Longzang

Chapter 294 Appearance in front of others
With Cui Yu and Cui Luoyu around, the hundreds of纨绔 (playboys) of the Cui family, both young and old, didn't dare to cause any more trouble. There's an art to being a纨绔 peacefully; you have to know exactly who you can and can't mess with. Even the most clueless纨绔 knew that these two masters, Cui Yu and Cui Luoyu, were not to be trifled with.

The disciples from Tianqing Palace and Shuiyue Palace also came to greet Wei Yuan. There were six from Tianqing Palace and seven from Shuiyue Palace, totaling thirteen. Wei Yuan chatted with them for a few minutes and asked about the reason for the conflict on the way.

Originally, the two halls planned to send only six people to the Western Regions for training, but later increased it to nine, and the two masters prepared silver according to this number. However, just before departure, the two masters thought of Wei Yuan's terrifying Heavenly Skill and also squeezed in several more talented disciples who were being cultivated as seeds.

As the number of people increased, they didn't even have enough money for boat tickets. Fortunately, the Cui family was accommodating and gave them two tickets for free. However, the Celestial Master of the Azure Palace felt embarrassed for taking advantage of the Cui family, so he offered to forgo meals. In fact, the Cui family had never even considered that meals would be included separately in the boat ticket price.

The two masters sent so many disciples here for two reasons. First, they hoped the disciples could train in Qingming, which is much safer than the north. Second, they hoped the disciples could share in some Heavenly Merit, even just three or five points would be good, as they could be exchanged for quite a lot.

In fact, every point of Heavenly Merit can be exchanged for quite a few things. For scions of prominent families like Cui Yu, Heavenly Merit is an honor to behold and a title to adorn their chests. But for disciples of the Azure Sky Palace, three points of Heavenly Merit are a lifesaver, and ten points are enough to take them soaring.

Wei Yuan looked them over one by one. The leading disciple of Tianqing Hall was named Ren Suxing, who was over thirty years old. In fact, he was three years ahead of Wei Yuan and only one year behind Zhang Sheng.

There weren't many disciples in the two halls, so Wei Yuan had heard of Ren Suxing's name and remembered his information.

Ren Suxing is currently in the late stage of the Dao Foundation stage. The Dao Foundation stage is a Heaven-rank immortal sword, and achieving the Dharma Aspect is not entirely hopeless, but it is extremely difficult. He has been stuck at the late stage of the Dao Foundation stage for three years, and he doesn't know how long he will be stuck there.

Ren Suxing and Zhang Sheng are fundamentally different. Zhang Sheng's ambitions are sky-high; before even reaching the Dharma Form stage, he was solely focused on perfecting the four swords, and now he also has the added requirement of a naturally formed sword formation. Everyone knows that once Zhang Sheng achieves the Dharma Form stage, he will soar to great heights, and his progress will be no slower than anyone else's.

Ji Liuli was the same; for many years his cultivation had not progressed at all. He was busy repairing the Demon-Suppressing Tower, which became more and more mysterious and unpredictable. No one knew when it would end.

These two unparalleled geniuses focused solely on honing their Dao foundations, but ended up leading their generation astray.

Countless cultivators from the same and several preceding and following years followed suit, beginning to refine their Dao Foundation in pursuit of a perfect advancement. In the end, many of their teachers couldn't bear to watch any longer and stepped in to sternly reprimand them, making them deeply understand the meaning of being born inferior to others. This drove some people to attempt advancement, and also resulted in the Taichu Palace gaining a few more Dharma Aspects.

Ren Suxing's immortal sword, Sudden Rain, is now radiant with precious light, looking much better than its original version. If the Heavenly Rank could also be divided into nine grades, it would be equivalent to raising it from grade eight to grade seven, increasing his chances of advancing to the Dharma Aspect from 10% to 12%, a process that took him a full three years.

Another person Wei Yuan noticed was a young girl from the Water Moon Palace. She was clearly still somewhat immature, two years younger than Wei Yuan, and was a genius disciple of the next generation, named Fei Yutong. She gave off an exceptionally clean, fragile, and somewhat gentle feeling, with a moonlit glow on her skin.

Fei Yutong came from a middle-class family and was trained in secret methods within her family until she was ten years old before participating in the Immortal Sect's unified examination. After entering the palace, her cultivation progressed rapidly, and two years ago she had already reached the mid-stage of the Dao Foundation stage.

After exchanging only a few words, Wei Yuan said, "Let's eat first!" He then ordered his men to take his fellow disciples, who had been starving for three or four days, to eat.

When settling the Cui family members, Wei Yuan discovered that there were actually three Dharma Aspect Realm cultivators on the flying boat. However, none of them were willing to disembark, saying that everything would be resolved on the boat and they would leave after all the supplies were moved.

Wei Yuan understood that this was the Cui family's way of avoiding suspicion. Last time, with fewer people and a smaller boat, it didn't matter. But this time, with so many people and so much supplies, it was a different story. The reappearance of the Dharma Master was tantamount to a slap in the face to the Xu family.

The Cui family should have set off much earlier, but with so many people, things got complicated. Before departure, some people tried to jump ship, so they made all sorts of requests and gave gifts. A few people were also frightened by the previous death toll and jumped ship at the last minute, so the departure was delayed for almost a month, and the number of people increased from the original two hundred to three hundred and seventy.

This time, the Cui family brought twenty of each of the Five Elements Spiritual Ginseng, each three hundred years old, with them on the ship. The Five Elements Spiritual Ginseng is a mid-grade spiritual plant, basically worth one or two taels of immortal silver per year, and it has a wide range of uses, being used in many elixirs to adjust the properties of the main ingredients.

This batch of Five Elements Spiritual Ginseng was a pre-delivered reward, which was exactly what Wei Yuan wanted.

Secondly, there were 10,000 grains of black pearl rice suitable for seed production. This type of spiritual rice is a mid-grade spiritual plant, generally only available to those at the Dharma Stage. Last time, the Cui family secretly gave them three grains, but this time they simply didn't bother with the pretense and directly sent out 10,000 grains, saving Wei Yuan two years of breeding and propagation work.

The Cui family only sent these two items this time. As expected of a top-tier aristocratic family, they have Wei Yuan completely under their control.

After finally settling the 370 ancestors of the Cui family, Wei Yuan finally had time to have a detailed talk with Cui Luoyu.

After the previous group of Cui family members returned, the senior cultivators in the family inquired in detail about their entire cultivation process, and the fact that they had paid to avoid death could not be concealed. Almost all of their Dao Foundations came from the group that went to the battlefield, while only one person had paid to avoid death. This stark contrast made the Cui family matriarch relent and increase the death quota for this batch from thirty to one hundred. As a result, the original plan of four hundred people to come suddenly dwindled by several dozen upon hearing this news.

Cui Luoyu actually came with another mission. After a detailed discussion, Wei Yuan learned that there was a group of elders behind him who wanted to forge their Dao foundation.

These people had given up hope of establishing their Dao foundation and were already old; they had resigned themselves to their fate. But Qingming suddenly opened a door, instantly giving them renewed hope.

Their sole purpose in cultivating the foundation of Tao is to prolong their lives.

As long as one can establish a foundation for the Dao, even if one's body has been weakened by wine and women for decades, one can live at least another twenty or thirty years.

Those who managed to find a way to contact Cui Luoyu were either middle-level managers themselves or important figures in their families. For example, several of them were descendants of True Lords.

Cui Luoyu made it very clear that these people are not short of money, but they cannot go to the battlefield, or they cannot die on the battlefield. Otherwise, if they come to prolong their lives but die on the battlefield, wouldn't that be a joke?
In addition, they wanted to ensure a certain success rate and also wanted to save face, so they had to keep it a secret.

Wei Yuan hadn't expected this kind of business opportunity, so he asked, "So, what success rate do you think is considered a guarantee?"

Cui Luoyu said, "I hope that there will be thirty people coming on the next ship, and that at least four of them can form a Dao Foundation. If this is successful, I am willing to give each of them five thousand taels of immortal silver! There is no limit to the grade of the Dao Foundation."

Wei Yuan nodded: "Okay, I understand. But I need to think about this carefully and go back to check the cultivation manuals. It will take some time before I can give you an answer."

Seeing Wei Yuan get up to leave, Cui Luoyu hurriedly said, "Wait! I know this is a bit of a stretch, but... well, I'll tell you the truth: as long as two people can establish their Dao foundation, they will come, and they will pay a reward of ten thousand taels of silver in advance!"

Wei Yuan smiled and said, "The Cui family has treated me well, so I will certainly do my best in this matter. The two should be fine, but I need time. They will probably have to stay in the realm for a while longer."

Cui Luoyu was overjoyed: "No problem, you can stay as long as you need! If the two uncles can form their Dao foundation this time, it will be a great help. I dare not say anything else, but they have the authority over many low-grade spiritual objects and plants, so they can supply as much as you want in the future!"

Wei Yuan was somewhat surprised: "Aren't you afraid of displeasing the Xu family?"

“It’s smuggling, not an open and aboveboard delivery. We’re going through the Zhao state route, and the Xu family’s influence doesn’t extend to Zhao.” Cui Luoyu was clearly quite familiar with this kind of thing.

After seeing Cui Luoyu off, Wei Yuan pondered for a long time before ordering someone to find several cultivators who had reached the Great Perfection of Body Forging, who were to be included in the next batch of cultivators advancing to the Foundation Establishment stage. These individuals were all from the Xu family's private army, possessing a very solid foundation in Body Forging, and originally had a slight hope of successfully forging their Foundation Establishment.

Once they had stood still, Wei Yuan waved his hand, and a celestial sword appeared before each of them. The swords had a slight bluish hue and emitted wisps of moisture; they were none other than the disgrace of celestial swords, a grade even lower than White Silk—the Celestial Sword Silk Rain.

“Take one of these immortal swords for each of you. I will also pass on a cultivation technique to you. After you return, practice the technique and carefully comprehend it. Perhaps you will have the opportunity to forge your Dao foundation into this immortal sword.”

The cultivators were both surprised and delighted. They carefully held the immortal sword Silk Rain in their hands and went back to cultivate diligently.

This was an experiment by Wei Yuan. Because the Immortal Sword Silk Rain was weak, its structure and internal laws were very simple. The difficulty of forging its Dao foundation was lower than that of many human-level Dao foundations. As long as one's aptitude was decent, it was quite easy to get started. Moreover, with a fixed goal, these cultivators wouldn't have to think about other things, and their chances of success might be greater.

If this attempt succeeds, Wei Yuan plans to arrange it for the various masters of the Cui family. They've all paid money, so they deserve something special.

Although Silk Rain is a disgrace to the Immortal Sword and its power is weaker than most human-level Dao Foundations, it is still an Immortal Sword after all, and its appearance is enough to instantly kill 99% of human-level Dao Foundations.

After all, the wealthy patrons only wanted to prolong their lives and show off their divine power in public; they didn't actually intend to use it for magical battles.

(End of this chapter)