Looking at the graceful maiden standing before him, Wei Yuan did not want to spare her another glance. Agitated and ill at ease, he withdrew from his sea of consciousness.
The room remained just as it was when he had left it. A ray of sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating motes of dust dancing in the beam. Where the sun reached, it was naturally warm, but the shadows were exceptionally, chillingly cold. Wei Yuan shivered instinctively, then shifted himself into the sunlight, feeling slightly better only after doing so.
A sheet of copper lay on the desk. Wei Yuan picked it up casually and stroked it twice; Dao power instantly polished the sheet into a smooth, bright bronze mirror. Wei Yuan held up the mirror to look at his reflection.
What appeared in the mirror was an entirely withered face, flesh clinging tightly to bone like a skeleton, while bloody water continuously wept from two hollow eye sockets!
Wei Yuan turned his head, and the reflection in the mirror turned with him.
Wei Yuan set down the bronze mirror, plucked out a few strands of his own hair, and ignited them with Dao power. The hair burned exceedingly slowly, giving off a ghostly blue flame, while threads of blood-red light glimmered through the rising dark smoke.
Wei Yuan watched impassively until the hair finished burning, then waved his hand to brush away the ashes. On the desk also sat a canister of divination sticks and two irregular wooden boards used for turtle-shell divinations. These divination tools were always kept on hand; before every major operation, Wei Yuan would conduct a proper divination of his fortune.
Now, however, Wei Yuan felt there was no need to divine anything further; the result was already blatantly obvious.
Wei Yuan steadied his mind and re-entered his sea of consciousness, gazing at the quietly standing maiden. All four of her eyes were tightly shut, even the pair that had degenerated into tiny black dots.
She was much taller than when he had captured her, but among humans she was still rather short, reaching only up to Wei Yuan's chest. Yet her outward appearance did not matter; what mattered was her true nature.
She merely had the form of a human maiden, but in reality, she was a special Dao Foundation—a human-form Dao Foundation.
Humanity had tens of thousands of Dao Foundations, but human-form Dao Foundations were exceedingly rare; even when they appeared, they merely shared a vague resemblance in shape and were nothing like a real human. But the maiden standing before Wei Yuan gave him a remarkably peculiar feeling. Without careful scrutiny, he would catch himself mistaking her for a genuine human being from time to time.
She seemed to be a special entity poised between an origin soul and a Dao Foundation, though at present she was like an empty shell, possessing no consciousness of her own.
Yet what made Wei Yuan's scalp tingle with dread was that she actually possessed a Dao Foundation of her own!
Just behind her glabella, two slender wisps of breath—one black, one white—circled each other in a slow, revolving dance.
The moment he had first laid eyes on it, Wei Yuan had fled his sea of consciousness to cool off. Only after examining the state of his karmic luck and mentally bracing himself did he return to his sea of consciousness to study those two slender wisps with solemn focus.
The yin-yang twin qi!
Throughout humanity's vast history, countless Dao Foundations had climbed ever upward. The highest to ever appear had been the complete forms of the Four Sacred Beasts, and in the end, every single cultivator who manifested one had become an Immortal Monarch who dominated their era.
Higher still lay the achievement of Pure Yin or Pure Yang, yet those ended at legend, lacking any verifiable records. Lesser Yin and Lesser Yang were comparatively more numerous and clearly recorded, but such Dao Foundations were in truth somewhat inferior to the Four Sacred Beasts.
Yet now, the complete yin-yang twin qi had appeared right before Wei Yuan!
Such a Dao Foundation bordered infinitely close upon the Great Dao. If placed within the Palace of Grand Beginning's Hall of Myriad Manifestations, not even the center of the astral river would be exalted enough to host it; it would inevitably sit perched above the entire river of stars.
If a person were to achieve such a Dao Foundation and grow without hindrance, dominating the contemporary era would be an absolute certainty—and they would very likely become the foremost sovereign of humanity throughout all eternity.
The problem was, this maiden who possessed the yin-yang twin qi was converted from a Shaman Scholar Wei Yuan had captured in the Nether Cold Realm.
The Great Dao had its own balance; a pheasant could never turn into a Vermilion Bird out of thin air. This was an eternal truth proven across the ages. In antiquity, cultivators were obsessed with turning stones into gold, only to discover that the Dao power expended was far more precious than the gold produced.
Wei Yuan had originally planned to capture a few ordinary Shaman Scholars and shamanesses. In fact, he had thought he had nabbed an ordinary shamaness—at most a minor genius, someone whose talent was a bit better than Tianyu's, maybe seven or eight times as clever.
Yet now, seeing the converted yin-yang twin qi, Wei Yuan's mind went blank at intervals, realizing he had been absurdly, catastrophically wrong.
As the undisputed top student during the centralized instruction period, Wei Yuan—who had scored nearly full marks in every subject—knew very well that let alone an ordinary little shamaness who wasn't even a Great Shaman, even if one gathered every Shaman, human, and living creature within a radius of one hundred thousand li and sacrificed them all together, it would still be impossible to produce the yin-yang twin qi!
Wei Yuan scratched his hair in frustration. By now, even someone using Tianyu's brain could tell that the little shamaness's identity was far from simple—so far beyond simple that Wei Yuan did not even want to contemplate it!
At this very moment, even the habitually arrogant immortal laurel branch stayed motionless, as though pretending to be a fake tree.
Where the maiden stood, everything around her was transforming at an exceedingly slow pace, though no one could tell what it would ultimately become.
Wei Yuan was by nature fearless of heaven and earth, but right now he deeply regretted reaching out with that claw from beneath the earth.
The Shamans' most terrifying curse was not the Bloodline Great Curse, which struck all targets connected by blood; above it lay the Karma Great Curse, capable of cursing to death anyone bound to the target by cause and effect.
During centralized instruction, when the instructors explained the Karma Great Curse, they had said it was the difference between exterminating nine generations of a clan and exterminating ten. In fact, the Karma Great Curse went even further than wiping out ten generations—it struck down enemies as well.
Wei Yuan knew well that his karmic luck and Dao Foundation were both extraordinary; if the Karma Great Curse landed on him, it might not even manage to kill him completely. But the next target the curse reached along the karmic web would unquestionably be Zhang Sheng—even Wei Youcai would have to stand behind him in line.
Wei Yuan withdrew from his sea of consciousness, pushed open his door, and walked over to Zhang Sheng's room, knocking gently.
"Enter." Zhang Sheng's voice sounded from within—serene, warm, and pure.
Wei Yuan pushed the door open and stepped inside. Zhang Sheng was seated before the window, holding a copy of the History of Tang. Seeing Wei Yuan enter, Zhang Sheng set down the history book and smiled. "Reaped quite a harvest this time?"
Wei Yuan stood straight, head bowed, and whispered, "Master, I... I've caused big trouble."
Zhang Sheng asked, "Is it because of that Great Shaman? Which Nether Shaman's son did you kill?"
Wei Yuan gave a wry smile. "It might be worse than that."
Zhang Sheng raised his brows, a fiery will to battle kindling in his eyes. "The son of a Heavenly Shaman, then?"
"It might... be a bit worse than that."
Zhang Sheng grew serious. "Tell me everything in detail."
Wei Yuan recounted the entire sequence of events without holding anything back. As for the maiden, he dared not manifest her outward, fearing that mighty experts in this world skilled in deduction might sense her. He brought out only a pinch of soil influenced by the yin-yang twin qi and placed it before Zhang Sheng.
Zhang Sheng stared fixedly at that speck of soil, motionless for a long time. Not until the sunlight shifted did he finally say, "Actually, strictly speaking, this isn't that big a deal..."
Hearing Zhang Sheng say this, Wei Yuan's heart settled instantly. All along, his teacher had been his greatest bulwark and pillar of strength.
Seeing Wei Yuan let out a massive sigh of relief, Zhang Sheng remained expressionless and said placidly, "...After all, things couldn't possibly get any worse."
Zhang Sheng stood up and paced back and forth across the room, his brows knitting tighter and tighter. Seeing him like this, Wei Yuan's heart leapt into his throat once again.
Had it only concerned himself, Wei Yuan would naturally have feared nothing. But the Shamans' Karma Great Curse was utterly unreasonable; anyone connected to him, relevant or not, would be dragged down. Not just Sky Azure Hall—Bao Yun, Ji Liuli, and Xiaoyu would hardly be spared. As for everyone in the Wei family, they were mere mortals and would perish without a sound.
After pacing an unknown number of laps, Zhang Sheng finally came to a halt and said slowly, "You have forcefully warped the Great Fortune of two races. If this matter isn't handled properly, it won't be a question of purging our sect; rather, the sect that is Sky Azure Hall will very likely be purged by you."
Seeing Wei Yuan struck dumb, Zhang Sheng suddenly smiled faintly. "What is there to fear? With your master here, I naturally won't let anything happen to you."
Wei Yuan did not believe it, however. Even if Zhang Sheng had already become a True Monarch, he likely could not withstand the Shamans' Karma Great Curse. This master of his was wonderful in every way, save for one: he refused to concede with his tongue even on pain of death.
Zhang Sheng naturally knew what Wei Yuan was thinking and said flatly, "What are you imagining? Your master naturally isn't omnipotent."
Wei Yuan suddenly understood. What Zhang Sheng actually meant was: by the time disaster truly befell Wei Yuan, he would already no longer be around to see it.
Chapter 212