Longzang

Chapter 465 Academy
As evening fell, Wei Yuan came to Zhang Sheng's courtyard again and saw that she was still fast asleep.

However, there was a piece of jade paper on the table. Wei Yuan picked it up and looked at it, and knew that Zhang Sheng had already gotten up and moved around, but perhaps he was too tired and had gone back to sleep.

Thinking of last night's madness, Wei Yuan felt somewhat guilty. Moreover, Zhang Sheng had just reshaped his Dao body, and the next stage was a crucial time for cultivation. Indulging in pleasure would definitely affect his cultivation.

Wei Yuan quietly left the room, letting Zhang Sheng get some rest.

For the next few days, Zhang Sheng basically stayed indoors except for her regular cultivation practice, spending her time either reading or sleeping. Wei Yuan noticed that although she slept a lot, she still seemed quite tired, so he felt guilty and dared not bother her any longer, deciding to let Zhang Sheng rest for a while.

Moreover, Qingming is now facing an increasing number of internal and external affairs. The imperial edict to merge Ningxi County into Qingming has been issued, and all officials of the former Ningxi County, except those to be reassigned by the imperial court, will be merged into Qingming.

Wei Yuan now needs to send people to take over local government offices, and the selection of personnel alone is causing him a great deal of trouble.

In addition, another important matter was put on the agenda. On this day, someone announced that Li Zhi was coming to visit. Wei Yuan personally went to greet him and then led Li Zhi to the council hall on the main peak.

Several cultivators from the Taichu Palace were already seated in the council hall. Apart from Bao Yun and Cui Yu, who had other important matters to attend to, everyone else was present.

After arranging for Li Zhi to sit down, Wei Yuan addressed the assembled cultivators, saying, "Today, I have a very important matter to discuss with you all, namely the establishment of the Qingming Academy. Initially, I plan to set up one Qingming Academy in each city, along with several auxiliary schools. The schools will be responsible for basic literacy, while the academies will be places for teaching classic historical texts, state affairs, and military strategy."

The cultivators had long known that Wei Yuan wanted to enlighten the mortals within the realm, so establishing an academy was a logical and beneficial plan, and naturally no one objected. However, the question of where the academy's teachers would come from was a major one.

Currently, the people in Qingming are quite good at cultivating themselves, but they have absolutely no interest in teaching others, especially ordinary people who lack both talent and fortune. The cultivation methods taught by Old Daoist Chuhe and others in the new city are only for Xu family youths or high-level sacrificial offerings who have some talent. Asking them to teach a group of ordinary people who can't even forge a Great Bright Demon-Subduing Sword in their entire lives is worse than killing them.

At this moment, Li Zhi said, "I have someone who is qualified to serve as the Dean of Qingming Academy. This person's surname is Cai, given name Shizhi, he is a great Confucian scholar of our time, and also one of my seniors at the academy. Mr. Cai is particularly fond of enlightening the people, and before he is even a hundred years old, he already has students all over the world, with more than three thousand disciples currently enrolled."

I had already discussed this matter with Mr. Cai before this trip, and he readily agreed, offering to lead a hundred disciples to contribute to the spread of the sage's teachings in Qingming.

The Four Saints Academy is more suitable for teaching and nurturing students. The people of Taichu Palace are all free spirits and unwilling to associate with fools. So the matter was settled. After Li Zhi returned, he invited Mr. Cai to take up his post. Meanwhile, Wei Yuan was to select sites in several cities to establish Qingming Academy.

Once the matter was settled, the cultivators of Taichu Palace all left to attend to their own business. Only Feng Tingyu stayed behind, intending to rummage around Wei Yuan's place to see if there was anything good to eat.

Li Zhi glanced deeply at the departing figures of the crowd before walking out of the council hall side by side with Wei Yuan. He then said, "Who was that woman in the paper robe just now? I don't think I've ever seen her before."

Wei Yuan said, "That's my teacher, Zhang Sheng."

"Your teacher? But judging from her aura, her cultivation level doesn't seem to have reached the Dao Foundation stage yet? But her imposing presence is truly rare in the world!"

"Teacher has just recovered from serious injuries and his body has been reshaped. Everything needs to start all over again."

Li Zhi understood and comforted him, "As long as the Dao body can be rebuilt, there's no major problem as long as the Dao heart is alright. The reconstruction process will be much faster."

Wei Yuan couldn't say that Zhang Sheng's Dao heart was also in trouble, so he glossed over it. Li Zhi didn't linger, not even spending the night in Qingming, and went straight back to fetch Cai Shizhi.

As Li Zhi's flying boat departed, Tianyu emerged from the night beside Wei Yuan and said softly, "I remember giving you a communication artifact."

Wei Yuan gave an awkward smile and said, "The signal is bad here."

"Is the signal bad? Then why did my whole family collapse?"

Wei Yuan was taken aback and immediately examined the mortal's offerings, only then realizing that the problem lay in the prayer thanking Tianyu's entire family. This prayer was purely the work of the mortal presiding over the sacrificial ceremony, who had added it on his own initiative and inadvertently knocked Tianyu's entire family down.

"Are your family members alright?" Wei Yuan quickly asked to comfort them.

Tianyu snorted heavily and said, "We Liwu are not so easily defeated! Nor are we so easily injured, as long as we stop praying."

Wei Yuan immediately ordered that the number of people attending the next prayer should be halved, and that no one should increase the number of people or expand the scope of worship without authorization.

Tianyu's eyes were deep as he said, "Since you're in such a hurry to find me, you'd better have a plausible reason!"

Wei Yuan then led Tianyu to the reception room, asked him to sit down, and then went to get an extremely luxuriously decorated box. He came to Tianyu and said, "I got some good stuff. Take a look."

When Tianyu opened the box, he saw three rubies inside. The sweet, rotten smell instantly made his blood boil!
Tianyu exclaimed in shock: "True blood! The true blood of the Thousand-Year Imperial Realm!"

"How does it compare to the flesh and blood of the True Lord last time?" "It's not even in the same league! This can be used for the highest-level sacrifice! It's a pity, if only there were more."

Tianyu finally managed to tear her gaze away from the true blood, but then she saw Wei Yuan's ambiguous smile and said, "You have even more!?"

Wei Yuan said, "We can have a little more."

Tianyu's expression shifted rapidly, but he finally gritted his teeth and said, "If there are fifteen drops of this true blood in total, then I can give you double the price!"

Tianyu's words were truly unexpected for Wei Yuan, who asked, "Why does the price double if you have enough for fifteen drops?"

Tianyu hesitated for a moment and said, "This is a core secret of our clan. Don't feel awkward about hearing it."

"No, you say."

Tianyu said, "When the amount of true blood reaches a certain level, a higher-level sacrifice can be initiated. If it is combined with enough auxiliary offerings, heaven and earth will automatically collect a portion of the power of the original owner of the true blood, thereby raising the sacrifice effect to a higher level."

Wei Yuan feigned sudden realization and said, "Then isn't doubling the price too little?"

Tianyu also seemed somewhat troubled, saying, "Indeed, we should add more, but this level of exchange is beyond my control; it requires the decision of the tribe's elders."

Wei Yuan smiled and said, "Be confident, the elders will definitely agree. In the Desolate Ancestor Tribe, I only recognize you, so you can be more open and bold. Oh, by the way, there will be many more Jin later, a lot more, and the Desolate Ancestor Tribe may not be able to handle them all. You can start preparing to expand your channels to other tribes."

Tianyu struggled greatly, saying, "Our two clans were originally enemies, but now we're doing business together..."

Wei Yuan laughed and said, "Didn't we do business before? We do business when there's business to do, and we fight when it's time to fight. Don't think too much about it."

Tianyu barely managed to convince himself and asked, "Is there anything you want? This true blood is enough to open the tribe's treasury and can be exchanged for things that we can't usually get."

What options are available?

Tianyu knew a little about Wei Yuan's preferences, so she said, "There are two other types of immortal plants: Soul Necklace and several rare refining materials from beyond the heavens. A set of four top-grade sacrificial animals."

"Can we have both?"

"How is that possible? Unless you have a more crucial part of your body than real blood."

Upon hearing this, Wei Yuan immediately recalled the day the girl Yin Yang had taken back an eye. However, she had taken that eye, and its whereabouts were unknown. If this eye were added, they should be able to get back everything Tian Yu had mentioned.

Wei Yuan then used his divine sense to inquire about the whereabouts of the eye from that day from the girl Yin Yang. The girl Yin Yang replied that she did not know what eye there had ever been.

Wei Yuan was stunned. He had personally witnessed the girl pluck an eyeball back with a single strike of her Yin-Yang Sword that day, and the true blood had fallen from the eyeball. For this, Wei Yuan owed Yue Zhongying a huge debt of luck, and he didn't know when he would be able to repay it.

When Wei Yuan asked again, the girl Yin Yang was completely unresponsive, as if she had exhausted her luck and didn't even have the strength to give a response.

Helpless, Wei Yuan could only exchange fifteen drops of true blood for a celestial plant and a set of top-grade sacrificial animals with Tianyu.

In fact, immortal plants not only accelerate Wei Yuan's absorption of spiritual energy, but they are also important nodes in the human world's affairs. It can be said that every additional immortal plant, even one as basic as the immortal orchid, can significantly improve the speed of human world affairs processing.

Soul Necklace is the main ingredient of Kunyuan Longevity Pill. It goes without saying how much benefit this ancient formula immortal pill-level longevity pill will bring once it is refined.

As for top-grade refining materials, they are a form of hard currency among powerful cultivators, far more useful than immortal silver. Therefore, Wei Yuan actually wanted all the conditions offered by Tianyu, but unfortunately, the girl feigned ignorance.

Tianyu has come to discuss the details of the transaction; the actual deal will only be completed after he returns and leads the caravan back to Qingming. Wei Yuan also needs time to organize another batch of new brocade.

Wei Yuan is now buying large quantities of silk and Ning brocade, causing both silk and brocade prices to rise, but silk prices are rising more.

Amidst the everyday hustle and bustle of life, Zhang Sheng, after several days of diligent study, finally grasped the basics of this new method for designing magic arrays. The portion involving mathematical calculations was exceptionally large, while the content related to Yin and Yang and the Five Elements was considerably less.

Zhang Sheng closed the documents in front of her. She had almost finished studying the books, but there were still a few books whose titles indicated they were quite profound. However, these were beyond her scope of knowledge, so she couldn't read them yet.

Zhang Sheng turned his head slightly, and from this angle, he could see Cui Yu. Cui Yu had been engrossed in his work since entering, but strangely, although he could see Zhang Sheng from his angle when he came in, Cui Yu seemed oblivious. Zhang Sheng pondered this: was Cui Yu's vision blocked, or was his spiritual sense being suppressed?
(End of this chapter)