This realm was thoroughly shattered, its nature reduced to utter singularity. Only primordial spirits could move freely here; if a physical body entered, even an immortal would be unable to withstand the power of dissociation and would be torn to shreds in an instant.
Currently, the only place between heaven and earth capable of condensing into substance was the world seed Wei Yuan had planted. After much deliberation, Wei Yuan took all the power of faith and aspiration he had accumulated thus far, blended it with one hundred million points of mortal fortune, and forged an avatar. He intended to leave it here to guard the world seed. Should another foreign enemy appear, it could stall them long enough for Wei Yuan's true body to arrive.
Refining an avatar was not difficult, but what to use to awaken and empower it posed a dilemma. The forces capable of taking effect here were limited, leaving only the enduring power of the green-backed azure dragon. Although Wei Yuan's control over the Seventh Grotto-Heaven was still far from complete, there seemed to be no other choice.
Right at this moment, however, Wei Yuan suddenly sensed an obscure, vast aura appear in the Central Spirit Mansion. Impossibly ancient, it was virtually equivalent to the Great Dao itself.
This was the power of yin-yang!
Wei Yuan was pleasantly surprised. He had only ever felt this power back when he first obtained Yin-Yang, after which it had gradually faded away. Wei Yuan had assumed this force—second only to primal chaos—had already decayed and evolved, becoming part of his mindscape world. He never expected it to reappear in the Central Spirit Mansion.
With yin-yang at hand, there was no longer any need to choose.
Permanence merely maintained the status quo, whereas yin-yang was the crucial link in generating the myriad things from the One, making it far more suitable for a world seed destined to nurture all creation. Wei Yuan immediately entered the Central Spirit Mansion and saw Maiden Yin-Yang. Yet that wisp of yin-yang qi was on the other side of the spirit mansion, hovering as an unsettled, distinctly black-and-white vortex that seemed to have nothing to do with the maiden.
Wei Yuan routinely examined the maiden's state. She remained still as a statue, seemingly devoid of consciousness, yet Wei Yuan felt that something was off. In the past, she would still twitch or shift occasionally; why was she completely motionless now? Wasn't this... a bit too deliberate?
For now, important business took priority. Wei Yuan took that vortex of yin-yang qi and used it to awaken his newly refined avatar.
The status of yin-yang qi was exceedingly exalted. Once awakened, the avatar stirred to life at once, and Wei Yuan experienced the bizarre sensation of gaining an additional field of view in an instant. At that moment, the soil of vitality resonated with Wei Yuan. After a brief contemplation, he pointed a finger, and a special plot of land emerged upon the fertile ground, where two young attendants rose to their feet.
Wei Yuan's avatar walked over. Bricks and tiles manifested in his hands, and he began laying them one by one. Moments later, a small main hall was erected.
The architecture of this hall bore some resemblance to a Buddhist temple and yet looked somewhat like a Daoist monastery. Once the main hall was complete, the avatar stepped inside and sat down cross-legged. The hall immediately radiated brilliance, bathing the entire expanse of fertile soil within its glow.
The soil of vitality began slowly absorbing the worldly yuan qi and funneling it toward the avatar. Cultivating continuously, the avatar refined the worldly yuan qi into spiritual qi that was easier for the world seed to absorb, feeding it back into the seed to accelerate its growth.
In a normal worldly cycle, the fertile soil would absorb worldly yuan qi and then release spiritual qi for the sentient beings growing upon it to absorb. As those beings absorbed the spiritual qi and grew stronger, they would elevate the stature of the fertile soil. Once its stature rose, it could absorb even more worldly yuan qi, repeating the cycle.
When sentient beings became sufficiently powerful, they could capture and refine fragments of other outer worlds, refine grotto-heavens to merge into their native realm, or manifest their mindscape worlds from illusory into real. Any of these would expand the realm's fertile soil, allowing it to take in even more worldly yuan qi.
Now that Wei Yuan's cultivation was profound and his knowledge spanned both Daoism and Buddhism, he redesigned this cycle. His opening move was to establish a cultivation ground. In Buddhism and Daoism, this was variously referred to as an enlightenment sanctuary or a realm of primal vows; whatever the name, it served as the very foundation of cultivation.
In this way, the entire expanse of fertile soil became the foundation of Wei Yuan's attainment of the Dao. He could use his avatar to replace the fertile soil in refining worldly yuan qi, then nourish the world seed with spiritual qi to speed up its development. This would accelerate the world's growth a thousandfold; otherwise, completely rebooting it would likely take hundreds of millions of years.
Having arranged everything, Wei Yuan returned to Qingming. He reallocated the computing power of the Splendor of the Many Realms, assigning a larger share to the study of the new world, and handed over the transparent shell left behind by that bizarre entity to Yu Zhizhuo for analysis.
At that moment, a report was suddenly delivered right before Wei Yuan's eyes.
Although Wei Yuan could split off more than thirty thousand strands of divine thought, Qingming's affairs were as vast as an ocean, and even he was beginning to feel overwhelmed. All nonessential matters were delegated to other cultivators. Reports that could be submitted directly to him were of utmost importance, requiring Wei Yuan's personal decision. When Wei Yuan opened the report, its contents turned out to be a personality analysis of Bodhisattva Boundless Radiance. Only then did he recall the task he had specially assigned to a certain minor cultivator not long ago; he hadn't expected the fellow to work so fast.
Intrigued, Wei Yuan opened the report and read it closely.
The trajectories and experiences of Boundless Radiance's reincarnations appeared completely distinct. There were artisans, merchants, and world-renowned cultivators, all possessing entirely different temperaments. In one lifetime, she had even fallen into the animal realm, reincarnating as an eagle that listened to sutras before the Buddha and attained sudden enlightenment. Yet from these seemingly unrelated lifetimes, the minor cultivator had stubbornly ferreted out common threads.
Wei Yuan remembered that among the materials he had provided, countless scenes depicted the Bodhisattva's reincarnations displaying boundless compassion, saving the world and aiding mortal souls. But the minor cultivator turned a blind eye to all of that, seizing instead upon one or two instances where she annihilated heretical Dao rivals. He argued that beneath the surface, she was cold, calm, and utterly untroubled by emotion—the creation and destruction of the mortal world were as nothing to her heart.
In other words, by her very nature, she was pure and freezing cold—beyond even callousness. Callousness was still an emotion, whereas this person had no emotion at all. Furthermore, the cultivator speculated that she was entirely indifferent to good, evil, and familial ties. Every display of warmth and benevolence was merely an act; whatever was expected of her at any given moment, she would perform accordingly.
The basis for this deduction was that across countless scenarios, her reactions were not merely highly consistent, but completely identical. She smiled when it was time to smile and wept when it was time to grieve, without the slightest deviation. The cultivator maintained that even machines suffered wear and tear; how could a human possibly be so precise?
This was only the beginning. There followed countless dark speculations; judging solely by them, Boundless Radiance seemed practically psychopathic. Yet upon reading it, Wei Yuan felt that the one who was truly sick in the head was the minor cultivator, which was why he saw everyone else as deranged.
As he was pondering the report, a gentle, melodious voice suddenly sounded in Wei Yuan's ear: "You and I have never met, Benefactor. Why do you hold me so dearly in your thoughts?"
Wei Yuan turned around and saw a figure in the distance, standing quietly atop the clouds, as though waiting for him.
Though they had never met, Wei Yuan's intuition told him that this was Bodhisattva Boundless Radiance.
She was actually ten thousand li away and had not stepped into the domain of Qingming, yet she could make Wei Yuan "see" her directly and interfere with his perception. Such cultivation was truly earth-shattering.
Keeping his composure, Wei Yuan said, "Since the Bodhisattva has come to visit, why not come inside and sit for a while?"
Boundless Radiance laughed softly. "Your place is like a dragon's pool and a tiger's den. If I step inside, I fear I might never be able to leave."
"Whatever do you mean? I would welcome you with open arms. How could I possibly harbor ill intent?" Wei Yuan wore an expression of sheer innocence, and in a flicker, he had already arrived at the border of Qingming.
To all appearances, he seemed to be standing beyond the boundary stone, but in truth, Qingming's boundary line fell precisely between Boundless Radiance and Wei Yuan.
Viewed from close up, the Bodhisattva possessed an even more solemn, majestic manifestation and a benevolent countenance.
Boundless Radiance said, "Why don't we take a stroll in the Sea of Bitterness?"
Wei Yuan replied, "Whatever you wish to say, we can say it right here. I don't feel the Sea of Bitterness is safe right now."
Boundless Radiance smiled wryly. "You now have a foothold in the Sea of Bitterness and have received its recognition. What could possibly be unsafe about it?"
"Wherever you are is not safe."
Boundless Radiance withdrew her sacred manifestation, changing into the appearance of an ordinary mortal woman. She was far from stunningly beautiful, yet looking at her made one naturally desire to draw near.
She let out a soft laugh and said, "As the grand Lord of the Mortal Realm, how can you be so timid?"
Chapter 1320