At the Qingming Dao Foundation training ground, more than four thousand people packed the immense space to capacity. A new plot of land had already been cleared beside it, though the Spirit Gathering Array still needed to be expanded over to cover it.
Wei Yuan hovered in midair, activating Ephemeral Multitude. He observed the faint Dao Foundations taking shape above the heads of the crowd, then waved his hand to scatter specks of glowing light, letting them fall onto the cultivators who were visibly solidifying a foundation.
Only the several hundred Dao Foundation cultivators serving as instructors could see this glow. With their attention drawn to the cultivators marked by the light, they answered questions with far greater care and patience.
Anyone whose Dao Foundation remained invisible to Wei Yuan even under Ephemeral Multitude simply had far too little talent and would most likely fail to cast a foundation.
Of the four thousand-plus people present, about three hundred manifested Dao Foundations. Roughly half of those were preset templates such as the Great Bright Demon-Subduing Sword, Ten Directions Glazed Golden Fire, or Taiyi Sky-Reaching Divine Wood.
Wei Yuan glanced at an ordinary-looking cultivator in the crowd. What he had just coalesced was the Great Bright Demon-Subduing Sword—its sword intent crisp and refined, vastly superior to the original baseline template.
The first run of Ephemeral Multitude indicated that this cohort's overall rate of achieving a Dao Foundation was rather low. However, this was merely the first attempt, and plenty of optimization and adjustments would follow.
Regardless of how poor their talent was, most cultivators harbored soaring ambitions, and on their first attempt, every single one hoped to achieve a unique Dao Foundation of their own. If casting a Dao Foundation required a passing score of five points, every male cultivator felt he was at least a six or a seven, while every female cultivator considered herself a nine.
The reality, however, was that more than ninety percent scored below five.
Wei Yuan did not burst their bubble. After waiting half an hour, he initiated the second round of Ephemeral Multitude.
This time, most of the cultivators had faced reality and dared not squander their opportunity any longer. As a result, numerous preset Dao Foundations manifested across the grounds, bringing the total to over four hundred people. More than a hundred who previously could not form a foundation at all now revealed preset ones; clearly, their aptitude hovered right between a preset foundation and an independent one, lingering between a four and a five.
Meanwhile, that ordinary young man cast the Immortal Sword · False Sun this time.
A full hour separated this round from the next. The nearly one hundred instructors needed to help the students find templates better suited to them from among the numerous options, rather than merely what they fancied.
Take Five Directions Geng Metal and Innate Lifegiving Water, for example. Though their names were unremarkable and their manifestations rather crude, they were exceptionally versatile and easy to master. Better yet, they made finding work effortless, ensuring that cultivators who achieved them would never lack places to temper their Dao Foundations.
Guided by the instructors, several dozen more potential talents capable of forming Dao Foundations emerged during the third round of Ephemeral Multitude. Following standard procedure, the medicinal decoctions were distributed next.
The concoction had originally been prepared by Sun Yu and subsequently refined by Xu Henshui. Drinking it stimulated vitality and potential, marginally increasing the likelihood of successfully casting a Dao Foundation.
The decoctions came in different vessels: ordinary commoners received earthenware bowls, those recommended by registered officials or from the Cui family received porcelain bowls, and Cui family scions who paid extra to become super students were given jade bowls. While the efficacy of the medicine did vary somewhat between bowls, the difference was nowhere near as vast as the vessels suggested.
This scheme was Bao Yun's idea. Sure enough, once implemented, the Cui family scions were thoroughly satisfied, beaming with pride. The commoners of the domain could accept it, but they developed an intense aversion to the Cui scions—achieving the true essence of divide and conquer.
A moment later, Jia Wood Life-Mystic descended along with azure qi, and the formal foundation casting began.
Casting Dao Foundations had become a routine sight, and today was no different. In the end, more than five hundred people successfully formed their foundations, the vast majority being template-based.
Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World delivered its analysis in an instant: the success rate this time was higher than the last, producing roughly fifty more successful cultivators.
The primary reason for the increase was that prior to casting, the instructors had deliberately intimidated the students who insisted on forging their own unique foundations, telling them that out of every hundred cultivators who had sought their own Dao Foundation in the past, more than eighty had failed.
Thoroughly frightened, around a hundred cultivators who had wanted independent foundations obediently opted for template Dao Foundations instead, leaving only eighty-odd who stayed the course.
In truth, those who could manifest an independent foundation during the very first round of Ephemeral Multitude possessed decent fundamentals; in past cohorts, only around sixty percent had failed, nowhere near the terrifying eighty percent. But by relinquishing their personal ambitions and pivoting to a template Dao Foundation, their success rate rose from thirty percent to sixty percent. Thus, that change alone accounted for thirty additional successes.
As for wasting talent, Wei Yuan saw no such thing. Would anyone truly gifted ever come to the Qingming Dao Foundation training class to cast their foundation? Besides, even if they managed an independent foundation, it would only be Mortal Tier, and far less practical than a template foundation.
To put it plainly, all of them hovered around the five-point mark—what genuine genius was there to speak of?
According to the analysis of Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, the second reason was that Wei Yuan had blessed the extra-paying Cui family scions with azure qi. At present, Wei Yuan possessed an endless abundance of azure qi, more than he could ever use up.
With Ephemeral Multitude, targeted guidance from instructors, the aid of the medicinal decoction, the blessing of karmic luck, self-supplied pills, and a template foundation with a threshold so low it practically did not exist, the success rate of these wealthy Cui scions reached an astounding seventy percent!
They felt as though they were living a dream, scarcely daring to believe it was real. Once they regained their senses, they swaggered around as though the word "rich" were plastered across their foreheads, treating the poor wretches who could not afford to pay with utter contempt.
Meanwhile, the ordinary-looking cultivator had cast three immortal swords: Azure Silk, Black Silk, and White Silk.
He had not truly cast a Dao Foundation; just like the three previous times, he had merely used the power of Ephemeral Multitude to simulate the process. Once finished, he quietly slipped away.
Leaving the instructors to wrap up the grounds, Wei Yuan flew back to the main peak and arrived at Zhang Sheng's residence. Sitting in the study was that very same ordinary cultivator, the disguises peeling away layer by layer to reveal her true countenance.
"How does it feel?"
"The path ahead is largely clear. I'm having Xu Henshui refine a furnace of pills for me to bolster my physical body a bit, and then I can begin casting my foundation."
Wei Yuan was overjoyed. This meant there was no longer any impediment to Zhang Sheng's Dao heart, and she could resume her ascent on the immortal path.
Even so, Wei Yuan could not help feeling curious about how his teacher had rebuilt her invincible Dao heart. Could this path truly contend with the Heavenly Shaman who had cast the Karma Great Curse? If so, Zhang Sheng's future achievements might surpass the Three Immortals, falling short only of the Patriarch.
Still, an invincible heart had to be nurtured slowly, and an outsider could only watch without prying.
Zhang Sheng picked up a Daoist text and said, "When the great war begins, I will take command. Well then, I need to consolidate my Dao heart now. You may leave."
Though Wei Yuan found her request for command unusual, he saw nothing wrong with it. Everything he knew had been taught by Zhang Sheng; none knew the terrifying extent of his teacher's abilities better than he.
Although Zhang Sheng had virtually never commanded an army directly, if she were ever pitted against Bao Yun, Wei Yuan would still place far greater faith in Zhang Sheng.
As for Li Zhi, Wei Yuan thought he might at best rival Feng Tingyu in military command, making any comparison to his teacher utterly absurd—who knew where Li Zhi got such confidence in his generalship anyway?
Only now, equipped with Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World and numerous Dao Foundation warriors serving as command nodes, did Wei Yuan feel confident he could contend against Zhang Sheng.
Leaving the courtyard, Wei Yuan wrote a letter to True Monarch Yanshi to consult on matters of generational bloodlines and karmic luck.
He had just sent the letter off when a cultivator hurried over and reported, "Domain Lord, City Lord Bao sent me to deliver word: the Shaman vanguard has just crossed the five-hundred-li boundary!"
Wei Yuan rose at once and said, "Assemble everyone. We meet in the council hall!"
Chapter 482