Within the Sea of Bitterness, all was tranquil, without a ripple stirring the surface.
Wei Yuan's avatar sat cross-legged in the middle of the sea with eyes closed in contemplation, meditating on the Great Dao of the Sea of Bitterness while waiting for the Pure Land's counterattack.
From what Wei Yuan knew of the Pure Land's conduct, the Bodhisattvas would not tolerate a speck of sand in their eyes; having suffered such a massive loss last time, there was no way they would let the matter rest. It was just that the Bodhisattvas made decisions exceedingly slowly. Wei Yuan had waited from the fifth year of Zhaoning all the way to the sixth, yet nothing had followed.
Even so, having learned from past experience, Wei Yuan's avatar no longer stood with hands clasped behind his back. Instead, he sat cross-legged, keeping only his head and shoulders above the water line. That way, if an enormous hand swept across again, it would take off his head at most, leaving the avatar with only light injuries.
Though he lacked height and thus received less comprehension enhancement than before, Wei Yuan felt that he already possessed world-astonishing intellect and was not short of this little bit of comprehension. At the very least, whenever he glanced through any text, he could immediately tell right from wrong, which was more than enough.
At times Wei Yuan also wondered: the Bodhisattvas certainly could not be slow to react; processing tens of thousands of matters at once should be effortless for them. For there to be no movement for such a long time, they had to be busy—so busy that they could not bother with a trivial matter like him. In that case, what were they busy with?
For reasons he could not fathom, the moment this thought arose, an instinctive terror would surge within Wei Yuan, and he would subconsciously shy away from the question.
While the Sea of Bitterness remained serene, Qingming was an entirely different story, where a frenzy over fruition ranks was sweeping through.
During the implementation of the official-rank fruition system, all manner of problems had quickly surfaced. First and foremost was that there were too many monks and too little porridge; far too few fruitions had been released. Furthermore, the design of the first batch of fruitions was fundamentally flawed.
The Buddhist path had long possessed a mature system. The might and divine powers of Bodhisattvas and Arhats had been codified in scriptures ages ago, while Vajras and mighty warriors were subordinate to fruitions, effectively attached to them. Every Bodhisattva formed an independent lineage, as did a handful of great Arhats. Hence, the system in the Sutra of Three Realms had required no innovation—it was simply copied over directly. The trouble had arisen with the official-rank fruitions.
Most of the fruitions released in Qingming's first batch were tied to bureaucratic offices, such as Magistrate of Shanbei or Prefect of Qingjiang. That was where the issue lay. These posts actually required real administrative work. Positions governing a locality, such as city lord, county magistrate, and prefect, demanded exceptionally high qualifications; an official had to possess at least the fundamental competence to maintain order and care for the populace. Bringing prosperity to a region was not something that could be handled purely through profound cultivation and sufficient attainment in the Dao. Many senior cultivators were unfit to serve even as county magistrates.
Other fruitions, by contrast—such as military commanders or even shadow agencies tasked with striking rival sects—did not require knowing so much. So long as one's cultivation was high and one's combat prowess fierce, it was enough.
When Wei Yuan rolled out the first batch of fruitions, his original thought had been to grant Daoist arts and divine powers to the officials governing each region, greatly enhancing their might so they would not fear assassination and could even keep their territories under control.
Yet the actual outcome was that most of those with the highest resonance for the fruitions were utterly unsuited to governance. The qualities needed to administer a locality and those needed for cultivation belonged to two completely different systems.
However, the fruitions had already been announced, and the examinations were complete. Over two hundred thousand candidates had passed, and the list had to be capped at ten thousand. At this stage, backing out was impossible; they could only continue to refine the system.
Fortunately, when in doubt, turn to the Splendor of the Many Realms.
Relying on the twenty-five thousand strands of divine intent that made him peerless across Qingming, Wei Yuan drew on the strengths and offset the weaknesses of several thousand solutions generated by the Splendor of the Many Realms, integrating them all together. After a lengthy effort, he finally introduced a new plan.
This new plan took a merit level system as its core, replacing the official-rank fruition system. The fruitions remained fruitions, but they were no longer strictly bound to bureaucratic posts; instead, they were tied to merit levels.
So-called merit came from two sources: first, meritorious service; second, faith.
Devout faith in Wei Yuan would steadily generate merit. In reality, this portion was the aspiration power produced by believers. What had once been a formless, intangible substance grasped only intuitively by great figures was now quantified directly in true Qingming fashion and credited to each individual's name.
A single template Dao Foundation cultivating devoutly for a day would generate aspiration power recorded as one point of merit.
However, the system applied a fee when recording it. For instance, if a high-level cultivator generated ten points of merit in a day of devotion, the system would credit only four points under his name.
In addition to devout faith, secular meritorious service was also counted toward merit, currently at a rate of one point of service for one point of merit.
Anyone could consume the merit under their name to petition for bestowed spells and divine powers, with different arts costing varying amounts of merit. Once an individual's merit reached a certain threshold, their merit level could be upgraded.
Each merit level offered corresponding exclusive spells and divine powers. Higher ranks not only granted devastatingly potent Daoist arts, but also offered many permanent divine powers, such as boosting comprehension, speeding up cultivation, or even slowing the drain of lifespan to achieve a roundabout life extension—though abilities of that kind required continuous merit expenditure. Under the new system, if a template Dao Foundation's merit level reached Dao Four, he could petition for an art equivalent to the full-strength blow of a late-stage Dao Foundation cultivator, while his defensive art could withstand the full-strength blow of a mid-stage Dao Foundation cultivator.
Such an enhancement was enough for an ordinary template to hold his head high among all Dao Foundation cultivators across the world. In extreme circumstances, as long as he had enough merit, he could even unleash high-powered Daoist arts in an unending stream; counter-slaying an immortal foundation was not out of the question.
Of course, if one actually fought that way, even having a father in the late stage of Dharma Idol would not keep one from going bankrupt.
All in all, the new system ultimately fulfilled Wei Yuan's original vision: *Offer up boundless merit, and I shall grant you invincibility within your realm!*
Because the exclusive spells differed vastly across merit levels, raising one's merit level eclipsed everything else to become the paramount concern of Qingming cultivators. And it was here that the designer's mathematical genius became apparent.
Advancing through Dao One, Two, and Three was fairly easy, but reaching Dao Four required an order of magnitude more merit.
The same was true from Dharma One to Dharma Four, where the merit needed for each tier surged exponentially. Scenery Command was even more exaggerated: the merit required to advance from Scenery Four to the final Scenery Five was roughly equivalent to what one would get from slaying someone like Liumiao.
When Wei Yuan first saw the amount of merit required for each tier, even he gasped in awe, deeply admiring the designer's mathematical skill. Yet amid his admiration, Wei Yuan had taken up his brush and made personal revisions, appending three sub-ranks to every major tier: early, late, and perfection.
In this way, the ranks were finely divided into Dao One Early, Late, Perfection, and so on. As a result, cultivators naturally advanced at flying speed during the early accumulation of merit, only slowing down gradually. But by the time it slowed, they had already spent so long trudging up the rugged road of merit levels that the habit was ingrained.
This modification also avoided the trap of later advancements becoming so difficult that one could not rise a single tier in decades or centuries, effectively preventing senior cultivators from growing disheartened and slacking off.
Only after completing these edits was Wei Yuan satisfied. Brilliant as the original designer was in mathematics, when it came to understanding human nature, there was still a gap compared to him. Thus, after nearly a year of intense preparations, the new system was officially launched. Although it had a different official name, an increasing number of Qingming cultivators privately referred to it as the Dao Court system.
The moment the Dao Court merit system appeared, all of Qingming boiled with excitement. Who did not wish to cast grand arts they had never had the right to touch? Who did not wish to wave a hand, summon heavenly lightning, and blast their crush's crush to a crisp?
Consequently, under the diligent study of countless cultivators, guides and secret manuals on how to raise one's merit level flew everywhere in the blink of an eye. Many quick-witted individuals simply opened training academies dedicated to teaching people how to earn merit and level up.
For a time, chaos erupted. Bizarre spectacles arose where masters at template Dao Three taught groups of Golden Cores how to rank up.
Fortunately, most cultivators possessed decent comprehension—at least above average, or they would never have formed a Dao Foundation—so only a minority were swindled. The downside, however, was that because most cultivators were indeed intelligent, they swiftly devised numerous effective methods for amassing merit.
After a period of testing, everyone discovered that accumulating merit through faith was slow, painstaking work, like dripping water wearing away stone; senior cultivators did not gather merit much faster than junior ones, at least not enough to open an exponential gap. Therefore, the higher a cultivator's realm, the harder it was to accumulate merit through devout faith. After all, from the Dharma Idol realm onward, the merit required to advance a single tier was enough to make one question life itself.
Thus, if one wanted to obtain as much merit as possible as quickly as possible, one had to turn to meritorious service, since one point of service exchanged for one point of merit. And the easiest avenue for ordinary cultivators to earn service points was through work.
Overnight, every cultivator in Qingming threw themselves furiously into labor, wishing they could simply live at their workplaces without ever leaving. The speed at which templates stabilized their Dao Foundations reached an unprecedented peak.
This unhealthy wind blew with increasing ferocity. In less than three months, Yu Zhizhuo was forced to issue a notice across the Weaponsmith Workshop: *Malicious overtime is strictly prohibited!*
Nor was Yu Zhizhuo alone; Sun Yu, Xu Henshui, Chuhe, and the others overseeing various industries were equally frantic and overwhelmed.
Wei Yuan, meanwhile, had troubles of his own.
While the template Dao Foundations were mostly focused on the tasks directly before them, the high-level cultivators had already set their sights on the world at large.
At this very moment, a memorial lay before Wei Yuan, its opening line reading:
*"Your servant observes that Northern Liao has long harbored rebellious intent..."*
Chapter 1264