Longzang

Chapter 1007 All Things Are Born

Above the azure sky, a flying boat billowing thick smoke rushed in, then crashed to the ground almost in freefall, instantly shattering into pieces. Hundreds of young disciples of the Bao family and dozens of older disciples were thrown out.

Fortunately, everyone was protected by a divine light, and they only suffered minor injuries.

Despite rushing all the way, Bao's family, who lived the furthest away, finally arrived at the last minute.

Night had fallen, but the square was brightly lit. Xiao Yu sat on a high platform, expounding on the profound principles of the Great Dao, the nascent movement of the Lesser Yang and the endless cycle of life. The 30,000 Body Forging cultivators below listened with rapt attention, but almost none of them could understand what he was saying.

Xiao Yu was not discouraged and immediately demonstrated the Shaoyang True Meaning. Of the 30,000 body-casting participants below the stage, nearly 10,000 were paid trainees sent by various powerful families. Among them, the Ji, Zhao, and Cui families, and the Zhao and Li families had the largest numbers due to their proximity to the training center.

Because Zhao Li was in charge of the Zhao Kingdom and had a large clan, and because he had not participated much in the Dao Foundation Ceremony before, he sent five thousand disciples this time.

Among the group of Body Forging cultivators, Zhao Li's disciples stood out. The men were handsome and the women were beautiful, all tall and slender, arrogant and aloof, making them extremely conspicuous. They naturally looked down on the strangely shaped Body Forging cultivators around them, their disdain written all over their faces.

Many cultivators wanted to get acquainted with Zhao Li, but seeing his aloof demeanor, most didn't dare to actually approach him. Those who were bolder, or those who were confident in their wealth, tried to strike up a conversation, but were all ruthlessly rebuffed.

A few unremarkable cultivators couldn't stand it any longer, so they snorted and shouted, "What's so great about you? Aren't you just like us, only at the Body Forging stage? You'd think you were all Foundation Establishment Ancestors!"

Zhao Li Qunxian was furious and was about to attack, but at this moment, a series of divine thoughts pressed down from the sky, immobilizing both of them.

Upon seeing the Qingming Dao Foundation cultivators maintaining order, Zhao Liqunxian realized that he was currently only a Body Forging cultivator, and his hopes of advancing to the Dao Foundation stage were quite slim. Otherwise, he wouldn't have given up his family's inherited Dao Foundation Dharma Image and come to Qingming to seek an opportunity.

Zhao Li sent several Dharma Masters and a Duke of Yujing to accompany the group and keep watch. At first, the high-ranking cultivators were dismissive of Xiao Yu's sermon, but as they listened, their expressions gradually changed. They subconsciously moved forward to the front row to listen, and became more and more focused as they listened.

Xiao Yu's explanation of the Lesser Yang Dao was extremely profound, even Yu Jing was deeply inspired by it, and dared not miss a single word. Unknowingly, he contributed his fortune to Xiao Yu.

Seeing that even the most illustrious ancestors of the clan were so earnest, Zhao Liqunxian realized that the sermon was no simple matter. They quickly listened attentively, but soon discovered that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't understand it.

An hour later, near midnight, Xiaoyu finished her sermon and demonstrated the Lesser Yang Dharma Form "All Things Grow" and the preliminary Dao Foundation "Dawn's First Light." Following this, Wei Yuan activated the Instantaneous Life Activation, guiding the cultivators to comprehend the true meaning of the Dao Foundation.

At midnight, the Dao Foundation Ceremony officially began. Within an hour, Wei Yuan activated the Instantaneous Sentient Beings skill three times, and faint lights occasionally flashed across the plaza, like the first light of dawn.

This foundation is easiest to cultivate within a quarter of an hour at midnight today. After that time limit, the difficulty will increase exponentially, and Wei Yuan will be unable to help.

Ultimately, out of 31,000 cultivators, 3,300 successfully cultivated the 'Dawn' stage, a success rate that was extremely low. However, once successful, the chance of advancing to the Dharma Aspect stage surpassed that of the Myriad-Bloom Golden Core stage, with a 60% chance of achieving the Dharma Aspect stage at the Earth level. Yet, among all those who forged their Dao Foundation, only a mere hundred or so were able to reach the Earth level.

Those who succeeded wept with joy, while those who failed gritted their teeth and prepared to try again next year.

The Dao Foundation Ceremony concluded successfully. Wei Yuan suddenly sensed a very subtle change in the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. At this moment, Qingming resonated faintly with the eight southern prefectures, causing the human world to expand once again.

Wei Yuan had given up struggling. The expansion of the Human World meant a slower transformation process, and the Imperial View would have to be postponed again. But the Human World was simply too vast. Even the Heart World of the True Man of the Hoeing Fields was considered large, yet it was still smaller than the central city of the Human World.

After the ceremony, most cultivators left dejectedly, while those who had successfully advanced were overjoyed. If they didn't need to consolidate their foundations on the spot, they would have immediately gone to the local restaurant to party all night.

At this time, Qingming specially launched a service for template cultivators to consolidate their Dao foundation, which is only for those with template Dao foundations. Newly established cultivators need to enter individual compartments and output Dao power into the array inside. The output needs to be stable and uninterrupted. The array has a built-in monitoring function, and will issue an alarm if there is any interruption or excessive fluctuation in output power.

The newly recruited cultivators were quite curious, so the vast majority accepted the one-month foundation-building experience course. This course was very inexpensive, and all the cultivators felt that Qingming was being very generous.

Wei Yuan left the ceremony site first, then went into the local area to check on the follow-up situation in the eight prefectures of southern Shanxi.

As expected, after Wei Yuan swept through the literary world, not only scholars and Confucianists of the Western Jin Dynasty, but also those of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, joined in the frenzied condemnation of Wei Yuan, and the trend was growing ever stronger. The Thirteen Protectors, at this point, were completely outmatched in both reputation and literary ability, offering no resistance whatsoever. Fortunately, the court writers promised by the Prince of Zhao had arrived and were ready to take the stage. Their literary reputation far surpassed that of the Thirteen Protectors, but even they could not withstand the surging tide of insults.

Ironically, the re-arrangement of the boundary stones in the eight prefectures was recognized by Heaven and Earth and blessed with great merit. As a result, the True Lord of Hoeing the Rice Plants was promoted to the Imperial Realm without any surprises and incidents. He also took the opportunity to mock Wei Yuan, which won the hearts of the cultivators in the Primordial Palace.

However, this same event, due to the decline in the earth's natural energy and weakening of its vitality, caused various minor disasters in many places, and in some areas, farmland was destroyed due to the shifting of the earth's veins. As a result, scholars used these incidents as evidence that Wei Yuan had acted perversely and caused natural disasters, condemning him for divine retribution and a terrible death. They also predicted that his beloved relatives, friends, teachers, brothers, and sisters would all suffer unexpected calamities, encounter various humiliations, and die in agony.

Several articles made Wei Yuan's Daoist mind unsettled and he was so enraged that he placed orders through various merchants overnight to take the authors' heads.

Before rearranging the boundary stones, Wei Yuan had already prepared for possible scenarios. In the event of a natural disaster, food is paramount. Therefore, while the Qingming army was capturing scholars and officials, they also transported large quantities of canned military rations to various regions, establishing emergency warehouses in every county to provide relief in case of disasters.

During this period, many scholars and gentry secretly organized forces to attempt raids on warehouses, burning military rations to starve the refugees and create unrest, thus causing trouble for Wei Yuan. However, they overestimated their combat strength, resulting in several instances where hundreds of men raided warehouses guarded by only twenty men, only to be riddled with bullets by the defenders' fierce firepower. Currently, the number of Dao Foundation Establishments in the Qingming battle is extremely large, with one Dao Foundation Establishment captain for every fifty warriors.

In the eyes of the ordinary people of the eight prefectures, all they knew was that they had been allocated land and received rations. These two things alone were enough for them to contribute their fortune without reservation. However, they were illiterate and unable to express their thoughts, and no one cared.

Therefore, all the people in the neighborhood could hear about were Wei Yuan's evil deeds in the eight prefectures.

Wei Yuan had been pondering how to break the deadlock, but currently, apart from killing, there seemed to be no immediate solution. The Jin court was filled with scholars, but although Wei Yuan had the support of the King of Jin, the leaders of these scholars were the Left and Right Chancellors, so they would absolutely not side with him.

Even if the Prince of Jin ordered them to write articles praising Wei Yuan, most of the time they would only receive overt praise while subtly criticizing him. For example, they would compare Wei Yuan to a powerful minister from a previous dynasty who spent every night in the palace, in order to smear Wei Yuan's reputation.

While pondering, Wei Yuan returned to his study to pack his luggage, preparing to head to the State of Ji early the next morning.

As soon as Wei Yuan entered the study, he saw a woman in red sitting quietly by the window, reading the latest storybook.

Wei Yuan stepped forward to greet her, and then noticed that her red dress had been changed to a different style today, with an opening on the side, revealing a section of her round, snow-white legs when she sat down.

Wei Yuan quickly looked away, but Zhu Yuanjin didn't care at all. Instead, he kicked his legs and said, "I just sparred with some old friends, so this makes it easier to move around. Besides, the human body is the best weapon. If you fight me, and you don't dare to look at my legs, do you want to die even faster?"

"You are right."

Zhu Yuanjin put down the storybook in his hand and said, "The recent storybooks are all rather uninteresting. They lack originality and excitement, and are far less exciting than the stories of the three great Confucian scholars. But who knows how long we'll have to wait for new storybooks by the three great Confucian scholars, and most of them will probably be poorly written. I do have an idea."

"Please speak," Wei Yuan said, knowing that Zhu Yuanjin would not speak without reason.

“I occasionally see a journal published by the academy, which publishes articles by the scholars and great Confucian scholars within the academy. It is published regularly, one issue per quarter. I think this format is quite good. If the latest stories are written in it, I won't have to bother looking for them. I can just buy the journal regularly.”

A sudden inspiration flashed through Wei Yuan's mind!
Journals and newspapers from the outer world—how could I have forgotten about that? If we're going to argue, who can win against someone who has access to journals and newspapers?

Wei Yuan suddenly understood, and countless strategies flooded his mind. Each one was insidious, and for a moment he couldn't prioritize them.

"This is easy, I'll get started on the preparations right away! But, what should we name this academic journal?"

Zhu Yuanjin pondered for a moment and said, "Storybooks encompass everything, so they are not easy to summarize. In ancient times, sages created the Eight Trigrams to deduce all things, so why not just call them the Eight Trigrams?"

Wei Yuan nodded and praised, "The name 'Bagua' is quite fitting. It has to be the master who named it; his naming skills are truly exceptional! I'll start planning right away and launch the 'Bagua Weekly'."

(End of this chapter)