Longzang

Chapter 222 Perfect and Smooth
Upon returning to the realm, Wei Yuan encountered two major events: the attack by the Witch Clan and Xiao Yu's preparations to return home for mourning.

The Wu tribe has never been patient, and they attacked again after only a few days of peace. This attack was clearly just a probe; they sent 20,000 soldiers to attack, 10,000 to hold the line, and left 50,000 in the camp.

At this time, the newly built city was only an outline of walls, and the city had less than 20,000 inhabitants, who were digging underground day and night. When the Wu tribe attacked, these people all returned underground according to the pre-established plan. Wei Yuan himself gathered his troops, pulled out 10,000 soldiers, and lined up them fifty miles behind the new city.

This time, the Wu tribe changed their tactics, sending 10,000 troops to bypass the city and confront Wei Yuan's main army, while another 10,000 troops entered the city and rushed directly underground.

This tactic was truly unexpected for Wei Yuan; it seems the Wu Clan's commander has quite a plan this time.

Wei Yuan made a decisive move, immediately ordering all troops to advance. At the same time, he commanded Cui Yu to lead five hundred Dao Foundation cultivators to attack from the left, while the Fifty Great Thieves of Zhan Tian attacked from the right. Then, he activated the Instantaneous All Beings.

The battlefield erupted in smoke and explosions, flames flickering amidst the smoke, and hordes of Wu tribe soldiers fell, many unaware of their deaths. Now, all soldiers in the realm were prepared to fire a single shot at the enemy before considering anything else.

When the roaring finally subsided and the smoke was dispersed by magic, the witch army generals were shocked to find that their troops had suffered 30% casualties! Seeing so many of their comrades fall, the morale of the witch army was immediately shaken.

Wei Yuan gave them no chance to regroup. Jade Mountain descended, creating a gap in the center of the Wu army's formation. He then led his troops in, tearing the Wu tribe's formation apart in one fell swoop.

The witch army began to fall into chaos, but with the new city behind them, they could only flee around the city. How could they possibly escape?
The defeat was swift and decisive; the entire 10,000-strong army of the Wu tribe was wiped out in no time. Meanwhile, rumbling sounds continued to echo from beneath the new city, with plumes of white smoke rising from the underground entrance.

Just as Wei Yuan was preparing to lead his troops into the city and trap all the witch tribe members underground, another 20,000 witch soldiers appeared in the distance. Wei Yuan had no choice but to halt his advance and instead confront the witch tribe reinforcements.

The witch army that had stormed into the city's underground received orders to retreat to the surface. However, getting out of the cave was easier than getting in; the underground pits were interconnected, like a maze, and someone could suddenly emerge from any corner, only to be met with a musket shot, followed by a quick retreat, showing a complete lack of martial ethics.

A full quarter of an hour passed before the witch army that had stormed underground finally retreated back to the surface. Of the ten thousand warriors who went down, only six thousand emerged.

The Wu tribe's rearguard was dispatched to retrieve six thousand remaining soldiers. The high shaman, who was stationed there, glanced at Wei Yuan from afar before withdrawing his troops back to camp. Wei Yuan, seeing the situation was favorable, also decided to withdraw and watched the Wu tribe depart.

For the Wu tribe, this was a probing attack, and they only sent ordinary warriors, not the elite troops from the northern border as they had done before.

Wei Yuan used every means at his disposal, including the newly equipped muskets, the power of the instantaneous beings, and the power of destiny.

The battle beneath the city was primarily fought by a small number of cultivators leading a large number of ordinary people. Even with the support of the "Momentary Beings," the casualties still approached six thousand. However, the vast majority of the wounded were ordinary people without any physical cultivation. In comparison, the warriors of the Witch Clan, who had cultivated their skills, suffered nearly four thousand casualties, which could be considered a major defeat.

The battle on the ground was utterly crushing. Wei Yuan mobilized over five hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators, and with the blessing of all living beings, the number of Foundation Establishment cultivators instantly exceeded one thousand five hundred. All of them were equipped with firearms, and with Wei Yuan's Jade Mountain clearing the way, the enemy was completely annihilated, with only a hundred or so escaping. Meanwhile, the casualties in the realm were only a little over two hundred.

This attempt by the Wu tribe was a major failure.

The battle had just ended, and Wei Yuan was still directing the cleanup of the battlefield when Xiao Yu came looking for him. Wei Yuan initially wanted to persuade her to stay, but seeing Xiao Nian standing behind Xiao Yu, he changed his mind and told Xiao Yu to go back without worry and not to be distracted by things here.

Xiao Nian exchanged a few pleasantries with Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli, then released the flying boat. Just as he was about to board and leave, Xiao Yu suddenly said, "Grandpa, since you've come all this way, why don't you give Wei Yuan a little gift?"

Xiao Nian said helplessly, "Giving too many things at this time will easily draw criticism. How about this, I noticed that the jade mountain you used just now contained the aura of the netherworld, and there is also a small piece of netherworld soil in Sun Yu's courtyard. I happen to have something suitable on hand, so I'll give it to you."

Xiao Nian took out a box and handed it to Wei Yuan. Wei Yuan took it, and his hand felt a slight heaviness; this small box actually weighed several hundred pounds. He opened it and saw two apricot-sized objects inside, completely dark blue, still in their shells; he didn't know what they were.

Xiao Nian said, “These are two seeds of Nether Wheat, which I found by chance when I was exploring the cave in my early years. The cave was destroyed, and most of the spirit wheat that was originally planted died due to the influence of the aura from outside the heavens. Only this one plant miraculously survived for a thousand years. I took a total of six seeds. I gave some away over the years, and I still have these two left.”

"It was transformed from the corrupted spirit wheat?" Wei Yuan asked, both surprised and delighted.

Xiao Nian nodded and said, "This can also be considered a type of spiritual food. Originally, it should have been classified as a celestial food, but since the spiritual food it produces contains a trace of the eternal silence of the underworld, it cannot be eaten in large quantities. Therefore, it was downgraded to a top-grade food when it was classified."

"Thank you, senior!" Wei Yuan bowed solemnly, and he was now particularly sensitive to anything that could be grown and eaten.

Xiao Nian said, "It's nothing good, no need to thank me."

Xiao Yu pulled Wei Yuan up and said, "He's definitely not a good person, no need to thank me!"

Wei Yuan was taken aback. These two seeds were of a higher grade than the Heavenly Star Dragon Sunflower. If they weren't good, then what would be?

Xiao Yu looked at Wei Yuan with a disappointed expression, gesturing at him as she said, "Look at you, you don't even have a decent piece of armor. Your defense relies entirely on your thick skin, especially this face..." Wei Yuan was initially touched, but as he listened, he started to feel uneasy.

Xiao Nian picked up her grandson and stuffed him into the flying boat, saying, "We should go."

Xiao Yu struggled to stick her head out and shouted, "Leave the Lord of Yong'an City for me, I will be back!"

Wei Yuan nodded: "Don't worry! No one will try to take it from you."

"Someone will try to steal it! You need to be careful of that girl Feng Tingyu, and don't let her bewitch you!"

Xiao Nian pressed his grandson's head back down, stepped into the flying boat, and then a halo of light rippled across the surface of the flying boat as it soared into the sky.

But the flying boat didn't head east or upwards; instead, it flew towards the northwest where the Witch Domain was located. Then, a dazzling sword light hundreds of feet long appeared out of the sky, slashing fiercely into the void. Xiao Nian's majestic voice echoed throughout the heavens and earth: "Who dares to block my flying boat? Do you think the Xiao family has no one to rely on?"

A figure suddenly appeared out of the void, its aura fluctuating wildly, and it struggled somewhat against the sword light. The figure was blurry and its identity was unknown. After being struck by the sword, it turned and fled, displaying extremely skillful escape techniques.

But the flying boat pursued relentlessly, with streaks of sword light hundreds of feet long crisscrossing back and forth, relentlessly slashing at the man.

Amidst the chaos, Xiao Nian's voice sounded somewhat exasperated: "You scoundrel, how arrogant! I've already yielded time and again, why won't you let me pass? What deep-seated grudge do we have that you insist on ambushing me halfway? Let me tell you, if you don't let me go, I'll fight back..."

A lone figure on a boat vanished into the distance in an instant, and the flash of sword light could still be seen on the horizon.

Zhang Sheng appeared beside Wei Yuan and asked, "Did you learn anything?"

Wei Yuan was also deeply impressed, saying, "This method of turning black into white is truly..."

Zhang Sheng tapped him on the head and said, "His technique is clumsy and rough. Who told you to learn that? What I taught you was to be able to lie in front of hundreds of thousands of people in the entire realm without batting an eye!"

Wei Yuan remained silent for a moment, then said, "It's really quite shameful..."

“It is indeed shameful, which is why I let you learn it.”

Xiaoyu's departure was sudden, but it was also inevitable. The palace-dressed woman who had protected Xiaoyu that day was quite close to Xiaoyu. Since the woman had unexpectedly passed away, Xiaoyu had to go back to participate in the funeral arrangements, both out of courtesy and reason.

However, the attitude of the aristocratic families is now ambiguous, and with Xiaoyu leaving, it's uncertain when they will meet again.

Life is always a mix of joy and sorrow, fortune and misfortune.

Not long after Xiaoyu's flying boat disappeared, Wei Yuan's primordial spirit suddenly trembled, and a burst of spiritual energy erupted from the vast land like a fountain!
The spiritual energy here was incredibly abundant, having transformed into a lingering mist. Wei Yuan entered his sea of ​​consciousness and located the source of the surging mist—it was actually a spiritual field where millet was being grown! At this moment, this area of ​​land in the vast river and mountains had become a continuous expanse, with green plants sprouting from the ground, each plant heavily laden with fist-sized grains of rice.

Each plant was brimming with spiritual energy; though each plant had few fruits, the total harvest was considerable. This early-ripening millet alone shortened Wei Yuan's progress to the first stage of cultivation by a full year.

However, the spiritual plants in the Dao Foundation looked quite different from the millet described in the records. Wei Yuan withdrew from his sea of ​​consciousness and flew directly to the spiritual field where the millet was grown.

There is a vast spiritual field here, most of which are still green seedlings, but one corner is already fully mature, with each stalk covered with pale yellow grains, each the size of a fist.

This is the first 500 mu of sorghum that Wei Yuan planted. It should have been 10 days away from maturity, but now it has suddenly matured completely. Moreover, the grains of rice are much larger than normal, and the color is pale yellow, not the reddish-yellow of ordinary sorghum.

Wei Yuan plucked a grain of rice, peeled back the husk, and revealed a single pale yellow grain, plump and glossy, brimming with exceptional spiritual energy. Wei Yuan was somewhat surprised; millet was the most common spiritual plant in the Western Regions, and an indispensable staple food for lower-level cultivators. Wei Yuan himself had eaten it countless times, but he had never seen millet like this before.

This grain of sorghum was much larger than ordinary sorghum, and its spiritual energy content was twice as high. Although the spiritual energy in sorghum is inherently thin, doubling it doesn't make a huge difference, but if this were the normal state, it wouldn't be of this grade.

Suddenly a voice rang out from the side: "This grain of sorghum is truly round and lustrous, an absolute gem!"

Wei Yuan turned his head and saw that a Taoist priest had appeared beside him at some point, staring at the millet in his hand with shining eyes.

(End of this chapter)