Ji Liuli appeared in the center of the Dao soldier formation. She brought a foot down, crushing a swath of them.
Yet dying was not the end of it; in their death throes, the Dao soldiers burst into huge splashes of thick, dark-green sludge that nearly splattered across her feet.
Startled, she leaped back, but just then another ring of Dao soldiers appeared in the sky, linked head to tail, circling in identical cadence. Yet one Dao soldier among them would invariably step out of line from time to time, taking two paces outside the ring.
Expressionless, Ji Liuli waved a swath of golden fire, burning this contingent from a distance. Sure enough, once scorched by true fire, every last soldier exploded into a ball of green muck.
Yet immediately two more squads of Dao soldiers materialized simultaneously, lining up to form the characters for *liuli*—the gemstone, not the *liuli* of wandering displaced—and right beside the first character was an extra black dot.
Ji Liuli burned them.
Then another two squads emerged, and Ji Liuli burned them as well.
At last, with Ji Liuli's Dao power running near empty, over a hundred Dao soldiers arranged themselves into a design. It was a square frame with a single strand of hair clinging to it, twitching and shaking without ever falling off.
"Enough!" Ji Liuli shouted in fury.
Wei Yuan appeared, asking gingerly, "Done fighting? ...Then, call it a draw?"
Ji Liuli nodded. Wei Yuan let out an immediate breath of relief, while a cheer went up across the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
Wei Yuan asked again, "Then... what about the paid content?"
"In your dreams!" Ji Liuli spun on her heel and strode off.
Once Ji Liuli had left, Wei Yuan walked up to Zhang Sheng, bowed, and said, "Thank you, Master."
Zhang Sheng burst into a sputter of laughter. Knowing something was amiss, Wei Yuan quickly used his divine sense to inspect himself, only to discover his face was battered black and blue, with a bruised shiner around one eye.
Ji Liuli's Dao power was exceedingly overbearing. Wounds inflicted by her would reduce a dharma body's self-healing ability nearly to zero. Even with a dharma body like Wei Yuan's, recovery was agonizingly slow; it seemed the bruising on his face would take at least several hours to heal.
Zhang Sheng casually jotted down a prescription and told Wei Yuan, "Go get an ointment made and spread it on. It will help you heal faster."
Wei Yuan dispatched a Dao Foundation warrior to Xu Henshui's alchemy temple to brew the medicine, while he returned to his quarters to nurse his injuries.
In this fierce battle, one had suffered flesh wounds while the other endured mental anguish—a mutually destructive draw. Yet in the wake of the clash, the Dao hearts of the cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning suddenly cleared, their cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds, and Old Daoist Chuhe resumed eating hotpot.
With this, Ji Liuli had effectively reaffirmed her title as Eldest Senior Sister, leaving only rematches against Feng Tingyu and Bao Yun. But whether those two battles took place hardly mattered; Ji Liuli's path was the natural bane of almost every standard dharma idol, while possessing no inherent weaknesses of its own.
Wei Yuan's True Intent attacks actually carried a faint hint of karma, which could only be unleashed through the Peerless Dao Domain.
Moreover, Ji Liuli and Wei Yuan had only been sparring, which was why she had been so inhibited and exasperated. Had it been a life-and-death struggle, she would have fought through filth without hesitation, leaving the disgust for after the battle.
It took three full days before Wei Yuan could step out of his quarters and face people again. Had it not been for the healing salve Xu Henshui meticulously concocted, the injuries would have required another three to five days. Through this, Wei Yuan gained firsthand appreciation of the terror of Ji Liuli's Xuanhuang True Intent; that power came close to suppressing another cultivator's dharma body down a whole rank.
Leaving his quarters, Wei Yuan received a message from Feng Chutang saying that research on the Creation Pool had made progress.
Wei Yuan rushed over to Feng Chutang's workshop immediately. At this moment, Feng Chutang looked radiant and beaming with satisfaction, brimming with vibrant, soaring vitality.
Over a dozen formation diagrams hovered around his desk, each unimaginably intricate, while the original blueprint of the Creation Pool lay spread across the table.
Feng Chutang smiled. "Over the past few days, inspiration has been gushing like a spring. Consulting ancient texts and Dao scriptures, I have finally gained some insights into the Creation Pool."
Looking at those formation diagrams, Wei Yuan was thoroughly astounded. The original diagram of the Creation Pool, notes included, was merely a single drawing and a few thousand words. From that alone, Feng Chutang had derived over a dozen intricate formation diagrams?
Feng Chutang said, "This Creation Pool is extraordinary. Its underlying concept can only be described as miraculous, enough to pioneer an entire Dao path of its own. What I have here merely scratches the surface."
Feng Chutang flicked a finger, and all the floating diagrams recombined in midair, coalescing into the shape of an ancient incense-burner-style structure.
"This is a refining furnace I redesigned based on the Creation Pool. It can be called the Reincarnation Furnace. It requires no mortal fire, taking the yin and yang of heaven and earth as its flames. It can refine the remains and yin souls of all living beings, converting them into spiritual energy to nourish this realm.
"In the past, after every major battle against the Shamans, we would pile the corpses in corpse-staging grounds, waiting for their toxins to dissolve naturally until they eventually became spiritual energy absorbed by the realm. In that light, Qingming itself could be viewed as a colossal Creation Pool.
"With this furnace, we can deposit the remains of Shamans and war beasts into it, refining them in about three to five days. Moreover, the yield of spiritual energy will increase drastically, more than ten times as efficient as Qingming's natural conversion."
Wei Yuan could not shake the feeling that something was amiss about this Creation Pool and the Reincarnation Furnace. He said, "Martial Uncle, this Reincarnation Furnace feels a bit wicked."
Feng Chutang said solemnly, "All things are born upholding the Grand Dao of heaven and earth. When sentient beings embark on the path of cultivation, they seize the essence of the world to strengthen themselves. When they perish, their lifelong Dao power and immortal qi disperse, their dharma bodies turning into grotto-heavens or returning directly to heaven and earth. Thus, converting things into spiritual energy is the most fundamental path of the Grand Dao. Where is the evil in that?"
Wei Yuan had never been a pedantic man, and seeing Feng Chutang speak with such earnest conviction, he bought it. Besides, this trifling bit of wickedness was nothing compared to how he had refined eight hundred thousand Shamans in one go.
Finally, Feng Chutang pointed to a corner of the original Creation Pool diagram and said, "There is a small mark here. Looking through the Dao scriptures, it appears to be the emblem of the ancient Sky-Refining Demon Immortal. If my guess is correct, this Creation Pool is very likely a component of the Sky-Refining Grand Formation that made the Demon Immortal infamous across the world back then."
"What was this Sky-Refining Demon Immortal's reputation?"
Feng Chutang said, "He slaughtered sentient beings indiscriminately across all races. The humans who died by his hand numbered at least in the tens of millions, and foreign races even more so. He cultivated by harnessing karmic debt, carrying that path to its absolute extreme. Therefore, we had best never mention where this Creation Pool came from."
The two of them then discussed the construction of the Reincarnation Furnace for a while.
The Reincarnation Furnace designed by Feng Chutang could refine the remains of ten thousand Shamans in a single batch. It was colossal, with a total construction cost approaching five million taels of immortal silver. However, once completed, it would greatly accelerate the pace at which Qingming transformed heaven and earth, accumulating and nurturing energy, so Wei Yuan agreed.
Next, Feng Chutang would refine and complete the blueprints inside the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, polishing the fine details.
It had to be said that the Institute of Materials Mechanics and Structural Design was expanding rapidly, already numbering over a thousand people.
Whether it was Sun Yu constructing a new medical clinic or Xu Henshui expanding his alchemy temple, both commissioned the design institute to draw the plans.
The greatest volume of tasks came from Yu Zhizhuo; the Weaponsmith Workshop was developing at breakneck speed, changing almost every few days, creating a relentless need for architectural designs and mine shafts.
Afterward, Wei Yuan took inventory of Qingming's existing reserves of immortal silver and found that after completing the Reincarnation Furnace, only three million taels would remain.
At present, millions of taels of immortal silver in goods flowed through Qingming each month, yielding several hundred thousand taels in net profit.
Armor and pills were lucrative, but brocade, which accounted for the largest volume, brought in little profit. Furthermore, Qingming had to purchase vast quantities of minerals, medicinal herbs, spirit wood, and other raw supplies, so the immortal silver saved up was not as much as one might imagine.
Wei Yuan had already weighed the pros and cons. Completing the Reincarnation Furnace would propel Qingming's development, and since Qingming was intimately bound to Wei Yuan's dharma idol, he estimated that the furnace would directly advance the progress of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
Although the design of the Reincarnation Furnace still required optimization, many of the base materials were fixed, so Wei Yuan summoned the merchant caravans and distributed the procurement orders.
This colossal order naturally drove numerous caravans into a frenzy, while the merchant caravans from the State of Zhao lamented their bitter fate. Zhao had completely banned trade and commerce with Qingming, leaving them with no choice but to watch helplessly as the orders were snatched away by caravans from the State of Ji.
With construction on the Reincarnation Furnace underway, Wei Yuan spent the following days cultivating methodically. Meanwhile, the data from his battle against Eldest Senior Sister had been largely analyzed, and the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World steadily churned out targeted suggestions for improvement.
Wei Yuan delegated that work to the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World while he continued delving into the Five Elements Dao soldiers, seeking to combine tactical formations with the Dao soldiers to vastly boost their might.
Having reasserted her standing, Ji Liuli also quieted down, spending more and more of her time holed up in Sun Yu's clinic to improve gunpowder.
***
Western Jin, the Crown Prince's residence.
The Crown Prince sat as usual in his cramped, crowded council hall, reading a memorial. When he finished, his brow furrowed slightly. "Wei Yuan is once again making massive purchases of materials, exceeding a million in immortal silver? What is this Wei Yuan doing now?"
The assembled officials all kept their heads bowed toward the floor, not a single one speaking up.
The Crown Prince felt a flicker of irritation, but he forced it down and asked, "What of our spies planted in Qingming? Not a single scrap of news has been sent back?"
A general replied, "Your Majesty, over recent months our spies have suffered catastrophic losses; most have vanished inexplicably. Even seasoned, veteran operatives were no exception. The only thing we received was a final recording sent back by a magic treasure carried by one team leader: the room suddenly plunged into pitch darkness, and then that leader vanished without a trace.
"Presently, we likely have fewer than ten spies remaining in Qingming. For one, they dare not act rashly; for another, they are far from the core and cannot uncover anything. Fearing they might also meet with mishap, this subject has refrained from giving them orders."
The Crown Prince frowned slightly. "I hear Wei Yuan has continually been selling brocade to Ningzhou, withering the entire brocade industry there as a result. We cannot let him sell his brocade so easily. Investigate precisely which houses are selling Qingming's loom-woven brocade, and then apply some pressure to them."
Chapter 681