At this moment, Xiaoyu was like a rising flame, radiating heat, breathtakingly beautiful. Yet his brows were knitted in deep displeasure as he said, "I have no problem with you wanting to support Li Zhi. Senior Brother Li is a fine man; he is just a bit lacking in talent, making it hard to ascend to immortality, leaving him no way forward except the path of the Sovereign of Men.
"But wouldn't it be fine if we just supported him ourselves? Why must we compromise with the Academy? Isn't that just wallowing in the mire with them? Have you forgotten how they treated you that day? On the day you ascended to immortality, Duke Yansheng was the first to strike!"
As Xiaoyu spoke, he slammed his fist on the table, fire blazing in his eyes.
Wei Yuan was caught between laughter and tears. Clearly, this was his own affair, yet whenever Xiaoyu, Yu Zhizhuo, Chuhe, and the others brought it up, every one of them was even angrier than he was. Even Chuhe, a man of such mild temper, was allegedly secretly researching how to obliterate someone's soul entirely, leaving them unable to reincarnate for eternity.
Yet seeing Xiaoyu like this warmed Wei Yuan's heart, and he explained, "This is just the way of the world right now. If you want to accomplish anything, you have to collude and wheel-and-deal with those few immortals up above. Even the throne of the Son of Heaven is traded under the table. In their eyes, it is a meal on their plates; it is just that I now qualify to sit at the table and take a share.
"Only in our own territory can every person be like a dragon, and high positions held by the virtuous."
Xiaoyu gritted his teeth and said, "Wait until I ascend to immortality. I'll go to their old nest and fight it out first!"
Having vented his fury, Xiaoyu's eyes caught sight of a book placed beside Wei Yuan's hand. Looking at the cover, it was the familiar Preliminary Exploration of the Desolate Realm.
This book was now a household name across Qingming. Which chapter one could read up to represented how advanced one's level in mathematics was.
In recent years, Qingming had even instituted an annual realm-wide tier exam, testing the contents of Preliminary Exploration of the Desolate Realm. Each chapter served as the foundation for the next, advancing layer upon layer with crystal clarity, making it an exceptional mathematics textbook. Wei Yuan, also feeling grateful toward Molten Dragon, had established the book as the core material for assessing mathematical proficiency.
Currently, the tier exam only went up to Level 7, corresponding to the contents of Chapter 7. Vast as Qingming was, very few could pass the Level 7 exam. Once someone passed, the great workshops, huge industrial complexes, and major conglomerates across Qingming would fight over them, and spectacles like catching sons-in-law under the posted results were a frequent occurrence.
Xiaoyu had naturally read Preliminary Exploration of the Desolate Realm, studied it thoroughly, and reviewed it from time to time. Seeing the volume here, he picked it up and flipped through at leisure, only to find the pages covered in notes and insights.
Xiaoyu was quite surprised, not expecting Wei Yuan could still study mathematics with such diligence. He flipped straight to Chapter 7 and saw it was likewise covered in annotations, silently filling him with admiration. He flipped further back—Chapter 8 actually had notes and insights on its pages as well!
Xiaoyu was thoroughly shocked. He was currently stuck at Chapter 7 and could not advance—the very bottleneck where the vast majority of Scenery Command cultivators stalled permanently.
All along, Xiaoyu had felt his mathematical level was only slightly inferior to Wei Yuan's. But looking now, where was it just a little? It was a massive gap of an entire chapter!
Xiaoyu flipped further back, and his vision went black! Chapter 9 actually had reflections and insights written on it too! And what was written there was something he could not understand at all!
In Preliminary Exploration of the Desolate Realm, a single chapter's gap was worlds apart; the latter was more than qualified to be the former's master. A gap of two chapters was no different from the divide between immortal and mortal; even if the lesser party knelt and begged to be taken as a disciple, the other would not deign to cast a straight glance. The disparity was truly too immense—teaching would be like talking to a brick wall.
In an instant, Xiaoyu's face flushed crimson, his breathing turned rapid, and his head buzzed. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wei Yuan looking at him with a smile. Only then did he snap awake, seized by acute regret, wishing he could chop off his own meddling hand.
Why on earth did he flip through Wei Yuan's things for no reason?
Wei Yuan was growing craftier by the day; even casually setting a book down harbored hidden intentions, impossible to guard against!
As much as Xiaoyu wanted to die of embarrassment right now, Wei Yuan's Dao heart was correspondingly lucid, and his cultivation was even gradually rising. Their Dao hearts were presently in a zero-sum state: when one gained, the other lost.
Seeing Xiaoyu frozen in place, Wei Yuan felt it necessary to break the impasse and said with a smile, "If you like this book, you can take it back and read it at your leisure!"
Xiaoyu forced a twisted smile, gritting his teeth. "No need!"
It had to be said that Xiaoyu still looked handsome even while grinding his teeth. Wei Yuan praised him in his heart, then called Yu Zhizhuo in.
Once Yu Zhizhuo sat down, Wei Yuan said, "Right now, there are many rumors outside claiming they can manufacture weapons themselves, and that their equipment standards can already catch up to ours. This trend of self-reliance cannot be allowed to grow!
"The Development Bureau has already mobilized literati and scholars to heavily promote that 'making is inferior to buying, and buying is inferior to renting,' but it seems to have had little effect.
"Next, we must devote all our efforts to developing the Mountain Domain and will have no time to intervene in affairs on the human domain's side. Is there any way to make everyone face reality and clearly see the equipment gap between us?"
Yu Zhizhuo said, "That's simple. I have already prepared a batch of goods to send to Southern Jin. I brought a sample."
Yu Zhizhuo took out an armor plate. This was the standard-issue breastplate for Qingming infantry; after continuous optimization, it was now an elegant rhombus.
The surface of this breastplate had an extremely fine granular texture. When Xiaoyu reached out and touched it, instead of the cold feel of metal, it felt like touching leather. He uttered a surprised sound and flipped the plate over, seeing an inner lining affixed inside, tough yet soft, warm to the touch.
The moment Xiaoyu touched it, he sensed something unusual. With a light slice of his finger, he cut a small slit into it. But with his cultivation, a swipe of his finger could sever steel, yet slicing this lining actually took some effort! That is to say, setting aside whether an ordinary Dao Foundation flying sword could penetrate the armor plate, unless it was a full-power hit at close range, even piercing this lining would prove difficult.
The coating on the plate's surface was also sophisticated: lightning-proof, acid-proof, fireproof, and heat-insulating, offering a degree of resistance to various common Dao arts. Xiaoyu had been campaigning in the north in recent years, so he understood the benefits of such heat-insulating materials better than anyone.
Yu Zhizhuo said, "This coating now comes in dozens of color options, as well as several preset patterns. Compared to those knockoffs outside, in terms of sheer appearance, the difference is like a top courtesan in a grand pavilion versus a wretched brothel on a street corner.
"Furthermore, armor plates are easy to imitate. Even though their steel quality is far from adequate, you can't tell without going to the battlefield. Once they take it into battle and real problems arise, they'll already be dead, with nowhere left to complain.
"However, this coating and this padding are different—they are materials produced entirely by us. To put it bluntly, even if I handed them the formulas, they wouldn't be able to understand them!"
Wei Yuan was thrilled. Xiaoyu, on the other hand, felt rather awkward, not knowing why those words sounded somewhat grating to his ears.
Wei Yuan turned the armor plate over and over for a while, immediately deciding to enter full-scale production and select several flashy, imposing color schemes that would make the jaws of the Southern Jin people drop to the floor.
With this major matter resolved, Wei Yuan felt even better. He said to Xiaoyu, "Now that Zhenshan Fief is in our hands, we have the final puzzle piece. I plan to do something big in the Mountain Domain. That is also why we must focus all our efforts there. Calling you back was precisely to discuss this."
Chapter 1484