To the very end, it was impossible to identify which of the dozen or so mortals was the true inner demon.
Even so, the inner demon was eliminated. With Wei Yuan's tacit approval, the immortal flora activated the formation, obliterating every mortal within it. Wei Yuan immediately felt his divine sense clear, as though a heavy burden had been lifted—proof that the inner demon had indeed been among them.
Yet this also proved that the inner demon was continually evolving. Right before Wei Yuan's eyes, even after narrowing the suspects down to barely a dozen people, he had still failed to locate its exact hiding place.
On the other hand, Wei Yuan noticed a subtle shift in the attitude of the immortal flora toward mortals. In the past, the immortal flora would clamor for slaughter at the slightest provocation, treating mortals no differently than dirt and stone, discarding them on a whim.
This time, the scope had shrunk to just over a dozen mortals. Had this happened before, they would never have summoned Wei Yuan in the first place; they would have wiped them all out directly.
Now, however, the immortal flora were reluctant to casually obliterate mortals. In their eyes, doing so seemed no different from committing actual murder.
Wei Yuan grew pensive. Could it be that the mortals within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World were gradually transforming into sentient beings endowed with spirits, rather than remaining mere phantom creations of a mindscape world?
Perhaps this was a sign that the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was slowly advancing in tier.
Wei Yuan had often wondered how the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World would change once it advanced to Scenery Command. Under normal circumstances, as a dharma idol, it was already equivalent to a complete mindscape world. Would reaching Scenery Command merely grant it a few additional grotto-heavens?
Now, Wei Yuan could discern the budding trend: the sentient beings within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World were slowly turning from illusory into real, and in the future, they might even develop karmic ties and retribution. Adding to that the two Paramita grotto-heavens of special attributes—the Yellow Springs and the Pure Land—Wei Yuan felt as though he were watching a complete world gradually grow and mature.
The inner demon tribulation was not yet over, and there was no telling when it would conclude. Even so, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had indeed begun its transformation, and Wei Yuan was already on the path toward Scenery Command. It was just that the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was far too vast. Back then, even a being with a colossal, terrifying true form like Ronglong had only occupied a small portion of its sea.
Transforming such an immense mindscape world would inevitably take a long time, but once it succeeded, it would likely present an unprecedented, magnificent spectacle.
Having thought this through, Wei Yuan was no longer in a hurry. He prepared to keep wearing down the inner demon while turning his thoughts toward handling the fourth grotto-heaven.
The more grotto-heavens he possessed, the faster he could draw upon heaven-and-earth origin qi, and the quicker the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World would grow. The price, however, was that more grotto-heavens made the entire system increasingly unstable; once past a certain critical threshold, it might even trigger the collapse of his entire mindscape world.
When it came to choosing the fourth grotto-heaven, Wei Yuan found himself caught in a dilemma. For the moment, he could not decide whether to dedicate it to a slaughter-type supreme treasure, sacrificing breathing efficiency in exchange for immediate combat power, or to choose a vitality-type supreme treasure to vastly boost the breathing capacity of the entire Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
This was a choice between two distinct paths of development. Wei Yuan submitted both proposals into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, intending to solicit the opinions of his Wolongs and Fengchus.
Having dealt with his internal matters, Wei Yuan once again set off for the secret realm. By now, two flying boats were moored outside the secret realm, and a camp of substantial scale had already been erected, where hundreds of cultivators were busily at work.
Seeing Wei Yuan arrive, Yu Zhizhuo led him over to the teleportation array. Dozens of cultivators were busy around it, meticulously calibrating the formation and replacing various components.
Yu Zhizhuo said, "It's been confirmed that this array has a history of over a hundred thousand years, though the exact era remains unknown. This secret realm appears modest in size, but in reality, it exists in a different heaven and earth from our main realm, spanning a distance of hundreds of thousands of li between its two ends in our world. This teleportation array serves as the exit of the secret realm; in truth, it only covers the short distance between the secret realm and our main realm, so the distance is not great, nor is the burden heavy."
"I see." Wei Yuan had common knowledge of formations and understood that, because of this, the teleportation array could handle a relatively large volume of personnel and supplies moving in and out. While it would still consume energy, it was a mere fraction of what a long-distance teleportation array required.
Yu Zhizhuo added, "This array was originally driven by spirit stones, a common means of powering formations in ancient times. However, most spirit stones come from natural mineral deposits; using them depletes them permanently, and their purity and grade are inherently inconsistent, making them rather inconvenient to use directly.
"Thus, tens of thousands of years after our human race learned to use spirit stones, we developed artificial spirit stones by casting Dao power into stone molds. The purity and spiritual qi content of the stones produced this way far exceeded natural spirit stones, while costing less than a tenth as much.
"Yet some uncultured, pedantic old fellows among the alien races stubbornly clung to natural spirit stones, insisting that anything all-natural was inherently superior.
"So our ancestors had no choice but to sell all the natural spirit stones to them, while we used the artificial ones ourselves."
Wei Yuan asked, "And what about now? How come I've never heard of natural spirit stones either?"
"Now?" A bizarre expression crossed Yu Zhizhuo's face as he pointed toward the bustling cultivators and said, "Tens of thousands of years ago, a human grandmaster of artifact crafting discovered that cultivators are far more useful than spirit stones. They store energy better, can replenish their own Dao power, regulate their own moods, and if luck is on their side, they can even advance in tier! From then on, natural spirit stones were used less and less, until they vanished completely a few thousand years later."
"So..."
Yu Zhizhuo pointed toward several iron boxes nearby and said, "The engines are already prepared."
Once the teleportation array was fully opened and the engines replaced spirit stones for power supply, the array's efficiency increased drastically, allowing dozens of cultivators to pass through at a time. Moreover, recharging it took only the time needed to burn a single stick of incense.
A large contingent of Qingming cultivators crossed through the teleportation array, surveying the surrounding land bit by bit like a swarm of ants. Yu Zhizhuo had simply moved his bed over to this side. Arriving in a new world never failed to fascinate him. Perfected Chuhe was also spending more and more time here; to him, the spiritual flora and vegetation of the mountain folk's territory were entirely novel as well. After the first batch of over a thousand cultivators arrived, Wei Yuan began deploying large quantities of heavy armor and munitions to construct defensive lines.
However, the capacity of the teleportation array soon proved insufficient. Wei Yuan had anticipated this, which was why the first things transported over were assorted weapons and tools, and a smelting furnace was already under construction. Wei Yuan planned to mine raw materials and manufacture building supplies on-site, gradually expanding this place into a large-scale forward operating base.
As the prospecting of mineral veins progressed, Yu Zhizhuo made new discoveries almost every day. He even felt the pace was too slow and dragged Wei Yuan underground by force, using Wei Yuan as a humanoid excavator who cast the Golden Light Water Blade Art, reliving those days of digging earth beneath Qingming.
After a night of excavation, Wei Yuan felt that he had to find a way to obtain another boundary stone. He still had a fragment of the Patriarch's boundary stone in his possession, but he remained undecided on whether to use it here or in the Desolate Realm.
An alternative would be to trade for an ordinary small boundary stone covering a few hundred li, make do with it for now, and see how the situation developed before making further plans.
Chapter 958