With the backing of the newly opened world, Wei Yuan found immense support for his expansion within the native realm. Relying on an endless stream of world-opening merit, he could sustain a large-scale transformation of the Liao domain.
When Wei Yuan returned to the Liao domain, it should have been late summer and early autumn, the season when water and grass flourished most. Yet the Frost Silver Steppe no longer resembled its former self. Patches of golden grass dotted the steppe, but for over a hundred li around them stretched yellow earth and barren sands where not a single blade of grass grew.
Modified by Chuhe and catalyzed by Wei Yuan's karmic luck, the potency of this gold-thread grass far exceeded expectations. Wei Yuan had originally planned to drain the land and waters of Frost Silver and the Sea of the Moon over three years, but barely a year had passed and eighty percent of the entire steppe had already turned to desert.
The grass's ability to siphon spiritual qi was astonishingly fierce: a single patch measuring ten li across could render everything barren across a vast radius of over a hundred li.
These strands of gold-thread grass had a growth cycle of two months. After gorging on spiritual qi, they transformed from ordinary weeds into spiritual herbs. Once harvested and transported to the rear, they served as feed for spirit beasts. Back in the day, Wei Yuan's original warhorses had never had fodder this good.
Above ground, the gold-thread grass grew no more than a few feet high, yet beneath the surface, its root systems could plunge a hundred fathoms deep. Terrifyingly, the root systems of all the plants interconnected and shared nutrients.
During the better part of a year after first planting the gold-thread grass, the iridescent glow of merit on Chuhe had degraded into a gloomy black radiance. Fortunately, Wei Yuan's merit from rebooting the world shielded him, sparing him from major catastrophes—he merely tripped several times and knocked out a few front teeth.
Ever since, Chuhe had shifted from acting with wanton abandon to living as a shut-in. Whenever he stepped outside, he made sure his adopted fathers accompanied him, fearful he might otherwise meet an untimely death in some dark corner.
Yet now that the steppe had turned into a desert, as Wei Yuan flew slowly overhead, he actually reaped wave after wave of Liao karmic luck. From afar, the Liao people in many settlements below bowed low the moment they spotted him, offering their karmic luck without the slightest hesitation.
The Heavenly Dao viewed conservation as constant: nothing in existence could vanish into nothingness, nor could anything appear out of thin air.
In essence, Wei Yuan had used the gold-thread grass to harvest the spiritual qi and earth veins of this portion of the Liao domain and transferred them back to Qingming. With the Frost Silver Steppe reduced to a barren wasteland, Liao cultivators had become trees without roots. Even many cultivators in early Dharma Idol could find no sustenance and were forced to migrate far away. Cultivators with Dao foundations had lower requirements, barely scraping by on the lingering wisps of spiritual qi.
Naturally, Wei Yuan had no intention of letting ordinary Liao folk starve. He ordered surveys of the earth veins across the vast steppe to vigorously develop mining, with many shafts dug straight into the earth veins themselves.
At the same time, he transformed the Three Rivers Khanate into a production base for Liao-style meat and fodder. Coupled with grain shipped in from Qingming, a steady stream of provisions, fodder, and meat poured into the Frost Silver Steppe, delivered directly to the larger mining districts.
In just one short year, the Liao transitioned from their nomadic pastoral lifestyle to settled mining colonies, bartering minerals for grain, fodder, and other daily necessities. Pastoralists among the Liao virtually vanished, all replaced by miners.
The hardships of nomadic life were difficult to describe unless one had lived through them. Wei Yuan allowed the Liao people to settle down and eat their fill, which immediately yielded him vast sums of karmic luck.
At first, the karmic luck naturally came from Liao collaborators, but soon their numbers surged. As Wei Yuan brought in massive quantities of tea, savory snacks, Qing brocade, and all manner of exquisite daily utensils, the collaborators became the majority. Consequently, the remaining few who resisted became the "collaborators" betraying the vast majority of their people, and Liao karmic luck began to generate without end.
Mining was unlike herding; it demanded a certain level of knowledge, and skilled miners were certainly not a role for the illiterate. Wei Yuan therefore seized the opportunity to roll out universal education across the mining areas, teaching simultaneously in both the Liao tongue and the human language.
These academies were of the most elementary sort, focusing primarily on reading and writing. Yet into every curriculum, Wei Yuan wove a core idea: Chieftains and nobles—are they born of superior stock?
On the Frost Silver Steppe today, the Liao population had exceeded two hundred million, a third of whom were pastoralists fleeing from other Liao territories.
Feeding two hundred million Liao posed no burden whatsoever to the present Three Rivers Khanate. Over a hundred agricultural workshops continuously churned out immense yields of fodder and grain, not only feeding those two hundred million Liao people, but even leaving a surplus to export to other Liao territories.
Within this realm, Wei Yuan had effectively replaced the native pastoralism and agriculture with mining, enabling the lower-class Liao people to eat better and live more securely. In exchange, however, he had siphoned away the spiritual qi and earth veins, leaving Liao Dharma Idol cultivators with no place to anchor themselves, let alone anyone advancing to Scenery Command.
Viewed from another perspective, Wei Yuan had driven out the Liao's high-level cultivators and handed this land over to commoners who possessed no cultivation at all.
Naturally, Wei Yuan had also prepared contingencies.
Now that the Frost Silver Steppe had been reduced to desert, its grain and fodder output was practically zero, incapable of sustaining large herds of livestock. Furthermore, with the earth veins excavated, recovery would take no less than a century. Every single Liao living on this land depended entirely on imports from Qingming for their food and necessities.
To Wei Yuan, sustaining several hundred million Liao was effortless. But for any Liao khan—even if Silver Moon were restored to life—let alone hundreds of millions, just tens of millions of people would crush him under the burden.
Should this land ever be reclaimed by the Liao, they would discover that Wei Yuan had been mining strange, bizarre ores. In the eyes of high-level Liao cultivators, these minerals were almost utterly useless, serving only to make metals slightly lighter, tougher, harder, or more resistant to heat and cold. To such cultivators, all of that could be achieved with a simple spell; why bother going to such trouble?
If the Liao ever retook this territory in the future, they would find themselves in possession of a bunch of useless mine shafts whose ore could be sold nowhere except Qingming, while suddenly burdened with hundreds of millions of mouths to feed.
This was Wei Yuan's deliberate, well-calculated strategy.
Before technological breakthroughs and without an unconventional genius of the highest caliber like Chuhe, crop yields in this realm were fixed. The populations of every race teetered on the brink of famine; a single natural disaster would instantly cause masses of people to starve.
Only Wei Yuan, who vividly remembered the refugees he had seen in his youth, remained tirelessly committed to farming. He channeled vast amounts of resources and karmic luck into agriculture, ensuring Qingming's grain production consistently maintained a massive surplus.
Wei Yuan flew all the way to the Sea of the Moon, where Baoyun was already waiting in the sky ahead.
"Is everything ready?" Wei Yuan asked.
Baoyun said, "The procedures for the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony are already established; there wasn't much need to change them for the Liao. Besides, the numbers aren't that large—only thirty-odd thousand cultivators participating this time. In any case, there's no real pressure on me. A single illusory realm is enough to let them each see what they wish to see."
By now, it had been a full year since Wei Yuan conquered the royal court of the Sea of the Moon. The star flowers across the steppe had withered completely away, replaced by scattered patches of weeds.
Marking the anniversary, Wei Yuan felt something ought to be done. Half a year in advance, he had instructed his people to develop several Liao-specific template Dao foundations tailored to the Liao domain. His visit to the northern lands this time was precisely to host a Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony.
The Liao domain was not Qingming; it lacked All Living Beings in a Flash. However, Wei Yuan had brought Baoyun along. Her Heavenly Demon Miraculous Realm allowed all Liao Body Casting cultivators to perceive and experience the subtleties of several template Dao foundations within an illusion. This substantially increased the probability of success, and with Wei Yuan's infusion of Liao karmic luck, the success rate could be boosted another notch.
Furthermore, Qingming was already well-versed in designing templates. The ones created specifically for the Liao were all gaseous, diluted to the absolute extreme. Their primary abilities consisted of various flashy visual effects, lowering the threshold to an appalling degree.
One template in particular had only a single trait: when activated, it bathed the user's entire body in golden light as though engulfed in golden flames, even turning their beard and hair gold. In the dead of night, someone a hundred li away could tell that a Dao Foundation patriarch had emerged.
This Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony at the Sea of the Moon lasted two days in total. In the end, over six thousand Liao completed the template, a success rate exceeding twenty percent. In Qingming, such a success rate would have been deemed a disaster, but in the Liao domain, it sent shockwaves from top to bottom.
Past experience dictated that out of over twenty thousand in Body Casting, producing two hundred Dao foundations would already be considered fortunate. Who could have imagined it would be over six thousand?
Unsurprisingly, the template that emitted golden light from head to toe and altered hair color proved wildly popular among all Liao cultivators, chosen by over ninety-five percent of them. Seizing the opportunity, the Qingming cultivators overseeing the event promptly renamed this template "Super Liao Person."
Times had changed. Far from minding the suffix "person" attached to their name, many Liao felt deeply honored.
Of course, it takes all sorts to make a world, and gathering so many Liao inevitably produced oddballs. A small clique of Liao scholars had even dedicated themselves to proving that Wei Yuan's ancestors were actually Liao.
Following this Dao Foundation assembly, several thousand golden humanoid torches roamed the vast steppe, making the nights considerably less lonely.
This was the second step in Wei Yuan's scheme: once templates proliferated, ordinary Dao foundations were sidelined. The moment the Dao Foundation assembly ended, every major mining district slashed the compensation for Dao foundation cultivators, lopping off ninety percent in a single blow.
As for whether the original Dao foundation cultivators were unhappy—what did it matter? If you didn't want the job, plenty of "Super Liao" were eager to take it.
At the current rates for these positions, template holders could live comfortably, but regular Dao foundation cultivators would starve. Thus, another batch of Liao Dao foundation cultivators chose exile.
The First Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony at the Sea of the Moon drew to a close, yet the gazes cast down from above did not lessen in the slightest. Mighty figures of various foreign races, including the Ancestral Shaman and the Liao Ancestor, suddenly realized that Qingming's playbook could actually be replicated outside humanity!
For the first time in hundreds of years, the Little Living Buddha stepped out of his temple, ventured deep into the snow mountains, and entered a secret realm.
Within the secret realm, several figures loomed like towering mountain ranges. Compared to them, the Little Living Buddha's stature seemed diminutive.
The Little Living Buddha walked over to a mountain peak and sat down. The peak elevated on its own until he was level with the other figures before coming to a stop. Once settled, the Little Living Buddha spread his palm, revealing a woman seated within his hand. Sensing the shifts in the surrounding world, she opened her eyes to reveal a pair of azure pupils.
A figure radiating ferocious menace barked, "Why have you brought a human in here?"
The Little Living Buddha smiled. "Since we are discussing human matters, some questions are best put to a true human."
Then, pointing at each of the figures, the Little Living Buddha introduced them to Qingtong one by one: "This is the Grand Guru of the Esoteric Sect, who has passed through nine reincarnations. A guru's reincarnation is no ordinary cycle; with each successful rebirth, his power surges tremendously. That fiercest one over there is the First Dharma God. And the one who looks the most genial and kindly is the Grand Preceptor, whose methods are the cruellest, with a fondness for devouring immortal beasts raw."
"Little Living Buddha, can we get down to business?" The ancient Dharma God was visibly impatient.
"Right away, right away." The Little Living Buddha sat cross-legged, his hand open to cradle Qingtong.
The Grand Preceptor said, "Silver Moon indeed held secrets, but they are no longer as crucial. In this Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony, Wei Yuan enlightened six thousand Dao foundations at once. Can we replicate such methods?"
The Grand Guru said, "The quality of these Dao foundations is abysmal, and the threshold is absurdly low. The girl's Heavenly Demon Miraculous Realm is certainly worth noting, though several Dharma Gods in the Dharma God Realm possess similar divine abilities that allow lower cultivators to experience the Dao foundation realm beforehand, naturally raising their chances of success. But these Dao foundations are simply too crude. While there are many of them, they are hardly of great use."
The Grand Preceptor shook his head. "Where only one or two hundred could have succeeded previously, now six thousand have. No matter how trashy a Dao foundation may be, it is still a Dao foundation. If promoted across the entire Liao territory, we could conjure ten million Dao foundations out of thin air! With numbers like that, why worry about repelling the Shaman Clan?"
The ancient Dharma God said, "That man also used karmic luck. We know nothing of that."
The Grand Preceptor said, "No matter. The Little Living Buddha was born of karmic luck; this poses no difficulty."
The Guru said slowly, "That template named 'Super Liao' is utter garbage, and the name is sickening to boot. Even if we copy it, we must craft a halfway decent Dao foundation. Otherwise, if they only have a Dao foundation with no divine abilities and a bit more magic power, they'll be useless at everything."
The Grand Preceptor said evenly, "What we can think of, the Shamans can think of as well. Wei Yuan also maintains close ties with the Power Shamans, so we must guard against the Shaman Clan suddenly spawning countless Dao foundations."
The ancient Dharma God suddenly asked, "Did Wei Yuan go through all that trouble merely to cultivate a pile of garbage Dao foundations? If we produce millions of Dao foundations, what do we do with them once the war is over?"
The Grand Preceptor said, "They'll all be dead before the war even ends; they don't possess that kind of lifespan. Still, Wei Yuan has indeed offered us a new train of thought. He ruined that land again anyway, so we might as well let him have it. He also seems to be plotting for Liao karmic luck."
The Guru snorted. "That pittance of Liao karmic luck—let him have it."
The Little Living Buddha sighed, turning to the azure-eyed woman. "What do you think is the core of Wei Yuan's scheme?"
Qingtong replied, "Grain."
The mighty figures were all taken aback. The Dharma God even said, "What does it matter if there is no grain? Can't they just gulp down a mouthful of heaven-and-earth origin qi?"
The Little Living Buddha sighed. "Mortal commoners cannot even withstand spiritual qi, let alone heaven-and-earth origin qi. Consider this, everyone: if a sudden natural disaster strikes and grain supplies fall short by ten percent, how would grain prices change?"
The Guru replied reflexively, "They would rise by ten percent, twenty at most."
The Grand Preceptor's brows furrowed as he began to ponder.
The Little Living Buddha did not keep them in suspense, sighing, "Grain prices wouldn't rise by merely ten or twenty percent, nor would they stop at fifty or sixty percent. They would skyrocket straight into the heavens, forcing the vast majority of people to bankrupt themselves to buy food. Only when that ten percent has starved to death would prices fall back to where they started. That is why Wei Yuan holds an iron grip on grain."
The Dharma God grew even more bewildered. "An extra ten percent of our people? Why not just eat them?"
The Guru said in displeasure, "Those are seeds of karmic luck. Eating several million or even tens of millions is one thing, but eating over a hundred million is absolutely out of the question!"
"I would be eating Liao folk! They aren't your believers!"
Seeing the Guru and the Dharma God begin to quarrel, the Grand Preceptor had to smooth things over. In the end, the mighty figures hastily agreed to hold Dao Foundation Grand Ceremonies in their own territories as well: the Dharma God would oversee the illusory realms, the Guru would design the Dao foundations, and the Little Living Buddha and the Grand Preceptor would handle the karmic luck. With that, the meeting concluded.
Cradling Qingtong in his palm, the Little Living Buddha walked slowly out of the snow mountains. As he walked, he sighed. "I wanted them to plant more pasture grass and grain, but it truly was a waste of breath."
Qingtong countered, "Living Buddha, you do not deliver the world; why torment yourself over it?"
The Little Living Buddha paused, muttering to himself, "Indeed, I do not deliver the world; why cling to such concerns?"
In the sky above the Three Rivers Khanate, Wei Yuan and Baoyun walked side by side, looking down at the massive agricultural workshops below.
Baoyun said, "Holding this Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony in the Liao domain, those old monsters must have seen it all. Aren't you afraid they will copy you?"
Wei Yuan smiled slightly. "Let them copy. Copy a few million templates? How will they accommodate them all then? The Liao domain isn't Qingming; how could it possibly sustain so many templates?"
Baoyun grew thoughtful.
Wei Yuan added, "They will surely think our templates are too trashy and modify them. In the end, they might be slightly stronger, but the numbers will drop right back down.
"Having so many templates requires accommodating them. Accommodating them requires industries, and developing industries in turn requires enough templates. The needs of the templates themselves foster new industries, and every step both consumes and generates karmic luck. Most critically, many geniuses in Qingming started out as mere templates. Geniuses need a large base. If the number of templates isn't high enough and you only cultivate a small elite, people like Wen Guantian would never have emerged in the first place.
"You see, every link here is tightly interlocked. Think of how much effort we spent, how far mathematics had to advance to reach today's level, and how much luck we relied upon to strike our current balance. Those mighty figures high above will just make snap decisions, tweaking this and adjusting that. Tweak it enough, and it will inevitably turn into an incoherent mess.
"In the end, they will probably cobble together an army or a fleet, spending exorbitant wealth to make it look glamorous and mighty, only for it to crumble the moment it faces battle."
Chapter 1394