After ensuring the three Shamans had revealed everything they knew, Wei Yuan fed them to the sea grass.
Having just consumed two Great Shamans, taking in three lesser Shamans was like dessert after a meal. The sea grass expressed pleasant contentment, though it only grew a single new branch.
The environment within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was clearly unsuited for Shamans; even without being fed to the sea grass or subjected to torture, the trio would not have survived more than a few hours.
Wei Yuan's gaze then shifted to the small island formed from Nether Soil. At this moment, its environment was sixty to seventy percent similar to the Nether Cold Realm. If captured Shamans were placed on the island, they should be able to survive somewhat longer.
However, the island's environment was also unfit for ordinary mortals; only those at the Dao Foundation realm could land and operate there. If Wei Yuan wanted to construct a prison on the island to hold Shamans, he would need more hands.
Thus, Wei Yuan issued a directive ordering the Battle Saint Hall to expand its scale, recruit more members, and accelerate the cultivation of Dao Foundation cultivators.
Wei Yuan had already recorded the Palace of Grand Beginning's Body Casting Six Arts within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, alongside over a hundred various Body Casting cultivation methods.
Generally speaking, no matter what kind of talent a mortal possessed, they could always find a cultivation method suited to them. Even so, Wei Yuan felt uneasy, so he assigned a long-term task: to derive additional Body Casting methods specifically suited to the mortals of Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World based on those existing scriptures.
By now, the two masters of the Battle Saint Hall had returned from gathering supplies, each with their own harvest.
Wei Yuan inspected their finds. The Vice Hall Master held several strange grasses, a few fruits, two bound small beasts, and several objects that were either insect eggs or bird eggs—essentially all ensouled living beings of the Nether Cold Realm.
The Hall Master, on the other hand, had brought back a bit of everything: over a dozen different stones, several pieces of deadwood, two strange fruits, and several handfuls of distinct soils.
One could see from the collected items that their temperaments were entirely different. Wei Yuan suddenly asked, "What are your names?"
Both froze in surprise. The mortals within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had no names; they remembered each other in their own ways. At the Immortal Plant Department, everyone possessed a unique serial number, and when recognizing one another, they simply verified each other's numbers.
Now that Wei Yuan had suddenly asked, it was as if a bolt of lightning ripped across their consciousness, cleaving open the pitch-black world and unveiling a whole new realm.
The Vice Hall Master spoke first: "My surname is Long—Long Wushuang!"
The moment this name was uttered, his demeanor abruptly shifted. Something formless and intangible poured down between heaven and earth, surging into his body, whereupon a spark of innate spiritual nature was born within him.
Previously, mortals within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World merely looked human; in reality, because they lacked physical flesh, their divine soul completeness was only thirty percent.
Now, with the birth of that spark of innate spirituality, Long Wushuang's soul grew far more complete, rising to sixty percent. He seemed to have crossed an invisible threshold, making him feel entirely different.
Long Wushuang now had his own thoughts and his own personality, resembling a true human being far more closely.
The Hall Master hesitated as usual, seemingly deep in thought. In truth, he first sneakily observed Long Wushuang's condition, then spaced out for a brief instant before saying in a dull, steady voice, "My surname is Han—Han Li."
Likewise, once he had a name, formless and intangible matter poured down between heaven and earth, naturally birthing a spark of innate spirituality within him. He cast a swift glance at his surroundings, then promptly withdrew the divine gleam in his eyes and stood obediently in place.
Stroking his chin, Wei Yuan looked at Han Li, lost in thought. Could this fellow be naturally rebellious?
The act of receiving a name seemed to have a special effect on the mortals within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Wei Yuan tried asking other mortals for their names, but only two immortal foundation cultivators successfully obtained names and spontaneously generated spirituality; the others showed no reaction.
It seemed immortal foundation or the late Dao Foundation realm was the threshold for gaining a name and giving rise to innate spirituality.
The samples from the Nether Cold Realm brought back by the two were distributed to various research institutes for study. At this time, Wei Yuan noticed a group of mortals constructing a two-courtyard compound in what little open space remained in the city. A plaque was erected beside the gate: Four Seas Thoroughfare Celestial Boat Engineering Research Institute.
Wei Yuan looked at the boundless sea surrounding them and tacitly approved the institute's establishment.
Wei Yuan's divine consciousness returned to the Nether Cold Realm. After discerning the hidden stars in the sky, he finally confirmed the location of Shu Li's realm and bolted toward that direction.
As he moved, Wei Yuan suddenly halted. Immediately, a faint, ghostly light slashed past his face, just inches away!
Streaks of ghostly light emerged in succession, impossibly fast. Wei Yuan dodged repeatedly, but even his agility proved half a step slower than the light. In the blink of an eye, several gashes opened across his body.
There were no physical bodies in the Nether Cold Realm; everyone existed in the form of an origin soul. Consequently, Wei Yuan's wounds were struck directly into his origin soul, causing him to gasp from the pain.
After a flurry of fierce attacks, the ghostly light suddenly retracted to reveal the figure of a female Shaman. She sneered at Wei Yuan, "Even having advanced to dharma idol, you haven't become all that impressive."
Wei Yuan scrutinized her face, then came to a sudden realization. "I remember now! You're that female Shaman who looks so much like our human race. What was your name again—Hui-something?"
Huixin flew into a rage. "Who looks like a human?!"
In truth, Huixin's face was indeed remarkably similar to that of a human woman, save for a seven-colored scale between her brows. In terms of looks, she was quite striking—slightly inferior to Consort Yuan and Bao Yun, but her exotic, alien charm won back a few points.
Yet the aesthetics of Shamans and humans were worlds apart. In the eyes of Shamans, the larger the physique, the greater the beauty; the farther one's form diverged from infancy and childhood, the more beautiful they were. Thus, the mountain of flesh Great Shaman Wei Yuan had once seen counted as a peerless, top-tier handsome man among Shamans—an Innate Mating Sacred Body endowed with exceedingly high reproductive priority.
Meanwhile, someone slender like Huixin, with virtually no superfluous parts on her body, was considered hideously ugly beyond compare, the kind subjected to taunts and bullying from peers throughout her entire life.
Wei Yuan suddenly thought of something, and his expression toward Huixin turned to pity. Before he even opened his mouth, Huixin sensed impending doom and screeched, "Shut up!"
The words were already on the tip of Wei Yuan's tongue; how could he stop now?
With a solemn and earnest expression, he asked, "This divine ability of yours to conceal your presence and traverse the void... could it be you only developed it because you were so ugly you got beaten up all the time as a child?"
Huixin was incandescent with rage. "You court death?!"
Wei Yuan dodged her barrage of frenzied strikes and continued, "I'm not finished yet! How old are you?"
Huixin didn't let up with her hands, snapping back subconsciously, "Ninety-seven, so what?"
Two more wounds opened on Wei Yuan's body, yet he acted as though he didn't feel them at all, asking, "Ninety-seven... that's not exactly young. Have you ever mated?"
Deep within Huixin's body, a tempest violently erupted, her aura shooting straight into the sky!
In an instant, the area around them was inundated with berserk energy. Countless small pebbles floated into the air, and streaks of lightning crackled across the void, several already striking down around the two and blasting clouds of dust and shattered stone into the air.
The scale between Huixin's brows turned a deep, shadowy black. At her fingertips gathered a terrifying pitch-black orb of thunder, swelling larger by the second.
Right at this moment, dozens of Dao Foundation warriors suddenly appeared around Huixin, each holding a heavy shield and occupying every angle. They had burrowed straight out from underground; having been driven into a frenzy of rage, Huixin had completely failed to notice when these Dao Foundation warriors had been deployed.
The shield-bearing Dao Foundation warriors instantly restricted Huixin's movement to an extremely narrow space. Wei Yuan no longer held back either: Dao power surged forth, blotting out the sky as a colossal hand swept down to seize Huixin!
Chapter 533