Wei Yuan casually manifested a scabbard and sheathed the demonic blade inside. The demonic blade appeared utterly reluctant, yet dared not disobey, obediently sliding into the sheath. Seeing how compliant it was, Wei Yuan granted it a wisp of azure karmic luck, not expecting it would actually gulp it down.
"Thank you, my lord, but... it's not quite enough."
Wei Yuan gave a generous wave of his hand and granted it a thousand wisps of azure karmic luck. The demonic blade was instantly overjoyed, even vibrating with an excited hum. After questioning it in detail, Wei Yuan gained a clear understanding of the situation.
After Lei Dong obtained karmic luck, his cultivation realm broke through from the early stage of Dharma Manifestation to the late stage in just three short years. Numerous Great Shamans suspected he had stumbled upon a miraculous encounter and grew covetous, seeking to seize it. In the end, instead of snatching his fortune, they each became stepping stones on Lei Dong's path to the Dao, their family savings turning into the foundation of Lei Dong's storage bags.
Lei Dong rapidly rose to power, winning the support of all the Nether Shamans. The first thing he did after taking control was settle old scores, dragging out everyone who had once looked down on him to trample on them, repeatedly stomping on those he resented most. The second thing was expanding his harem. He started by filling it with the beautiful female shamans he had known, met, or heard of in his earlier years, followed by a gradual selection from across the land.
Lei Dong had not even finished busying himself with expanding his harem, while governing the environment and improving shaman livelihoods were matters deferred to some distant future. In this way, gaining karmic luck from the Shaman Dao was naturally hard in the extreme.
Wei Yuan estimated that what Lei Dong could obtain was likely only the karmic luck of the few Nether Shamans following him, along with a few scattered wisps. As for his subordinates and fair-weather friends, how many were truly loyal? Wei Yuan felt obtaining ten scattered wisps would already be remarkable for him.
Thus, following Lei Dong over the past few years, the demonic blade had barely had a bite to eat, starved to such a degree that a mere thousand wisps of scattered human karmic luck sent an immortal armament into a frenzy of excitement.
Wei Yuan remarked, "Follow me faithfully, and there will be plenty of karmic luck. But if you want to eat well, that will depend on your performance."
The demonic blade hurriedly said, "This one has no other way to share my lord's burdens, only through slaughter and battle..."
It suddenly trailed off. Wei Yuan found it a bit strange and asked, "Why did you stop?"
The demonic blade replied, "The other day, I saw an immortal armament in my lord's hand whose rank was also exceedingly high, not much inferior to mine. Her spirituality is merely dormant; once awakened, she will be an immortal weapon in her own right."
Wei Yuan had not expected the demonic blade to hold the Scarlet Night Immortal-Slaying Sword in such high esteem. When he used this immortal sword normally, he felt it was merely adequate. Because it was a slender, long sword, the power of the Sword of Ten Thousand Generations and Autumns was diminished when channeled through it. Thus, Wei Yuan currently preferred to manifest a greatsword at will whenever needed; though it shattered after a single strike, it still felt more natural to wield than the Scarlet Night Immortal-Slaying Sword.
Wearing the demonic blade at his waist, Wei Yuan stepped into the outer hall and saw Lei Dong fidgeting restlessly. Seeing Wei Yuan emerge, Lei Dong shot to his feet, his face contorting. He wanted to fight for his life, yet dared not.
When he saw the demonic blade sheathed and hanging from Wei Yuan's waist, Lei Dong was struck as if by lightning. His feelings were like suddenly seeing the exalted goddess he had secretly adored for so long acting subservient before other male shamans, suffering every humiliation, yet having to smile and say she enjoyed being bullied.
For a moment, he was utterly crestfallen, feeling that the entire world was no longer what he had once believed it to be. The world had forsaken him.
Wei Yuan casually patted Lei Dong's shoulder, pressing him back down into his seat, then returned to the head seat and sat down. He asked flatly, "What are your plans for the future?"
Lei Dong stiffened his neck and said, "Whether you kill me or flay me..."
Wei Yuan cut him off. "You want to die? Very well. Men!"
"No, I don't want to die!" Lei Dong cried in terror.
Wei Yuan nodded and said, "Now that's more like it. You still have a sliver of karmic luck left on you, and if used properly, it can still be of some use. When you return this time, continue serving as the Lord of Leize. However, most of your karmic luck has already scattered, and the demonic blade has submitted to me. In truth, you have no cards left up your sleeve, and you won't be able to keep those Nether Shamans in line."
Lei Dong turned pale. This was precisely what he had been worrying about. "Then... what should I do?"
"That is where your remaining karmic luck comes in. Those Nether Shamans shouldn't suspect you for the time being. During this period, you must hurry and take care of a few matters. First, deliver dossiers on all the Nether Shamans to me—the more detailed, the better. I need to study how to control them. This is for your own good as well.
"Second, inventory and compile the resources and products across the entire territory of Leize, and deliver a copy of that along with an inventory of the tribe's treasure vault.
"Third, continue expanding your harem and indulging in pleasures. You can even take it a step further and sire more children with the descendants of those Nether Shamans."
Lei Dong was both surprised and overjoyed. "Expand my harem? Really? I can do that?"
Wei Yuan said solemnly, "This is a serious matter! You must attend to it diligently!"
Next, Wei Yuan gave detailed instructions, laying out a series of tasks that boiled down to three main duties: trade, intelligence gathering, and wine, women, and song. Lei Dong declared he would execute them flawlessly, without the slightest burden.
Having sent Lei Dong back, all trade of the Leize Tribe now belonged entirely to Qingming, once again severing the Xu family's westward trade route.
By now, arrangements at the Red Sand Oasis were largely in order. Wei Yuan arranged for eighty thousand sacrificial humans aged eight to twenty to return to Qingming. Among these sacrificial humans, twenty thousand had reached Bone Tempering in Body Casting, and four thousand had reached perfection, estimated to yield several hundred more Dao Foundations.
However, these sacrificial humans had cultivated specialized arts assigned by the shamans since childhood; the Dao Foundations they formed were overwhelmingly a strange fruit seedling. It was said that the taste of this fruit was particularly favored by the Ancestral Shaman. Sacrificing them to heaven with such a Dao Foundation yielded extraordinarily potent results, with a single sacrifice generating the sacrificial power of more than ten ordinary ones.
Wei Yuan returned to Qingming ahead of time, leaving the large convoy of sacrificial humans to follow slowly behind. By then, the newly cleared two million mu of fertile fields in Qingming were completed, bringing the total to eight million mu. With an average yield of over two hundred per mu, it could already sustain more than twenty million people.
Returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan instantly felt like a fish in water, his mind and body completely at ease. He reviewed the data on all material flows in and out of Qingming during this period and felt the timing was ripe. It was time to advance to the next step of the plan.
Currently, there were dozens of merchant caravans in Qingming, mostly hauling silk in and taking grain back. Now, they had an additional commodity: brocade.
After over a month of adjustments, the fifty workshops had achieved stable production, steadily outputting five hundred thousand bolts of brocade a month.
Wei Yuan thus opened the sale of brocade to the merchant caravans at a fixed price of five taels of immortal silver. Meanwhile, in the eight commanderies of Ningzhou, which were brocade-producing regions, the price of brocade had already risen to over eight taels. The difference between the two was the profit for the caravans.
This time, Wei Yuan no longer sold in small batches, allowing the caravans to purchase freely. Out of caution, the various caravans bought a total of two hundred thousand bolts.
Afterward, Wei Yuan announced an increase in the purchase price of raw silk. At this rate, the silk cost alone for a single bolt of brocade exceeded three taels. Once this price was announced, the caravans naturally relayed the news back immediately, aggressively stockpiling raw silk once again for fear that Wei Yuan might change his mind.
By this time, the price of mulberry saplings had soared dozens of times over, yet demand still far outstripped supply. The only reason more grain fields had not been converted to mulberry groves was a shortage of saplings. Wei Yuan was in no hurry, proceeding with the next step of his plan: imposing limits on the amount of grain shipped out of Qingming.
Although the quota was very generous and had not even been reached yet, the moment the news broke, grain prices in the eight commanderies of Yunzhou reacted immediately to the wind, jumping by fifty percent in the blink of an eye.
Yet despite the rise in grain prices, the price of silk had surged eightfold. Consequently, the local gentry and landlords did not hesitate in the slightest: the moment they acquired mulberry saplings, they immediately converted their grain fields.
And right at this moment, the mulberry saplings Wei Yuan had ordered from the Hall of Jianmu arrived. The wood-element Dharma Manifestation experts of the Hall of Jianmu had nearly forgotten how long it had been since they last tended to mortal trees. Yet for the sake of True Monarch Huangyun, five Dharma Manifestation experts worked together, specifically opening up five hundred mu of spiritual fields and taking only a single month to cultivate several million mulberry saplings—enough to convert five hundred thousand mu of grain fields into mulberry groves.
The one from the Hall of Jianmu who delivered the mulberry saplings was a Dharma Manifestation cultivator. He refused Wei Yuan's payment, stating that it was merely lifting a finger. All Wei Yuan needed to do was properly look after the spiritual tree growing where True Monarch Huangyun had passed away.
Wei Yuan was naturally grateful, and promptly announced a new initiative: for every amount of brocade purchased, a corresponding amount of mulberry saplings would be given for free. Once this policy was rolled out, Qingming's inventory of nearly a million bolts of brocade was instantly wiped clean, even sweeping away the brocade originally intended for the Desolate Ancestor Tribe.
Thus, Wei Yuan's scheme began to bear its initial fruits, leaving only the next step: harvesting the entire brocade weaving industry.
Chapter 629