A few days later, Wei Yuan looked at the cover article of the latest issue of *Immortal Path* and sank into deep thought.
The author of the piece was named Yeyue, notorious for being romantic yet utterly irresponsible, an expert at toying with people's hearts. Wei Yuan felt rather displeased about this; in his view, even if Qingming cultivators could not stand upon the moral high ground, they should at least not wallow in the lowlands.
Yet the content of the article was truly astounding. This Golden Pellet path, named *Mirror Lake Water Moon*, bore some resemblance to the *Jade Toad Gazing upon the Moon Chart* that Wei Yuan had once cultivated, only far more intricate. Its underlying principle was identical: drawing the essence of Taiyin water radiance into the body.
The difference lay in their focus. While the Jade Toad Gazing upon the Moon emphasized the foundation of the Dao base—using most of the lunar radiance to temper the physical body—*Mirror Lake Water Moon* centered entirely around a final spark of dharma idol spirituality. Everything else existed merely to orbit this single point. It could be cultivated all the way from Body Casting straight through to a Golden Pellet dharma idol, ultimately condensing into a Water Moon Golden Pellet.
The entire cultivation process was steeped in an eagerness for quick success and clever shortcuts. Everything was paved solely for the sake of the Golden Pellet. By the time cultivators reached the end of their studies, they would know what to do without ever understanding why, ending up with nothing more than an empty Golden Pellet bereft of any formidable supernatural powers.
However, with Wei Yuan's current discernment and cultivation, he could naturally see that the threshold of this path was unprecedentedly low—outrageously, appallingly low. It was low to the point of not even requiring true heritage intent. If one wanted true intent, all they needed to do was stay awake at night and stand on the roof to gaze at the moon.
Wei Yuan closed his eyes in contemplation, quietly making calculations. As two hundred thousand units of human luck melted away, a clear picture formed in his mind.
Taking the traditional immortal sect paths as an example, it was generally accepted that an Earth Tier Dao foundation held hope of achieving a dharma idol. The word "hope" held immense subtlety: a five-percent chance counted as hope, and a ninety-percent chance also counted as hope.
Judging by the current state of the four great immortal sects, the Sword Palace had the lowest probability, at less than ten percent. The Palace of Grand Beginning was somewhat better, though only marginally. Both sects possessed extraordinary dharma idols, so it was only natural that achieving them was exceedingly difficult.
The Baohua Pure Land had the highest rate, capable of reaching twenty percent—excluding golden bodies. The Four Sages Academy fell somewhere in between; because they placed greater emphasis on innate comprehension, their success rate hovered around fifteen percent.
As for a Mortal Tier Dao foundation, there was not the slightest shred of hope.
Therefore, in the cultivation world, "holding hope" simply meant that more often than not, one would fail. Only upon reaching a Heaven Tier Dao foundation, with a thirty-to-forty-percent chance of attaining a dharma idol, could one be said to have "great hope."
After years of development and refinement, the Golden Pellet dharma idol now offered an Earth Tier cultivator willing to switch paths a success rate of over thirty percent. Even a Mortal Tier Dao foundation had a five-percent chance.
Yet any cultivator with an Earth Tier foundation wished to take a gamble on achieving a proper dharma idol, so virtually none were willing to switch to a Golden Pellet. In contrast, Mortal Foundation cultivators charged forward one after another in waves, chasing that sliver of hope.
Fortunately, Qingming possessed a vast number of Dao foundations, and those who achieved Golden Pellets were quite numerous. This gave everyone the illusion that cultivating a Golden Pellet was easy, prompting all to flock to it like ducks to water. In reality, the probability remained a mere five percent.
Yet according to Wei Yuan's calculations, if an Earth Tier cultivator switched to *Mirror Lake Water Moon*, their chance of achieving a Golden Pellet reached an astonishing sixty percent! For a Mortal Tier Dao foundation, the transition offered a ten-percent chance. Even for a template Dao foundation, there was a two-to-three in a thousand chance of success.
Against Qingming's millions of templates, as long as there was a probability, the final count would never be small. Originally, template Dao foundations were considered dead ends with no further path, but if they all switched to *Mirror Lake Water Moon*, Qingming would gain several thousand more Golden Pellets!
Moreover, this cultivation method possessed another formidable trait: if cultivated right from the Body Casting stage all the way up, it allowed one to forge a special Dao foundation called [Mirror Lake]. With this foundation, even someone with the aptitude of a template Dao foundation would have a ten-percent chance of condensing a Golden Pellet.
If development continued at this rate, several decades from now, Qingming might very well boast ten thousand Golden Pellets!
When this result emerged, even Wei Yuan drew a sharp breath of cold air! This Young Master Yeyue had struck with absolute ruthlessness, leaving no room for other paths to survive!
Back when Wei Yuan first entered the Palace of Grand Beginning, the entire sect had over nine thousand Dao foundations, a figure that left the world in awe. Now, Qingming was looking at over ten thousand Golden Pellets. The times had truly changed.
Wei Yuan expended over a million units of human luck to deduce the viability of the entire technique and check for any gaps or flaws. The outcome of his deduction caused his gaze to darken with profound contemplation.
This path comprised three core techniques, twelve auxiliary techniques, six visualization charts, over ten exclusive arts, and six sets of supplementary pill formulas. Simple though the techniques were, Wei Yuan could find virtually no room for improvement. As for the details that clashed with his own subjective impressions, a bit of deeper thought proved that Wei Yuan was invariably the one mistaken.
His past experiences devoted to scientific research made Wei Yuan understand just how difficult it was to achieve absolute flawlessness in foundational fields. In an instant, Wei Yuan realized that this Young Master Yeyue's attainments in the way of Taiyin were earth-shattering, far beyond what he himself could match.
Fortunately, this was hardly the first time Wei Yuan had suffered a blow, and he could take it in stride. Over the past few months, as he read *Mysteries of the Two Academies*, he found an increasing number of articles he could not understand, especially those purely on mathematical theory, which left him utterly baffled. Mathematics was not like immortal cultivation; there was no true intent one could simply comprehend by feeling.
Then came *Heaven and Earth*. In just a few issues, a strange trend had swept through. Recently, investigating the material properties of all things had become popular, with mathematics gradually introduced as an investigative tool. Reading it proved excruciating for Wei Yuan, giving him the familiar sensation of gnawing through *Preliminary Exploration of the Desolate Realm*.
Most vexing of all was a fellow named Wen Guantian. He had written an article specifically summarizing the primary mathematical tools of the present day, subsequently pointing out how scarce these tools were and highlighting vast expanses of blank territory. He argued that new mathematical tools had to be researched and developed to propel the entire academic realm forward.
Before reading that article, Wei Yuan had not even known that so many mathematical tools existed in the world. Yet this Wen Guantian actually dared claim that tools were lacking and required vigorous development?
At times, Wei Yuan wanted to open up and examine how the brains of people like Wen Guantian were built. Last time, when that fellow compared him to a baboon, perhaps he truly had not meant it as an insult.
This further proved a conclusion: the sea of consciousness was not equivalent to raw intellect. That Wen Guantian's sea of consciousness had to be in tatters, or else he wouldn't be stuck midway through his template stage without making an inch of progress.
Overall, however, after the launch of the three premier journals and the four first-tier journals, Qingming's research had entered an explosive golden age. The sheer volume of achievements produced at this moment far exceeded Wei Yuan's expectations, to the point where he could barely keep up with them all.
These articles observed this world from countless different angles, causing Wei Yuan's understanding of the nature of the cosmos to advance by leaps and bounds.
Casting aside stray thoughts, Wei Yuan immediately took up his brush to write separate letters to the Bao Family Old Ancestress, Immortal Zhao Li, and the Old Ancestor of the Ji-Zhao Cui family. He invited them to send a contingent of descendants of "noble lineage and considerable potential" to Qingming for advanced study, setting the duration at twenty years. Wei Yuan guaranteed that among them, there would "certainly" be two or three Golden Pellets, and the vast majority would "hold hope" for a Dao foundation.
Wei Yuan chose his words with great deliberation; the old ancestors of each family would surely understand the true meaning of "noble lineage" and "considerable potential."
Afterward, Wei Yuan summoned Xu Henshui and instructed him to return to the Eastern Jin Xu family to recruit clan descendants between six and twenty years of age who possessed mediocre aptitude and struggled even to cast a foundation, bringing them to settle and study in Qingming.
Wei Yuan carefully detailed the requirements, saying, "The closer these children are by blood to the main lineage, the better, and the higher their status, the better. We don't need exceptional talent—anyone below Earth Tier is fine. Those whose tested bone structure and karmic luck exceed seven chi and qualify them for an immortal sect's grotto-heaven can be left behind. Of course, if the Xu family is willing to let them go, they are welcome as well.
"In short, the useless and hedonistic scions of the main lineages—we want to sweep them all up!"
Xu Henshui said, "There will certainly be no shortage of such children. But coming here to cultivate won't be settled in a decade. Quite a few among them definitely won't be able to afford the expense."
Wei Yuan smiled. "That is easily solved. They can take out loans from Qingming to fund their cultivation. Those capable of repaying can pay interest at ten percent per year. Those who truly cannot pay it back can work for Qingming until their debt is cleared."
Xu Henshui understood instantly and hurried off.
Wei Yuan then set to work arranging dedicated cultivation grounds for Golden Pellet cultivators and assigned tasks to design cultivation formations tailored specifically to the *Mirror Lake Water Moon* path.
The single greatest advantage of *Mirror Lake Water Moon* was that to succeed, one had to be physically present within Qingming, facing Qingming's full moon to visualize and breathe. The moment one stepped outside Qingming, the technique would immediately lose its efficacy.
Wei Yuan naturally understood why this was so. He had incorporated the only ancient full moon in heaven and earth into the foundation of his grotto-heaven, making it far easier to sense the Taiyin lunar radiance within Qingming than in the outside world. In other words, Qingming's moon was genuinely rounder and brighter than the moon outside.
With letters sent directly to the Bao, Cui, and Li families, combined with the Eastern Jin Xu family, other aristocratic families would inevitably hear the news. Provided their relations were not entirely strained, they would surely seek every available channel to send their people in.
Even if their immortal ancestors forbade it, could they truly suppress the yearning of their subordinates who wished to secure a future for their own progeny? A Golden Pellet dharma idol was still a dharma idol, just as a template Dao foundation was still a Dao foundation.
In grand, sprawling families, there was never a lack of individuals of high birth who were completely devoid of talent.
In this manner, these clans would naturally draw closer to Wei Yuan, thereby undermining the very foundation of the Baohua Pure Land.
Having distributed the tasks, Wei Yuan split off a portion of his divine sense and began deducing this path, hoping to see whether bolstering it with karmic luck might raise the success rate even further.
***
Deep in the mountains, a monk with his chest bared sat beneath a pine tree enjoying the cool breeze.
A tall, thin monk walked along the mountain stream, coming to a halt before him and bowing in greeting.
The monk cooling himself sighed. "Can none of you grant me a moment of peace?"
The tall, thin monk replied, "The foreign demon runs rampant, forcing me to disturb Senior Brother's quiet cultivation. Master has spoken: that foreign demon's fame grows by the day, and he is on the verge of gathering formidable momentum. We must strike him head-on. I wonder if Senior Brother has a sound plan?"
The fat monk sighed. "I knew this was what you came to ask. Alas, in my view, he can be considered half a Buddha Child himself. Wouldn't it be better to simply let him be?"
The tall, thin monk shook his head. "Master said that precisely because he is half a Buddha Child, there is zero possibility of converting him. That makes him the greatest foreign demon of all, one that must be slain. Conversely, disciples of foreign doctrines can still be brought into the true Dharma of our Buddhist path if given proper enlightenment."
The fat monk pondered this deeply before finally letting out a soft sigh. "Indeed, fratricide among fellow disciples is always the cruelest. Very well. If you wish to strike a blow against his prestige, there is indeed a candidate. In years past, this man was known as the 'Spear Saint.' A hundred years ago, he entered seclusion to polish away the very last flaw in his spear intent. Calculating the time, it should be about time for him to emerge.
"A century of bitter cultivation, all for perfection. By now, short of the reincarnations of a Tathagata or a King Buddha, there is likely no one below an immortal who can match him. Even Wei Yuan, who after all has yet to reach Scenery Command perfection, would most probably face defeat.
"He and I shared a bond of destiny in former years. If you take this token of mine, you should be able to persuade him to leave the mountain and take the field."
With that, the fat monk tore off a corner of his robe's hem, stained with grease and sweat, and handed it over. The tall, thin monk lightly pinched it between the tips of two fingers, then vanished like the wind.
Chapter 1226