In a Single Step

Strength Shamans were a creature that loved to jump on bandwagons. Once they discovered a Strength Shaman who was skilled at thinking, a crowd of them would naturally gather around that individual. The dozens of Strength Shamans standing before Wei Yuan were first-rate elites in both combat prowess and shamanic arts, handpicked by him from over eight hundred applicants. Fengmang Fortress held nearly three thousand Strength Shamans in total. Like Wei Yuan and Tianyu, many possessed their own servant soldiers and retinues. However, these servants rarely took to the front lines; their combat ability was far too weak to meet the standards of the battlefield. Those standing before Wei Yuan were all regular warriors, the weakest among them at Mad Bull's level. Only two belonged to canine lineages: Gray Wolf and Black Mastiff. Yet Wei Yuan had not chosen the dozens of top elites with consummate dharma idols. The Strength Shamans he picked fell into the lower-middle tier across all of Fengmang, representing the fortress's largest demographic. Wei Yuan wanted the Strength Shamans—and one Desolate Shaman in particular—to see what kind of miracle these ordinary Strength Shamans could accomplish under his guidance. Looking at these bizarrely shaped Strength Shamans, Wei Yuan sneered inwardly. As a former genetic researcher at Umbrella Corporation, viruses and microorganisms were the only things he considered monsters. These Strength Shamans were nothing more than misshapen heaps of meat. The path Ronglong had devised was not short on strokes of genius. But lacking a systematic theory, those brilliant notions were destined to remain scattered, piecemeal, and accidental. What Wei Yuan needed to do now was design an entirely new theoretical framework, integrate Ronglong's brilliant ideas into it, and then modify them beyond all recognition—turning them into Lord Groundhog's proprietary monograph. If Ronglong noticed, he would call it drawing inspiration. If he couldn't bluff his way through, he could always call it an homage to Ronglong. Over the next few days, Wei Yuan conducted relentless testing: physical fitness tests, shamanic art tests, and he even scheduled a full day of examinations! The exam spanned seven consecutive subjects, each lasting a two-hour session, with only a two-minute break in between—roughly the time it took to drink half a cup of tea. Where had these Strength Shamans ever seen such an exam? They were grilled until their eyes glazed over, staring blankly as if freshly enameled. The next morning, all the Strength Shamans saw a massive placard posted with names and scores ranked from one to one hundred. The moment they saw rankings, the Strength Shamans were pumped full of adrenaline. Vibrating with energy, they nervously searched for their names, for the placard's title read: *First Cultivation Comprehension Test*. A meddlesome shaman read the results aloud: "First place: Hamster, ninety-seven points! Second place: Silverback Power Ape, ninety-five points..." The shamans buzzed with discussion. When they finally spotted Wei Yuan walking out, they rushed over in a crowd to ask what the list meant. Then one shaman asked, "Excuse me, is the perfect score one hundred?" Wei Yuan replied with a deadpan expression, "Seven hundred." Dead silence fell over the Strength Shamans. Even Tianyu's smile vanished. Wei Yuan tapped the placard and said, "Do you see? Fact proves that you truly do not need to think—because you lack that function altogether." This time, most of the Strength Shamans actually nodded in silent agreement. Only Tianyu and a handful of others looked bewildered, but outnumbered and weak, they dared not speak up. Thus, Wei Yuan's first obedience test was a resounding success. Next, Wei Yuan set up an altar to preach the Dao. The preparations before the sermon consisted of heaping platters of meat and fish, fine wine, and delicious food, along with a few shamans picked for their singing and dancing to perform off to the side. They played tunes Wei Yuan had hummed out—vigorous, upbeat rhythms matching heavy drumbeats that made the Strength Shamans subconsciously start twisting and swaying the moment they heard them. And so, as the music swelled, a field of writhing strips of meat rose before Wei Yuan, grooving endlessly to the beat. Wei Yuan said in a deep voice, "First doctrine of the altar: drain this cup!" "Second doctrine: drink again!" "A third drink!!" "Bottoms up!!!" A few cups in, and the Strength Shamans fell genuinely in love with Wei Yuan's sermons. The sermon lasted all night, cycling through dozens of songs, with each shaman polishing off a barrel of strong liquor on average. In the end, they remembered only a single sentence: "Excess is as bad as deficiency." Though they remembered only that one line, over half of the Strength Shamans contributed advanced karmic luck, having recognized Wei Yuan from the bottom of their hearts. This God of Craftsmanship and Spear Saint might preach few doctrines, but when he opened an altar, he went all out! The next day's sermon was forced to postpone from morning to afternoon, as most of the Strength Shamans had not yet slept off their hangovers. That day, Wei Yuan taught a visualization method. This was a fairly common cultivation method in the Shaman Realm, but Wei Yuan's visualization was distinct. First, they were to visualize a sacred idol shaped like a pear—broad at the bottom and narrow at the top—and then memorize a sacred emblem. By now, the overwhelming majority of the Strength Shamans did not bother thinking at all; whatever Wei Yuan said went. Moreover, this kind of straightforward yet sustained focus suited Strength Shamans best. Most of them effortlessly emptied their minds, cleared away distracting thoughts, and visualized in silence for a whole day. As a result, quite a few shamans actually managed to touch upon a sliver of true meaning. The speed at which this cultivation took effect was simply uncanny. Only Tianyu and a few other clever shamans couldn't shake the feeling that if you added eyes and eyebrows to the sacred idol, it would turn into a groundhog. Once that thought crossed their minds, the more they looked, the more it resembled one—and thus they drifted further and further from the true meaning of the Great Dao. To make matters worse, Wei Yuan concluded by roaring three times: "Did you comprehend the true meaning?" The crowd of Strength Shamans roared back in earnest: "We did!" With so many shamans claiming to have comprehended it, Tianyu and the few clever ones had no choice but to say they had as well; otherwise, they would look stupid. The next two days were likewise spent cultivating the visualization method. The shamans drew closer and closer to the true meaning, until suddenly, a ray of light erupted from the top of one shaman's head. Pure, silvery-white, and chillingly cold, it clashed sharply with the Desolate Realm—a shamanic power bearing a trace of the Great Yin attribute! To cultivate the True Meaning of Great Yin in the Desolate Realm was virtually unbelievable. But with one success, pillars of lunar radiance appeared one after another. In the blink of an eye, over a dozen shamans had succeeded. Tianyu and the other clever shamans watched in stunned disbelief, filled with regret. They rushed to make up for lost ground, but no matter what they did, their minds refused to settle. The sacred idol before their eyes had already transformed entirely into a groundhog. Wei Yuan was rather pleased with this progress, while sneering inwardly. Huiye thought sealing away his mindscape world would solve everything. Little did she suspect that beyond his mindscape world, Wei Yuan still had his own intellect and experience. In particular, the knowledge absorbed from harvesting the otherworldly realm fragment was something no one could ever strip away. As a researcher from the otherworldly realm's Umbrella Corporation, the Desolate Realm Strength Shamans' rudimentary knowledge of fleshly modification was, in Wei Yuan's eyes, akin to watching primitive people forge bronze ware. It was just that Wei Yuan subconsciously ignored the word "apprentice" preceding his researcher title, and conveniently forgot the latest evaluation in his personnel file: *Unsatisfactory; scheduled for termination.* Watching more and more Strength Shamans comprehend the True Meaning of Great Yin, a paper covered in dense handwriting appeared in Wei Yuan's hand. He glanced at it and tucked it back away, feeling quite regretful. That night, Ronglong appeared in Wei Yuan's courtyard, picked up the paper, and read it over meticulously, while Wei Yuan remained entirely oblivious. Yet after reading it, Ronglong was completely baffled. The paper detailed ritual procedures and rules resembling cult doctrines—utter gibberish to him. What Ronglong did not know was that with a sacred idol and emblem, paired with doctrine and ritual procedures, all the foundational elements of an evil cult were complete. And when it came to being a cult leader, Wei Yuan was quite seasoned. When night fell over the Desolate Realm, wailing and howling began to echo from Wei Yuan's courtyard like the weeping of ghosts and howling of wolves. Inside the courtyard, a row of Strength Shamans faced flame demon targets made of various materials, continuously unleashing Desolate Roars of varying pitches and attributes. Each Strength Shaman held a sheet of paper marked with several rows of lines, followed by tadpole-like symbols. The Strength Shamans had to roar at different pitches depending on the height of the symbols' positions, while the shapes of the symbols themselves represented different attributes of the Desolate Roar. A single Strength Shaman roaring continuously sounded resonant, forceful, and rhythmically distinct. But when a crowd of Strength Shamans roared all at once, it was a ghastly cacophony that kept every Strength Shaman within a hundred zhang from getting any sleep. Wei Yuan sat high above, recording the effect of every single Desolate Roar. Whenever he identified a roar with a distinctive effect, he would call an immediate halt and examine the target thoroughly. After several such nights, Wei Yuan had gathered a vast amount of data on Desolate Roars. In all of Fengmang, his depth of research into them was second only to Ronglong's. The Desolate Roar was a secret art developed through a million years of optimization and refinement by the Strength Shamans to channel the power of the Desolate Realm. Mastering it gave them the strength to survive, while studying it was an indirect way of studying the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth in the Desolate Realm. Wei Yuan was not yet an immortal and could not directly touch the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth; he could only investigate it through indirect methods. Yet indirect study had its own advantages. By cleverly designing research protocols, one could reconstruct the power of heaven and earth from every angle without bias. Touching the power of heaven and earth directly, on the other hand, easily led to assimilation by the Dao, potentially turning someone into a madman who was half heavenly law and half flesh. The first thing Wei Yuan needed to do was improve the extraction and preparation of raw materials. Matter in the Desolate Realm was exceptionally sturdy; even an ordinary rock could withstand a great curse cast by a consummate dharma idol. The fact that Strength Shamans had devoted themselves for ages to strengthening their physical bodies was, to some degree, a consequence of Desolate Realm materials being too difficult to process. Compared to smelting desolate steel and divine iron, cultivating an extra pair of arms was actually the easier path. Since the Desolate Roar could raise the temperature of desolate iron and marginally eliminate impurities, it possessed the potential to modify raw materials in Wei Yuan's eyes. He was now compiling data on the effects of different roars on different materials, requiring tens of thousands of basic test runs alone. Fortunately, Strength Shamans had boundless stamina; howling for days and nights on end was no trouble for them. Wei Yuan did not need rest either, nor did he need to analyze the data on the spot. He merely recorded the raw figures during testing, while over a thousand copies of Wei Yuan in his divine sense analyzed them simultaneously. At this rate, he could complete thousands of tests a day. Ten days later, Wei Yuan had tested every combination of different Desolate Roars against various materials, pinpointing three Desolate Roars, eleven pitches, and specific processing methods for copper, iron, lead, and aluminum. After several more days of optimization and thousands of trials, Wei Yuan finally settled on the optimal plan. He then handpicked ten Strength Shamans and one Desolate Shaman from across the entire fortress and erected a two-zhang-tall blast furnace of unique design. When the appointed hour arrived, Wei Yuan activated a small altar nearby and fed sacrificial power into it to guarantee the furnace run's success. The ten Strength Shamans took their respective positions, and finally, the Desolate Shaman entered and sat at the eye of the formation. During this period, flame demons had attacked twice more in standard numbers. Ronglong simply excused Wei Yuan from the battlefield entirely, and likewise excused the Strength Shamans Wei Yuan had requisitioned so they could focus all their efforts on crafting. Ronglong's support for Wei Yuan was practically unconditional. It was just that what Wei Yuan had been doing during this time left the Desolate Shamans completely baffled, unable to make heads or tails of it. Now, seeing Wei Yuan make such a grand spectacle, Ronglong, the Desolate Shamans, and any idle Strength Shamans gathered at the scene to watch quietly. At Wei Yuan's command, the shamans around the furnace began to howl and roar in accordance with the score sheets in their hands, some even humming melodic transitions, blending together like a fierce, soaring symphony. The temperature inside the blast furnace climbed steadily. Towering flames shot from the furnace mouth, and then molten steel of dazzling brightness actually flowed from the bottom! Seeing the brilliance and hue of the molten steel, every Desolate Shaman leapt to their feet! In a single step, Wei Yuan had refined desolate steel straight from raw ore!