Longzang

Chapter 839 Comparison

Wei Yuan's deduction of the third track was not going smoothly. He was repeatedly interrupted by important official business, and when he saw these official business, he couldn't stop smiling, and his Dao heart wavered.

As the first batch of research funding was disbursed, projects began to be submitted one after another. Of the more than forty projects submitted, half were related to various types of template foundations, which suited Wei Yuan's wishes perfectly.

It seems that those who can become academicians are not ordinary people, especially those academicians outside of Taichu Palace. The projects they submit are either new template Dao foundations or in-depth exploration of template Dao foundations. Only one submitted a project on pills, which can increase the breakthrough probability of all wood element template Dao foundations.

One of the submissions caught Wei Yuan's eye. This project involved determining a suitable Dao Foundation template for Body Forging cultivators through resume review and questionnaires. The questionnaire contained hundreds of questions, many of which seemed unrelated to cultivation but actually revealed inner character.

According to this person's research, a person's personality has a significant impact on the success rate of cultivating a Dao foundation. Cultivating a Dao foundation that matches one's personality can increase the success rate by 10% to 30%. After defining the range of template Dao foundations through questionnaires, a suitable template Dao foundation can be found by testing the physical constitution and innate qualities through a specific array.

This project itself has extremely low cost and is particularly suitable for large-scale use.

In the previous Foundation Establishment Ceremony, each Body Forging cultivator mainly chose their own foundation, with the instructors only providing guidance. After the ceremony began, Wei Yuan was already too busy adding Qi and activating the Instantaneous Beings to provide on-site guidance.

To this end, Qingming mobilized over a thousand cultivators for on-site guidance, yet things remained chaotic. Many only realized at the last moment that their chosen Dao foundation was unsuitable, ultimately leading to regrettable failure. They wasted their immortal silver, as well as Wei Yuan's fortune and Qingming's nurturing efforts.

With this project, the chances of Body Forging cultivators being able to choose their own Dao Foundation will be greatly increased by the Azure Netherworld, instead of being able to choose their own.

Just then, the Foundation Establishment Ceremony had not yet been held this year, so Wei Yuan immediately approved the project, allowing the Human Fireworks to be improved, and then testing the participating cultivators before the Foundation Establishment Ceremony.

Among the newly submitted template foundations, Xiao Yu's Guixu Yinyun Silent Longevity Remnant Fire Sword stood out from the crowd. This template is more powerful than the Great Bright Demon Subduing Sword, has a lower threshold than the Bright Light Sword, and only generates heat without emitting light. It has a wide range of uses, concentrated power, and highly efficient use of spiritual energy. In Wei Yuan's eyes, it has almost no flaws.

The two top academicians lived up to expectations. Master Chuhe submitted a comprehensive plan to improve spirit rice, encompassing over thirty varieties, from the refined rice eaten by mortals to the pearl rice reserved for the immortal chickens. Ever since the immortal chickens settled in the herb garden, the old Taoist had been obsessed with spirit rice. Once these improvements were completed, the yield per unit of spirit rice would increase by 10% to 50%, further exacerbating Qingming's food crisis.

Qingming is indeed facing a food crisis in some sense. With a population of 30 million, Qingming only needs 10 million mu (approximately 6.67 hectares) of land for the most basic farming method of six harvests a year with one fallow season.

However, the Chuhe Zhenren has spared no effort in developing the land over the years, and the refugees are also extremely enthusiastic about opening up the fields. As a result, Qingming has now opened up 30 million mu of land, and with the continuous increase in yield per mu, it can now fully support 100 million mortals.

The problem lies here: there's simply too much grain, so much that it can't even be converted into guinea pig meat. The mortals of the Azure Netherworld have only been eating meat for less than three years, and many already feel nauseous at the sight of guinea pig meat.

At this point, a new problem arose: the surrounding area simply couldn't consume all that food!
Under the impact of cheap grain from Qingming, grain farmers in the eight prefectures of Ningxi were starving, while the price of silk and cotton remained high. As a result, they switched to planting mulberry trees, cotton, and hemp, and the amount of grain fields was less than one-third of what it used to be.

Even so, the amount of grain that the eight prefectures could absorb was a drop in the ocean, and even with the grain transported from the Biyue region to the Zhao state, it was still far from enough to consume all of it.

Later, some craftsmen invented canned food, packaged in individual tin barrels, each weighing two to three hundred pounds. This allowed the food to be preserved for several years, finally solving the problems of preservation and transportation.

With improved grain varieties, it's easy to imagine that the grain yield would be overflowing. However, this was indeed a major undertaking to strengthen the foundation of Qingming, and Wei Yuan naturally wanted to fully support it. So, with a stroke of his pen, Wei Yuan directly allocated 100,000 Qingyuan for the old Taoist's initial use.

Then there's the project submitted by Feng Tingyu: Template Foundation System Iterative Improvement Plan. The name of this plan is clearly the work of a master; it certainly wasn't originally called that.

The project is quite simple: minor repairs and improvements to the current template-based Dao Foundation, with a roadmap for further iterative improvements. The project requires a large number of cultivators at the peak of Body Forging to conduct experiments, record data, and verify hypotheses. Project funding mainly covers recruiting experimental cultivators and subsidizing their participation in the Dao Foundation Ceremony.

Although they were all minor repairs, the problem was that there were a lot of them, more than 700 improvements, requiring the recruitment of more than 2,000 cultivators. At 300 green coins per person, the funding application reached more than 600,000. From the scale of the project to the use of funds, it fully demonstrated the weight of the first academician!
In comparison, Ji Liuli's project application for funding was only 50,000 yuan, which paled in comparison.

Seeing this project, Wei Yuan could almost imagine how Feng Tingyu had come up with it. She must have used every part of her body at once, thinking of a few things here and a few more there, doing more work for those with more body parts and less work for those with less body parts, and in the end, she created such a huge and complicated project, which is very much like Feng Tingyu.

Seeing these projects, Wei Yuan was naturally delighted. So he sent invitations to all the halls of Taichu Palace and all the noble families he was close to, and at the same time began to recruit cultivators from the independent cultivators to participate in the ceremony.

Despite the overwhelming force of the Wu Clan army, the allure of the Dao path compels countless cultivators to flock to Qingming, with hundreds arriving every day.

Just then, Feng Chutang finally had his confinement lifted, left the Northern Mountain Gate, and returned to Qingming. Wei Yuan was naturally overjoyed at Master Feng's return, so he prepared a banquet to welcome him back. As the banquet began, Xiao Yu arrived uninvited, and Wei Yuan warmly welcomed her and invited her to take a seat. They were all Feng Chutang's disciples, so it was only right that they entertain their teacher.

However, after Xiaoyu took her seat, the atmosphere became a bit strange. As the two were talking, Feng Chutang suddenly said that he wanted to test Xiaoyu's cultivation. Then, a cold killing intent flashed in his eyes and shot straight at Xiaoyu's brow!

Above Xiaoyu's head rose a miniature sun, only the size of a water basin. Standing before the sun was the Lesser Yang Star Lord, less than three inches tall, who annihilated the frost with a single sword strike.

Feng Chutang sat motionless, a dark dragon appearing above his head, its coiled body larger than the red sun. Around the dragon were broken walls and ruins, filled with the true meaning of the netherworld and the return to stillness.

Both were in the main hall of Wei Yuan's residence, and their magical forms were kept extremely small. This kind of magical duel has its rules; generally, the form is controlled to one-thirty-sixth of its normal size, and sometimes one-seventy-second, to conform to the numbers of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Fiends.

The Nether Dragon's rank is equivalent to that of the Great Sun, and its Netherworld Return to Stillness True Meaning is only slightly inferior to that of the Lesser Yang Star Lord, but its area is much larger. If both of them had the same level of cultivation, the Lesser Yang Star Lord would have a better chance of winning. However, Feng Chutang's cultivation is much deeper than Xiaoyu's right now, and he is about to enter the Heart Realm. If they fight now, Xiaoyu will have no chance of winning.

The two suddenly attacked right in front of Wei Yuan, startling him. He then keenly sensed a third spiritual force in the room, though it was extremely hidden and obscure, almost undetectable even within the Peerless Dao Domain.

A gust of wind suddenly arose within Feng Chutang's ruined Dharma image, and the Nether Dragon raised its head, gazing towards the corner.

The place, which had been empty, now, under the gaze of the Nether Dragon, outlined a slender figure. Bao Yun bowed and said, "Greetings, Master! Please don't be offended, Master. I simply wanted to test your new Dharma form. Does this Dharma form possess the ability to see through illusions?"

Feng Chutang said, "It's not about seeing through illusions, but about sensing hostility. There's no need to harbor murderous intent; as long as there's a thought of being hostile to me, the Nether Dragon will sense it."

Wei Yuan quickly got up and called to Bao Yun, saying, "You've come at the perfect time, eat it while it's hot!"

Otherwise, as soon as Feng Chutang returned to Qingming, Bao Yun and Xiao Yu would come over to challenge him, showing no respect for their senior. That wouldn't be good.

However, according to the rules of the cultivation world, those with the same major cultivation level within a hundred years are considered a generation, hence the saying "a generation is every hundred years." According to this tradition, Feng Chutang, Zhang Sheng, and Wei Yuanbao should actually be considered a generation.

Feng Chutang didn't seem to mind, and chuckled, saying, "The younger generation is truly formidable. In a few years, I won't be able to beat Bao'er anymore."

Bao Yun said, "Even a thousand years from now, I will still be your student."

Feng Chutang laughed and said, "With a student like you, all the teachers in the world would envy me."

His laughter subsided, and he turned to Wei Yuan, saying seriously, "I rushed back this time for two reasons. First, I heard that the Dao Foundation Ceremony is about to begin again, so I specially designed several template Dao Foundations and asked my father to revise them. They can be added to the template library for everyone to choose from."

This is great news, and Wei Yuan quickly expressed his gratitude. The template modified by True Lord Feng Yuan must be extraordinary.

Then Feng Chutang said seriously, "The second thing is, has there been any addition to your academician list?"

Supplement? Wei Yuan was completely confused. They had only just been selected, and the novelty hadn't even worn off after three months. Why were they already supplementing?
Wei Yuan caught a glimpse of Bao Yun out of the corner of his eye. Seeing her intently staring at him, he understood and asked, "You also want to ask about the supplements?"

Bao Yun immediately nodded: "I only went into seclusion for a short while. After I came out, not only were two academies established, but even all the academicians were selected? You don't want to play with me anymore, do you? Men really are like that, once they..."

Wei Yuan quickly interrupted her: "How about we establish a few honorary academicians, one for each of you?"

Bao Yun and Feng Chutang shook their heads at the same time: "No!"

(End of this chapter)