Upon returning to the domain, Wei Yuan was immediately met with two major events: an attack by the Shamans, and Xiaoyu preparing to return home for a funeral.
The Shamans had never been known for their patience. After barely a few days of quiet, they launched another assault. This offensive was clearly a probing maneuver: they sent twenty thousand soldiers forward to attack, held ten thousand in reserve behind them, and left another fifty thousand in their camp.
At this time, the aboveground section of the newly built city was merely an outline of city walls. Fewer than twenty thousand people were in the city, digging underground day and night. When the Shamans attacked, these people withdrew completely below ground according to previously established procedures. Wei Yuan assembled his own forces, drawing out ten thousand soldiers to form ranks fifty li behind the new city.
This time, the Shamans altered their tactics. They split off ten thousand troops to bypass the city and confront Wei Yuan’s main force, while the other ten thousand entered the city and charged directly into the underground works.
This tactic truly caught Wei Yuan off guard. It seemed the Shaman commander was quite resourceful this time.
Wei Yuan made a prompt decision, immediately ordering his entire force to press forward. At the same time, he commanded Cui Yu to lead five hundred Dao Foundation cultivators into the fray from the left, while the Fifty Heaven-Battling Bandits struck from the right. Then, he activated Ephemeral Multitude.
Gunsmoke instantly billowed across the battlefield, and deafening roars merged into a single continuous rumble. Flashes of fire flared relentlessly through the smoke. Shaman soldiers fell in droves, many having no idea how they had died. Every soldier in the domain now fired a musket volley straight into the enemy’s face before doing anything else.
By the time the roars finally began to thin and the smoke was dispersed by spells, the Shaman generals were stunned to discover their forces had already suffered thirty percent casualties! Seeing so many comrades fall around them, the morale of the Shaman army wavered at once.
Wei Yuan gave them no chance to regroup. The Jade Mountain descended, smashing an opening straight through the center of the Shaman battle line. He then led his troops in a headlong charge, ripping the Shaman formation apart in one fell swoop.
The Shaman army fell into chaos. But with the new city at their backs, they could only flee around its perimeter—how could they possibly escape?
Like a mountain collapsing, the ten-thousand-strong Shaman force was completely wiped out before long. Meanwhile, continuous explosions still echoed beneath the new city, and plumes of white smoke poured from the subterranean entrances.
Just as Wei Yuan was preparing to lead his troops into the city to trap all the Shamans underground, another twenty thousand Shaman troops appeared in the distance. Wei Yuan had no choice but to halt his entry into the city and turn to face the Shaman reinforcements.
By then, the Shaman forces fighting underground had received orders and began retreating toward the surface. However, entering a burrow was easy, but getting out was hard. The underground tunnels crisscrossed in all directions like a labyrinth; from any corner, someone might pop out, fire a musket right into their face, and run off immediately, showing zero regard for martial virtue.
A full quarter of an hour passed before the Shamans who had charged underground managed to retreat to the surface. Ten thousand warriors had gone down, but only six thousand came back up.
The Shaman reserve force moved out to recover the six thousand battered survivors. The Great Shaman overseeing the army cast a distant glance at Wei Yuan, then sounded the retreat back to camp. Knowing when to stop, Wei Yuan watched the Shamans depart from afar.
For the Shamans, this had been a probing attack, and they had only dispatched ordinary warriors rather than the northern elite they had deployed previously.
Wei Yuan, on the other hand, had utilized every tool at his disposal: newly equipped muskets, Ephemeral Multitude, and karmic luck, omitting none.
The battle underground had largely been fought by a handful of Dao Foundation cultivators leading a massive horde of mortals. Even with the enhancement of Ephemeral Multitude, their casualties approached nearly six thousand. Most of the injured, however, were ordinary mortals who had undergone no body refinement whatsoever. By comparison, the Shamans had lost nearly four thousand trained warriors—a crushing defeat by any standard.
The battle on the surface, meanwhile, had been utterly one-sided. Wei Yuan had deployed over five hundred Dao Foundation cultivators, who were instantly enhanced by Ephemeral Multitude into the equivalent of more than fifteen hundred Dao Foundation experts. Fully equipped with muskets, and with Wei Yuan’s Jade Mountain smashing through enemy lines to blaze the trail, they had virtually annihilated the opposing force, allowing barely a hundred to escape. Casualties on the domain’s side were just over two hundred.
This probe had ended in a decisive defeat for the Shamans.
The grand battle had just concluded, and Wei Yuan was still directing the cleanup of the battlefield when Xiaoyu approached him. Wei Yuan had originally intended to urge him to stay, but upon seeing Xiao Nian standing behind Xiaoyu, he changed his tune and told Xiaoyu to return with peace of mind without worrying about matters here.
Xiao Nian exchanged a few polite pleasantries with Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli, then summoned a flying boat. Just as he was about to board and depart, Xiaoyu suddenly said, “Grandpa, since you’re already here, why don’t you give Wei Yuan a little meeting gift?”
Xiao Nian felt quite helpless and said, “Giving too much right now will easily invite criticism. How about this: I noticed a trace of nether qi contained within the Jade Mountain you just used, and Sun Yu’s courtyard also has a small patch of Nether Soil. I happen to have something suitable on hand, so I will give it to you.”
Xiao Nian took out a box and handed it to Wei Yuan. As Wei Yuan received it, his hand sank slightly; this tiny box actually weighed several hundred jin. He opened it to find two apricot-sized objects inside. They were deep blue all over and still retained their husks, leaving their identity unclear.
Xiao Nian said, “These are two nether wheat seeds that I chanced upon in my earlier years while exploring a grotto-heaven. That grotto-heaven had shattered, and the spirit wheat originally planted there had mostly died after being tainted by foreign qi from beyond the heavens. Only this single stalk miraculously survived for a thousand years. I gathered six seeds in total; over the years, I have given some away, and only these two remain in my hands.”
“Formed from tainted spirit wheat?” Surprised and delighted, Wei Yuan pressed further.
Xiao Nian nodded. “It can be considered a type of spiritual food. Originally, it should have belonged to the immortal grade, but the spiritual food grown from it contains a trace of the power of Everlasting Silence from Nether Soil, so it cannot be eaten in large quantities. For that reason, it was demoted to the supreme grade when classified.”
“Thank you, Senior!” Wei Yuan bowed solemnly. At the moment, he was exceptionally sensitive to anything that could be planted and eaten.
Xiao Nian said, “It is nothing remarkable. No thanks are necessary.”
Xiaoyu grabbed Wei Yuan and pulled him up, echoing, “Indeed, it’s nothing remarkable, so no thanks are necessary!”
Wei Yuan was taken aback. The grade of these two seeds was a whole tier higher than Celestial Star Nightshade; if this wasn’t remarkable, what was?
Looking like someone exasperated by a hopeless student, Xiaoyu gestured over Wei Yuan’s body while lecturing, “Just look at you—you don't even have a decent piece of armor on you! Your defense relies entirely on thick skin and coarse flesh, especially this face of yours…”
Wei Yuan had still been touched a moment ago, but the more he listened, the stranger it sounded.
Xiao Nian seized his grandson, stuffed him into the flying boat, and said, “It is time for us to leave.”
Xiaoyu struggled to poke his head out and shouted, “Save the position of Yong’an’s castellan for me! I will come back!”
Wei Yuan nodded. “Rest assured! No one will take it from you.”
“Someone will! You have to watch out for that Feng Tingyu girl—don't let her bewitch you!”
Xiao Nian pushed his grandson’s head back inside and stepped into the flying boat. A halo of light rippled across its surface, and it tore through the air, speeding away.
But the flying boat flew neither east nor skyward; it flew toward the northwest, where the Wu domain lay. Then, a dazzling sword light spanning hundreds of zhang burst forth into the world, slashing viciously into the void as Xiao Nian’s dignified voice resonated between heaven and earth: “Who dares bar my flying boat? Do you take my Xiao family for someone with no one left to defend it?”
A figure tumbled out of the void, their aura fluctuating erratically, looking rather disheveled from the sword slash. The figure was blurred and indistinct, their identity unknowable. Having been forced out by that single strike, they turned and fled at once, employing an extraordinarily profound escape technique.
Yet the flying boat pursued relentlessly, slashing furiously after the runner with sweeping beams of sword light hundreds of zhang long.
Between heaven and earth, Xiao Nian’s voice took on an exasperated tone: “Insolent scoundrel! I have yielded step after step—why do you still refuse to clear the path? What deep grievance lies between us that you must intercept and kill me midway? I tell you, if you do not let me pass, I am going to strike back…”
The person and the boat vanished into the distance in an instant, though flashes of sword light could still be seen flickering at the horizon’s edge.
Zhang Sheng appeared by Wei Yuan’s side and asked, “Have you learned anything?”
Wei Yuan was also profoundly impressed. “This method of turning black into white is truly…”
Zhang Sheng struck him on the head and said, “His technique was stiff and clumsy—who told you to learn that? What your master wants you to learn is his shameless cheek, telling bald-faced lies in front of over a hundred thousand people throughout the domain without changing color or skipping a beat!”
Wei Yuan fell silent, then said, “That is honestly a bit shameful…”
“It is indeed shameful, which is why your master wants you to learn it.”
Xiaoyu’s departure was sudden, but unavoidable. The woman in palace attire who had come to protect Xiaoyu back then had been very close to him. With her unexpected demise, propriety and affection demanded that Xiaoyu return to attend the funeral rites.
Given the delicate stance of the aristocratic families right now, once Xiaoyu left, there was no telling when they would meet again.
Affairs of the world were always a mingling of sorrow and joy, fortune and misfortune walking hand in hand.
Not long after Xiaoyu’s flying boat vanished, Wei Yuan’s origin soul suddenly jolted. Within Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, a surge of spiritual qi erupted like a fountain!
This spiritual qi was remarkably dense, having already condensed into a persistent, drifting spiritual mist. Wei Yuan entered his sea of consciousness and located the source of the erupting mist—it was actually the spirit field where millet rice had been planted! By now, this region of soil within Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains had merged into a continuous stretch, where lush green plants sprouted from the earth, heavily laden with fist-sized grains of rice.
Every single ear of grain was exuding spiritual qi. While each plant produced only a small amount, a vast expanse combined yielded a substantial bounty. Just this single plot of prematurely ripened millet rice had shortened the time Wei Yuan needed to complete the first stage of cultivation by an entire year.
Yet the spirit plants within his Dao Foundation looked somewhat different from the records of millet rice. Wei Yuan withdrew from his sea of consciousness and flew directly to the spirit field where the millet rice was planted.
Here lay a vast tract of spiritual fields, most of which were still green shoots. However, one corner had completely matured, every stalk laden with pale yellow grains of rice, each the size of a fist.
This was the five hundred mu of millet rice Wei Yuan had planted earliest. It should have taken ten more days to ripen, but now it had suddenly matured entirely. Moreover, the grains were far larger than normal, and their color was a pale yellow rather than the yellowish-red hue of ordinary millet rice.
Wei Yuan plucked a grain and peeled away the husk, revealing a pale yellow grain of rice inside. Plump and lustrous, it was brimming with exceptional spiritual qi. Wei Yuan felt rather astonished. Millet rice was the most common spirit plant in the Western Regions and an indispensable staple for low-level cultivators. Wei Yuan himself had eaten it countless times, but when had he ever seen millet rice like this?
This grain of millet rice was much larger than ordinary millet rice, and its spiritual qi content was twice as high. Although the spiritual qi in millet rice was meager to begin with and doubling it still did not amount to much, if this became the norm, it would no longer belong to its original grade.
Suddenly, a voice spoke from beside him: “This millet rice is truly round as pearls and lustrous as jade—a peerless beauty, one might say!”
Wei Yuan turned his head to find a Daoist standing beside him at some unknown moment, his eyes gleaming as he stared fixedly at the millet rice in Wei Yuan’s hand.
Chapter 221