The great battle had ended, yet someone still stood before the Hall of Merits solving the examination questions, having already reached the ninth.
Judging that the figure would likely fail the final three problems and fearing she might retreat in the face of difficulty, Ji Liuli called over Zhang Sheng to flank and capture her from both sides. But just as they closed within a hundred feet, before Ji Liuli could even loose her Demon-Suppressing Pagoda, the figure grew wary. With a sudden motion, she tore open a rift in midair, slipped inside, and vanished without a trace.
This divine ability caught both Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli completely off guard, leaving them to watch helplessly as she made good her escape. It seemed this very technique had allowed her to slip in and out of the domain without making a sound.
By now, the Shaman army had withdrawn from the domain, abandoning tens of thousands of corpses upon the battlefield. These remains would serve as raw material to nourish Qingming. Wei Yuan, however, knew their retreat was merely temporary; the main force had suffered no crippling blow and could stage a comeback at any moment.
Knowing oneself and knowing one's enemy was the foremost priority. Recalling his eerie encounter with Dream Eater, Wei Yuan felt a lingering sense of unease.
According to Dream Eater, Wei Yuan had broken her Ghost Bride trap with astonishing speed, the key being that he managed to retain part of his memories with every awakening. Anyone else, no matter how formidable their soul, could never achieve that; they could only be worn away cycle after cycle until they finally perished to become nourishment for Dream Eater.
The reason Dream Eater could not swallow Wei Yuan was clear enough. Soul and Dao Foundation were one. Because of Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, Wei Yuan's soul was utterly terrifying. Consuming it was equivalent to devouring ten thousand li of rivers and mountains, no different from an ordinary person swallowing a desk-sized block of solid gold. That was why the dream puppets had burst apart one after another, meeting violent ends.
What Wei Yuan now wished to uncover was how he had retained his memories within that trap. He sought out Ji Liuli, had Eldest Senior Sister bestow good fortune upon him, and then stilled his mind, pondering with all his might what had preserved his recollection. As his thoughts drifted, his intuition flared the instant he considered the immortal laurel branch. He realized it had to be the work of that celestial artifact.
The immortal laurel branch had already developed spirituality, though communication was not yet possible. However, Wei Yuan's Dao power had taken on a trace of the immortal tree's aura, granting him enhanced suppression and erosion against the green mist of the Wu domain, along with an added lunar flame effect. That was the platinum flame that had ignited the Shamans—possessing lethality on par with the True Fire of the Sun, yet entirely devoid of heat.
Since it was the work of a celestial artifact, there was no need to probe any further. The profundities of an immortal object were far beyond what Wei Yuan could unravel at his current stage.
What truly unsettled Wei Yuan was the Nether Shaman named Shu Li. Snatching away Wei Yuan's soul across space was practically impossible to defend against. Still, general information regarding the higher echelons of the Shamans was preserved within the Hall of Merits, obtainable through merit points.
Wei Yuan went to the Hall of Merits to investigate and indeed found the relevant materials, though all required heavenly merits. Without hesitation, Wei Yuan spent what little remained of his heavenly merits to exchange for every single related record.
The Wuyu Clan was quite an unusual race; their mature forms lacked fixed shapes, a trait unique among known alien tribes. Their cultivation and advancement methods were equally peculiar.
At the stages of Shaman Scholar and Great Shaman, four primary paths led to the heavens: Power Shamans, Dharma Shamans, blood shamans, and Dao Shamans. Wei Yuan had fought Power Shamans and blood shamans and was thoroughly familiar with them. Dharma Shamans were fewer in number, while Dao Shamans were exceedingly rare. It was said Dao Shamans began communing with heaven and earth as early as the Shaman Scholar stage, making their ultimate breakthrough to Heavenly Shaman the least arduous. However, Dao Shamans demanded the highest natural talent, rare even as one in a hundred among Shaman Scholars.
Once a Great Shaman reached the peak of cultivation, the shaman had to seek out a place akin to the Nether Cold Realm to establish their own realm, drawing power from it to continue cultivating.
Blood shamans invariably chose the Nether Cold Realm, ascending to become Nether Shamans. Power Shamans and Dharma Shamans each possessed realms akin to the Nether Cold Realm in which to plant their domains; Power Shamans ascended to become Desolate Shamans, while Dharma Shamans ascended to become Spirit Shamans.
Only Dao Shamans were uniquely exceptional. They established their realms directly within their own souls—'I am heaven and earth, heaven and earth are me.' These were known as Sacred Shamans.
Ultimately, all paths converged at the Heavenly Shaman realm, collectively known as Heavenly Shamans.
Yet there was one fact Wei Yuan had never considered before: Power Shamans were not the warrior nobility of the Shamans. The warrior caste followed a path akin to human cultivation, having low requirements for talent but massive demands for resources—perfect for the upper nobility of the Shamans. However, these warriors could never ascend to immortality, halting at a level equivalent to a human Scenery Command True Monarch.
After reviewing all the materials, Wei Yuan fell into deep thought. It appeared the Shamans had thoroughly mastered methods of drawing strength from bizarre worlds like the Nether Cold Realm.
Originally, Wei Yuan had not intended to venture into the Nether Cold Realm so soon. But with Nether Shaman Shu Li having arrived outside the domain and striking at him across space, Wei Yuan was forced to counter, advancing his schedule for the Nether Cold Realm.
By now, the battlefield had been thoroughly cleared, with all casualties and spoils accounted for.
The Shaman forces that breached the domain totaled fifty-five thousand, of which thirty-eight thousand had fallen. Over six hundred Dao Foundation Shaman Scholars and warriors had perished.
On the domain's side, of the more than twenty thousand stationed in the northwest fortress, only five thousand remained after the battle. They had eliminated more than eight thousand foes within the fortress walls.
Among the main forces, survivors and those with light injuries capable of recovery numbered four thousand five hundred. Nine hundred elite troops remained, and one hundred and fifty Dao Foundation cultivators had survived. This constituted the entirety of the forces left within the domain.
In terms of spoils, Wei Yuan's greatest gain was karmic luck. Within Wei Yuan's sea of consciousness, the threads of azure qi now exceeded a thousand, supplemented by twenty advanced threads of azure qi and two dense droplets of great fortune. For a time, Wei Yuan had no idea how to spend all this karmic luck.
Should he keep having Xu Wenwu ride horses?
At the thought of horses, a pang of heartache struck Wei Yuan's chest. He cast those sentiments to the back of his mind and continued scheming. Xu Wenwu handling karmic luck certainly sparked transformations, as seen with the blood demon steed, the Azure Steed, and the Celestial Star Nightshade. The problem was that Wei Yuan now held far too much karmic luck; relying on Xu Wenwu alone could never exhaust it all.
Another harvest was the Shaman corpses, which served as nourishment for Qingming. Tens of thousands of elite Shaman bodies could shave a decade off Qingming's nurturing period.
Furthermore, the massive quantities of military supplies and armor brought by the Shamans provided the domain with desperately needed materials.
Even so, the current situation offered no cause for optimism. Over half of the domain's elite forces were lost, yet the Shaman host had not retreated far. Instead, they had halted a hundred li away, seemingly waiting for subsequent orders.
What Qingming needed most right now was time, yet peaceful development was the one thing they lacked.
Just as Wei Yuan felt a growing headache, he suddenly sensed a distinct disturbance in the domain's spiritual energy. At first it occurred in only one spot, but within breaths, the fluctuations multiplied, eventually spreading across more than a hundred locations!
This sensation of turbulent spiritual energy felt oddly familiar, resembling the absorption of heaven-and-earth origin qi during a breakthrough to Dao Foundation.
Wei Yuan pushed open the door and stepped out, preparing to see what was happening. The moment he emerged, he saw Cui Yu flying toward him at full speed, shouting the moment he spotted Wei Yuan, "Someone is breaking through to Dao Foundation!"
Wei Yuan thought to himself that it was indeed so. Seeing no reaction from Wei Yuan, Cui Yu hurriedly added, "It's not just one person, it's many! In my unit alone, there are over fifty!"
"So many? At the same time?" Wei Yuan was genuinely shocked. The elite troops under Cui Yu's command were down to only six hundred after the battle, which already included over thirty at the Dao Foundation stage. Now more than fifty were breaking through to Dao Foundation all at once? Wei Yuan had inspected every single one of those elites, and he did not recall so many talents among them.
Wei Yuan immediately rushed with Cui Yu to the troop encampment, where numerous open grounds had already been cleared and cordoned off to prevent idle bystanders from disrupting the breakthroughs. Inside each isolated tent, heaven-and-earth origin qi was being relentlessly drawn in.
After making a round of inspection, Wei Yuan understood. These men had already achieved great perfection in Body Casting and stood at the brink of advancement. Having survived the harrowing slaughter of the great battle, their states of mind had reached maturity, suddenly triggering the opportunity for a breakthrough. Still, for over a hundred people to break through to Dao Foundation at the exact same time—wasn't that far too coincidental?
While increasing the supply of spiritual energy to the area and bestowing more Jia Wood life-mystic power, Wei Yuan summoned the records of the advancing cultivators and reviewed them one by one.
Upon checking, Wei Yuan discovered that most had been evaluated as mediocre in talent, with exceedingly slim prospects of ever attaining a Dao Foundation. Tested on the Daoist test at the Palace of Grand Beginning, their innate gifts would span only about two feet. Forget entering the Palace of Grand Beginning; even joining the Red Tide Sect would have been a stretch for them.
All of them had arrived in the domain quite recently, many having been here for less than a month. Beyond drills, the domain had not distributed any cultivation methods, and everyone still practiced their own techniques. Their breakthroughs therefore had little to do with any instruction from the domain.
For so many to shatter the limits of their innate talent and advance to Dao Foundation simultaneously, there could only be one explanation:
Ephemeral Multitude.
Chapter 199