dozen template researchers on par with Wen Guantian, and he could not show favoritism.
Furthermore, based on Wei Yuan's research experience in the world beyond the heavens, pure theoretical work was inherently unpredictable. One might wake from a night's sleep with sudden clarity, or one might labor for decades without a single breakthrough.
Wei Yuan had once shared this sentiment with a genius researcher at Umbrella Corporation, who hadn't responded.
Having settled the matter, Wei Yuan searched through the Splendor of All Realms and uncovered more scattered data. These were field reports from various regions noting that a handful of template Dao Foundation cultivators had undergone shifts in their innate talent; the quality of their Dao foundations had mutated and improved, reaching the standard of Mortal tier.
Altogether there were around a hundred such cases, but scattered across vast Qingming, they were entirely inconspicuous. Had Wei Yuan not been paying special attention to template Dao foundations and possessed the ability to divide his divine sense into myriad strands, he might easily have overlooked them.
Among these cases, only a few reports mentioned that the advancement of their Dao foundations occurred after ingesting Base-Consolidating Pills, hinting at a possible correlation.
Additionally, the reports noted that many individuals suffered symptoms like abdominal distension and diarrhea after taking Base-Consolidating Pills, possibly because their poor constitutions could not withstand the medicinal potency.
Only then did Wei Yuan recall that the previous batch of Base-Consolidating Pills had been concocted using essences excavated from the ancestral lands of Immortal Mountain. They did indeed carry a minuscule chance of enhancing aptitude, though the probability was vanishingly low. Under ordinary circumstances, it was negligible, but once the total reached as many as two hundred thousand pills, even a one-in-ten-thousand chance would yield twenty advancing cultivators.
As it turned out, the probability for that batch was slightly higher than one in ten thousand, reaching six in ten thousand.
Stirred by this realization, Wei Yuan's true body within the grand formation opened its eyes and gazed at the swirling mass of immortal mist before him. From time to time, wisps of immortal qi emerged from the void and converged into the mist.
This immortal mist was the concentrated essence of immortal power that Wei Yuan had steadily drawn out using the World-Refining Grand Formation. He had initially planned to refine this clump into spiritual pills specifically for late-stage and pinnacle Dharma Idol cultivators, but he had now changed his mind.
The reason was simple: Dharma Idol cultivators were still far too few. Presently, Qingming had only around two hundred ordinary Dharma Idols of various kinds and just over a thousand Golden Pellet Dharma Idols—fewer than two thousand in total.
Dharma Idol cultivators were hardly common goods; in Great Tang, they were exceptionally rare. Even the most mediocre Dharma Idol could secure an official post anywhere across the Nine Kingdoms. If one traveled to a border region, they could establish a sect across an entire commandery, truly worthy of being called a local hegemon.
By contrast, Dao Foundation patriarchs could only settle in counties and townships. Those below late-stage Dao Foundation could not even gain a footing in a county seat, forced to seek sanctuaries deep in untamed forests; thus, they could at best be described as "ruling the countryside."
For Qingming to gather over two hundred Dharma Idols was already no small feat; at least sixty or seventy had been drawn in by Wei Yuan's resettlement initiative. These two hundred-odd Dharma Idols were genuine long-term residents of Qingming, having relocated their families and descendants as well.
Compared to template Dao foundations, Golden Pellet Dharma Idols had a considerably higher barrier to entry. Over the years, Qingming had managed to produce only a thousand-odd, more than half of whom were requisitioned by the military. Only four or five hundred were dispersed across civilian industries, and every single one was in high demand.
For instance, the looms Wen Guantian designed specifically to weave fabric for Dharma Idols required Golden Pellet Dharma Idols to operate.
Under ordinary circumstances, anyone would value Dharma Idols more. Even a Golden Pellet Dharma Idol was vastly stronger than an Earth-tier Dao Foundation pinnacle cultivator. Yet Wei Yuan now realized that the disparity in numbers between the two groups was simply immense.
Template Dao foundations already exceeded a million. Under the weight of such a terrifying number, any low-probability event was bound to manifest—the dozen-plus research geniuses like Wen Guantian were proof of that.
By comparison, there were fewer than two thousand Dharma Idol cultivators in total; miracles were hard to come by.
His mind made up, Wei Yuan separated thousands of strands of divine sense and carried the cloud of immortal mist into an adjacent hall. Hollowed out from the mountain's core, the hall rose several dozen zhang high. At its center stood an enormous pill furnace surrounded by eight formations, each corresponding to a different exotic flame to accommodate varied pill formulas.
Now that Wei Yuan placed exceptional value on template Dao foundations, concocting Base-Consolidating Pills for them warranted greater care. He could no longer make do with the empty-handed, off-the-cuff alchemy that immortals used to brush off low-tier cultivators.
Wei Yuan seated himself beside the furnace. Normally, the formula for Base-Consolidating Pills required igniting only a single exotic flame formation. Yet Wei Yuan did not begin immediately; instead, he simulated the process repeatedly within the Splendor of All Realms before finally activating five formations of exotic flame.
The exotic flames of the pill formations were essentially methods of infusing the furnace with diverse spiritual vapors and spiritual qi. The more exotic flames employed, the more intricate the medicinal properties and the greater the pill's potency—though the difficulty of concoction escalated steeply.
Wei Yuan had initially considered engaging all eight formations, but simulations in the Splendor of All Realms showed that eight flames were excessively powerful, ruining nine out of ten batches. He had relented, ultimately striking a balance between efficacy and success rate by using five.
With Wei Yuan's current alchemical skill, three to six formations were reserved for refining Dharma Idol pills, while seven or eight were used for Scenery Command pills. Employing five formations just to refine humble Base-Consolidating Pills showed how seriously he treated the endeavor.
In an instant, the formations activated. Five torrents of flame, carrying distinct spiritual currents, blasted into the furnace as its temperature steadily rose to a balanced equilibrium.
Wei Yuan tossed all the immortal mist inside, then casually reached out and conjured a mass of soil the size of a house from thin air.
Yet upon second thought, he stuffed the soil back into the mountain. Then, several dozen canisters from the rear storehouse—each weighing several hundred jin—flew over, their lids popping open on their own to pour the military rations inside into the furnace. Only then did Wei Yuan cast the immortal mist in.
In the previous batch of Base-Consolidating Pills, many people had suffered bloating and diarrhea simply because they couldn't digest the dirt and stones used as pill ingredients. The stomachs of template cultivators were not yet robust enough; fed the exact same recipe, Golden Pellet Dharma Idols suffered no issues whatsoever, capable of digesting solid rock.
However, Wei Yuan dared not use this trick on Scenery Command cultivators. For one, Scenery Command spiritual pills were precious and few in number, making mundane soil entirely unnecessary. For another, Scenery Command experts possessed keen eyesight, and Wei Yuan worried they might notice he had used ordinary dirt. Had he at least added spiritual soil, he wouldn't have felt so guilty.
Yet after tossing in the canned military rations of meat and vegetables, Wei Yuan still felt something was missing. With a shift of his thought, an avatar opened a secret vault, retrieved a chest of glossy black soil, and delivered it to the alchemy hall.
Wei Yuan dumped the entire chest of soil into the furnace. Only then was he satisfied, settling in to focus his concentration on refining the pills.
This black soil was no ordinary dirt. Long ago, the ancestors of the Lu clan had buried something unknown beneath Ancestral Mountain, spilling blood everywhere. This soil had been soaked in that unknown blood, maturing over thousands of years; by the time Wei Yuan excavated it, it resembled an ore vein.
Even a single strand of an immortal's hair was prime spiritual material, to say nothing of spilled blood. In the previous batch of Base-Consolidating Pills, Wei Yuan had mixed in a bit of this black blood-soil.
This time, Wei Yuan simply increased the amount of blood-soil tenfold; the medicinal potency was sure to be formidable.
Wei Yuan controlled the ingredients within the furnace with thousands of strands of divine sense, feeling a faint ache as he did. Having his divine sense roasted by the alchemical fire served as a form of cultivation in itself.
The refinement proceeded smoothly. Using Wei Yuan's alchemical skill to refine Dao Foundation pills was truly like slaughtering a chicken with a forty-zhang blade. Success was a given; the only question was to what degree.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye. The pill qi had formed, awaiting only the final opening of the furnace. Wei Yuan glanced left and right, feeling a touch of regret that Xu Henshui wasn't around.
Wei Yuan's alchemy had been learned from Xu Henshui, and Master Xu was a man of wonderfully expressive faces. Whenever Wei Yuan refined pills without Xu Henshui present, half the fun was lost.
Summoning Xu Henshui now would feel too deliberate. Wei Yuan looked at the five-zhang-tall dedicated furnace, sighed, and arranged several shadow-recording orbs before finally unsealing the furnace.
The moment the furnace lid opened, the internal universe interacted with the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth. In an instant, countless pill spheres shimmering with ethereal immortal light coalesced. The pill vapors stimulated one another, growing ever more fiery until they merged into a slender, blindingly brilliant beam of light that punched straight through the grand formation and shot into the vault of heaven!
Across the vaulted ceiling of the hall, bright red tribulation clouds suddenly rippled into being, resembling fish scales!
Wei Yuan was thoroughly astonished. Refining mere cultivation pills for the Dao Foundation could draw a heavenly tribulation? Was the Heavenly Dao intentionally targeting him?
Curses aside, Wei Yuan dared not be careless in the slightest. With a wave of his broad sleeve, he unleashed vast Dao power to seize all the newly born pills that were flying about frantically, looking for a way to escape.
At the same time, he mobilized the power of the Pure Land Grotto-Heaven. A wave of serene Buddhist light enveloped the tribulation clouds at the ceiling, pitting Buddhist power against the heavenly tribulation to directly weaken the clouds.
Back when nine sticks of pure incense appeared in the small temple of the Pure Land, though King Buddha had not yet returned to his seat, additional content had appeared within Wei Yuan's Indestructible Dharma of Emptiness and Form. Most of it consisted of doctrinal teachings on delivering oneself and others. This was the fundamental method of King Buddha's cultivation; all paths passed down by King Buddha had to take this as their foundation.
Yet Wei Yuan had long since developed his own ideas. Although the Three Realms Ruyi Sutra had seen no major breakthroughs, it was steadily being fleshed out with details, gradually building a solid theoretical framework. In Wei Yuan's eyes, King Buddha was simply smuggling in his own agenda: instead of straightforwardly passing down divine abilities, he forced one to study his doctrines first.
Besides the scriptures, three divine abilities had also appeared. In the eyes of immortals, these were minor divine abilities, but being usable at the Scenery Command realm was rare indeed.
Wei Yuan now had a vague inkling that whether an immortal could wield heavy power lightly—allowing Scenery Command cultivators to cast immortal arts—was one criterion for distinguishing truly powerful immortals from the rest.
Among the divine abilities King Buddha transmitted was a method specifically designed to counter heavenly tribulations. Encountering an unexpected tribulation here, Wei Yuan put it to use.
Wei Yuan watched as layers of Buddhist light attached directly to the tribulation clouds, penetrating inward and seemingly converting a portion of the cloud into Buddhist light itself. Wherever the Buddhist light spread, the tribulation clouds thinned by thirty percent!
Wei Yuan was stunned. He had never imagined the Buddhist method for facing tribulations could be so domineering, directly laying hands on the tribulation clouds themselves! Weakening the clouds effectively severed the roots of the heavenly tribulation; no matter how the tribulation shifted, it could conjure no further tricks.
In contrast, Wei Yuan had previously relied solely on physical strength and magical power to withstand tribulations head-on. The superiority of this method was plain to see.
Beneath the Buddhist light, the swath of heavenly fire descending from the clouds weakened by thirty percent, easily extinguished by sword qi unleashed from Wei Yuan's fourth grotto-heaven. Because this heavenly tribulation targeted the batch of pills rather than Wei Yuan himself, it was not particularly potent to begin with; after a moment, it began to wane, and the falling heavenly fire dwindled steadily.
Watching the batch of pills successfully overcome the tribulation, wisps of heaven-and-earth origin qi began to seep from the clouds and heavenly fire, absorbed by the surviving pills and further elevating their quality.
Yet as Wei Yuan watched, his expression grew increasingly solemn. Judging solely by this tribulation, the profound subtlety of King Buddha's tribulation-crossing method surpassed even the tribulation produced by this world's Heavenly Dao. For Buddhist light to directly convert tribulation clouds was an idea Wei Yuan had never even conceived.
With a tribulation method this brilliant, it was no wonder the Baohua Pure Land harbored so many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—the difficulty of their tribulations was on an entirely different scale.
Yet Wei Yuan considered a level deeper: why had this tribulation method been delivered at this exact moment? What was the intention behind it?
Did King Buddha truly wish to help Wei Yuan, or was he trying to show that the Pure Land's foundation surpassed even this world's Heavenly Dao?
Chapter 1196