Longzang

Chapter 408 The Human World

As the first research institute in the vast landscape of China, it seems reasonable to give it a more imposing name.

That group only numbered six or seven hundred people. Although the research teams for mortals are becoming more and more specialized, a team of six or seven hundred people is certainly not considered large.

This research institute doesn't have a specific research direction; it seems they research whatever comes to mind, or whatever tasks Wei Yuan assigns them.

Besides, those brilliant talents who shone brightly in the Bao family are not in this research institute.

At this time, the other mortals were not very concerned about this matter. Everyone was busy with their own things, some worshipping gods, some farming. Only a few hundred people who had just been reincarnated from the Gate of All Realms were somewhat bewildered and did not know what they were supposed to do.

With a thought, Wei Yuan transmitted the current state of the realm and the surrounding environment to the mortals, and then assigned them the task: how to make money.

At this point, Wei Yuan had finally managed to calm the cat and the flying sable down, allowing the flying sable to roam freely within the realm. As usual, he went to the weapon forging workshop and visited Sun Yu.

What Wei Yuan didn't know was that after he left, the old Taoist priest Chuhe secretly found Fei Diao and began to earnestly communicate with him, starting with: "I wish to become your godfather..."

Fei Diao didn't know what "godfather" meant, but instinctively felt it wasn't a good word, so it spat at the old Taoist priest, then burrowed underground and began to wander. There seemed to be many good things beneath this land; it would have to search slowly.

The old Taoist priest, possessing the composure to swallow insults, reconsidered his words, preparing to try again next time he encountered Lord Mink. He hadn't subdued the cat-snake once or twice in the past; it had taken a long and painstaking process.

Fei Diao could gain the upper hand even when fighting the Cat Snake alone. If he could become Chu He Lao Dao's godfather, his strength would immediately double, and he would be able to roam freely among the Dharma Aspects. Even if he encountered Fen Hai, he could affectionately call him Little Fen or Little Hai.

As for the matter of him becoming a godfather, since others cannot understand the language of spirit beasts, who could know the truth?

……

At this time, the weapon forging workshop was thriving, and several more blast furnaces were erected in the past few months. In order to be more efficient, Yu Zhizhuo even built two blast furnaces in the mines outside the boundary.

Although it's not within the boundary, and a new group of cultivators has to be replaced every half day, it's still better than transporting the ore over a hundred miles.

Sun Yu opened a new clinic in the new city, which already has dozens of apprentices and he plans to expand it further.

His current focus is on gunpowder formulations. However, since Ji Liuli left, he no longer has the means to simulate the properties of the substances and can only resort to the old methods, trying out new formulations and optimal proportions little by little.

Now, Sun Yu has to complete hundreds of explosions every day and record the corresponding data.

The thought of simulating material properties gave Wei Yuan a vague idea, so he spent an entire afternoon with Sun Yu, scanning all the data Sun Yu had recorded with his divine sense. Wei Yuan's review was equivalent to the review by the mortals in the Dao Foundation stage.

Before long, the official harvest season arrived, and Wei Yuan temporarily put aside his other work to focus on the harvest.

This season's harvest will be nearly 200 million catties of grain, for which Wei Yuan has already built a large number of granaries in advance. Currently, Qingming can harvest one season every two months. If we follow the standard of 400 catties of grain per person per year, it can already feed 3 million people, while the entire Qingming only has 1 million people.

However, 400 jin is only the minimum standard to ensure that people do not go hungry. Wei Yuan did not stop opening up the fields. He plans to open up 2 million mu of fields in the next season.

As the imperial decree was issued, the spiritual energy within the vast land was also gushing forth, its concentration constantly increasing, and the fertile land expanding ever larger. Then one day, Wei Yuan suddenly discovered that the mortals within were also harvesting.

Across the vast land, mortals had long since cultivated numerous fields on fertile soil. Most of these fields were planted with grains and vegetables, which, remarkably, ripened and were harvested by the mortals.

If these fields were placed in the outside world, they would be classified as spirit fields, which is why they appear to have a high yield. The dense and robust rice plants clearly indicate that the yield per mu is around 800 jin.

Ordinary people harvested grains and vegetables, and actually took them home to cook. Then, for the first time, wisps of smoke appeared in the vast land of China.

Wei Yuan focused intently on his observation, temporarily setting aside other matters.

After the mortals finished cooking, they began to eat as if they were really enjoying themselves. Wei Yuan found it very strange. He scanned the food with his divine sense and found that the food was essentially spiritual energy, the same as the stones and soil in the vast land. Yet the mortals ate earnestly, savoring the food. Some were even moved to tears, holding a bowl of white rice and sobbing uncontrollably, saying that they had never eaten anything so delicious in their lives. They vowed to dedicate their lives to cooking rice with a craftsman's spirit, and if they ever succeeded in their cultivation and ascended to immortality, they would become the 'Rice Immortal'.

Wei Yuan really wanted to strike him with lightning.

If everyone thinks like this, will there be "Steamed Fish Immortal," "Roasted Chicken Immortal," or even "Plain Water Immortal" in the future?
Putting aside those outrageous individuals, Wei Yuan suddenly noticed that the people who had eaten had actually become slightly stronger. And those who were researching cultivation methods even showed signs of body tempering!
How can this be?

Wei Yuan suddenly felt a little confused. The spiritual plants in the vast rivers and mountains were not immortal plants; they were also part of the Dao foundation, just in a different form, like a stone turning into a cauldron. The same principle applied to these mortals.

When mortals eat, their physical bodies strengthen, and the degree of strengthening exceeds that of the food they eat. Doesn't this mean that the Dao Foundation can devour itself and thus grow fat? Where does all that extra spiritual energy come from?
After reading Xu Wenwu's materials, one sentence left a deep impression on Wei Yuan: the conservation of mass-energy. Upon careful consideration, this is also one of the fundamental principles governing the operation of the world.

How did my foundation for cultivation deviate from the Great Dao? Isn't this like stepping on my right foot with my left and flying higher and higher?
Wei Yuan was genuinely flustered at this moment; deviating from the Great Dao was no small matter!

After calming down, Wei Yuan carefully scanned all the people and dishes, monitoring the source and direction of each stream of spiritual energy. Finally, he discovered that these people also possessed the ability to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and the extra spiritual energy was actually added to the mortals.

The more spiritual plants there are in the vast land, the faster it can absorb and release the primordial energy of heaven and earth to generate spiritual power. However, they are part of the foundation of the Dao, and their essence is to increase the speed at which the vast land absorbs and releases the primordial energy of heaven and earth. To put it abstractly, it means that there is only one entrance and exit.

Now, after these mortals, imbued with spirituality, have eaten, they themselves have become points capable of absorbing and exhaling the primordial energy of heaven and earth. Although insignificant compared to the vast expanse of rivers and mountains, they are relatively independent. Thus, a thousand mortals would create a thousand more points capable of absorbing and exhaling the primordial energy of heaven and earth.

After the group of mortal cultivators ate, they made progress in their physical development and were overjoyed, as if they had received a divine response from fanatics. They began to build their own activity courtyards and cultivate new fields on the surrounding fertile land.

While observing the lives of mortals, Wei Yuan also handled affairs within the realm. The harvest season was incredibly busy, and there was still a great deal of work to do after the harvest, such as processing and storing grain, re-plowing the land to prepare for the next season, cultivating new fields, clearing away rotten soil, and so on.

At this time, the mortals in the Dao Foundation followed suit and established two more research institutes, one called the "Research Institute Above Chaos" and the other the "Research Institute of Primordial Light." The names were more exaggerated than the last, but Wei Yuan really couldn't see any difference between the three research institutes, except that there were two hidden dragons and phoenixes in the Research Institute Above Chaos.

Wei Yuan didn't interfere with them and continued to attend to the affairs of the realm. At this time, the three thousand Dao soldiers from the Taichu Palace had arrived, and the Cui family of Qinghe sent another five hundred people. Together with the five hundred people selected by the realm itself, the fifth Dao Foundation Class officially began. The first lesson was to identify ores, understand the properties of the earth, and refine one's mind. Today, each person needed to refine the mind of five thousand catties of ore.

At this time, mortals made progress in their research on the properties of matter, and for the first time, the "inch-gold charcoal" reappeared in the vast land. This inch-gold charcoal was forged from spirit wood, and its flame was ten times stronger and longer-lasting than ordinary charcoal; it could even ignite a spiritual fire. It was also the main material for the new gunpowder.

The physical properties of the inch-gold charcoal are relatively simple, and Sun Yu already had detailed data on it, even drawing its structural diagram. After Wei Yuan sent this data to the vast land, mortals, after thousands of failures, finally managed to reproduce the inch-gold charcoal.

Wei Yuan was initially quite pleased, but then he saw that every member of the research team was starting fires to cook, using inch-gold charcoal. Previously, they had only used spiritual energy to start fires, just for show.

This time, real smoke rose from chimneys across the vast land.

However, the number of reproduced "inch-gold charcoal" was limited, so the research team selected a fertile plot of land nearby and began planting spirit trees. There were many kinds of spirit trees in the Wanli River Mountains, but the mortals chose the Pure Spirit Tree, and planted hundreds of them, without knowing where the saplings came from.

After careful observation, Wei Yuan finally understood. The sapling was actually the same as those objects containing the true meaning of the cauldron. Mortals had learned the ready-made true meaning of the Pure Spirit Tree and sculpted the sapling from stone. Up until this point, everything was still operating on a normal and understandable track.

However, when saplings are replanted by mortals, their true meaning changes, and they become real saplings. Their most distinctive feature is that they also possess spirituality and can independently absorb the vital energy of heaven and earth.

This is outrageous.

In the following months, Qingming completed its land reclamation, ushering in another harvest season; Qingming's fifth Dao Foundation Class concluded, and Tianqing Palace gained 180 Dao Foundation Soldiers for free. Compared to the stable development of Qingming, many more outrageous things happened in the vast land.

More and more mortals began to cultivate, and finally a genius emerged who completed the Body Forging in just a few months and was about to break through to the Dao Foundation. More than ten mortals suddenly fell ill, and Wei Yuan, not understanding the reason, was helpless. In the end, he could only watch helplessly as one of them died from his illness and returned to the Gate of All Realms.

Wei Yuan suddenly understood that of all the so-called life, death, sickness, and death, only life remained, which was a cycle.

At this moment, somewhere in the vast landscape, a joyous atmosphere filled the air. A group of people emerged from the courtyard, with a groom in the middle, heading to another place to fetch his bride.

(End of this chapter)