Across the desolate earth, a ragged, barely clothed crowd bustled with activity. They quarried stone, polished tools, and laid plans around the few patches of fertile soil scattered across the wilderness. In teams of several dozen, people dispersed in all directions to scout their surroundings.
At the edge of the fertile land, over a hundred people sat in a circle engaged in fierce debate. In the end, they elected seven representatives—five men and two women—and collectively chose a dignified middle-aged man to serve as their chieftain.
With the leadership decided, they reorganized the idle masses and assigned each group their duties. Several hundred youths knelt before a makeshift stone altar and began praying for rain. Others used stone spades to dig into the ground, excavating large pits and digging trenches to connect them, seemingly preparing reservoirs to store water when the rains came.
Sure enough, heavy rain began to fall. Yet the sky remained a murky red and a full moon still hung high above, making the downpour feel inexplicably eerie.
Under the guidance of the elders, the people carved out several shallow trenches to channel the rainwater into the deep pits, pooling it into ponds. Then they dug canals toward the fertile earth, dividing it into plots of farmland. The only problem was that, at present, there was nothing to plant.
Several other groups headed in different directions to worship the world's divine trees. One tree's trunk was snapped and charred black at the break, yet fresh sprouts were emerging from the fracture. The other two were merely palm-sized saplings, but that did not deter the people from revering them.
However, the two saplings were of fundamentally different natures. To prove that the divine tree they worshiped was superior, the two factions of devotees argued fiercely, spitting at one another and stopping just short of coming to blows. What the worshipers failed to notice, however, was that the distance between the two saplings was growing steadily wider.
Farther away stood a ten-thousand-zhang Jade Mountain, the sacred mountain of this realm. Atop the Sacred Mountain stood yet another divine tree, but it accepted neither worship nor faith. The perimeter of the Jade Mountain was holy ground they were forbidden to approach.
There was also another sacred domain in this world, where a true goddess and her retinue stood. It was said that another true god was currently being conceived, but everyone felt an instinctive revulsion toward him and refused to offer him even a shred of incense.
The newly elected seven elders had already divided their responsibilities: some planned grain fields, others surveyed land for cotton, and still others scouted for mineral veins. Meanwhile, the grand elder and another elder led the people in quarrying stone to build stone houses.
Though sturdy, constructing stone houses took tremendous labor and effort. It was not that they did not want to build timber cabins, but this world had only a handful of divine trees and no other timber whatsoever. Never mind trees—there was not even a blade of grass or a single wild blossom to be found.
Yet when the stone houses were halfway built, a new problem arose: they had no way to construct roofs.
Watching these people bustling about within Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, Wei Yuan was genuinely at a loss for words.
In the past, the Dao Foundation or dharma idol warriors that emerged from the dark pool had all been puppets incapable of even receiving orders; Wei Yuan had to divide his attention to control them directly. Only after achieving spiritual enlightenment could they receive his commands.
This time, however, tens of thousands had been converted in a single breath from the yin soldiers and resentful wraiths. Though all were ordinary mortals, each possessed inherent spirituality and carried fragments of their past-life memories.
Wei Yuan had not paid attention at first, and by the time he noticed, they had already chosen a site for a settlement, mapped out fertile ground, dug canals to divert water, quarried stone for dwellings, and were even prospecting for ore veins. They had even elected their own leaders, fully settling down to build a paradise of their own.
Discovering tens of thousands of people bustling away in Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains left Wei Yuan utterly astounded.
Just then, several hundred people erected an altar of stones and began praying in unison. Wei Yuan heard their voices: they pleaded for the Immortal Creator to bestow seeds, trees, and mineral veins.
In truth, Wei Yuan could naturally hear their speech, but the intent behind their prayers transmitted straight into his divine sense, bypassing any language barrier. What an unpretentious folk they were—all they asked for were the simplest, most basic resources. They did not even dare ask for lumber, only for saplings.
Wei Yuan glanced across Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. It truly was too barren. Apart from a few immortal plants, not a single spiritual plant remained, nor could a single mundane tree or blade of grass be found. As for mineral veins, Wei Yuan knew better than anyone that there certainly were none. Right now, Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains contained only dirt and stone.
Wei Yuan silently picked up a stone and infused it with the cauldron intent, flattening and smoothing it until, setting aside the true intent within, it was effectively a stone slab. Wei Yuan then transmitted the process of reshaping the slab into their minds.
Having received the true intent from the cauldron, the crowd erupted in excitement. A true immortal had manifested!
A frenzy of worship swept through them! In that instant, Wei Yuan heard tens of thousands of distinct praises simultaneously, some so effusive they bordered on embarrassing. Yet praise was just praise; Wei Yuan did not gain a single strand of karmic luck from it. Still, he had already gained the karma of these people, so he could hardly ask for more.
These people had all reincarnated through the Gate of the Many Realms, born directly into Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation. In reality, they possessed no physical bodies, and their life and death hung entirely on Wei Yuan's whim.
Wei Yuan had initially planned to pick one to experiment on, to see what happened if he obliterated them outright. After some thought, however, he shook his head. Though reincarnated and reliant on Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains to survive, they possessed their own souls and independent minds.
To Wei Yuan, they were at least mostly human. Obliterating them on a whim was little different from murder.
On the battlefield, Wei Yuan would never be soft-hearted. Yet in ordinary times, even if these people were theoretically puppets within his Dao Foundation, he was unwilling to harm them casually. After offering their veneration, the crowd set to work shaping stones according to the cauldron's true intent. Setting them aside for the moment, Wei Yuan began inspecting the condition of Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.
By now, Maiden Yin-Yang had sprouted sentience. On her own, the rank of her spirituality far surpassed that of a True Monarch; Wei Yuan even felt ordinary immortals might fall short. In terms of quantity, tens of thousands of ordinary mortals endowed with spirituality were easily worth several hundred Dao Foundations or a dozen dharma idols.
In addition, another powerful spark of spirituality was currently gestating, its rank already approaching that of a True Monarch. Wei Yuan had never seen such a development before; he surmised it must have formed from the remnant clan's old ghost's soul after his death.
The old ghost had claimed to be a True Dragon scion and said that scions could refine one another into dragon guards after slaying them. Judging by his words, these dragon guards seemed extraordinarily formidable, and the disparity in strength between two scions mainly depended on the number of successful hunts they had carried out.
Recalling the old ghost's shock upon first laying eyes on Yin-Yang, could the Shaman woman he had captured back then also have been a True Dragon scion? And after he slew her, had she reincarnated as a dragon guard—namely, Maiden Yin-Yang?
The more Wei Yuan thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Yet one puzzle remained: if he truly was a True Dragon scion, where was his companion treasure?
Even the remnant clan's old ghost possessed a dragon bone—surely Wei Yuan could not have come away with nothing at all? Though, judging by the colossal proportions of a True Dragon, that dragon bone had likely come from some forgotten nook or cranny of the dragon's body, and the smallest scrap at that.
By this point, the blood qi within the Primordial Blood Bead was nearly exhausted. Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains suddenly trembled, and lingering chimes rang out one after another, like the resonant harmony of bells and cauldrons.
The entire earth, the sky, and everything between heaven and earth—including Maiden Yin-Yang and the tens of thousands of mortals—coalesced into a single whole. Deep beneath the earth, a vast sea of spirituality emerged. With this, the spirituality of Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation had fully matured, bringing the Vitality realm to completion, while his Spirit Nourishing realm advanced past the halfway mark, drawing him close to reaching the dharma idol stage.
Still, the old ghost had been a late-stage dharma idol, yet his entire lifetime of accumulated blood qi was only enough to advance Wei Yuan a little over one minor realm within his Dao Foundation, failing to bridge even two. Wei Yuan could not help but grumble inward at the sheer inefficiency.
Chapter 369