Longzang

Chapter 632 Initial results
Wei Yuan casually conjured a scabbard and placed the demonic blade inside. The demonic blade seemed extremely unwilling, but dared not disobey, and could only obediently go into its sheath. Seeing that the demonic blade was compliant, Wei Yuan gave it a wisp of azure luck, which unexpectedly was swallowed by the blade.

"Thank you, my lord, but... it's not enough."

Wei Yuan then waved his hand, bestowing upon it a thousand strands of azure fortune. The demonic blade was overjoyed, even emitting an excited buzzing sound. After Wei Yuan inquired in detail, he had a general idea of ​​what was going on.

After Lei Dong obtained the fortune, his cultivation level broke through from the early stage of the Dharma Aspect realm to the late stage in just three years. Then, many great witches suspected that he had encountered a fortuitous event and became greedy, wanting to compete for it. As a result, they did not get the opportunity, but instead became stepping stones on Lei Dong's path to enlightenment, and their own savings became the foundation of Lei Dong's storage bag.

Lei Dong quickly rose to power, gaining the support of all the Youwu. His first act upon taking power was to settle old scores, dragging out all those who had looked down on him in the past and trampling on them repeatedly, especially those he harbored deep resentment towards. His second act was to expand his harem. He first filled the harem with beautiful witches he had known, interacted with, or heard about in his early years, and then gradually selected from various regions.

Lei Dong is still busy expanding his harem, let alone improving the environment and the shamanic lifestyle. As a result, obtaining the shamanic fortune is even more difficult.

Wei Yuan estimated that Lei Dong would likely only gain the fortune of a few Netherworld Witches who followed him, with the rest being scattered bits of luck. As for his subordinates and cronies, how many of them were truly loyal? Wei Yuan thought that if Lei Dong could obtain ten scattered bits of luck, that would be quite remarkable.

So, following Lei Dong, the Demon Blade had barely eaten anything in the past few years, and was so hungry that the thousand-plus people scattered their luck and excited the immortal weapon.

Wei Yuan then said, "If you follow me well, you'll have plenty of luck. But if you want to eat well, that depends on your own performance."

Demon Blade hurriedly replied, "I have no other way to share my lord's worries but killing..."

It suddenly stopped talking, which puzzled Wei Yuan, so he asked, "Why did you stop talking?"

Demon Blade said, "That day I saw that my lord had a celestial weapon in his hand, which was of extremely high quality and not much inferior to mine. She is just spiritually ignorant. Once she awakens her spirituality, she will also be a celestial weapon."

Wei Yuan hadn't expected the Demon Blade to have such a high opinion of the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword. He usually found the sword to be just so-so, because it was a rapier and a longsword, and its power was somewhat reduced when wielding the Eternal Autumn Sword. So Wei Yuan now just casually forged a giant sword, which, although it would shatter in one move, was still more convenient to use than the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword.

Wei Yuan, carrying the demonic sword, walked to the outer hall and saw Lei Dong sitting uneasily. Upon seeing Wei Yuan, Lei Dong jumped to his feet, his face contorted, wanting to fight desperately but daring not to.

When Lei Dong saw the demonic sword sheathed and hanging on Wei Yuan's waist, he was struck dumb. He felt as if he had suddenly seen his long-time, high-and-mighty goddess being humbled and humiliated in front of other male shamans, and had to smile and say that she was being bullied.

He was momentarily distraught, feeling that the world was no longer the way he had imagined it to be. The world had abandoned him.

Wei Yuan casually patted Lei Dong's shoulder, pressed him back into his seat, then returned to his seat at the head of the table and asked calmly, "What are your plans for the future?"

Lei Dong stiffened his neck and said, "Kill me or torture me..."

Wei Yuan interrupted him: "Want to die? Fine. Guards!"

"No, I don't want to die!" Lei Dong exclaimed in shock.

Wei Yuan nodded and said, "That makes more sense. You still have a little bit of luck left, but if you use it well, it can still be of some use. When you go back this time, you will continue to be the Lord of Thunder Swamp, but now that most of your luck has been dissipated and the Demon Blade has submitted to me, you actually have no trump cards left and cannot suppress those Nether Witches."

Lei Dong's face turned pale; this was exactly what he had been worried about: "What should we do?"

"This is the effect of residual luck; those ghost witches shouldn't suspect you for now. You need to hurry and get these things done. First, send over a file on all the ghost witches, the more detailed the better. I need to study how to control them. This is for your own good."

Secondly, inventory and collect all the resources of the entire Thunder Swamp region, and send a list along with the tribal treasure troves. Thirdly, continue to expand your harem and maintain your pleasures; you could even go a step further and have more children with the descendants of those ghost witches.”

Lei Dong was both surprised and delighted: "Expanding the harem? Is that really possible?"

Wei Yuan said solemnly, "This is a major matter! You must handle it seriously!"

Wei Yuan then gave detailed instructions and assigned a bunch of tasks, mainly three: trade, intelligence gathering, and providing food, drink, and entertainment. Lei Dong assured him that he would handle them without any pressure.

Lei Dong was sent back, and from then on, all trade of the Lei Ze tribe belonged to Qing Ming, and the Xu family's westward trade route was cut off again.

At this point, arrangements were nearly complete at the Red Sand Oasis. Wei Yuan had arranged for 80,000 sacrificial participants, aged eight to twenty, to return to Qingming. Among these participants, 20,000 had reached the Bone Forging stage in Body Casting, and 4,000 had reached Perfection. It was estimated that several hundred more Foundation Establishment cultivators would emerge from this group.

These sacrificial practitioners, however, cultivate the special techniques assigned to them by the witch clan from a young age, and the Dao foundation they cultivate is mostly a strange fruit seedling. It is said that the taste of this fruit is particularly favored by the ancestral witches, and using this Dao foundation to offer sacrifices to the heavens will have an exceptionally good effect; the sacrificial power generated by one offering is equivalent to that of more than a dozen other offerings.

Wei Yuan returned to Qingming ahead of schedule, leaving the large group of human sacrifices to follow slowly behind. By this time, the two million mu of newly cultivated fertile land in Qingming had been completed, bringing the total to eight million mu. The average yield per mu was over two hundred jin, which was enough to support more than twenty million people.

Upon returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan felt like a fish in water, his mind and body filled with joy. He reviewed the data on the flow of all resources in and out of Qingming during this period and felt that the time was ripe to move on to the next step of the plan.

There are now dozens of merchant caravans in Qingming, mostly transporting silk here and taking grain back. Now they have another commodity to offer: brocade.

After more than a month of adjustments, the fifty workshops are now in stable production, with a monthly output of 500,000 bolts of brocade.

Therefore, Wei Yuan began to open the sale of brocade to various merchant caravans, with a fixed price of five taels of silver. Now, in the eight prefectures of Ningzhou, a brocade-producing area, the price of brocade has risen to more than eight taels, and the difference in price is the profit of each merchant caravan.

This time, Wei Yuan didn't offer small-batch purchases, but instead allowed caravans to buy them openly. Out of caution, the caravans collectively purchased 200,000 horses.

Subsequently, Wei Yuan announced an increase in the purchase price of raw silk. At this price, the silk alone would cost more than three taels of silver for a single bolt of brocade. As soon as this price was announced, the various merchant caravans immediately relayed the news and began to buy silk in large quantities again, fearing that Wei Yuan might change his mind.

At this time, the price of mulberry seedlings had increased dozens of times, and the supply still could not meet the demand. The reason why more grain was not being converted to mulberry cultivation was actually because there were not enough mulberry seedlings. Wei Yuan was not in a hurry, and immediately implemented the next step of the plan: to begin restricting the amount of grain transported out of Qingming.

Although the quota is very lenient, and it hasn't even been reached yet, as soon as the news was released, the grain prices in the eight counties of Yunzhou immediately rose by 50% in the blink of an eye.

However, while grain prices rose, silk prices increased eightfold. As a result, local gentry and landlords did not hesitate to switch to planting grain as soon as they had mulberry seedlings.

Just then, the mulberry seedlings that Wei Yuan had ordered from Jianmu Palace arrived. The high-ranking cultivators of the Jianmu Palace, all of whom were of the wood element, had almost forgotten how long it had been since they had dealt with ordinary wood. However, out of respect for True Monarch Huang Yun, five cultivators worked together, specially clearing 500 acres of spiritual fields. In just one month, they cultivated millions of mulberry seedlings, enough to convert 500,000 acres of farmland into mulberry trees.

The person who delivered the mulberry seedlings from Jianmu Hall was a Dharma Aspect cultivator. He refused Wei Yuan's money, saying it was just a small favor. As long as Wei Yuan took good care of the spiritual tree growing from the spot where True Monarch Huangyun passed away, that would be enough.

Wei Yuan was naturally grateful and then announced a new measure: for every brocade purchased, a certain number of mulberry seedlings would be given away. As soon as this measure was announced, Qingming's inventory of nearly a million bolts of brocade was instantly sold out, even the brocade that was originally intended for the Huangzu tribe was taken away.

Wei Yuan's strategy has now begun to show results, and the next step is to reap the rewards of the entire brocade industry.

(End of this chapter)