Way Too Ahead of Its Time

Yanshi set down the Daoist scripture in his hand and said helplessly, "Why are you here again?" The green-robed, gray-haired avatar of Wei Yuan replied, "Nothing untoward happened on either leg of the journey, so I've come to ask for another talisman." Yanshi let out a long sigh, rose, and took up a brush. "With the Venerable Master's status, how could I possibly hook him? This is already the seventh talisman. If this one doesn't work either, don't come back for the next few days. I truly can't write any more." Wei Yuan received the newly drawn talisman, swallowed it in a single gulp, and said thoughtfully, "Even if we can't draw him out, the Venerable Master must still consume something to resist the karmic luck fishing, right?" Yanshi nodded. "Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't need to expend much of anything; his sheer status alone would be enough to fend it off. But right now, the Venerable Master is hiding within a secret realm, severed from karma, and his old wounds have yet to heal. To withstand targeted fishing, his consumption is vastly greater. All told, what he expends right now is likely higher than what it costs me to draw these talismans, though only by a limited margin." "I see!" Wei Yuan said, illuminated. "Higher is still higher! I'll make sure to send some tonics your way later!" Yanshi was dumbfounded. It seemed this kid was dead set on wearing the Venerable Master down through sheer attrition. On the return journey to Qingming, as expected, nothing happened. The moment he returned to Qingming, Wei Yuan summoned his cultivators to deliberate, while also calling over all his avatars and sub-bodies. In moments, the great hall was packed to the brim. Among them sat several dozen scholars in varying attire, every one of them a newly created sub-body. Seeing so many sub-bodies gave Wei Yuan quite a headache. Ever since they won the otherworldly war, the success rate of cultivating sub-bodies had skyrocketed. By the time Wei Yuan realized something was amiss and urgently halted the experiments, more than sixty sub-bodies had already been successfully enlightened. All sixty-odd sub-bodies were merely close to passing; not one actually met the benchmark. Their mathematical abilities far surpassed ordinary people, but fell well short of Wei Yuan's requirements, to say nothing of comparing to Molten Dragon. Wei Yuan readjusted the enlightenment standards, stipulating that only sub-bodies that strictly met criteria could be brought into the world, finally suppressing this sudden blowout. Still, according to the latest experimental data, the overall metrics of the sub-bodies had noticeably improved. The only issue was the massive divergence between individuals, which followed no discernable pattern whatsoever. Aside from their decent grasp of mathematics, their temperaments varied wildly and their physical constitutions differed like night and day. Some could advance straight to Scenery Command, while others stalled out at dharma idol level. Looking at them made Wei Yuan's eyelids twitch, cursing under his breath. How could a genius like him—who had spent twenty million taels of immortal silver just on the Body Casting stage—produce worthless trash that could only reach dharma idol? No matter what you averaged him with, it mathematically shouldn't yield such a result! The experimental data left the researcher cultivators utterly helpless as well. A few prodigies instinctively believed there must be an underlying pattern in the numbers, yet no matter how they studied it, they could not discern any intrinsic logic. Fortunately, the sub-bodies possessed extraordinary innate talent and learned everything at lightning speed. While developing independent personalities made them prone to disobedience, there was an upside: they could think through problems from different angles, helping Wei Yuan find blind spots and plug gaps. In the eyes of the Qingming cultivators, these sub-bodies were newly promoted young geniuses. Although their promotions had been rather swift, their handling of affairs exhibited a maturity far beyond their years. Qingming's culture favored pragmatic results over seniority, so nobody raised any objections. Once everyone assembled, Wei Yuan said, "Today's agenda is how to force an Immortal Lord out of his secret realm. Brainstorm some ideas; whatever looks viable will move to subsequent research." After learning the basic information about the Venerable Master, the hall fell into absolute silence. Wei Yuan was not particularly disappointed. After all, he hadn't thought of anything either, so it was only natural that everyone else was stumped. The next moment, however, a sub-body who loved nothing more than bragging and acting like an aloof master in teahouses spoke up: "'Constantly chant a name, and an echo will surely come.' All we need to do is mobilize some idle folk to chant this immortal's name every day, and he will undoubtedly sense it. So why not write this immortal's name into popular pulp fiction, keeping all his personal background exactly as it was before he ascended to immortality? We can call the story *The Flower-Plucking Constable*, and make him the wretched, sleazy flower thief!" This sparked immediate inspiration across the room. One person chimed in, "We can optimize it further: this thief swings for men too!" "And make them elderly..." "He shouldn't just fancy humans..." "That's way too bizarre; the books won't sell." The sub-bodies exploded with creativity, each adding their own spin. Not only did they drag the Venerable Master through the mud, but they didn't spare his parents, relatives, descendants, or grand-disciples either, concocting different stories for each. In this manner, karma would wrap around him in endless layers, making it impossible for the Venerable Master to ignore even if he wanted to. In the sub-bodies' words, this was an encircling hunt. The Qingming cultivators exchanged bewildered glances, completely baffled as to where the Realm Lord had found so many "Crouching Dragons and Fledgling Phoenixes." Wei Yuan buried his face in his hands, firmly resolving never to admit he was related to these lunatics in the slightest. Still, the method they concocted wasn't half bad—it merely took the playbook Wei Yuan had once used against Cui Wantong and scaled it up. Wei Yuan decided to go ahead with it. It cost next to nothing anyway, so he might as well do it to gross out the Venerable Master. Research had long shown that these petty grievances were never truly forgotten; they merely accumulated in some dark corner of a person's heart until, one day, they exploded. With the decision made and preparations underway, Wei Yuan suddenly realized a critical oversight: nobody knew the Venerable Master's real name. In fact, forget a real name—nobody even knew whether the Venerable Master was male or female, or whether he was even human. The only thing known was the title "Venerable Master." Fortunately, Wei Yuan was adaptable. Even if this scheme couldn't be used on the Venerable Master, it could certainly be applied to someone else. Thus, Wei Yuan made an impromptu adjustment, swapping out the Venerable Master for Cui Zhengxing as the story's protagonist. Since he couldn't hit the master, thrashing his dog was just as good. Besides, the Qingming armies were currently engaged in the State of Song, so Wei Yuan had no reason to show courtesy to Song Cui. However, the State of Song did not border Qingming and lay far away, and attacking Song was indirectly aiding Southern Qi. Wei Yuan's impression of Southern Qi was hardly favorable, and he certainly had no desire to pave the way for their benefit. As a result, Wei Yuan's current strategy was to fight casually, constantly rotating front-line legions purely as live-combat drills. As the Splendor of the Many Realms expanded, the intelligence and spiritual aptitude of Qingming's people rose accordingly. This comprehensive elevation immediately made many old systems and infrastructures obsolete. To take just one example: within half a year, the caliber of graduates from secondary academies would surge, and those qualified to enter tertiary academies would multiply tenfold or more. Qingming's tertiary academies were on the verge of overflowing. What held true for tertiary academies applied equally to secondary and primary academies. To Wei Yuan's mind, these were the matters of true importance; the Venerable Master and wars among the mortal nations were trivial trifles by comparison. Thus, Wei Yuan cast the Venerable Master aside and turned to managing Qingming's internal affairs. Internal affairs at this point did not require major overhauls, merely reallocations of resources. The mortal population's basic needs—clothing, food, shelter, and transport—were already well secured. In fact, when it came to eating, the priority had shifted from eating well to losing weight. As one item after another was discussed, the agenda soon arrived at matters concerning cultivators. At this moment, that teahouse scholar suddenly piped up: "Having listened to the voices of the people for a long time, and having pondered deeply for many days, I have drafted a grand strategy capable of ushering in ten thousand generations of peace for Qingming! Realm Lord, please take a look!" Official documents and research reports in Qingming rarely used paper anymore, unless they needed to bear true intent, in which case specially crafted jade paper or jade plaques were employed. The report presented by the teahouse scholar carried no true intent at all, yet it was inscribed on a jade plaque purely for the sake of looking solemn and momentous. Wei Yuan was initially somewhat displeased, but the moment he caught sight of the title, his attention was thoroughly hooked: *Affordable Mind-Manifested Worlds for All: On Subsidized Scenery Command*. Even Wei Yuan was taken aback by such a title. This was way too ahead of its time! Sensational title aside, the essay actually laid out a concrete concept. Taking inspiration from the box tenements Qingming currently provided to lowest-class mortals, the paper proposed subdividing a shared mind-manifested world into layers and cubicles. In this way, a single shared mind-manifested world could accommodate hundreds or thousands of cultivators, dramatically driving down costs and making rent affordable even for ordinary practitioners. The essay even thoughtfully calculated the figures on Wei Yuan's behalf: if the rent were reduced to one percent, the vast majority of cultivators in Qingming could afford it, while the total number of mind-manifested world units would increase by hundreds or thousands of times, multiplying total rental revenue several times over. Reading up to this point, Wei Yuan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Was he someone who lacked a bit of rental income? He looked further down—and there was nothing left. This essay was a quintessential piece of teahouse political punditry: a sensational headline, followed by a seemingly viable operational concept, and then... nothing. In the eyes of teahouse scholars, this was the sum total of governance: merely tossing out such ideas was enough to run a state. As for concrete implementation plans, resource allocation, supporting arguments, and corresponding data, there was not a trace. Yet in Wei Yuan's eyes, the true value of this proposal lay elsewhere: could a mind-manifested world this small be sustained by Nascent Soul cultivators without requiring them to advance to the next Dao realm?