Longzang

Chapter 332 Don’t seek peace of mind
In the dungeon beneath the main peak, Tianyu was in a strange posture, his body twisting in different directions, then remaining motionless, seemingly oblivious to the outside world.

Wei Yuan stood in the cell and watched for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, but Tian Yu remained unchanged.

Wei Yuan was speechless. He called in a jailer and asked, "How long has he been like this?"

"It's been three days, and it hasn't moved at all."

Wei Yuan was speechless. Upon closer observation, he discovered that the magical power within Tianyu's body was fluctuating rhythmically like the tides. It seemed insignificant, but in reality, it was like an undercurrent in the ocean, harboring extremely terrifying power. Judging from his aura alone, this guy had actually improved again, only one step away from becoming a Great Witch. Given the right opportunity, he could advance at any time.

It seems that Tianyu treats the prison cell as a training ground and prison as a period of self-reflection.

Wei Yuan could not possibly let him sit in prison so comfortably. After thinking for a moment, he took out the Scarlet Night Immortal-Slaying Sword, activated half of the Eternal End, and flicked it gently at Tianyu!
In Tianyu's consciousness, he instantly saw his natural enemy! Moreover, the natural enemy was mutated, several times larger in size, and now it had a gaping maw with thousands of teeth, about to bite down on him!

With a loud shout, Tianyu took off and crashed headfirst into the top of the cell, then bounced heavily back to the ground. He was so dizzy from the impact that he almost passed out.

"You're awake?" Wei Yuan asked with a smile.

Tianyu's eyes were filled with stars. It took her a while to come to her senses. She stared at Wei Yuan suspiciously and asked, "What did you just do to me? I feel like you've cultivated something amazing?"

Wei Yuan said, "It's been a while since we last met. Isn't it normal for me to advance in rank?"

Tianyu sniffed at Wei Yuan, then suddenly sneezed and exclaimed, "What's poking me!"

A wisp of extremely thin, pale red sword energy slipped out of his nostril and returned to Wei Yuan's body. If he wasn't taught a lesson, his nose would start rubbing against Wei Yuan.

Wei Yuan asked seriously, "Do you want to go back?"

"In no mood!"

Wei Yuan was taken aback: "Why?"

"The ransom is a small matter. I've discovered that in your place, with my magic completely sealed, my cultivation progresses exceptionally fast. Moreover, I've already had an inspiration; it seems the grade of my Dao Foundation can be raised even further. If you keep me locked up for another year or two, I might be able to directly reach the level of a Desolate Witch." Tianyu's eyes shone as he spoke, clearly regarding Qingming as a sacred place for cultivation.

Wei Yuan was also troubled and said seriously, "So you're not going to care about the lives of hundreds of thousands of clansmen?"

"Tens of thousands? That's none of my business. There are plenty of powerful figures above you. Go find them." Tianyu was clearly someone who didn't consider the world's affairs his responsibility.

Wei Yuan didn't waste any more words with him and said, "Come with me."

Wei Yuan unlocked the chains, led Tianyu out of the cell, and then carried him to the vicinity of Sun Yu's courtyard. The morgue was already piled high with tens of thousands of Wu Clan corpses, and more were being transported over.

Upon seeing the corpses, Tianyu fell silent, his smile vanishing, replaced by a sharp glint in his eyes. He turned to Wei Yuan and asked, "They've attacked again?"

"No, I have taken your Witch City."

Tianyu was taken aback. He knew what the original plan for Wucheng was like; after so much time, there should have been at least 100,000 troops and many high-ranking shamans stationed there. He simply didn't believe that Wei Yuan could take it down.

Wei Yuan flew with him to the other side of the morgue, where a newly built camp had been set up. The camp was packed with Wu Clan members, stretching as far as the eye could see. Tian Yu glanced over and knew that there were already more than 90,000 Wu Clan members in the camp, and new Wu Clan members were being escorted over continuously.

Upon seeing the clothing worn by these witches, Tianyu exclaimed in surprise, "You really took down Witch City?"

"Of course it's true. If you want to save them, you only need to do two things."

Wei Yuan held up one finger and said, "I can let you go back, but you have to send a ransom commensurate with your status."

Secondly, you can use human sacrifices to exchange for your own people. One sacrifice for one person is a very good deal.

Tianyu immediately shook his head: "That's impossible. These are all ordinary civilians. They can only get the worst offerings. A high-quality offering can be exchanged for five civilians of the Wu tribe."

This surprised Wei Yuan quite a bit. It turned out that in the eyes of the Wu Clan, an ordinary Wu Clan member was not as valuable as a human sacrifice.

"Three witch clan members for one top-grade offering," Wei Yuan began to bargain.

Tianyu immediately looked very troubled and said, "The price I mentioned is already the lowest, and even this price may not be negotiable."

"Then five. Three medium-grade offerings can be exchanged for one low-grade offering, and one ungrade offering for three ungrade offerings," Wei Yuan said. The ungrade offerings were humans captured directly from the Shattered Realm. These people could not be used for the sacrifice to the heavens immediately; they needed to be raised for a period of time.

"You want the extras too?" Tianyu was taken aback.

"I want anyone, as long as they are human."

Tianyu gave Wei Yuan a deep look and said, "This is the first time I've met someone like you. When I get back, I'll try to get you the best possible terms."

Wei Yuan said, "But you don't have much time, at most ten days. You should know that your people won't live long in the human realm."

"Three days at most." Wei Yuan flew directly to the edge of the boundary with Tianyu, removed all his restraints, and said, "You can go now."

"Aren't you afraid I'll just leave?" Tianyu asked.

"I believe you." Wei Yuan turned and left.

Tianyu stood there blankly for a while before turning around and leaving, disappearing into the distance in an instant.

Wei Yuan didn't fly; instead, he walked slowly for a while. In truth, Wei Yuan didn't believe in the Heavenly Language; he simply wanted a reason to kill the witch clan prisoners.

In fact, if they were simply confined within the realm and given enough food to fill their bellies, all the witches would naturally die within ten days, becoming nourishment for the entire realm. Only by forging a Dao foundation can they survive long-term in the human realm.

If it were someone else, they might have simply locked up the witch clan and waited for them to die, ultimately concluding that they died of their own accord.

But Wei Yuan never deceived himself; he knew very well that this was a massacre. Although there were a thousand reasons to kill the witch clan, including the females and children, Wei Yuan always felt somewhat uneasy. If he could exchange some human sacrifices for them, that would be the perfect outcome.

Wei Yuan shook his head, realizing he wasn't ruthless enough; he always left himself an opening.

This slight unease in his heart would not affect Wei Yuan's decision. If Tianyu did not return within the agreed time, then these witch clans would be imprisoned in the realm until death, turning into nourishment for Qingming.

To be honest, they were killed by Tianyu, Wei Yuan thought to himself.

As night fell, Wei Yuan summoned all the cultivators of Tai Chu Palace once again, this time including Fei Yutong. Wei Yuan felt that this junior sister had considerable potential; in terms of talent, she was not much inferior to Xiao Yu, although of course, she was still a bit behind him.

Fei Yutong is clearly young and naive, with very immature views on many things. Letting her attend the meeting will at least allow her to see the realities of the world and shed her naivety sooner.

This is just one reason. Another reason that Wei Yuan didn't say, but everyone knows, is that only someone with Fei Yutong's talent is qualified to hear secrets.

Now, apart from Cui Yu, all the cultivators attending the Tai Chu Palace meeting are of the Immortal Foundation stage, and even among the Immortal Foundation stages, there are different ranks. If someone is only ranked on the edge of the Milky Way in the Wan Xiang Palace, then they are not qualified to participate in this meeting.

Among the disciples from the Azure Sky Palace and Water Moon Palace who came to train this time, there were three who had reached the Immortal Foundation stage, but the other two had only just reached the edge of it. Zhang Sheng felt that they had no future potential.

Since Zhang Sheng had spoken, Wei Yuan naturally had to obey his master's orders.

Tonight's meeting has only one agenda: to open up new fields and distribute food and spiritual sustenance.

Now the territory has expanded from a little over 100 li to 200 li, and the area has increased to four times its original size, with a large amount of land available for cultivation.

This is the domain of Master Chuhe. The old Taoist priest said that after a quick look, there are 50,000 mu of spirit fields that can be developed, and even more grain fields can be added. After considering various factors, Wei Yuan decided to first develop 20,000 mu of spirit fields in this phase, and then increase the ordinary grain fields to 500,000 mu.

The amount of grain allocated to ordinary people was increased from 1.5 jin to 2 jin per day, while the elderly received an additional half jin, bringing the total to 1.5 jin.

In terms of the distribution of spiritual food, the usual practice is to give priority to high-level cultivators and those who need to fight. However, Qingming's situation is special. Those cultivators who have just formed their Dao foundation are working day and night to consolidate their Dao foundation, which is extremely hard.

Without their valiant efforts on the path to immortality, there would be no molten iron, no mountains of armor and weapons, no ore, and no gunpowder.

Therefore, everyone agreed that all cultivators, regardless of rank or Dao Foundation level, would receive spiritual food equally. This was, of course, the basic treatment provided by the realm; any additional needs could be met by exchanging merit points. The Azure Nether cultivators, while lacking much else, possessed an abundance of merit points.

After the meeting ended, Fei Yutong, who had listened quietly the entire time, followed behind Wei Yuan. When no one was around, she asked, "Kuri clearly still has tens of millions of kilograms of grain, why not give everyone more to eat? Aren't new fields already being cultivated?"

Wei Yuan smiled slightly and said, "The seedlings in the field are not grain until they become rice in the granary. Even if they are to be harvested tomorrow, they are not grain."

"why?"

Wei Yuan pointed to the endless fields of grain in the distance and said, "With a single spell, I can destroy thousands of acres of land in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea. If the Great Shaman were to cast a blood curse, he could instantly destroy all the grain fields within a hundred miles. If we eat all the grain now, what will we eat then?"

Fei Yutong seemed to understand something, and said, "I... I understand a little."

Wei Yuan smiled and said, "It's not that you don't understand, it's just that you're unwilling to believe in the cruelty of this world. But from today onwards, whether you like it or not, you'll have to face it."

Fei Yutong took a deep breath and said, "Don't worry, senior brother! When necessary, I can be just as ruthless as you!"

Watching the girl skip away, Wei Yuan felt a lump in his throat.

The saying goes, "If the student doesn't learn, it's the teacher's fault." It seems the masters of the Water Moon Palace aren't much better than those of the Azure Sky Palace; they've completely ruined a perfectly good young girl.

After seeing Fei Yutong off, Wei Yuan was about to sit down and do some meditation when suddenly he felt a sudden jolt in his heart. He sensed a violent change in the spiritual energy in a certain place in the realm, with an indescribable sinister aura swirling around, actually forming a huge vortex!

Wei Yuan took off instantly and arrived at the location of the Yin Qi vortex in the blink of an eye. This was the new city where the teenagers lived, and the camp where the pregnant girls were located was at the center of the vortex.

When Wei Yuan arrived, Sun Yu was examining a young girl with a very large belly. A moment later, Sun Yu came to Wei Yuan with a solemn expression and said, "Most of the girls' fetuses have suddenly shrunk and died, while the rest are growing rapidly and are now more than eight months along. They will give birth soon."

(End of this chapter)