Longzang

Chapter 353 A Glimmer of Light in a Chaotic World
In the stillness of the night, Wei Yuan stood on the main peak of the realm, gazing into the distance.

In his perception, the northwestern horizon was faintly illuminated by lights; that was where Wucheng was located. Yu Zhizhuo discovered large mineral veins around Wucheng, built mines, and directly constructed more than a dozen blast furnaces at the mine entrances. The roaring flames of the furnaces shot straight into the sky, turning the sky red.

Within the realm, some fields glowed faintly in the night; these were fields where spirit rice was grown. Once the spirit rice grew, it would emit a faint light, and if there were many fields, at night it would appear as a sea of ​​shimmering light.

Several cities still had lights shining. The number of cultivators in the realm was increasing. After their bodies were forged, they were full of energy. Many of them worked through the night, hoping to do as much as possible so that they would have a better chance of winning the next great battle.

The new farmland has been planted, and when the seeds sprouted, Wei Yuan harvested thousands more streams of fortune.

Ordinary people are simple and honest, especially those who have endured much war. Only when they see the crops growing in the fields can they imagine the day of harvest. These fields are the hope for survival for countless people.

The spiritual energy in the herb garden is becoming increasingly dense, almost visible to the naked eye. The cultivation of the True Immortal Chuhe is progressing daily, demonstrating just how successful the herb garden is.

Wei Yuan was suddenly filled with emotion. If there were no alien races around him and no immortals high above in the sky, this land would now be the paradise described in the book.

Unfortunately, the alien races remained ferocious, and the immortals remained aloof and superior. To mortals living on earth, the immortals were sometimes even more terrifying than the alien races.

Under the cover of night, many people were quietly coming and going, or using certain Taoist techniques, and then their Taoist power soared into the sky and disappeared in an instant.

With the boundary now spanning over a thousand miles, it's simply impossible to completely seal it off. Moreover, with an increasing number of caravans traveling back and forth, it's unclear whether the magical artifacts used to transmit messages are being sent by the caravans or by someone with ulterior motives.

Firearms and gunpowder could not be kept secret; they would be leaked sooner or later. In fact, after eliminating Yue Jinshan's 10,000 heavy cavalry, Wei Yuan had already made preparations. The surrounding enemies might have countermeasures, and might even field their own musket squad.

However, Wei Yuan did not expect that the Xu family would react so slowly. When the 300,000-strong army attacked, they did whatever they wanted and had no special tactics to deal with the muskets.

Wei Yuan felt that if he were in charge, and had even slightly studied Yue Jinshan's battle example, the war would never have turned out this way. But the fact was that the Xu family's 300,000-strong army still fought an old-fashioned war. The entire Xu family was like a senile old man, slow and stubborn.

But after this battle, if not the whole country was shaken, the Western Jin Dynasty was certainly shaken. Now, many important figures probably have muskets and ammunition on their desks, and perhaps workshops in various places have already begun to imitate them.

However, this was bound to happen sooner or later, and Wei Yuan was already mentally prepared. Now, in Wei Yuan's mind, the most important thing was not the technology of firearms, nor the formula for gunpowder, but the information written by Xu Wenwu, those most authentic records about the outer world, a magical world where billions of people could live a prosperous life without any supernatural powers.

The study behind Wei Yuan is now filled with historical books. During this period, Wei Yuan has been reading local chronicles from various regions, with a relatively larger number of books on the Western Jin Dynasty.

After reading these local chronicles, Wei Yuan finally discovered the key difference between this world and Xu Wenwu's outer world: in this world, ordinary people have no value.

Within the nine kingdoms of the Great Tang, ordinary people are truly worthless unless they can forge their physical bodies. Just as Wei Youcai said back then, there is only so much land and so much grain; if the population exceeds a certain level, some will starve to death. As long as there is stability for a dozen years or so, the population will spring up like mushrooms after rain.

Ordinary people who can forge their bodies, even if they only complete the muscle and tendon stage, can do the work of two or three ordinary people. And they only eat half as much as ordinary people.

This is even more true on the battlefield. A dozen or so armored warriors wielding sharp weapons can easily slaughter a force of over a hundred ordinary people. The larger the force, the greater this ratio becomes.

When the Nine Kingdoms encountered natural disasters or peasant uprisings, even if the training of the Casting Body Army was mediocre, a few thousand soldiers would dare to attack tens of thousands of peasant soldiers and would often win the battle.

Therefore, an ordinary person without a body forging is useless, whether a soldier or a civilian. All nine states had specific regulations that granted various privileges and conveniences after body forging; the Western Jin Dynasty simply took it to a more extreme level.

If a body cannot be cast, it is not very popular to offer it as a sacrifice to the shaman clan. It needs to undergo a series of complicated processes, including strengthening and cleansing, before it can serve as a base in large-scale sacrifices.

Moreover, countless ancient texts have shown that the offspring of ordinary people are mostly ordinary people as well. As a result, the theory of bloodline prevailed in various scriptures, and in some aristocratic territories, even marriages of ordinary people required the approval of the lords.

These seemingly disparate events, when strung together by Wei Yuan, ultimately lead to the conclusion that mortals are worthless.

Therefore, the policies of various countries are all intentionally aimed at suppressing the number of ordinary people. Some directly drive ordinary people to the battlefield, while others conscript ordinary people for labor year-round. A more subtle approach is to ignore major disasters, which will cause a number of people to starve to death.

Wei Yuan couldn't help but recall the famine riot he encountered when he first learned about human affairs. Looking back now, he realized that Ji State might not have been without options, but rather that it was deliberately indulging its people from top to bottom.

However, it's different in Qingming, because of the existence of countless beings, even the most ordinary mortals can become pillars of strength on the battlefield.

Many people who were thought to be unable to build a Dao foundation in their lifetime also achieved a Dao foundation in the Azure Netherworld. If this is the case for building a Dao foundation, why can't it be the same for building a physical body?

Wei Yuan recalled Fang Hetong's three articles, the two on establishing words and establishing merit, which were indeed divine techniques for body forging. It was a pity that he had perished too early, and this foundational knowledge had been lost. Wei Yuan planned that after the foundational knowledge of the Ten Directions Glazed Golden Fire and the Six Paths Jia Yi Divine Wood matured, his next step would be to study how to lower the threshold for body forging, allowing more mortals to undergo the process.

As night falls, the land of Qingming is drawing closer to the world Wei Yuan dreamed of.

At the edge of the boundary, in a place that seemed to be empty, someone used the power of the Dao to separate the two worlds, creating a small, independent world.

A figure quietly arrived at this place. Just as he was looking around, a darkness suddenly spread and covered him. Then the ground was empty, as if there was nothing there.

The figure blurred before his eyes, and a landscape of green mountains and clear waters appeared before him. A middle-aged man sat under a tree, holding a wine glass in his hand, smiling at him. However, although the man was smiling, there was no trace of joy in his eyes.

The middle-aged man said slowly, "My place is isolated from heaven and earth. Unless an immortal is present, no one can detect it. You don't need to be nervous, but you should be careful to conceal it when you get back."

The person drawn into this realm was completely shrouded in a black robe, a robe that also possessed the ability to block divine sense, making it no ordinary item. His voice was hoarse as he said, "I've come here risking my life; I need to see something first!"

The middle-aged man's face darkened, his pupils suddenly turned into golden vertical pupils, and scales appeared faintly on his neck. The entire small world was instantly filled with murderous intent, and all the scenery was distorted, as if it could shatter at any moment!

The man in black robes said, "It's not that I don't trust you; I don't trust anyone right now. My small request isn't worth making you so angry. I also want to remind you that as long as you're within the realm, your luck will become abnormal and easily get out of control. You'd better be careful; if your whereabouts are exposed, you might not be able to escape."

The middle-aged man's strange symptoms gradually subsided, but he still felt inexplicably disgusted whenever he looked at the man in black. He took out a box about the size of his palm and placed it on the table.

The man in black robes eagerly opened the package, revealing a ruby ​​the size of an apricot, emitting an alluring fragrance. Upon seeing it, the man in black robes swallowed hard, his breathing becoming erratic.

He didn't dare look at it for long, quickly closed the box, and it took him a while to calm his racing heart.

The middle-aged man waited quietly until the man in black robes calmed down before saying, "This kind of top-grade blood necklace can not only prolong life, but also improve the aptitude of your human race. If you're lucky, you might even be able to inherit some of its innate abilities from its previous life."

"This piece is a bit small... not enough."

The middle-aged man sneered: "Just this one piece would be worth over 500,000 taels of silver in your human race! With your skills, if it weren't for this opportunity, would you even have the chance to smell it in your entire life? If you're not going to do it, I'll find someone else!"

The man in the black robe immediately put the box into his pocket, then took out a bag and took out a series of everyday items, all of which looked very ordinary.

"This is a history book he read; this is a piece of paper he wrote on and threw away in the wastebasket; ... this is a hair that fell out of his head."

The middle-aged man carefully examined each item, while the man in the black robe stood beside him, barely daring to breathe, appearing extremely nervous.

After a moment, the middle-aged man finally nodded and said, "That's enough."

The man in black robes immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

The middle-aged man opened his mouth and inhaled all the debris, then said, "Find a chance to leave, or don't blame me for not warning you in advance."

The small world vanished like a bubble, and the middle-aged man transformed into a black line, disappearing instantly beyond the horizon. The man in black robes also turned and walked into the realm, merging into the night.

In the study, Wei Yuan put down the history book he was holding and went to the pile of books in the corner. While reading, he suddenly had a new idea and needed to use another book for comparison.

Wei Yuan quickly pulled out the local gazetteer and began to flip through it rapidly. However, he suddenly glanced at the pile of books and felt that it seemed a little thinner than he thought.

However, he had exchanged for a massive amount of history books, which were simply too much to fit in his study. Moreover, given Wei Yuan's exceptional spiritual sense, he could memorize anything after reading it only once, rendering the books useless. Only local gazetteers from small places, which were rarely read, were books that Wei Yuan occasionally needed to consult, since he had only skimmed through them when he first read them and hadn't actually read them word for word.

Wei Yuan would move all the historical books he had read to the storeroom for others to consult. However, apart from himself and Zhang Sheng, almost no one read these books; only Sun Yu and Feng Tingyu would occasionally take a few back to read.

But for some reason, Wei Yuan felt uneasy tonight.

(End of this chapter)