After spending a full seven days inside the dreamscape, Ji Liuli brought the dream to a halt. When Wei Yuan received word and hurried over, Ji Liuli asked him to take her on a proper tour of Qingming so she could see how things were.
Wei Yuan naturally agreed, piloting his flying vessel to take her to the Weaponsmith Workshop, the farmland, the mines, the Medicine Garden, the brocade workshop, the military academy, the New City, and every other site one by one.
The tour took an entire day.
Ji Liuli asked questions as they went, and Wei Yuan patiently answered every single one.
Late into the night, the two returned to the main peak. Ji Liuli could not help but sigh with feeling. "I hadn't expected Qingming to change so much in such a short time away. And I missed taking part in that bloody battle with the Land of Rain. When you think about it, affairs of the mortal world are truly wonderful—not inferior to the immortal path in the slightest. There really is no need to remain tangled up in the past."
Wei Yuan also said, "Indeed. Watching millions of people live better and better lives brings a sense of accomplishment beyond compare. But Eldest Senior Sister, what exactly is your heart tribulation? Why is it so severe?"
Ji Liuli replied, "Actually, it isn't really that severe, just troublesome. I can't quite explain it clearly either. In a few days, after I have dreamt a bit more, it will manifest. I will call for you when that happens. Alright, I'm going to sleep now."
"Aren't you going to take a break?"
"I don't want to go into the dream right now. I plan to take on some tasks in your Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World just for fun. It's been a while since I exercised my spirituality, so it's a good chance to see whether I've gotten rusty. How many tasks can your teacher handle at once right now?"
"Teacher is rebuilding her cultivation, so her current level is average—just about five hundred or so."
With a bang, the courtyard gate slammed shut right in Wei Yuan's face.
Wei Yuan examined his conscience, wondering what he had said wrong to upset Eldest Senior Sister again. But didn't everyone talk like that?
Besides, handling five hundred tasks really wasn't anything miraculous—it was merely the equivalent of over five hundred divided spirits... Merely?
In Wei Yuan's memory, a Dao scripture seemed to have stated that upon attaining great accomplishment in Scenery Command, one's divided spirits would be beyond count, capable of manipulating thousands of magical treasures simultaneously to attack enemies with boundless might.
Given the habitual penchant for exaggeration in ancient Daoist scriptures, Wei Yuan estimated thousands was out of the question, but it had to be more than a hundred—roughly two to three hundred magical treasures or so.
Could it be that the number of magical treasures Zhang Sheng could control had already reached the Scenery Command level?
Wei Yuan immediately decided to test himself in the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to see just how much higher his level was compared to Zhang Sheng's.
When the Creation Immortal Venerable graced the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World with his presence, he naturally received special treatment. Although the workstation was the same size as the others, it at least had partitions around it to block the divine sense of others, preventing people from discovering that the Creation Immortal Venerable was experiencing ordinary life.
Bursting with enthusiasm, Wei Yuan waved his hand to pull down the light orb before him, sent his divine sense within, and directly accepted a task.
Ever since the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World cracked the data architecture of the bizarre minor world and successfully integrated it, the task distribution method had completely changed.
Anyone entering the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World for the first time began with a single task. Only when their progress on that task met the standard would another be assigned. If both met the standard, two more would be issued, doubling all the way up.
If one's speed failed to meet the benchmark after a doubling, several tasks would be subtracted. For instance, if someone could not finish sixty-four tasks, sixteen would be deducted, bringing the number down to forty-eight. If that still proved too much, eight more would be subtracted, continuing all the way back down to thirty-two.
In this manner, the number of tasks could swiftly be dialed in to match the recipient's capability.
Wei Yuan had originally brimmed with confidence, but upon seeing the first task, his smile abruptly froze.
The first task involved a willow-leaf-shaped object cutting through waves in water: calculate what speed it needed to achieve the optimal balance between spiritual power consumption and velocity.
The parameters provided for this task were packed tight—the weight of the water, its viscosity, and so forth—easily over a hundred variables in total.
Wei Yuan actually knew how to solve the problem itself. When studying the Golden Light Water Blade Art in the past, he had furiously devoured Immortal Monarch Tinghai's writings. Not long ago, while learning the Five Elements Dao Soldiers, he had been held down by the Immortal Monarch for a crash course, which significantly boosted his proficiency.
And so, bracing himself, Wei Yuan began the grueling calculations. Immediately afterward, the second task dropped: under given conditions, how should a piece of spiritual wood be burned to achieve the fastest rate of combustion?
The smile on Wei Yuan's face had faded considerably.
Then came the third and fourth tasks: the steady combustion of spiritual wood under given conditions, followed by the problem of achieving complete combustion. The subsequent question asked how to convert the fire of combustion into kinetic energy.
Wei Yuan was actually familiar with this; in a sense, that was what thrusters did. But the next question asked how to increase a thruster's output...
By the sixteenth problem, Wei Yuan's face was twisted in agony as he ground his teeth, his divine sense draining away like the Great River surging eastward, leaving him mentally exhausted in the blink of an eye.
After a full two hours, Wei Yuan submitted all sixteen problems in one go without caring whether they were finished or not. He flicked his sleeves, stood up, and glared around in exasperation.
Silence reigned over the surroundings. Most people were completely engrossed in their tasks, with only the occasional person glancing around. Those were individuals with energy to spare, capable of dividing their attention to observe their peers.
Suddenly, Wei Yuan spotted Ji Liuli and Feng Tingyu.
Wei Yuan knew that in this area, everyone saw only scenery apart from themselves. Only Wei Yuan could perceive the full view of the great hall. He walked over to Ji Liuli to check on her progress.
At this moment, Ji Liuli had stabilized sixty-four tasks, though she was clearly still somewhat unaccustomed to it, having failed repeatedly to break through to one hundred and twenty-eight tasks. However, she had not yet deployed the Nine-Layer Demon-Suppressing Pagoda. The pagoda had previously served as a node; once activated, her processing capability was bound to surge accordingly.
Wei Yuan nodded secretly. Ji Liuli truly lived up to her reputation as a veteran Dao Foundation cultivator; her foundation was overwhelmingly robust. Back then, Cui Yu had barely managed sixteen tasks, while Bao Yun currently handled only thirty-two, repeatedly failing in her attempts at sixty-four.
Naturally, Wei Yuan chose to overlook the fact that sixteen tasks had just nearly killed him.
Wei Yuan then walked behind Feng Tingyu, wondering how many tasks this girl could handle—four, or perhaps eight?
Feng Tingyu leaned back leisurely against her cushion. Her hands and feet were dancing through the air, and on her two snow-white little feet, every single toe was moving independently, each handling anywhere from several to over a dozen tasks.
The task light orbs before her were packed in dense clusters, almost stretching beyond sight, with countless threads of divine sense connected to every part of her body. The greatest numbers were attached to her thighs and buttocks, with plenty on her arms, chest, and abdomen, and nearly a hundred on her back. Yet, not a single thread of divine sense was connected to her head: she was taking a nap.
With a sweep of his divine sense, Wei Yuan learned the number of tasks she was handling simultaneously: one thousand and twenty-four!
The milestone of a thousand simultaneous tasks in the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had actually been broken by Feng Tingyu. No matter how reluctant he was to accept it, the truth lay plain before Wei Yuan's eyes: he couldn't even compare to Feng Tingyu's calf—he was at best equivalent to one of her toes.
Still unwilling to concede, Wei Yuan opened one of her tasks to take a look. The task prompted: under clear-sky conditions with specified wind speeds and directions, a heavy arrow flies in; calculate the most efficient interception trajectory at a given location.
Wei Yuan had barely begun listing Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches in his mind when one of Feng Tingyu's translucent toes gave a slight twitch, drawing a line that struck the incoming heavy arrow dead center. Task complete.
Wei Yuan silently exited the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, intending to find a quiet spot to seriously ponder life. Truly, people shouldn't be born so unequal.
Half a day later, after protracted contemplation, Wei Yuan decided not to compete for the scarce job opportunities in the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World and to switch tracks instead.
He returned once more to the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. This time, he sent his divine sense ascending continuously. When he vaulted beyond the firmament and kept rising, the originally boundless expanse of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World finally revealed a faint edge.
At this point, trying to climb any higher sent piercing, bone-chilling waves of cold through Wei Yuan's primordial spirit, accompanied by a strange numbness. Looking down, he saw a faint radiance rippling over his body's surface, as unseen forces incessantly battered him.
Wei Yuan understood what this was: the astral wind of the Great Void spoken of in Daoist texts, capable of extinguishing primordial spirits. He had only edged slightly close to it, yet he was already struggling to withstand the strain.
Below, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had turned into an azure world, mostly covered in vast oceans.
This was Wei Yuan's limit; he could ascend no farther. Following the method taught by the Immortal Monarch, Wei Yuan set about constructing an array formation—and a single layer was not enough; he had to construct twelve successive layers to complete merely the first step.
It took Wei Yuan a full two hours just to finish constructing the first layer. Resting for only a brief moment, he continued to construct the second. After three days of this, all twelve array formations were completed. Wei Yuan activated them all in a single breath, instantly expending a third of his Dao power.
That was an amount of magic power equivalent to fifty ordinary dharma idol masters, expended merely to activate these arrays.
Once activated, the arrays automatically drew origin qi of heaven and earth from the void, gradually condensing it into a small jasper dagger. Though the blade was small and delicate, when Wei Yuan looked upon it, even his primordial spirit trembled.
The array formation was called the Twelve Heavens Immortal Forging Array. The jade dagger produced by it was condensed from the origin qi of heaven and earth and infused with a wisp of Great Dao qi, known as the Primal Chaos Immortal Blade.
Wei Yuan carefully gripped the hilt and pulled upward—yet he couldn't lift it!
Although weight in the primordial spirit state was not measured by the standards of the Native Realm, this little dagger felt to Wei Yuan much like hauling a massive object weighing hundreds of thousands of jin.
Gathering the full measure of his Dao power, he finally hoisted the dagger. Clasping it with both hands, he exerted every ounce of strength he possessed to thrust and slash across the void. In an instant, Wei Yuan's Dao power plummeted like a cataract plunging from the nine heavens, running completely dry in a flash.
Where the edge of the Primal Chaos Immortal Blade passed, the previously empty void suddenly grew tangible as matter, collapsing in wide swaths that transformed into primal chaos qi and drifted down toward the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World below.
This primal chaos qi did not enter the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World; instead, drawn by its pull, it gathered and settled along its outer perimeter. Wei Yuan could not see the primal chaos qi, but he could sense it.
A single slash had entirely drained Wei Yuan's Dao power to the dregs. The Primal Chaos Immortal Blade dissolved, and the Twelve Heavens Immortal Forging Array vanished along with it.
Wei Yuan had spent several days and exhausted all his Dao power, only to gain a small wisp of primal chaos qi. Compared to the entirety of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, this tiny speck of primal chaos qi was practically negligible.
Having tested it, Wei Yuan now knew that this was indeed his path of cultivation. Only when sufficient primal chaos qi completely enveloped the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World would he achieve minor accomplishment in the Myriad Transformations Realm.
To pierce the void with the Primal Chaos Immortal Blade and draw forth primal chaos was in truth an immortal's technique, which was why its consumption was so staggering.
Though he loathed doing the math, Wei Yuan gritted his teeth and calculated his cultivation progress anyway. If every attempt yielded results like this one, then assuming Wei Yuan went without food, drink, or any other activity, he would need roughly two thousand three hundred years of bitter secluded cultivation to reach completion in the Myriad Transformations Realm and advance to the next stage.
The problem was, Wei Yuan's lifespan wasn't nearly that long.
Being a genius was not so easy; the ordinary path clearly wouldn't work.
Following the Jade Toad Body Casting, Wei Yuan once again felt the perils along the path of immortal cultivation.
Chapter 651