Longzang

Chapter 1209 All-encompassing
Wei Yuan sat upright in the center of the great formation, most of his divine sense focused on the formation. Under his control, nearly ten thousand strands of silk, like tentacles, slowly drew a ball of mysterious light up from the depths of the ancestral mountain.

This mysterious light was only the size of a house, yet incredibly heavy and dense, almost tangible. Even with Wei Yuan's complete concentration, he nearly lost his grip several times. He didn't know what this mysterious light was; it only appeared before him as the excavation deepened.

After discovering it, Wei Yuan concentrated the power of the great formation and slowly pulled it out.

Finally, the light rose into Wei Yuan's control range. Wei Yuan reached out and caught it in his hand. It turned out to be a jade bead covered with white feather patterns.

The jade bead was lustrous and smooth, and at first glance it was not particularly outstanding. However, Wei Yuan's sea of ​​consciousness was like the entire Daoist treasury of the Taichu Palace. With a sweep of his divine sense, he compared it with what was recorded in the Daoist treasury and knew the origin of this thing.

This precious pearl was not formed naturally, but rather it was formed naturally after the fall of a celestial being, when its divine essence was leaked and it had nowhere to go. It is a product of a higher grade than the blood mud used by Wei Yuan in alchemy, and is called Immortal Embryo Jade. It can be used to refine artifacts or to be incorporated into pills.

The piece of power in Wei Yuan's palm is equivalent to the entire Dao power of an early-stage Yu Jing cultivator.

The jade embryo in Wei Yuan's hand, having been buried deep underground for a long time, was affected by the earth's energy and subjected to immense pressure, resulting in numerous impurities. To refine it into an elixir, it would require slow and meticulous processing, a process that demands considerable time and effort.

But for Wei Yuan, the prosperity of the various realms is all-encompassing, and the six great grotto-heavens devour everything. Even the impurities are useful, as they can enrich the entire mental world and bring more variables.

Wei Yuan opened his mouth and swallowed the jade embryo directly.

In the blink of an eye, dark clouds filled the world of my mind, and the whole sky turned black! In the vast sky, only a pale yellow hue appeared in the west, with a few rays of light.

At this moment, all the mortals in the city were in a panic, while the Battle Saint Hall and the Heaven and Earth Beginning were in a flurry of activity. Every cultivator who had a spare moment rushed out, flew into the sky, and prepared their storage artifacts. Even those who were in seclusion were summoned out.

The celestial plants presented a different scene. The Ice Crystal Divine Tree released a vast expanse of azure ice clouds, gracefully covering a large area. The Celestial Orchids were not to be outdone, spraying out a rainbow-colored floral curtain, which, due to their sheer number, was even larger than the ice clouds.

The Flame God Flower summoned a cloud of fire, but it was clearly constrained by the Five Elements and wasn't very large, only covering a few miles. The Phoenix Blood Moss remained completely still.

The saplings of the Jianmu tree don't have so many fancy features; their branches and leaves simply spread out for hundreds of miles.

Those most certain were the aquatic ones; since Lu Shaohai had plenty of them, they would most likely fall into the sea after this spiritual rain.

Those who had opened their spirit palaces remained much calmer and unmoved. In the area where spirit palaces hadn't been opened, the mirage demons were still entangled in a thick mass, only now it was noticeably denser.

Only a platinum branch extends from the moon, wanting to taste its flavor.

Suddenly, thunder roared, and bolts of lightning as thick as giant trees slammed into the ground. Raindrops, some grayish-black and others murky yellow, as large as fists, lashed down. Ordinary roofs couldn't withstand the onslaught, leaving them damaged in many places. The earth was riddled with potholes and craters.

In the blink of an eye, turbid currents rose across the land, rivers surged and roared, and the seas were raging with towering waves, showing signs of overflowing. The rain poured down like a natural disaster, yet the vitality of life in all realms continued to rise!
A bolt of lightning struck the sea, killing countless marine creatures, but also giving rise to numerous tiny particles, some of which bore faint signs of life.

In cities and towns, tens of thousands of ordinary people were struck by lightning and died, but a few people, mostly young children, survived the lightning strikes.

Amidst the chaos, a cultivation room on the top floor of the Battle Saint Hall opened, and Dugu Cangqiong, who had been in seclusion, emerged, looking around in confusion, not understanding what had happened. Suddenly, three bolts of crimson lightning struck him from the sky, leaving him scorched but not yet dead.

In a corner of the city, the statue of the Creator Immortal became the center of the world at this moment. Bolts of lightning, as if they had gone mad, stacked up in several or dozens of strikes, frantically bombarding the statue of the Immortal!

However, a faint black light floated on the statue of the immortal, which remained unbroken no matter how fiercely the thunder roared.

Several divine senses were secretly watching this place, and upon seeing this scene, they all became somewhat solemn.

"The Creator Immortal Venerable truly possesses great fortune..."

"It cannot be shaken..."

"...Who summoned the heavenly lightning? Was it some kind of recklessness?"

"...It wasn't me."

The last sentence was spoken by many divine thoughts together, and it was unclear whether they believed it or not.

At this moment, Wei Yuan felt light and agile, with no discomfort in any pore of his body. Countless small life forms were born in his mental world, many of which were unprecedented and needed to be studied carefully.

He immediately thought to himself, "Indeed, this step was the right one. The world of the mind, since it is called a world, should naturally encompass all things and allow all beings to flourish. If it only absorbs pure energy, it's like water that's too clear having no fish, which is actually not beautiful..."

This piece of Immortal Jade Embryo is, after all, equivalent to the life's work of a Nascent Soul cultivator. It not only increased the variety of life forms in the bustling worlds by 30%, but also replenished the spiritual energy of the entire small world, advancing the overall progress by approximately one percent towards perfection. This progress was enough to delight Wei Yuan, equivalent to saving him over a decade of hard work. He was naturally invigorated; finally, it was his turn to enjoy something good.

With his cultivation advancing, his divine sense also grew accordingly, allowing him to see further within the immortal mountain. Wei Yuan then discovered three more clusters of mysterious light deeper within. He immediately adjusted the direction of the excavation array, and countless threads slowly probed towards the mysterious light.

The thunderstorm in the bustling world lasted for half a day before it finally stopped, resulting in the river rising more than ten feet and the water in the well overflowing to the wellhead.

The Creation Research Institute urgently dispatched several thousand cultivators from the Battle Saint Hall to teach them the newly developed Qi-identification techniques. These cultivators were then dispatched to all directions to identify and mark various newly emerging beings. If any entirely new beings appeared, they were to be carefully protected, with protective barriers set up to prevent ordinary wild beasts from harming them, before reporting back.

In the central city, a thorough search was conducted, and even those mortals who had been struck by lightning and whose bodies were still intact were examined. However, most of the mortals who died in the disaster simply vanished.

The Underworld was also bustling with activity. The main hall was packed with souls—those from outside the realms and those reincarnated from within the bustling worlds—all crammed together. The ghost messengers' pens were practically smoking from writing, yet the queue outside the hall continued to grow longer.

At this moment, a person walked over. He was handsome and had an extremely beautiful appearance. He was elegant and noble, and his nobility was otherworldly. He was completely out of place in this Yellow Springs.

He looked at the long queue, his face filled with worry. One of the souls in the queue, already as fragile as paper, finally could no longer hold on and turned into a wisp of smoke, vanishing without a trace.

He frowned slightly, glanced at the empty space around the main hall, and muttered to himself, "It's getting busier and busier! Just this one hall alone is barely enough to handle the reincarnations from outside, and the ones within the realm are already unusable. This round of events came so suddenly, I'm afraid we'll miss 30% of the weak souls."

"That won't do. We need to talk to the Realm Lord and ask for some resources so we can build a few more palaces."

With a thought, Wei Yuan appeared beside him and asked, "Galo, what do you want with me?"

Jialuo pointed to the long queue and shared her worries with Wei Yuan. Wei Yuan understood immediately. The Qingming region was now extremely vast, with a population exceeding two hundred million in just one area, and hundreds of thousands of people dying and being reincarnated every day. The Yellow Springs Palace, which had looked spacious back then, was now incredibly crowded.

Wei Yuan looked around at the world. The rain had stopped, the clouds had dispersed, and a small patch of bright yellow stood out in the western sky.

That was the share of the Western Jin dynasty's fortune that he had received. Since he became the King of Wei, the Western Jin dynasty's fortune had weakened significantly, but its quality had clearly improved. After defeating the Lü family, the Western Jin dynasty's fortune was reduced by half again. Now, only a small patch remains on the horizon, but it is pure in color and radiant in its beauty, and has become a scenic spot.

The torrential rain had stopped, and the immortal spiritual energy had long been divided up among the various factions. Even Wei Yuan had nothing left to collect. Helpless, he could only promise Jialuo that once he obtained a piece of immortal jade embryo, he would first use some to repair the Netherworld. Only then was he able to escape amidst its mournful gaze.

As he left, Wei Yuan still got goosebumps all over. Although this guy had severed his ties with the Abyss of the Outer Heavens, he hadn't given up any of his Heavenly Demon skills, and he also bore an appearance that was eight or nine tenths similar to Xiao Yu's…

So much so that every time Wei Yuan emerged from the Yellow Springs Cave, he had to carefully examine his Dao heart and curse himself a few times before he could do so.

But this time, Wei Yuan thought of something else, something extremely important. That was the location of Qingming. People would naturally enter the Yellow Springs Cave Heaven upon reincarnation, but the real focus was outside Qingming.

Yizhou is a vast and sparsely populated region with an extremely rapid population growth. Large numbers of refugees have been migrating in, and the population has now reached 150 million. Not to mention the newly acquired Western Jin Dynasty, the ten prefectures of Ganzhou under the Lü family have been peaceful for a long time and have a dense population. Now, they are all entering the cycle of reincarnation in vain, with only a few reincarnating and most of them returning to heaven and earth.

We need to find a way to include these billions of people in Qingming.

Wei Yuan divided over a thousand divine thoughts to ponder this matter. However, the coverage area of ​​Qingming was already top-grade among boundary stones; it couldn't be larger, much less cover Yizhou, hundreds of thousands of miles away.

To receive a soul into the Yellow Springs Cave Heaven, Wei Yuan himself would have to be there. Anything beyond that requires the methods of immortals, which Wei Yuan does not yet possess.

Although Wei Yuan is exceptionally talented and has already managed to defeat some immortals, the distinction between immortals and mortals is not just empty talk.

In this world of cultivation, there is a distinction between mortals and those who have reached the Dao Foundation stage. Once one has reached the Dao Foundation stage, one embarks on the path of cultivation and can be considered a different race from mortals.

Above the celestial realm is another layer of distinction. Below the celestial rank, there are many supernatural powers depending on the level of authority, all of which can only be used by those in the celestial body.

Therefore, in the primordial era, the earliest cultivators of the human race only had three realms: mortal, cultivator, and immortal.

The cultivators of that era were called ancient cultivators. Their cultivation methods were vastly different from those of today. There was no distinction between Dao Foundation, Dharma Form, and Ascending Realm. Many people communicated with heaven and earth and ascended to the Immortal Gate simply by relying on a Dao Foundation.

The ancient full moon that Wei Yuan possessed was the immortal foundation of a certain ancient cultivator.

However, Wei Yuan's approach differed from the ancient methods of this realm. Although he couldn't collect the souls from outside, people were alive, and he could have them walk to Qingming on their own so they could be reincarnated in the Yellow Springs.

Having made up his mind, Wei Yuan set about formulating a plan, and in no time a document was produced: "Outline for the Registration of Meritorious Officials of the Azure Sky".

(End of this chapter)