Wei Yuan returned to Qingming alone and made his way to the Central Immortal City. Selecting an open plot of land near the perimeter, he consecrated it for seven days according to the incantation, then tossed the small gold seal into the air.
The gold seal swelled upon meeting the wind, ultimately transforming into a magnificent, hundred-foot-tall hall rooted in the earth.
Wei Yuan walked into the Dao Soldier Hall. Before him appeared a tall warrior clad in armor, holding a jade tray. The warrior knelt on one knee before Wei Yuan and said, "Will the Hall Master please imprint your blood essence and origin soul!"
This warrior was the artifact spirit of the Dao Soldier Hall. Imprinting blood essence and origin soul was the essential step for the Dao Soldier Hall to recognize its master. From then on, Wei Yuan would be the hall's first Dao soldier, as well as the sole Dao soldier at its very core.
Henceforth, every Dao soldier listed within the hall would contribute a fraction of their strength to him. No matter where Wei Yuan was, as long as there were Dao soldiers of the hall beside him, he would receive corresponding empowerment.
Wei Yuan flicked a drop of blood essence onto the jade tray. A sharp ache throbbed in his mind as a wisp of his origin soul was extracted.
In that instant, Wei Yuan felt as though his physical body had vanished, his consciousness melding into one with the entire hall.
The structure of the Dao Soldier Hall remained stationary, yet Wei Yuan's perception expanded outward along with it, stretching all the way to the edges of Qingming.
Wei Yuan had already determined the scope of the first batch of Dao soldiers: mainly the Xu family youths, the humans who had once been high-grade sacrifices, and the elites of the Qingming Army.
When the Xu family youths had first arrived in Qingming, there had been fewer than forty thousand. During this time, they had reproduced twice more, and their numbers now exceeded sixty thousand, over twenty thousand of whom were children.
These latest two batches of children had undergone mutual devouring and fusion only once, so their numbers remained quite large. Though devouring and fusing less meant limited improvement in their latent talent, their growth rate was still two to three times faster than that of ordinary human children.
Seeing that the hour had arrived and the candidate forces had fully assembled, Wei Yuan sent out a thought. The main gates of the Dao Soldier Hall swung open on their own. The candidate Dao soldiers waiting in formation outside then entered the hall in shifts, one thousand to a unit.
On each side of the hall stood fifty statues of Dao soldiers, holding greatswords inverted in both hands, their tips resting against the floor.
Each candidate Dao soldier entering the hall stood before a statue, slit their palm, and smeared blood onto the greatsword.
The blood was immediately absorbed by the blade. A Body Casting method appeared in each candidate's mind; at the same time, each felt as though they had lost a little something, yet gained far more.
At the far end of the hall stood a hundred-foot-tall colossal Dao soldier statue holding a tome. Each time a Dao soldier smeared blood on a sword, a new name appeared upon the tome.
Those who had completed the rite felt far closer to one another whenever they caught each other's eye.
In the final step, each person walked before the raised throne at the hall's far end, kneeling to salute Wei Yuan, who sat before the colossal statue. This established a connection with Wei Yuan, making them reserve Dao soldiers from that moment on.
The first batch to enter the hall comprised Wei Yuan's most core combat force. Naturally attaching immense importance to them, he personally oversaw the rite here to experience all the subtle shifts firsthand. Later on, such trouble would no longer be necessary; simply erecting a statue of Wei Yuan in the hall would suffice.
There was no limit on the number of reserve Dao soldiers. Once they mastered the Dao soldiers' exclusive cultivation method, reached the Soul Refining realm, and activated their origin soul and sea of consciousness, they could become official Dao soldiers and receive the true empowerments. A single hall could hold at most fifty thousand Dao soldiers, and the ultimate accomplishments of these fifty thousand directly dictated the strength of the entire Dao soldier legion.
If five thousand among the fifty thousand Dao soldiers could achieve Dao Foundations, the degree of empowerment would be considerable; if ten thousand reached the Dao Foundation realm, the empowerment would be terrifying, directly doubling one's strength.
This was why Wei Yuan had to personally serve as the first Dao soldier to command the entire legion. For those who visibly lacked potential and were destined to stay at Body Casting for life, Wei Yuan did not intend to grant them slots as official Dao soldiers.
Wei Yuan's preferred candidates were the upper-middle echelon of the first-generation Xu family youths, while the bulk of future candidates would be the twenty thousand children who had yet to grow up. Those children had all undergone at least one round of mutual devouring and fusion, giving them generally better latent talent than their parents.
Combined with the standouts among the tens of thousands of top-grade human sacrifices and the stalwart warriors of the Qingming Army, this constituted Wei Yuan's ideal composition for the Dao soldiers.
The hall remained deathly silent save for uniform footsteps. Rank upon rank of Xu family youths moved in total unison, their precision awe-inspiring.
Following the thirty thousand Xu family youths came fifteen thousand high-grade sacrifices, and then one hundred thousand army elites. By the time every step had concluded, a full day and night had elapsed. Wei Yuan sat motionless, serving as a statue for an entire day while taking another close look at the core elites of Qingming he had forged with his own hands.
Afterward, announcements were posted across Qingming's cities declaring that one thousand official Dao soldier slots would be opened to the commoner class, provided they possessed sufficient military merit and could advance to the Dao Foundation realm within a specified time limit.
The treatment of an official Dao soldier was equivalent to that of a commandant, the highest rank among junior officers.
Opening one thousand official Dao soldier slots was essentially offering one thousand fast-track status promotions in advance, regardless of prior military merit. Once the announcement went up, people scrambled to apply, with over a hundred thousand registering to become reserve Dao soldiers in a single day.
Wei Yuan naturally did not stay sitting idly in the Dao Soldier Hall; he replaced himself with a Dao Foundation warrior seated there, and before long that could be swapped out for an actual statue.
With the Dao Soldier Hall ready in Qingming and the five thousand Dao soldiers from the Palace of Grand Beginning delivered, Wei Yuan convened another Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony.
This ceremony's procedures were far more formal and elaborate. The first day was dedicated to sacrificial rites, offering prayers to Heaven and Earth, the Patriarchs of the Palace of Grand Beginning, and the immortal founder of Qingming. During this process, Wei Yuan took the opportunity to bestow karmic luck upon those who needed it.
As for those who "needed" it, Qingming's own cultivators naturally did; those from the Palace of Grand Beginning did as well; and the scions of the Bao family, Cui family, and various small-to-mid-sized aristocratic families and sects had all paid good money, so they of course needed karmic luck too.
In the end, Wei Yuan found that the only ones left who did not "need" karmic luck were more than two thousand rogue cultivators. These rogue cultivators had actually paid no less than the scions of the clans and sects, but the trouble was that the clans and sects maintained long-term relations with Qingming; training a batch of disciples earned a favor.
For instance, Cui Yu's Ji-Zhao Cui family: eighty percent of their newly minted Dao Foundation cultivators over recent years had come from Qingming. As a result, not only did the Dao Foundation cultivators from Qingming band tightly together, but the entire Ji-Zhao Cui family was on the verge of leaning completely toward Qingming. The same held true for a number of small sects and minor factions.
White Maple Academy, which had once trained Fang Hetong and Sun Chao'en, was also collaborating with Qingming now. At the previous Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony, they had sent over a dozen outstanding disciples, five of whom ultimately established Dao Foundations.
This time, the headmaster of White Maple Academy personally escorted twenty young disciples. Wei Yuan naturally attached great importance to this, giving each of them three extra strands of karmic luck. The headmaster was quite destitute and had nothing to offer in return; he could only clutch Wei Yuan's sleeve, constantly wiping away tears as memories of Fang Hetong welled up again.
Seeing the centenarian scholar so overcome with sorrow, it took Wei Yuan quite a while to soothe the old man's emotions.
As for those rogue cultivators, it was strictly a one-time transaction. After succeeding, aside from a small portion who signed blood covenants to stay and serve Qingming, most would dust off their pants and leave, off across mountains and rivers, never to cross paths again until old age and death.
Many of those who failed to establish a Dao Foundation often caused a ruckus, or tried to steal or loot some souvenirs from Qingming to recoup the immortal silver they had spent. Thus, after every past Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony, a few troublemaking or law-breaking rogue cultivators had to be executed.
Furthermore, most rogue cultivators wandered and cultivated alone, drifting from place to place. Many either had poor aptitudes or had suffered hidden injuries from bad luck in their early years; compared to the scions of great clans, or even the Body Casting cultivators raised in Qingming, their rate of establishing Dao Foundations was noticeably lower.
Seeing that only these rogue cultivators were missing out on the karmic luck empowerment, Wei Yuan gave it some thought and felt he ought to give them a bit of opportunity after all.
So Wei Yuan summoned several clever, sharp confidants and had them spread rumors among the rogue cultivators: paying extra money would allow them to be secretly taken to worship the Qingming Immortal Stone, significantly boosting their chances of establishing a Dao Foundation.
These were silver-tongued men, and in the blink of an eye they bamboozled more than half of the rogue cultivators. After handing over large sums of immortal silver, these rogue cultivators were led off into secluded, desolate mountains to pay homage to a stone statue of a young woman.
Strangely enough, after paying their respects, they genuinely felt refreshed throughout their bodies and clear in their Dao hearts, gaining out of nowhere a few measures more confidence in establishing their Dao Foundations.
In truth, it had nothing to do with the worship; Wei Yuan had simply bestowed karmic luck upon them in passing. In the end, out of the more than twenty thousand participants in the grand ceremony, only six hundred rogue cultivators did not receive Wei Yuan's karmic luck empowerment.
These rogue cultivators either lacked money, lacked luck, or lacked both. With no external aids to rely on for their Dao paths, they could only rely on their own flesh and blood to brute-force it.
On the second day, All Living Beings in a Flash was activated once each in the morning and afternoon for ten breaths at a time, allowing everyone to experience it in advance as a warm-up.
As a result, over a hundred people from the Qingming Army and the Xu family youths actually established their Dao Foundations on the spot. With living examples right before their eyes, those from the aristocratic families and sects naturally gained even more confidence.
On the morning of the third day, as the first rays of dawn broke, All Living Beings in a Flash opened in tandem. The true foundation casting began, lasting until noon.
Among the fifteen thousand people from Qingming, an astounding two thousand established Dao Foundations—a figure far exceeding Wei Yuan's expectations.
The success rate for the sect and clan scions was similar to previous ceremonies, while those who paid large sums had a breakthrough rate a full two times higher than those who had not paid extra. The results left both the wealthy and the penniless with nothing to say.
Among the twelve hundred rogue cultivators who paid to worship, eighty-five Dao Foundations emerged. Wei Yuan had truly done all he could; the raw material was simply too abysmal. As the saying went, rotten wood could not be carved—and they were worse than rotten wood.
As for those final six hundred rogue cultivators, only seventeen managed to achieve a Dao Foundation.
This Qingming Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony was grand in scale and renowned far and wide; everyone now knew that in Qingming, immortal silver could truly buy a Dao Foundation.
Surprisingly, the one who reaped the greatest harvest was none other than Perfected Chuhe. Over two hundred people in Qingming actually established the Dao Foundation known as Beast Control Heavenly Heart!
This Beast Control Heavenly Heart was not the Beast Control Immortal Heart; after meticulous modifications by Old Daoist Chuhe, its difficulty had been lowered by more than a single grade.
The Beast Control Immortal Heart still retained some capacity to command beasts, whereas in the new version of Beast Control Heavenly Heart, beast-commanding ability was practically nonexistent. However, communicating with spirit beasts was vastly improved, and one could even grasp seventy to eighty percent of the moods and emotions of mundane beasts.
Upon inquiring, Wei Yuan learned that Old Daoist Chuhe had laid the groundwork for quite some time, even specially bringing out Snake to demonstrate beast-controlling prowess. When Snake revealed his true form, over a hundred feet long and overwhelmingly fearsome, he naturally stunned those inexperienced folks out of their wits, leading many with suitable aptitudes to switch to cultivating Beast Control Heavenly Heart.
Wei Yuan had no objections to this. At any rate, template Dao Foundations were plentiful, and his martial uncles could compete for recruits on their own merits. Besides, with more people cultivating Beast Control Heavenly Heart, there would be people to care for the cattle and horses.
Following this grand ceremony, Qingming possessed twelve thousand Dao Foundations. Though the overwhelming majority were template Dao Foundations, it was nonetheless a colossal force. Wei Yuan's ideal of every man like a dragon now showed its first glimpses of scale and claw.
Chapter 711