Longzang

Chapter 1201 The Power of Large Numbers
The conclusion that even ashes can transform is of great significance to Wei Yuan, as it means that the dead world beyond the heavens may still have the possibility of revival.

For hundreds of thousands of years, generations of immortals have been helpless against the ashes of calamity. Unexpectedly, today, a small template of Dao foundation has brought a ray of dawn to this desperate world.

Wei Yuan immediately used his authority to upgrade the evaluation of these papers by one level, and at the same time allocated a research grant of five thousand taels of silver.

That's right, it's five thousand taels. There are established regulations for the matching of research funds within Qingming. For a model cultivator like Wen Guantian, the normal salary should be around ten taels of immortal silver per month. He also serves as the research elder for a major project like the loom, so he also receives an elder's salary, which is much higher. Therefore, the two combined amount to around one hundred taels of immortal silver per month.

The projects approved by Wei Yuan are purely theoretical research projects that do not consume much research material. Therefore, the research funding is based on the researchers' annual salary and is generally no more than ten times that amount.

Wen Guantian's basic annual salary was only 120 taels, so Wei Yuan gave him 5,000, which was already the result of using the authority of a realm master, and he added the two tags of "multiple people" and "important".

Although Wei Yuan was anxious, he understood that haste makes waste. Besides, there were more than ten template researchers in Qingming and Wenguan Tianping, so he couldn't show favoritism to any of them.

Furthermore, based on Wei Yuan's research experience in the outer world, this kind of purely theoretical research is the most difficult to explain. He might suddenly understand it after waking up one day, or he might not make a breakthrough for decades.

Wei Yuan once shared this insight with a brilliant researcher at the Umbrella Corporation, but the researcher did not respond.

After arranging this matter, Wei Yuan searched the prosperous realms and discovered some scattered data. These were reports from various places, stating that a small number of template-based Dao Foundation cultivators had experienced changes in their aptitude, with their Dao Foundation quality undergoing a mutation and improvement, reaching the standard of the Human Rank.

These cases numbered over a hundred, but scattered throughout the vast Azure Netherworld, they were completely inconspicuous. Had Wei Yuan not been particularly focused on the template Dao Foundation and possessed the ability to divide his divine sense into countless forms, he might have overlooked them entirely.

Of these cases, only a few reports mentioned that the Dao Foundation Advancement occurred after taking the Foundation Strengthening Pill, which is suspected to be related to the Foundation Strengthening Pill.

The report also mentioned that many people experienced symptoms such as abdominal distension and diarrhea after taking Gubendan, which may be due to poor physical condition and inability to withstand the effects of the medicine.

Wei Yuan then remembered that the previous batch of Foundation Strengthening Pills was refined by him using the essence he had dug out from the ancestral land of the immortal mountain. It did indeed have a slight effect on improving aptitude, but the probability was extremely low. Under normal circumstances, it could be ignored, but when the total number reached as many as 200,000, even with a one in ten thousand chance, there would still be twenty cultivators who advanced.

Looking at it now, the chances of that batch of Strengthening Pills being effective are slightly more than 10,000, reaching 16,000.

Wei Yuan's heart stirred, and his main body within the great formation opened its eyes, gazing at the swirling immortal mist before it. Wisps of immortal energy occasionally flew out from the void, merging into the immortal mist.

This wisp of immortal mist is the essence of immortal power that Wei Yuan gradually extracted using the Refining World Array. He originally intended to refine this wisp into a spiritual pill specifically for those at the late stage and perfect stage of the Dharma Aspect realm, but he has now changed his mind.

The reason is simple: there are still too few Dharma Aspect cultivators. Currently, there are only about two hundred ordinary Dharma Aspect cultivators and a little over a thousand Golden Core Dharma Aspect cultivators in the Azure Netherworld, which together do not reach two thousand.

Dharma Aspect cultivators are not common; they are quite rare in the Great Tang Dynasty. Even the most mediocre Dharma Aspect cultivator can secure a minor official position anywhere in the Nine Kingdoms. If they were to choose a border region, they could even establish a sect within a prefecture and deserve the title of 'dominating a region'.

In contrast, the Daoji Ancestors could only enter counties and villages. In the later stages of their Daoji practice, they could not even gain a foothold in county towns and had to seek Dao sites in the deep forests. Therefore, they could only be described as "ruling the countryside".

Therefore, it was quite remarkable that Qingming was able to gather more than two hundred Dharma Forms; at least sixty or seventy of them were attracted by Wei Yuan's settlement plan. These two hundred-plus Dharma Forms were all truly residing in Qingming, and even their families and descendants had moved here.

Compared to the template Dao Foundation, the threshold for the Golden Core Dharma Form is still quite high. Over the years, Qingming has only trained a little over a thousand, more than half of whom have been conscripted into the military. Only four or five hundred people are scattered in various industries, and each of them is highly sought after.

For example, the loom designed by Wen Guantian specifically for weaving cloth for Dharma images requires the Golden Elixir Dharma Images to operate.

Normally, everyone would value the Dharma Aspect more, even a Golden Core Dharma Aspect is much stronger than a Perfected Earth-Rank Foundation. But now Wei Yuan discovered that the difference in quantity between the two sides was simply too great.

The number of template foundations has exceeded one million. Under this terrifying number, any low-probability event becomes inevitable, as evidenced by the more than ten research geniuses such as Wen Guantian.

In comparison, there are fewer than two thousand Dharma Aspect cultivators in total, making a miracle unlikely.

With the plan settled, Wei Yuan sent out several thousand divine thoughts, carrying the wisp of immortal mist, to the adjacent hall. The mountain had been hollowed out to build a hall several tens of feet high, with a huge alchemy furnace in the center. Eight arrays were engraved around it, each corresponding to one of the eight different flames, to deal with different pill formulas.

Now that Wei Yuan is paying special attention to the foundation of the Dao, he has to put more effort into refining the Foundation Strengthening Pills for them. He can no longer use the method of immortals fooling lower-level cultivators with their empty alchemy to deal with it.

Wei Yuan sat down by the alchemy furnace. Originally, according to the formula for the Foundation Strengthening Pill, only one strange fire array needed to be activated. However, Wei Yuan did not act immediately. Instead, he repeatedly simulated the process amidst the bustling world of the myriad realms before finally activating five strange fire arrays.

The strange fire of the pill array is actually the blowing of various spiritual energies into the pill furnace. The more strange fires there are, the more complex the medicinal properties and the better the medicinal effect will be, but the difficulty of refining it will increase dramatically.

Wei Yuan originally intended to activate all eight formations, but the simulation results in the Prosperous World showed that the power of the eight formations' strange fire was too great, requiring nine out of ten furnaces to be destroyed, so Wei Yuan gave up. In the end, a balance was achieved between the efficacy of the medicine and the success rate, which was to activate five formations.

With Wei Yuan's current alchemy skills, arrays three to six are used to refine Dharma Aspect Pills, while arrays seven and eight are used to refine Imperial Vision Pills. The fact that five arrays are needed to refine even a small Foundation Strengthening Pill shows its importance. In the blink of an eye, the arrays activated, and five flames carrying different types of spiritual energy shot into the furnace, causing the furnace temperature to gradually rise and reach equilibrium.

Wei Yuan cast down all the immortal mist, then casually grabbed a clump of soil the size of a house out of thin air.

But after thinking for a moment, he stuffed the soil back into the mountain. Then, dozens of cans weighing several hundred kilograms flew over from the rear warehouse, opened automatically, and poured the military rations inside into the alchemy furnace. Only then did Wei Yuan throw the immortal mist into it.

Many people experienced bloating and diarrhea after taking the previous batch of Strengthening Pills, likely because they couldn't digest the soil and stones used as ingredients. The digestive systems of these template cultivators aren't strong enough; the same pill formula worked perfectly fine for Golden Core cultivators, as they could even digest stones.

However, Wei Yuan dared not use this method on Yu Jing. Firstly, Yu Jing's elixirs were precious and scarce, making it unnecessary to use earth. Secondly, Yu Jing had sharp eyesight, and Wei Yuan feared they would discover he had used ordinary earth. Adding even a little spirit soil would have made Wei Yuan feel less guilty.

But after this round of rations, Wei Yuan still felt something was missing. So, with a thought, one of his avatars opened the secret vault, took out a box of shiny black soil, and delivered it to the alchemy hall.

Wei Yuan poured all the soil into the alchemy furnace, and only then was he satisfied, and began to concentrate on refining the pills.

This black soil is no ordinary soil. The ancestors of the Lü family buried something beneath their ancestral mountain, and their blood flowed everywhere. This soil was formed over thousands of years after being soaked in that unknown blood. When Wei Yuan unearthed it, it already resembled a mineral vein.

Even a single hair of an immortal is a top-grade spiritual material, let alone their blood. In the last round of Strengthening Pills, Wei Yuan mixed in some black blood and soil.

This time, Wei Yuan simply increased the amount of blood soil tenfold, so the medicinal effect should be quite strong.

Wei Yuan controlled the pill ingredients in the furnace with thousands of divine thoughts, while simultaneously feeling slight pain. His divine sense was being roasted by the pill fire, which was equivalent to training.

The alchemy process went very smoothly. Using Wei Yuan's alchemy skills to refine Dao Foundation Pills was like using a forty-foot-long broadsword to kill a chicken; success was a given. The only question was the extent of the success.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye, and the elixir was ready, awaiting only the final opening of the furnace. Wei Yuan looked around and, seeing that Xu Henshui was not there, felt quite regretful.

Wei Yuan's alchemy skills were learned from Xu Henshui, whose expressions were quite varied. Therefore, whenever Wei Yuan was refining pills and Xu Henshui was not present, Wei Yuan lost more than half of his enjoyment.

Calling Xu Henshui over now would be somewhat deliberate. Wei Yuan looked at the five-zhang-tall special alchemy furnace, sighed, and then set up several image-recording spheres before opening the furnace.

As soon as the furnace opened, the inner universe intersected with the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, instantly condensing into countless pills shimmering with ethereal light. The pill energy stimulated each other, becoming increasingly intense, and finally transformed into a thin and extremely dazzling beam of light that directly pierced through the great formation and shot towards the sky!
Suddenly, a bright red, fish-scale-shaped cloud of calamity appeared on the dome of the main hall!
Wei Yuan was greatly surprised. Refining a Dao Foundation cultivation pill could attract a heavenly tribulation? Was the Heavenly Dao targeting him?
Despite the cursing, Wei Yuan dared not be careless in the slightest. With a wave of his hand, he used his vast Dao power to collect all the newly formed pills that were flying around in all directions and trying to find a place to escape.

At the same time, the power of the Pure Land Grotto was mobilized, and a peaceful Buddhist light enveloped the tribulation clouds at the top of the dome, using Buddhist power to directly weaken the tribulation clouds.

When nine sticks of incense appeared in the Pure Land Temple, although King Buddha had not returned to his position, Wei Yuan's Dharma of the Immortal Emptiness and Form had gained some new content, most of which was about the teachings of self-salvation and salvation of others. This was the fundamental Dharma of King Buddha's practice, and all the paths of the Way transmitted by King Buddha must be based on this.

But Wei Yuan already had his own ideas. Although the Three Realms Wish-Fulfilling Scripture hadn't made much progress, it was constantly being supplemented with details and gradually building a solid theoretical system. So in Wei Yuan's eyes, Wang Fo was just smuggling in his own ideas; instead of properly imparting supernatural powers, he wanted people to learn his own stuff first.

In addition to the scriptures, three more chapters on supernatural powers were added. These were considered minor supernatural powers in the eyes of immortals, but it was rare that they could be used during the imperial court.

Wei Yuan now vaguely understands that the ability to effortlessly make Yu Jing use the immortal techniques is a standard for distinguishing whether an immortal is powerful or not.

Among the supernatural powers transmitted by the Buddha King this time was a method specifically for dealing with heavenly tribulations. This time, when they unexpectedly encountered a heavenly tribulation, they used it.

Wei Yuan watched as layers of Buddhist light adhered directly to the tribulation clouds, continuously penetrating inwards, seemingly transforming some of the tribulation clouds into Buddhist light as well. Consequently, wherever the Buddhist light reached, the tribulation clouds thinned by three-tenths!
Wei Yuan was dumbfounded. He never expected that the Buddhist method of responding to tribulations would be so domineering, actually able to directly target the tribulation clouds! The tribulation clouds were weakened, which was equivalent to severing the foundation of the heavenly tribulation. No matter how the heavenly tribulation changed, it couldn't cause any more trouble.

In comparison, Wei Yuan used to rely solely on his physical body and magical power to withstand the heavenly tribulation. The difference in their abilities is obvious.

Under the Buddha's light, the vast swath of heavenly fire descending from the tribulation clouds weakened by thirty percent and was easily annihilated by the fourth Heavenly Cave Sword Qi unleashed by Wei Yuan. This heavenly tribulation was not aimed at Wei Yuan, but at that batch of pills, so it was not very strong to begin with, and it weakened after a short while, with the descending heavenly fire continuously decreasing.

As this batch of pills successfully passed the tribulation, wisps of primordial energy began to emanate from the tribulation clouds and heavenly fire, which were absorbed by the pills that had successfully passed the tribulation, further enhancing their quality.

However, as Wei Yuan watched, his expression gradually became solemn. Judging from this tribulation alone, the tribulation-crossing method transmitted by Wang Fo was even more profound and mysterious than the tribulation formed by the Heavenly Dao of this realm. The Buddha's light could actually directly dispel the tribulation clouds; Wei Yuan had never even considered this possibility before.

This method of transcending tribulations is so profound; no wonder there are so many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas hidden in the Great Treasure Flower Pure Land, and the difficulty of their tribulations is on a completely different level.

However, Wei Yuan thought about it a little deeper: what was the purpose of sending this Tribulation Transcending Method at this exact moment?
Did he genuinely want to help Wei Yuan, or did he want to tell him that the Pure Land's foundation was even greater than the Heavenly Dao of this realm?
(End of this chapter)