Longzang

Chapter 844 Accident
Liu Lan suddenly looked up and gazed into the distance. In that direction, the wind and clouds surged, and the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth were subtly altered, as if the Wu Clan were holding a grand ceremony to worship the heavens. Liu Lan then knew that the Azure Nether Dao Foundation Ceremony had begun. This round of bombardment was like a greeting gift from Wei Yuan, while the tens of thousands of Wu Clan corpses seemed more like offerings for the Dao Foundation Ceremony.

Wei Yuan stood in the air, his perspective shifting. Below, the azure sky had transformed into a vast sea of ​​clouds, within which twinkling starlight shimmered. Those were cultivators forming their Dao Foundations; once the starlight stabilized, they would be Dao Foundation cultivators.

Many starlight sources were never very strong, and inevitably faded over time. But many weak starlight sources found another way to maintain their low-brightness light, and finally embarked on the path to the Foundation of the Dao.

Wei Yuan shifted his perspective, looking at Qingming in reality. He covered the entire area with his divine sense, then flew to the mountain peak, first showering down the third round of fortune, and then activating the third round of Instantaneous Life. In the blink of an eye, the Dao foundations of over a hundred young masters and ladies gradually stabilized.

Wei Yuan observed the progress of the remaining people, then replenished their Qi and activated the fourth round of Instantaneous Life. Finally, more than ninety young masters and ladies achieved the Foundation Establishment stage. Including the group that broke through at the beginning, there were now more than three hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators in total.

Wei Yuan nodded secretly. This success rate was perfectly acceptable, and he could continue to deceive people next year... no, he could collect a reasonable service fee. In fact, if the young masters and ladies were willing to listen to advice and choose the suggested template for Dao Foundation, they could have at least a hundred more Dao Foundations, bringing the success rate to over 20%, which would be astonishing.

Unfortunately, many people, once they become wealthy, feel that they are a different species, so they look down on the template Dao foundation provided by Qingming and insist on proving their own uniqueness.

Little did they know that money had absolutely nothing to do with their genes. No matter how much immortal silver they possessed, it couldn't change their inherent qualities, especially since they didn't even have that much immortal silver.

So every year, a group of young masters and ladies would leave disappointed, no matter how many times Wei Yuan used the "Instantaneous Sentient Beings" skill. Like mud, it can't be climbed; no amount of support will help.

But from another perspective, if there are those who fail to recognize their own limitations each year, then the following year, or the year after that, there will be a group of people who have reflected and thought things through. They will eventually build their foundation, it will just take two more years and a hundred times more immortal silver than others.

In Wei Yuan's view, this is the privilege of the rich: spending more money to do the same thing.

However, there was another group of clear-headed and hardworking young masters and ladies who genuinely hoped for a miracle; otherwise, no matter how hard they tried, they would never achieve a Dao Foundation. This so-called miracle was the emergence of a new template for Dao Foundations like the Remnant Fire Sword. Wei Yuan couldn't do anything about these people, since the threshold for the Remnant Fire Sword, while low, still existed.

After dealing with the young masters and ladies first, Wei Yuan returned to the main venue. At this time, people below were gradually forming their Dao foundations, creating specks of light, each light representing a newly formed Dao foundation.

Counting the number of light spots, Wei Yuan nodded secretly. The major families had collectively sent over four thousand people; the Cui and Bao families were merely peripheral figures, so their success rate was naturally low.

However, the disciples from the Xu family, the Li family of Nanqi, and the Song and Cui families of Qinghe who came for the first time this year are obviously much better. In addition, with the sudden appearance of the Remnant Fire Sword, the success rate is frighteningly high. Wei Yuan has already seen that it is close to 20%, and it will definitely exceed 20% in the end.

The success rate of these wealthy scions, who couldn't afford large sums of money, was actually higher than that of the young masters and ladies, mainly due to the Broken Flame Sword. The young masters and ladies disliked the Broken Flame Sword because it didn't glow, had a dark and unappealing appearance, and wasn't worth considering, so almost no one chose it. However, it's believed that next year, many will come to terms with reality, although that reality may not be easy to accept.

The Taichu Palace sent 5,000 Dao soldiers. This number was less than in previous sessions, not because the Taichu Palace was weak, but because almost all those who could advance to the Dao Foundation stage had already done so, and there were simply no more candidates.

Training Dao soldiers is not something that can be accomplished overnight; it requires several years of proper training. Furthermore, the Taichu Palace doesn't need many Dao soldiers. Apart from the northern mountain gate, the other mountain gates don't need Dao soldiers at all. Therefore, of these five thousand people, more than half are those who have been here before. It must be said that their own Dao soldiers are very obedient, and coupled with the needs of combat, most of them chose the Remnant Fire Sword.

When Wei Yuan arrived, it was just the moment when the Dao soldiers below were breaking through to the next level. The newly formed Dao foundations stimulated his fellow soldiers and comrades, and as a result, many of them actually succeeded in breaking through their own limits!
The sudden appearance of points of light below made Wei Yuan momentarily dazed. The success rate was already close to 30%! It turned out that the Remnant Fire Sword had lowered the threshold a bit, and the number of Foundation Establishment cultivators had actually doubled?
There wasn't much to see from the rogue cultivators; their success rate was about the same as that of the scions and young masters of noble families. Originally, they would only have a 50% chance, but the vast majority of rogue cultivators chose the Remnant Fire Sword.

It only generates heat but doesn't emit light, making it an excellent weapon for sneak attacks in the eyes of rogue cultivators, not to mention its low barrier to entry and high power. As for whether it looks good or not, that's completely unimportant. If you've already become a rogue cultivator, why bother with some fancy Dao Foundation? Don't you want to die even faster?
Finally, there are the cultivators of Qingming themselves, totaling over 30,000 this year. Their light varies in color and is ever-changing. Qingming cultivators are different from other cultivators. Most of them do not need to go to the battlefield and have a real need to find work in Qingming. Therefore, their starting point for choosing a Dao Foundation is different.

Some obscure and seemingly weak Dao Foundations are surprisingly popular in Qingming, such as the old Daoist's Beast Taming Heavenly Heart and Sun Yu's Sterilizing and Disinfecting Gas. The Remnant Fire Sword, due to its ability to generate stable heat, became an instant hit upon its release.

This batch of Qingming cultivators, due to the improved environment and better food, generally have stronger physical qualities than before. This is reflected in an average increase in their innate bone structure, by about 10%. Wei Yuan observed from the air and concluded that the final success rate should only be slightly lower than that of the Taichu Palace Dao soldiers, probably above 20% but less than 30%.

In this way, Qingming would gain another eight thousand Dao Foundations, which Wei Yuan was quite satisfied with. Template Dao Foundations could also use flying swords and spears, and their combat power on the battlefield was far stronger than that of a fully forged body. Indeed, holding the Dao Foundation Ceremony before the arrival of the Witch Clan was the right decision.

Just as Wei Yuan was secretly pleased, suddenly the sky in front of him was filled with wind and clouds, and a large area of ​​tribulation clouds appeared, indicating that a heavenly tribulation was about to occur!

Wei Yuan was taken aback. To put it bluntly, the Dao Foundation Ceremony was a training camp for a group of useless people who would not normally become Dao Foundation cultivators. What merit did he have to make the heavens go to the trouble of striking him with lightning?
The heavenly tribulation materialized instantly, startling all the cultivators of the Primordial Palace. Zhang Sheng, who had been silently observing, appeared behind Wei Yuan, pulled him away from the venue, and indeed, the lightning within the heavenly tribulation weakened somewhat.

Wei Yuan's face was ashen, but he was helpless. With this round of heavenly tribulation descending, countless cultivators in the arena would die; how could they possibly withstand it?
The heavenly tribulation was extremely fast. Before anyone could react, nine points of lightning appeared in the tribulation clouds. Then, the nine lightning bolts merged into one, transforming into a thin, bright blue pillar of light that fell down!

Looking at the thin yet dazzling pillar of light containing boundless lightning power, Wei Yuan was suddenly filled with emotion. This was the heavenly tribulation he had always dreamed of! It was a pity that he had never encountered it, so much so that the lightning rod he had spent a lot of money to build was used by someone else.

Just as the lightning pillar was about to hit the ground, a girl suddenly leaped up from below and crashed headfirst into it!

Then a faint, seemingly world-destroying sword light appeared, and the girl, carrying a heavy sword larger than her own body, annihilated the tribulation lightning with a single strike!
This sword strike was incredibly powerful and domineering, completely unreasonable, and even bore some resemblance to the strongest killing move of the Eternal Sword, the Annihilation of the Four Barbarians.

The heavenly tribulation dissipated, but the girl was still covered in lightning. A massive amount of primordial energy from heaven and earth came from the void, causing the giant sword in her hand to materialize.

The area where the girl was located was the area of ​​newly recruited Dao soldiers in Qingming's own Dao Soldier Hall. Most of them were the young men and women of the Xu family from back then, and a small part were high-level sacrifices and their descendants.

At this moment, after the girl survived the heavenly tribulation, the overflowing spiritual energy of heaven and earth was absorbed by these Azure Netherworld Dao Soldiers, and one after another, the light of the Dao Foundations shone brightly, like an ocean of light!
(End of this chapter)