Relocating nearly twenty million people into Qingming was an earth-shattering undertaking. Mobilizing nearly a million people just to maintain order and establish supply depots along the way was merely the beginning. Wei Yuan directly deployed the entire five-hundred-thousand-strong second-line legions, and only then did they barely manage to deliver everyone into Qingming.
By now, Qingming possessed a mature, systematic process for handling newcomers. First came centralized registration and physical inspections, followed by an hour of quarantine and disinfection within formations designed to strengthen health and dispel illnesses. Afterward, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World randomly assigned them to various cities.
Cargo carriages waited nearby. As soon as several hundred people bound for a given city were gathered, a carriage carried them away to their designated location. The receiving cities had long since been notified, having already demarcated residential zones and allocated farmland.
Most newcomers were relocated to peripheral cities, dispersing into newly built villages to reclaim wildlands.
Sweeping up so many people in a single breath far exceeded Wei Yuan's expectations, so most areas had not even had time to prepare proper housing. Fortunately, Qingming's construction sector was well-developed, capable of erecting simple residential buildings at blazing speed. In the initial stage, the relocated folk had to make do in tents, but a bowl of meat soup every other day was more than enough to quell any discontent.
The twenty million people moved from Zhao were a mixed bunch. Yet after half a year of eating their fill and getting enough sleep, their physical constitutions would improve noticeably, and many would begin contributing azure qi.
After another year, once their health was fully restored, those who were young, robust, and free of hidden ailments could begin Body Casting. By that point, over half of them would contribute azure qi. Three years in, once those undergoing Body Casting had laid solid foundations, they could start taking medicinal pills, drastically accelerating their cultivation. By then, the vast majority would provide azure qi, and the minority who stepped firmly into Body Casting would produce a second wisp.
Even so, that was roughly the extent of what this generation could achieve. The true hope lay in the next generation they brought into the world.
Typically, children would start being born in the second year, followed by a huge baby boom in the third. Starting from that year, the innate aptitude of the newborn children would see a pronounced improvement, multiplying the base of potential Body Casting cultivators several times over.
Amidst all the hustle and bustle, another major affair arrived. The Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony, which had been postponed several times due to the expedition against Ji, was once again due to take place.
It was now the first month of the third year of Hongjing. The weather was frigid in the extreme, and the earthly qi contracted tightly, yet within the utmost yin, a sliver of lesser yang was already gestating. With vitality on the verge of bursting forth, it was truly an auspicious time to forge a Dao foundation.
Moreover, the most popular Dao foundation template in Qingming was Moon Splendor Sky Mist. Holding the ceremony at this time would grant a modest boost to the success rate of that foundation. It was for this very reason that Xiaoyu had written more than a dozen letters urging Wei Yuan to get to work, each more plaintive than the last, to the point that Wei Yuan developed a headache whenever he saw a letter from her.
Everyone was thoroughly well-versed in how to conduct the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony. Qingming's internal cultivators had even divided themselves into cohorts based on the timing of each ceremony, distinguishing themselves as Qingming Class One, Class Two, and so on.
Cultivators of the same class referred to one another as classmates, and a competitive spirit naturally burned between the different cohorts. The earlier classes had a higher average caliber, while the later classes boasted sheer overwhelming numbers, with neither side willing to yield to the other. Meanwhile, plenty of young scions from external prominent families took immense pride in having belonged to Qingming Class One or Two, never missing a chance to boast about it.
The Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony required Wei Yuan to preside in person. Only he could activate All Living Beings in a Flash, the crucial element that raised the chances of successfully establishing a Dao foundation. A divine technique once used to turn the tide of battle and overcome the strong as the weak had now been thoroughly turned into a stepping stone for newly minted Dao foundations.
To prepare for the grand ceremony, Wei Yuan returned to Qingming half a month early. Balancing the tangled mess of administrative affairs brought by the twenty million migrants with the preparations for the ceremony, his top priority was determining which Dao foundation to feature.
Nowadays, each ceremony gave rise to thousands upon thousands of template cultivators, a matter directly tied to Qingming's future development. Wei Yuan dared not be careless. He personally scrutinized every newly submitted template foundation to ensure it was sufficiently outstanding before placing it on the ceremony's recommended list and announcing it in advance for the cultivators to choose.
With cultivators arriving from Zhao joining this ceremony—and with Zhao possessing a strong martial culture—over ten thousand additional Body Casting candidates had been added. A total of more than sixty thousand cultivators at the peak of Body Casting were participating, setting a record for the ceremony's history.
Aside from the existing templates, several dozen new templates had been submitted. Most were eccentric, bizarre, and unorthodox Dao foundations. However, the existing templates were already extraordinarily well-designed; finding something with an even lower floor than theirs was quite difficult.
Even so, there was one Dao foundation that made Wei Yuan's eyes light up.
This Dao foundation was named Moon Dance Dao Embryo, continuing Qingming's fine tradition that the fiercer the name, the lower the floor.
This foundation followed the Taiyin path, making it perfectly suited for promotion at this time. Judged strictly as a Dao foundation, it barely scraped the edge of the Mortal Tier and still had something of a threshold. In that respect, it could not compare to Moon Splendor Sky Mist, whose lower floor was practically buried in the dirt.
Yet what truly caught Wei Yuan's eye was that the Moon Dance Dao Embryo came with a dharma idol called the Ten Thousand Splendors Golden Pellet!
If a cultivator practicing the Moon Dance Dao Embryo possessed decent bone structure and extraordinary comprehension, the resulting Dao foundation could potentially reach the Earth Tier or even the Heaven Tier. Thus, it was a high-grade foundation capable of scaling with a cultivator's aptitude.
Once the Moon Dance Dao Embryo was formed, cultivating toward the Ten Thousand Splendors Golden Pellet required half the effort for twice the result. As long as the foundation reached the Earth Tier, the probability of forming the Ten Thousand Splendors Moon Wheel reached as high as fifty percent—far exceeding normal standards.
However, while the name Ten Thousand Splendors Moon Wheel Golden Pellet sounded domineering, Wei Yuan deduced its essence and found that this so-called dharma idol was really just a single golden pellet. When magnified and hung in the sky, it could pass as a full moon. It contained pure Taiyin power, and... that was it.
This pellet possessed extremely low spirituality and carried no innate divine abilities. The dharma idol could only be cultivated to completion at the Spirit Nurturing Realm; it was entirely incapable of developing into an independent mindscape world, bringing the Dao path to a dead end.
Yet no matter how poor this golden pellet dharma idol was, a dharma idol was still a dharma idol, incomparable to ordinary Dao foundations. Furthermore, as long as one practiced the prerequisite Moon Dance Dao Embryo, the difficulty of subsequently cultivating the golden pellet dharma idol would drop drastically. This wasn't merely lowering the threshold of the dharma idol realm—it was tearing the door right off its hinges!
The ingenuity and craftsmanship of this path's design left even Wei Yuan marveling in admiration. Its creator clearly possessed an exceptionally deep understanding of the Taiyin path; Wei Yuan even suspected that the person had touched upon the Great Dao of Taiyin itself.
Looking at the template's contributor, the signature read: Solitary Sword Immortal of Heaven and Earth.
*Someone who doesn't even want to leave their real name?* Wei Yuan was surprised.
If he had invented such a Dao foundation himself, he would have published in academic journals like mad, hosted symposiums, recruited students far and wide to have disciples everywhere under heaven, and then parlayed it into an academician title. It wouldn't just feed him for a lifetime; it would benefit several generations of descendants to come. Exactly how many generations would just depend on how long he lived.
Then again, perhaps this person simply wanted to make a name for their alias. Plenty of cultivators possessed such eccentricities.
Thus, while Wei Yuan ordered his attendants to investigate the background of the Solitary Sword Immortal of Heaven and Earth, he personally added this path into the ceremony's template library. He placed it in the most prominent position of this ceremony, taking the very top spot on the recommendation list. Not only that, but Wei Yuan also penned a personal recommendation note. If more people chose to cultivate it, it would contribute a share of karmic luck to him as well.
Soon, the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony commenced on schedule with unprecedented grandeur. A total of five prominent families—Bao, Xu, Cui, Li, and Xiao—were in attendance. Out of sixty thousand Body Casting cultivators, ten thousand ultimately formed Dao foundations.
At this moment, Qingming's Dao foundations were like a sea. Though most were template foundations—the kind a dharma idol cultivator could slap to death by the score with a single palm—when gathered together, the qi of Qingming became immensely profound and majestic. An immortal gazing upon the qi could already glimpse a faint, hazy tricolored radiance deep within Qingming's karmic luck.
Several new occupational roles had been introduced at the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony, each specifying several compatible template foundations. Sun Yu's clinic and Xu Henshui's alchemy abbey remained the hardest to enter.
The clinic had a large contingent of handsome men and beautiful women, drawing cultivators in droves. The alchemy abbey boasted Xu Henshui himself, making it the top choice for female cultivators. The more strangely striking a female cultivator's appearance, the more fond she was of screaming and chasing after Xu Henshui.
Daoist Chuhe had established a new position called Heaven-Cleaving Cultivator. Having preliminarily grasped the nature of the mountain people's domain, he intended for this role to open up the wilderness in their territory.
Close behind was a profession named "Cloud-Sky Resonant Roamer," which was actually just a ship thruster operator. Considering the terrifying future demand of the transport fleet, this single position recruited two thousand people in one go.
Just like the names of the Dao foundations, the major figures across Qingming wracked their brains to devise fierce, domineering, and dazzlingly cool titles for their respective professions to attract talent. When they ran out of flashy names, some began pondering whether to simply raise their compensation packages.
Wei Yuan considered this an unorthodox path.
The proper path was patient guidance, helping cultivators understand the importance of consolidating their Dao foundations. Even though the vast majority of template cultivators would remain stuck at the Foundation Solidification stage for the rest of their lives, that didn't stop them from having dreams. At such times, a single line like "Miracles happen as long as you work hard" could keep them energized for days.
In the first month of the third year of Hongjing, Qingming's Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony concluded with unprecedented splendor. The overall strength of Qingming climbed to another level, gradually embarking on a path completely different from that of the nine states.
In the same month, an ownerless Buddha dharma idol suddenly vanished from the Baohua Pure Land. The entire monastery was shaken, and several Arhats stepped out of the Pure Land, journeying across the world in search of clues.
Chapter 984