Liu Lan suddenly looked up and gazed into the distance. In that direction, clouds surged and the wind stirred as the Great Daos of heaven and earth subtly shifted and altered, akin to a grand ceremony of the Shaman race sacrificing to Heaven. Thus Liu Lan knew that Qingming's Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony had begun. This round of bombardment could be considered a greeting gift from Wei Yuan, while the more than ten thousand Shaman corpses seemed more like sacrificial offerings for the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony.
Wei Yuan stood in midair, having already shifted his vision. Below, Qingming had now turned into a vast, boundless sea of clouds, within which points of starlight twinkled. Those were cultivators in the midst of casting their Dao Foundations; once the starlight stabilized, they would be Dao Foundation cultivators.
Many points of starlight were not very bright to begin with, and inevitably grew dim. Yet many faint specks of light found an alternative way, maintaining a low-intensity glow and ultimately setting foot on the path of the Dao Foundation.
Wei Yuan switched his vision back to observe Qingming in reality. Blanketing the entire grounds with his divine sense, he flew toward that isolated peak. First, he showered down a third round of karmic luck, then activated the third round of All Living Beings in a Flash. In the blink of an eye, the Dao Foundations of over a hundred young masters and mistresses gradually stabilized.
Wei Yuan observed the progress of the rest, then promptly replenished their karmic luck and activated the fourth round of All Living Beings in a Flash. At last, another ninety-odd young masters and mistresses achieved their Dao Foundations. Counting the batch that had broken through right at the start, there were now just over three hundred Dao Foundation cultivators in total.
Wei Yuan nodded to himself. This success rate was entirely defensible; next year, he could continue to swindle—no, collect a reasonable service fee. In truth, if these young masters and mistresses had been willing to listen to advice and choose the recommended template Dao Foundations, at least a hundred more could have succeeded. A success rate exceeding twenty percent would have been enough to make jaws drop.
Sadly, once many people had money, they fancied themselves a different species altogether. Thus, they looked down on the template Dao Foundations provided by Qingming and insisted on proving their uniqueness.
Little did they realize that wealth had nothing to do with their genes. No amount of immortal silver could alter their aptitude and innate talent—to say nothing of the fact that they didn't even have that much immortal silver.
As a result, every year a batch of young masters and mistresses would leave in dejection; not even Wei Yuan opening All Living Beings in a Flash a few more times could change that. Mud simply couldn't be plastered onto a wall—propping it up a few more times was useless.
Viewed from another angle, however, every year there were those who failed to recognize their own limits, meaning the following year, or the year after, there would be another batch that had reflected and seen reason. They would ultimately cast their Dao Foundations; it would merely cost them two more years and a hundred times more immortal silver than everyone else.
In Wei Yuan's eyes, this was the privilege of the wealthy: spending far more money to accomplish the exact same thing.
Yet there was also a group of clear-headed, hardworking young masters and mistresses who genuinely hoped for a miracle; otherwise, no matter how hard they tried, they could never achieve a Dao Foundation. The so-called miracle was the emergence of new template Dao Foundations like the Remnant Fire Sword. For these people, even Wei Yuan could do nothing. Low as the threshold for the Remnant Fire Sword was, a threshold still existed.
Having taken care of the young masters and mistresses first, Wei Yuan returned to the main venue. By now, people below had begun achieving their Dao Foundations one after another, forming points of radiance, each containing a newly cast Dao Foundation.
Counting the points of light, Wei Yuan nodded inwardly. The major clans had sent over four thousand people in total. The Cui and Bao clans had sent mere leftovers by now, so their success rate naturally wouldn't be high.
However, the disciples from the Xu family, the Southern Qi Li family, and the Qinghe Song and Cui families who had come for the first time this year possessed noticeably superior aptitude. Coupled with the dramatic debut of the Remnant Fire Sword, the success rate was frighteningly high. From what Wei Yuan could see already, it was near twenty percent, and it would definitely surpass twenty percent by the end.
The core reason these clan disciples, who couldn't afford huge sums, had an even higher success rate than the wealthy young masters and mistresses was the Remnant Fire Sword. The young masters and mistresses disdained the Remnant Fire Sword because it didn't emit light and had a dull, pitch-black appearance that wasn't flashy, so almost none of them chose it. Still, he believed that next year, many would face reality—even if reality was rather hard to swallow.
The Palace of Grand Beginning had sent five thousand Dao soldiers. This number was fewer than in previous sessions, not because the Palace lacked strength, but because basically everyone eligible to ascend to Dao Foundation had already done so; they simply couldn't find more candidates.
Cultivating Dao soldiers was not the work of a moment; it required several years of proper training. Furthermore, the Palace of Grand Beginning didn't need that many Dao soldiers; aside from the northern mountain gate, which had use for them, the other mountain gates had no need for Dao soldiers at all. Thus, even among these five thousand, more than half had attended before.
It had to be said that their own Dao soldiers were very receptive to advice. Added to the demands of battle, the majority had chosen the Remnant Fire Sword.
When Wei Yuan flew over, it happened to be the peak moment of breakthroughs for the Dao soldiers below. The appearance of newly formed Dao Foundations spurred on their comrades nearby; as a result, many held their breath and pushed with all their might, and miraculously, they actually managed to pull it off!
The sudden blooming of lights below momentarily dazed even Wei Yuan. This success rate was already close to thirty percent! To think that merely lowering the threshold slightly with the Remnant Fire Sword would double the number of Dao Foundation cultivators!
There was not much to see among the rogue cultivators; their success rate was roughly on par with the clan disciples and the young masters and mistresses. Originally, they would only have had a five-percent chance, but the overwhelming majority of rogue cultivators had chosen the Remnant Fire Sword.
Emitting only heat without light made it a superb tool for ambushes in the eyes of rogue cultivators, not to mention its low threshold and immense power. As for whether it looked good, that didn't matter in the slightest. When one had already ended up a rogue cultivator, picking some flashy, ornamental Dao Foundation would just be asking to die faster.
Lastly came Qingming's own cultivators, totaling over thirty thousand this year, their lights displaying diverse colors and myriad variations. Qingming's cultivators differed from the others; most did not need to go to the battlefield, and they had the practical need to find work within Qingming. Therefore, their motivation in choosing a Dao Foundation was distinct.
Certain niche, bizarre Dao Foundations with little combat power were immensely popular in Qingming—for example, the old Daoist's Beast Mastering Heavenly Heart, or Sun Yu's sterilizing qi. The Remnant Fire Sword, because it could generate steady heat, was also wildly popular the moment it appeared.
Due to the improved environmental conditions in the realm and better nutrition, the baseline physical constitution of this batch of Qingming cultivators was generally stronger than before. This was reflected in a slight rise in their average innate talent, by about ten percent. Observing from the sky, Wei Yuan estimated the final success rate would be only slightly lower than that of the Palace of Grand Beginning's Dao soldiers, likely over twenty percent but under thirty.
In this manner, Qingming would gain another eight thousand Dao Foundation cultivators, which left Wei Yuan quite satisfied. A template Dao Foundation could still wield a flying-sword gun, and once on the battlefield, their combat power would be vastly superior to peak Body Casting. Sure enough, holding the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony before the Shamans arrived had been the right decision.
Just as Wei Yuan was rejoicing inwardly, clouds suddenly gathered and winds whipped up in the sky ahead as a massive stretch of tribulation clouds formed. A heavenly tribulation was imminent!
Wei Yuan was greatly startled. Put bluntly, the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony was merely an intensive boot camp for a bunch of failures who normally could never achieve a Dao Foundation. What virtue or merit did they possess that Heaven would go out of its way to strike them with lightning?
The heavenly tribulation took shape in an instant, alarming the cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning. Zhang Sheng, who had been watching in silence, appeared behind Wei Yuan and yanked him away, pulling him far from the venue. Sure enough, the lightning within the tribulation diminished somewhat.
Wei Yuan's face turned livid, yet he was helpless. Once this heavenly tribulation descended, who knew how many cultivators in the grounds would die? How could they possibly withstand a heavenly tribulation?
The heavenly tribulation struck with terrifying speed. Before anyone could react, nine points of lightning appeared within the tribulation cloud, which then merged into one, descending as a slender, brilliant-blue beam of light!
Looking at that beam of light—slender, yet blindingly radiant and brimming with limitless thunderous might—Wei Yuan suddenly felt a pang of emotion: this was the heavenly tribulation of his dreams! Alas, he had never encountered one, such that the lightning rods he had spent a fortune to build ended up being used by someone else.
Just as the lightning pillar was about to hit the ground, a young girl suddenly soared up from below and threw herself straight into the pillar of lightning!
Then, an ethereal yet seemingly world-destroying sword light ignited! Bearing a greatsword larger than her own body, the girl cleaved and obliterated the tribulation lightning in a single strike!
This strike was supremely fierce and domineering, utterly unreasonable, bearing a distinct semblance to Sweeping Away the Four Barbarians, the ultimate lethal strike of the Sword of Ten Thousand Generations and Thousand Wonders.
As the heavenly tribulation dispersed, the girl was still covered in crackling lightning. A vast deluge of heaven-and-earth origin qi surged from the void, causing the greatsword in her hands to coalesce from illusion into reality.
The area where the girl stood was the zone for newly inducted Dao soldiers from Qingming's own Dao Soldier Hall, mostly youths from the Xu family back then, along with a small portion of high-grade sacrifices and their descendants.
Now that the girl had overcome the heavenly tribulation, the overflowing heaven-and-earth origin qi was absorbed by these Qingming Dao soldiers. Consequently, the lights of Dao Foundations lit up one after another, like an ocean of light!
Chapter 840