On the battlefield, Wei Yuan, incarnated in a blank-slate form, cast an art that secured his fifth kill of the battle. But suddenly sensing something was amiss, he turned back to look. He saw a fiend flash with purple light; a massive maw opened in the center of its body, biting clean through half the torso of the Dao soldier fighting it.
With only half its body remaining, the Dao soldier turned to flee, but the fiend inhaled, tearing a translucent humanoid silhouette from the damaged puppet before biting off most of it in another gulp!
The shattered remnants of the Dao soldier froze on the spot. The fiend pounced forward and sucked out the remaining fragment of the translucent silhouette from the wreckage. Just as it prepared to devour it, a Daoist immortal sword descended from the heavens, piercing right through its body!
Having slain the fiend, the severed remnant of the translucent silhouette returned to the Dao soldier's broken shell. Wei Yuan searched the surroundings, but as usual upon death, the fiend had only dropped a grain of floating sand; there was no sign of the missing portion of the silhouette.
Wei Yuan's heart sank slightly. That translucent silhouette was the divine soul projected into the Dao soldier by the cultivator. Having lost the greater part of it, the cultivator would almost certainly become mentally impaired. If even the remaining fragment had not been preserved, it would have been tantamount to death, leaving the physical body back in their home realm as a mindless, walking corpse.
Previously, the fiends possessed no means to threaten the divine soul, so only dharma bodies were ever lost, and the cultivators only grew stronger with every battle. Could it be that slaying too many of them in a short span had caused the fiends to evolve?
Wei Yuan reached out and drew in the floating sand left behind by the slain fiend. This grain was distinct, tinged with a hint of purple, its grade clearly an entire level higher—a single grain was equivalent to more than a hundred grains of grey sand. Moreover, it carried a slight vitality-promoting efficacy, capable of sparking a single particulate life-form on its own.
At this stage, every particulate life-form was unique, possessing the potential to evolve into a major species in the future.
Furthermore, research by Qingming indicated that the greater the diversity of living creatures, the faster a heaven-and-earth world evolved.
A lethal risk, yet also a colossal reward. Deep in thought, Wei Yuan carried the severed half of the Dao soldier back to the staging plaza.
By then, sudden shifts had occurred across the various battlefields. Special dharma bodies like Wu Ben Pingfan and Jianxin Ji Wuxin cast off restraint, going on a slaughterous spree to purge the battlegrounds as swiftly as possible.
When the battle concluded, both dharma bodies and Dao soldiers had secured kills, but the atmosphere in the Expedition Hall was unlike before—heavy to the point of curdling.
In the center of the hall lay over a dozen dharma bodies. Beside them, more than a hundred cultivators sat cross-legged inside a formation array, each coiled with a black-and-red aura. Surrounding them were over a dozen cultivators skilled in medicine and alchemy, doing everything they could to expel the dark miasma.
Several maverick cultivators each occupied a secluded corner, looking on coldly.
This was the first time since the great battle against Xing Linye that the dharma body cultivators had suffered casualties on such a scale. The cause was entirely the sudden mutation of the fiends. In the past, cultivators never cared if they were injured, since repairing a dharma body cost very little, leading them to fight to the death with fiends time and again.
No one anticipated that the mutated fiends could harm the divine soul; by the time they realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
The dozen or so lying on the ground had all suffered catastrophic trauma to their divine souls; even if they recovered to some degree, their intellect would be severely diminished. Those seated in the formation array had reacted quickly enough to flee back the moment they were injured. Yet having been bitten by the special fiends, a peculiar force relentlessly eroded their divine souls; left untreated, their souls would be corroded away entirely.
Fortunately, scouring with karmic luck was remarkably effective against this chaotic corruption, and these hundred-plus cultivators would be able to recover after a period of convalescence.
Right now, Wei Yuan was confronted with another dilemma. The cultivators from Splendor of the Many Realms were easy enough to manage, but several hundred external Dharma Idols, represented by the Xu family's alchemists, were already having second thoughts. Everyone had originally come for low-risk tempering to advance their Dao cultivation; no one had signed up for the risk of true death.
Yet relying solely on cultivators from Splendor of the Many Realms would obviously slow their overall progress.
Still, people die for wealth just as birds die for food. On the path of immortal cultivation, lethal perils lurked at every turn. Cultivators who feared death were the minority; true cultivators did not fear death, but rather dying in vain.
Arriving at this thought, Wei Yuan immediately set to work making adjustments. A moment later, a new notification chime resonated throughout the Expedition Hall:
"—A combat ranking board has been instituted, featuring seven-day and thirty-day leaderboards, with corresponding rewards for the top hundred. Those ranked within the top hundred when the thirty-day leaderboard concludes will receive bonus rewards of merit."
Merit?
The cultivators could scarcely believe their ears. If there was one thing cultivators craved above all else—firmly above karmic luck—it was merit.
Chuhe had reopened the path of attaining sainthood through merit, earning worldwide renown that surpassed even Wei Yuan's. In his wake, the Hall of Jianmu in the Palace of Grand Beginning had become immensely popular, and interest in various Wood and Water Paths across the entire human race surged. A contingent of cultivators dedicated entirely to farming had even emerged, elevating grain yields to the extent that tens of millions more people could be fed—which itself counted among Chuhe's great merits.
Though the Expedition Hall did not explicitly state the type of merit, anyone could guess without thinking twice: it had to be the merit of opening heaven and earth!
This was the paramount form of merit; acquiring even a sliver offered boundless benefits.
As for the risk? Mere fiends—could that even be called a risk? Even if several corpses were lying on the floor, they had only their own lacking skills to blame!
The top hundred spots on the leaderboard offered plenty of chances. Even those with peak Earth Tier dharma bodies felt they had a fighting shot. Hadn't everyone seen a mere blank slate racking up over ten kills? Why couldn't they compete against the Heaven Tier?
They didn't aspire to the top of the ranks; making the board was enough. Merit was something where going from zero to even a single speck was a monumental watershed.
Before the notification chime finished its explanation, the cultivators' demeanor had transformed entirely. Eyes gleamed with dark resolve as they waited for news of the next battle.
Then came the second modification: the exchange area now offered single-use magic treasures designed to protect the divine soul. The cost was low—virtually every cultivator could afford them, needing only two fiend kills per battle to break even.
The second magic treasure allowed the divine soul to decouple from the body and instantly flee back to the staging plaza. A life-saving heirloom like this was exorbitantly expensive—tantamount to Wei Yuan's true body personally intervening to pull someone out—demanding a price of no fewer than fifty fiends. Still, any Heaven Tier Dao soldier or top-ranking Earth Tier Dao soldier could easily afford it.
With the emergency upgrade complete, the atmosphere in the Expedition Hall returned to its former fervor. Only then did Wei Yuan find time to review his harvest. He had divided his focus across three soul partitions, each controlling a dharma body puppet. Aside from Wu Ben Pingfan, "Wu Ben Chu Kuangren" concentrated on standard-issue Daoist arts, while "Shi Bu Sha Yi Nie" engaged in melee combat using magical artifacts.
Wei Yuan wanted to personally experience combat through the most basic dharma body Dao soldiers to see which aspects needed reinforcement and where costs could be cut. The data gathered over this period demonstrated that the quantity of Dao soldiers mattered far more than quality.
Yet once he finished collating his insights and experiences, Wei Yuan was startled to discover that his own Dao cultivation had actually taken a small step forward!
This was an entirely unexpected joy. Investigating the source of this progress, Wei Yuan realized it stemmed from controlling Dao soldiers with contrasting fighting styles, which had significantly enhanced his mastery over Dao soldiers and deepened his comprehension of the void and the essence of fiends. From this, Wei Yuan realized that piloting Dao soldiers of different styles was effectively equivalent to experiencing different Dharma Idols. In theory, so long as he piloted enough varieties, he could experience every facet of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth—a realm attainable only by Dao Lords!
Wei Yuan immediately altered the system once more. Cultivators soon discovered that each person's Dao soldier type was locked in; switching to a different model now required an extra fee.
This news immediately struck a chord with countless people. After all this time, everyone knew full well that while Qingming was expensive, its prices were always justified, and it never levied fees without good reason.
Paying to switch Dao soldier types? There had to be hidden benefits they weren't yet aware of!
Seeing how perceptive everyone was and how adept they were at concocting rationalizations on his behalf, Wei Yuan felt thoroughly gratified. By now, several people were already approaching Wu Ben Pingfan to fish for information. Wei Yuan originally intended to answer offhandedly, but on second thought, this particular dharma body had rescued so many people that its kill count was excessively high, having already broken into the overall top ten of all Dao soldiers.
Wei Yuan understood well that a tall tree catches the wind. If people later discovered that this Dao soldier had been personally piloted by the realm lord himself, and that he had answered his own inquiries, how could he ever show his face again?
So Wei Yuan shook his head on the spot, professing utter ignorance. Fortunately, the Glazed Heavenly Phoenix happened to stroll into the plaza just then, and people turned to ask him instead. Jun Weizhi had indeed swapped Dao soldiers before, and promptly said, "Switching to different types of Dao soldiers is equivalent to experiencing different Dao paths firsthand."
With a single sentence, the cultivators erupted into an uproar. Everyone immediately set about researching Dao soldier swaps. The quick-acting ones simply shut their eyes and paid to switch, taking whatever was available—even swapping from Heaven Tier to Earth Tier without hesitation!
Wei Yuan did not care much about this trickle of revenue, but it was indeed extra income. Watching the balance tick steadily upward, Wei Yuan realized it was time to introduce even more varieties of Dao soldiers.
Chapter 1414