The illusory realm shattered, and Wei Yuan and Ji Liuli reappeared before the entrance of the skyscraper.
Wei Yuan looked up at the skyscraper, a true architectural marvel, filled with emotion. The mortals of that world had pushed craftsmanship to its absolute limits, yet they had still failed to escape the fate of the Dharma-ending age's arrival.
Just then, a piece of rubble dropped from the building, landing before Wei Yuan's feet. He bent down to pick it up. When he turned back, he saw the building's lights extinguishing floor by floor.
"Let's go. It's time to leave," Wei Yuan said. He could sense that the heavenly and earthly laws of this world fragment were utterly decayed; the final vestige of power sustaining its existence was gone, and it would soon be annihilated.
Turning around, however, Wei Yuan froze.
Behind him was a sea of light. Spacious tents had been pitched everywhere, enclosing major buildings and facilities. Researchers bustled in and out, occupied with their tasks in an orderly fashion, conducting a comprehensive study of this entire world.
Sweeping out with his divine sense, Wei Yuan realized that several months had already passed; Pu was now in the dead of winter.
After Wei Yuan and Ji Liuli had entered the skyscraper, the monsters in the world fragment had drastically diminished, after which the immortal plants had taken turns stationing themselves inside.
With the immortal plants holding the ground, Dharma Idol cultivators leading teams, and following the method Wei Yuan had left behind to partition the area section by section and clear them out one by one, the mortals had steadily compressed the monsters' living space. By now, they had occupied large swaths of territory and decontaminated them.
Over ten thousand mortals had entered this world, establishing several research institutions to thoroughly analyze it.
Wei Yuan felt a touch of regret, but he had no choice but to issue orders to pack up all the materials and withdraw into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World within half a day.
Upon receiving the command, the mortals naturally fell into a flurry of activity. Fortunately, although physical objects could not be taken out, most of the data and materials had already been transferred into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to be studied at leisure later. It was only a pity that no one else could enter that skyscraper; otherwise, their harvest would have been even greater.
Wei Yuan said to Ji Liuli, "We should get going too."
"Mm." Ji Liuli nodded, her gaze drifting, avoiding Wei Yuan's eyes.
Returning once more to Qingming, Wei Yuan felt as though he had lived an entire lifetime. This experience within the illusory realm had been all too real, and naturally, the gains were immense. Upon his return, the first thing he did was check on the development of Qingming and current affairs under heaven.
At this time, it was deep winter in the north. Aside from the northern mountain gate of the Palace of Grand Beginning, the fighting on other fronts had eased considerably. The states of Pu and Zhao fought in intermittent skirmishes; after occupying the two commanderies of Yunxiang, Zhao ceased any large-scale advances and instead began protracted negotiations with Jin.
The situation in Qingming was quite stable. After Wei Yuan recovered the two commanderies of Hanyang and Huangping, not one of the five commanderies was lost, and his position as Southern Grand Minister of Military Affairs was as solid as Mount Tai.
During wartime, displaced refugees continuously migrated to Qingming, numbering several hundred thousand every month.
The tens of millions of refugees gathered from the five commanderies some time ago had finally settled down after several months. Their hearts had turned toward him, thoroughly integrating into Qingming and taking on its aura. The increase in sentient beings had driven a wave of rapid expansion in the Qingming Territory over these past months, and it had now reached its stage limit of one thousand two hundred li.
Originally, the range of Qingming's first stage was one thousand li, but after being augmented by the immortal dog's head, it had become one thousand two hundred li. Having experienced no warfare for several years, Qingming had accumulated and nurtured sufficient strength; it only awaited an opportune moment to break through.
Farmland continued to be reclaimed, which was a matter of top priority. Hundreds of thousands of mu were cleared each month. Old Daoist Chuhe had long since laid out the locations for new fields, totaling forty million mu, just waiting to be brought under the plow bit by bit.
Other production also developed at a breakneck pace as always. The farm tools currently used by the refugees reclaiming wasteland were forged from steel superior to that of the Western Jin border army's blades and swords. The daily rations of the farmers were also better than what the Western Jin border troops ate.
Having eaten and drunk their fill, the mortals could not remain idle; naturally, they cultivated. Working the fields, mining underground, and forging iron were all effective methods of Body Casting.
Everything within Qingming was in perfect order, with everyone performing their duties. Wei Yuan had been in secluded cultivation for half a year, yet it had not affected Qingming's development in the slightest, which left him feeling somewhat lost.
Having surveyed Qingming's general condition, Wei Yuan was about to examine the broader world situation when his entire body suddenly shuddered, and his vision grew markedly brighter.
He looked up. Outside the window, the sunlight was bright yet gentle; all things shone in vivid, brilliant colors. The world's vitality steadily surged as life flourished, imbued with the vigorous vibrancy of early spring.
Wei Yuan's heart swelled with an inexplicable joy. Everything felt wonderfully auspicious, as if no difficulty could ever block his path again.
The world fragment from beyond the heavens had collapsed. The wooden door standing beside Jade Mountain withered and decayed into dead wood, its dry branches bearing two fruits. Wei Yuan appeared within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World and plucked the two fruits, intuitively grasping their purpose. They were called Realm-Breaking Fruits. If he encountered world fragments in the future, he could plant these fruits to transform them into world gates connecting the two realms.
If he could thoroughly assimilate that world, the world gate would yield anywhere from one to several fruits; if it failed to assimilate the world within a certain timeframe, the world gate would wither away.
At that moment, a wisp of source qi pierced through the void and sank into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Deep inside, the spiritual flame, originally as small as a lamp's bead, immediately expanded violently, becoming a fireball roughly a zhang across, rotating slowly.
Wisps of primal chaos qi constantly emerged from the void, absorbed by the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Meanwhile, vast amounts of primal chaos qi erupted from within, swiftly blanketing the outer surface of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
This was the greatest gain from destroying that world fragment: a wisp of source qi.
Source qi was the core of every natural world, the product left behind when a world's origin shattered and degraded. Immortals often used it as a foundation to construct silver minor worlds.
Primal chaos qi was a byproduct of source qi, akin to tailings after refining. Having absorbed the source qi, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World advanced in rank and brimmed with life, generating an immense amount of primal chaos qi, bringing the mindscape world close to completion.
Looking at the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, now missing only a small gap, Wei Yuan could not help but sigh with emotion. He had merely devoured a single world fragment, yet in the blink of an eye, he had saved hundreds of years of arduous effort. Truly, no man grows rich without windfall gains, and no horse fattens without night feeding.
This ordeal in the illusory realm of rancor had ended without true mishap, seemingly placed into Wei Yuan's hands by the King Buddha through the agency of others. A gift such as this undoubtedly had a price already attached to it.
With advancement imminent, every living creature within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was rejoicing. Many mortals even proposed that the day of formal ascension be established as the realm's very first festival.
The spirituality of the immortal plants was also rising steadily, with several on the verge of advancement. They only awaited the moment the world ascended to ride the momentum and advance together.
And when that time came, the Heaven and Earth Locks would weaken further. Wei Yuan could already see hairline cracks spreading across the invisible chains binding Han Li, Jun Weizhi, and Fuyao. Once these chains broke, they would be able to take another step forward and advance to the middle stage of the Dharma Idol Realm.
Countless creatures, great and small, were striving to reproduce. Some among them might awaken spirituality during the world's advancement, thereby becoming sentient beings and shedding a life of muddled ignorance.
At this moment, Wei Yuan finally understood what was meant by "when a man attains the Dao, his poultry and dogs ascend to heaven."
As the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World moved toward perfection, Qingming finally met the opportunity for advancement. Spirituality erupted, the territory accelerated its expansion once more, and its reshaping of heaven and earth deepened. Qingming had entered its next stage: its territory would rapidly expand to three thousand li before slowing.
Wei Yuan suddenly recalled something: Li Chengfeng's Bishui Territory seemed to be less than three thousand li from Qingming. If his territory pressed forward like this, there would certainly be quite a spectacle to watch in the future.
Half a month later, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World thoroughly integrated that wisp of source qi. Only the final gap remained unfilled, and at its current rate of absorbing and circulating primal chaos qi, it would take merely a year to attain completion and enter the Mindscape Realm.
Once things stabilized, True Monarch Xuanyue returned to Qingming to retrieve the immortal weapon, the Lotus Lamp. The long-dormant Lotus Lamp finally showed a response, flying off the back of Wei Yuan's hand and transforming back into the bald youth. Only now his skin was supple and glossy, his face radiated a precious luster, and he had visibly put on some weight, having clearly grown plump from feeding during this period.
As he was about to depart, Wei Yuan could not resist asking, "Senior Lotus Lamp, might I ask where you were during our time in the illusory realm? Why did I only see you once and never again?"
The Lotus Lamp chuckled. "In truth, you and I saw each other morning and evening. I had transformed into a military uniform to protect that child Ji Liuli; otherwise, I fear she would have met with fatal calamity."
Wei Yuan realized the truth—no wonder the durability of Ji Liuli's military uniforms had been so absurd. Yet he was the one who had invited the Lotus Lamp; how had it ended up on Ji Liuli?
As if anticipating Wei Yuan's question, the Lotus Lamp smiled and said, "...Because the Palace Master offered more."
At that, Wei Yuan had nothing left to say.
After seeing Patriarch Xuanyue off, Wei Yuan began organizing every aspect of Qingming's internal affairs while spending most of his time in seclusion, gathering primal chaos qi to make up for his deficiencies. At such a critical juncture, the more primal chaos qi he personally gathered, the more beneficial it would be during his advancement.
Over the following year, no major events occurred.
As winter waned and spring arrived in the ninth year of Tianqi of the Great Tang, Wei Yuan underwent forty-nine days of lightning tribulations. His merits and practice reached complete fruition; the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World formed a world of its own, and he stepped into the Mindscape Realm.
Chapter 793