Zhong Shengguang enunciated every word. "At that time, Fu Shanlie and the Xiji puppet troops were on the verge of being forced out of Longchuan, left with almost no ground to stand on. Why wager a battle already won on the gamble of striking their home base?"
He Lingchuan was left speechless.
"Do you understand now why the people of Yuheng City resent you?"
He Lingchuan said in a low voice, "I treated them as a wager."
"Indeed. You wanted to fight a glorious battle. But what wager ever loves the gambler who tosses them onto the table?" Zhong Shengguang spoke with grave earnestness. "No matter when, never overlook the hearts of the people, and never dismiss the public will. That is a vital wellspring of formidable cohesion and fighting strength, deeply intertwined with the potent origin power of Panlong City. Once scattered, it cannot easily be gathered again. You must cherish it, and protect it."
Origin power.
He Lingchuan gave a solemn, respectful acknowledgment.
Only then did Zhong Shengguang soften his tone. He walked over and clapped him on the shoulder. "Young men are full of passion, and occasional mistakes are inevitable. A fall into the pit is a gain in your wit; it might well prove a blessing."
He Lingchuan let out a quiet breath.
Why had he made such an error? He knew his own heart best. It had nothing to do with youth or hot-blooded passion—it was that he had disregarded the actual people of Yuheng City.
Looking into his conscience, had he truly viewed the residents of Yuheng City as living human beings?
Yuheng City had indeed emerged and then vanished in real history, its people and events reduced to dust.
Yet that was no excuse for him to use a city full of living souls as chess pieces in the Panlong World, dangling them to tease and provoke his enemy.
He had failed to respect human beings, failed to respect their feelings, and failed to empathize with their genuine distress and struggles.
If he made a habit of doing this, what would happen in reality?
In the future, would he view the commoners in his own territory and the subjects of his own nation as mere pawns in the same way?
Maintaining an aloof arrogance while consoling oneself with aggrieved thoughts of 'you do not understand, I did it all for your own good'—how could one ever truly attend to the urgent needs of the people, understand what they yearned for, and bind their hearts together?
The higher one stood, the finer the scenery, but the smaller the people appeared.
Standing atop a mountain and looking down, human beings became tiny black specks.
Shift the vantage point higher still, and people ceased to be living souls with their own joys, sorrows, partings, and reunions; they became mere numbers.
If he looked upon people with such a mindset, what difference was there between him and the celestial gods, the immortals, or the Beijia Demon Emperor?
When he made a mistake in the Panlong World, Zhong Shengguang was there to cover for him and smooth things over.
What about reality?
In reality, once certain catastrophic blunders were made, there was no undoing them, for he alone would be the one held accountable to the bitter end!
Even after six months of deep contemplation, He Lingchuan still felt a chill run down his spine.
From now on, he had to take this as a solemn warning.
After a moment of private reflection, he asked Zhong Shengguang, "Is the Gale Army so much more formidable than other armies because of origin power?"
Given his status in Panlong City today, he was fully qualified to ask such a question.
The Gale Army possessed immaculate discipline, unyielding resolve, and excellent equipment; every soldier was an iron-blooded warrior chosen from hundreds. None of the other armies He Lingchuan had seen could hold a candle to them.
He had even encountered elite vanguards in the Chiyan Kingdom and Lingxu City, and had fought against Wulu of the Ya Kingdom. Why did they all seem a cut below the Gale Army?
Zhong Shengguang knew He Lingchuan was not merely asking a surface question. He was asking why the Gale Army's origin power was so prominent and so overwhelming.
"In your view, where does origin power come from?"
He Lingchuan thought for a moment. "The nation's destiny, the public will, and the army's morale?"
This was an inquiry he had pondered for a long time.
Origin power was the single greatest variable in this world after the Great Cataclysm.
In ancient times, under the rule of the immortal sects, there were no nations—only tribes and city-states.
After the war among the gods and immortals, the Middle Ancient Era began. Origin power emerged as an entirely new force between heaven and earth, and sovereign states arose to meet the moment. From then on, the combined strength of an entire realm, city, or state could be marshaled to stand against immortals and demons.
Yet as to why origin power arose or why it flourished, this world had never offered a standard answer—nor could it.
Intelligent beings had to grope forward in the dark to discover it for themselves.
Over thousands of years, countless ancient sages had attempted to divine its principles. The three points He Lingchuan named were the universally accepted sources of origin power summarized in the present era, and he had nothing better to add for now.
Zhong Shengguang chuckled.
"Public opinion can be manipulated, and the hearts of the people can be deceived. Can origin power be obtained through deception as well?"
He Lingchuan gave a slight cough. "Pre-battle mobilization certainly rouses morale."
"That is merely momentary prowess." Yet the Gale Army's origin power was enduring and remarkably stable.
"In the Middle Ancient Era, when origin power first displayed its might, not only did the immortals and demons seek to uncover its source, but even the Heavenly Fiends beyond the realm sought to probe its secrets, though they could not cross over in person," Zhong Shengguang said. "General Red learned from Mitian that the Heavenly Fiends once believed origin power stemmed from the faith in mortal hearts. Desiring to command such power, they deliberately erected shrines across the mortal realm and gathered devotees."
Understanding dawned on He Lingchuan. "So that's why."
No wonder there were so many temples throughout the world. In Beijia especially, every deity of any repute possessed lavish, magnificent shrines.
"Consider Holy Venerable Lingxu and Tongming Zhenjun. They were clearly great archfiends, yet they adopted immortal titles simply because the mortals of that era no longer understood the dread of Heavenly Fiends, forcing them to style themselves as immortals from beyond the realm." Zhong Shengguang smiled. "Later, as the spiritual energy of heaven and earth waned further and immortals were diminished, the other Heavenly Fiends used their own titles to build shrines and proclaim themselves gods—such as Mitian, Miaozhantian, and the like."
"Even by building temples, they couldn't generate origin power." Having arrived from later generations, He Lingchuan naturally knew that this experiment of the Heavenly Fiends had failed.
"Indeed. Origin power is not the power of blind fanaticism, or else the more depraved and fanatical a cult was, the greater its origin power would be. That is plainly not how this realm operates. The Heavenly Fiends soon realized that origin power is intrinsically bound to the state.
"They attempted countless more experiments, hoping to control origin power across realm boundaries. In the end, they finally succeeded."
He Lingchuan understood. "Beijia?"
"Not just Beijia." Zhong Shengguang's gaze turned profound. "Beijia is merely the strongest and most successful of their creations.
"General Red once told me that based on the observations of Mitian and the other gods, origin power has continued to evolve over these past two millennia. Its principles are by no means immutable. That makes it even harder for us to draw conclusions." As the subject of study evolved on its own, the patterns observed in the past might prove useless in later ages. "And the reason origin power is evolving is very likely because—"
He Lingchuan finished the thought: "Because the Dafang Pot itself is evolving?"
The secrets he knew ran one layer deeper than what the masses understood.
"Precisely!" Zhong Shengguang shot him a look of approval. "As the Dafang Pot changes, origin power may shift alongside it. So when you ask me why origin power arises—heh, even the gods and immortals have reached no consensus."
Origin power was visible yet untouchable. Even the National Preceptors who channeled it could not truly fathom its nature.
What nation did not desire overwhelming origin power?
Yet reality often defied their wishes.
All Zhong Shengguang could say was, "As for why the Gale Army's origin power is so formidable, perhaps it is because what we do accords with the Dao."
Accords with the Dao? He Lingchuan pondered what kind of Dao this resonated with.
Zhong Shengguang changed the subject. "The reason I called you back today is to entrust you with a confidential matter."
He Lingchuan gathered his thoughts, his spirit rallying. "Yes!"
Zhong Shengguang waved to either side.
The others immediately withdrew, leaving the space entirely to the two of them.
To He Lingchuan's surprise, Zhong Shengguang even produced the Dharma Eye to scan their surroundings—the massive eyeball that glanced continuously in every direction.
Only after confirming that no tracking or eavesdropping divine arts or supernatural abilities were active did he continue:
"This mission concerns General Red."
He Lingchuan had not seen General Red for at least six months. Nor had she appeared on the northwestern front of the Panlong Wasteland.
Yet she frequently vanished from public view, so no one found it unusual.
"Where has she gone?"
"In seclusion." Zhong Shengguang picked up the clerk's records to glance through them, remarking casually, "Her cultivation is about to advance again, and she has reached a critical juncture recently."
He spoke plainly, but He Lingchuan felt there was something strange about his words.
What did he mean by 'again'?
And why did Zhong Shengguang seem... somewhat troubled?
The stronger General Red became, the more advantageous it should be for Panlong City.
Zhong Shengguang let out another sigh, set down the records, and asked abruptly, "How has your cultivation been progressing lately?"
"Very quickly." The commander rarely paid attention to his subordinates' personal cultivation, and the question caught He Lingchuan off guard. "With the spiritual energy of heaven and earth surging, I am not the only one; cultivators throughout the army are making great strides."
Zhong Shengguang smiled. "Over the past two years, quite a few rising stars have emerged in Panlong City, men with the talent to lead and command. You know several of them."
"Yes." Both the Panlong Army and the Gale Army had seen the rise of new talent—seven or eight young officers in total, several of whom were He Lingchuan's former comrades-in-arms.
It was often said that a thousand troops were easy to muster, but a single general was hard to find. Fortunately, gifted land and outstanding people tended to foster one another, and Panlong City's military system made it easy to promote capable figures.
The surging spiritual energy had breathed vitality into the world; ordinary creatures shared in the blessings, while cultivators and monsters naturally reaped the greatest reward.
"Over the past year, seven showers of Emperor's Flowing Dew have descended, large and small. According to some old monsters, the concentration of spiritual energy in heaven and earth has reached its highest peak in nearly two centuries," Zhong Shengguang said. "If this momentum continues, the Panlong Wasteland will soon turn into a land of abundance, and Panlong City will no longer have any worries behind us. Even Mitian and our forces are gathering and reorganizing new supernatural arts to adapt to a world far richer in spiritual energy."
He Lingchuan was overjoyed.
The supernatural arts of the Ancient and Middle Ancient Eras were vastly powerful, yet they had long since vanished. It was not because the various immortal sects and Daoist orders had hoarded their secrets until the manuals were lost; it was because the spiritual energy had gradually withered, leaving those arts impossible to cast or exacting too high a price.
Take the lesser mountain-moving array, for instance. In ancient times, an immortal could activate it with a mere wave of the hand, but modern cultivators had to sacrifice their very lifespan to employ it.
Even though the modern arts derived their teachings from antiquity, they had undergone extensive modifications, yielding lesser power at a lesser cost.
Once the spiritual energy of heaven and earth flourished again and returned to the levels of the Middle Ancient Era, those far more formidable arts would undoubtedly make a resurgence.
Chapter 1089