At present, the foremost priority in Qingming was the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony. Over fifty thousand cultivators, along with several times that number in friends and family, flooded into Qingming. Merely arranging their food, lodging, and transport was a monumental undertaking.
Furthermore, Wei Yuan had other intentions. He meant to seize this opportunity to let every faction see Qingming's progress with their own eyes. In the past, when Qingming was still weak, keeping things under wraps had naturally been necessary in order to strike enemies swift, unexpected blows.
Now, however, Qingming possessed the scale of several commanderies, and everything was different. If for nothing else, simply to ensure that Qingyuan circulated smoothly, Wei Yuan had to bare his fangs. Baring them alone was not enough; he had to beat every dissenter into submission before the various factions would maintain absolute confidence in Qingyuan.
By now, several hundred million Qingyuan had been issued, meaning several hundred million taels' worth of immortal silver in goods and supplies had entered Qingming essentially for free. In an instant, Qingming's foundation had multiplied several times over, while Wei Yuan had simultaneously reaped a boundless ocean of karmic luck.
Thus, Wei Yuan had begun preparations several months in advance. The Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony was staged in the suburbs of Yong'an City, where an entire cluster of high-rises had been specially constructed to house the visiting cultivators.
To maximize efficiency and showcase Qingming's uniqueness, these high-rises stood thirty stories tall, each floor containing dozens of suites reserved exclusively for the ceremony's participants. They were even equipped with spirit-array elevators.
In truth, cultivators at peak Body Casting had no need for elevators to climb thirty floors; a single leap could carry them seven or eight stories. These elevators had been installed primarily for transporting cargo and enabling mortal craftsmen of negligible cultivation to move up and down.
Over a hundred thirty-story towers clustered together naturally produced an intense sense of overwhelming presence, alongside a peculiar, unconventional beauty born of sheer order. When the various aristocratic clans, sect Dao soldiers, and rogue cultivators filed into Yong'an City, gasps of awe and admiration broke out everywhere. None of them had imagined that scenes from the otherworldly realm could truly become reality in Qingming.
Upon checking in, the cultivators were even more pleasantly surprised.
Cultivators born of prestigious clans had naturally seen genuine immortal splendors—floating peaks, thousand-foot palatial halls, and the like—yet tall, ingenious architecture of this sort was something none of them had ever witnessed.
Though the rooms were not particularly large, their interior furnishings made extensive use of Qing brocade and machine-woven cloth, presenting a neat and tasteful appearance. This unprecedented minimalist style earned endless praise from the clan scions, who always enjoyed something novel.
The accommodations were also divided into several tiers. Clan scions who paid top dollar naturally stayed in larger quarters, featuring greater amounts of loom-woven brocade and superior food.
For this gathering, Wei Yuan provided basic meals free of charge to all attending cultivators, offering all-you-can-eat portions in designated cafeterias.
The selection of dishes was limited and rather monotonous in flavor, but the food was reasonably tasty, relying heavily on items referred to in Qingming as "canned goods." Furthermore, open barrels and tubs of canned rations were displayed prominently in the dining halls for everyone to see.
The meager variety and repetitive flavors were said to serve the purpose of tempering the cultivators' Dao hearts, keeping them clear inside and out and untouched by worldly dust. Aside from this, however, the unlimited quantities and abundant portions of meat broadened the cultivators' horizons tremendously.
Among most factions, Body Casting practitioners were barely considered true cultivators, falling far short of the status where they could eat meat at their leisure. Moreover, their appetites were enormous; given free rein, a single cultivator could devour dozens of jin in one sitting.
Yet Qingming seemed entirely unbothered by this, providing as much meat as they could stomach in an endless, limitless supply. As they ate, many discerning cultivators began to sense Qingming's unfathomable depths.
Children of great clans naturally had the option to purchase private meals. Many had visited the cafeterias a couple of times out of curiosity, only to never return. Qingming offered an exceptionally lavish paid menu, among which a clear broth medicinal hot pot served with marbled meat slices proved tremendously popular, almost impossible to get enough of.
Yet even more popular was a chili sauce imbued with the aura of the Netherworld's return to silence. Alongside its fresh, fiery heat, it gave one the chilling sensation of having strolled through the Netherworld of the underworld administration. Cultivators of discerning eye recognized the sauce's extraordinary nature at once, and they began purchasing it in massive quantities.
This sauce had also been concocted by Old Daoist Chuhe, who had added the berries and leaves of the Nether Star Nightshade. Consuming it offered a slight boost to one's cultivation while inducing the illusion of plummeting into the Netherworld. The old Daoist had initially brewed it merely to accompany his own hot pot; who could have imagined it would become such an overwhelming hit?
In just a few short days, over a hundred thousand jars of this spicy sauce were sold. Many deep-pocketed clan scions waved their hands and bought thousands, even tens of thousands of jars at a stroke. To rush production, the solitary Nether Star Nightshade was stripped nearly bare.
Yet if the ingredients used in the sauce were converted to the price of medicinal ingredients, the sauce sold for at least a dozen times what they would fetch from the Abbey of Creation. Wei Yuan could only endure the heartache as he watched Old Daoist Chuhe rip away leaves by the handful, reluctantly raking in the Qingyuan.
The old Daoist possessed sharp foresight as well. He went straight to Wei Yuan to ask for a large quantity of Nether Soil, planting dozens of Celestial Star Nightshades in a single go, and relocated Xu Wenwu's residence right beside the nursery in hopes of making a massive fortune in the future.
Ever since Wei Yuan had brought back knowledge of the otherworldly realm from the world fragment, Xu Wenwu had completely exposed his unlearned, talentless nature, having forgotten seven or eight tenths of even his high school knowledge. As for those basic tools with the word "function" attached to their names, he could not even recall what they were called, as though he had never laid eyes on them. Consequently, the value of Xu Wenwu's information had dropped drastically; only his descriptions of his former living environment retained any worth.
Yet as his cultivation progressed, Xu Wenwu's unique constitution grew increasingly pronounced. Within a certain range around him, living beings blessed by Wei Yuan with karmic luck had a very high chance of thoroughly absorbing that luck and undergoing mutation. That was how the original Nether Star Nightshade had come about. Now that this range had expanded, he no longer needed to stroke the tree and loosen the soil every day; simply living nearby was enough.
Once all the cultivators had arrived, Wei Yuan initiated the questionnaire testing. This was an unprecedented move. The cultivators split up and headed toward their designated examination halls, where they found gigantic pavilions divided into multiple levels. Each cultivator was handed a slip of paper indicating their examination zone, floor level, and seat number.
To the cultivators' shock, among tens of thousands of people, not a single mistake or omission occurred.
A great many cultivators were on site to guide them, and tens of thousands of cultivators were herded into their designated spots like a vast flock of sheep, where dense, detailed questionnaires awaited them.
None of the cultivators understood what this was for, but they had no choice but to fill it out honestly. Before the session began, the Qingming cultivators had repeatedly stressed that failing to answer conscientiously would impair their Dao journey, so no one dared write carelessly. After all, it was their own future on the line.
Among tens of thousands of cultivators, troublemakers naturally abounded. Yet ever since Wei Yuan had explicitly stepped into the late Dharma Idol stage, practically no one dared cause a disturbance in Qingming.
A late-stage Dharma Idol under thirty years old, and unquestionably an immortal idol at that—who would go out of their way to provoke such a figure? Anyone below Scenery Command stood no chance whatsoever, and even Scenery Command experts were not guaranteed to best him. Every Scenery Command master had been a genius in their day and was certainly no fool; none of them would fight a battle destined for defeat.
Moreover, even if one were bent on causing trouble, whether they could even see Wei Yuan was another question entirely. Wei Yuan held a completely different stature now, occupying a position of immense authority. Anyone wishing to trade blows with him would first have to get past a long list of names—Ji Liuli, Bao Yun, Xiaoyu, and many others.
Rumors had already spread among the cultivators that ever since the fall of Immortal Monarch Tinghai, the younger generation of disciples from the Palace of Grand Beginning had suffered such a shock that many had become mentally unhinged, with a great multitude switching to cultivating a heart of invincibility.
As everyone knew, those who cultivated a heart of invincibility were practically rabid dogs; merely walking past one carried the risk of getting bitten, and an irritated glance from one of them was reason enough to start a war.
Thus, everyone swallowed their pride and obeyed meekly. After all, in a place where even their own ancestors might be beaten without cause at any moment, making trouble was simply courting death.
And so, tens of thousands of cultivators filed into the examination halls in neat order, and exited in just as neat order. Crowded yet never chaotic, this massive ebb and flow of people was accomplished with effortless ease. In the eyes of attentive observers, was this not the hallmark of an unparalleled general?
To organize a motley rabble with such seamless order meant that, in times of war, ordinary people could be steadily forged into an elite fighting force. No wonder Qingming had managed to hold its ground against the overwhelmingly superior Land of Rain back then, battling year after year and only growing stronger with every clash.
Consequently, this single questionnaire test harvested an enormous, colorful assortment of karmic luck for Wei Yuan. As the Mayor of Yong'an City who directly managed the affair, Xiaoyu also reaped a tidy heap of diverse karmic luck.
From then on, before the sky had even lightened each morning, Lord Shaoyang would urge Xiaoyu to wash up and set out, heading to the municipal office to work without so much as a single day off.
One day, when Xiaoyu moved a bit too slowly, he discovered that an astral lord could curse, and curse quite foully at that.
The day after the questionnaire test, the cultivators were assembled once more to evaluate their constitutions. To their confusion, this was not a comprehensive examination, but one focused solely on a specific aspect—such as testing exclusively for Wood or Water elemental aptitudes.
Just a single day after the constitution testing, the results were compiled and distributed to each cultivator. The documents clearly laid out three template Dao Foundations best suited for them to choose from. Some cultivators were given no choice at all, receiving only a single template Dao Foundation.
Comparing notes among themselves, the cultivators discovered that no two dossiers were alike; they were clearly tailored recommendations provided by Qingming for each individual. Those who had come to Qingming were generally of mediocre aptitude, so the vast majority accepted Qingming's arrangements with anxious yet hopeful hearts.
Preparations advanced in an orderly manner. With the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World coordinating the arrangements, all activities remained busy yet free of chaos.
Meanwhile, Wei Yuan continued bombarding the Shamans excavating the canal, driving Liu Lan into a helpless fury. Amidst all the bustle, the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony finally reached its official opening.
The scale and impact of this ceremony were unprecedented.
Chapter 838