Dragon Canon

At the cost of consuming the nurturing essence accumulated within Qingming, Life is a Flash forcefully elevated a cultivator’s cultivation level. Those in the pinnacle of the Body-tempering Stage would advance to the Dao Foundation stage and gain a temporary Dao Foundation. When it deactivated, everything would revert to its original state.

This was why Wei Yuan had always treated Life is a Flash as a strategic weapon. Moreover, given the vast disparity in strength between friend and foe, activating it just once was far from sufficient. That was why he had no choice but to intensify training and activate it several times a day to help everyone get used to it.

But for those who had reached the peak of the Body-tempering stage, the repeated simulations of Dao Foundation allowed them to foresee in advance what kind of Dao Foundation they would create. The more times they practiced, the more proficient they became, and the greater their chances of a breakthrough. Even if they originally only had a sliver of hope of making a breakthrough, being able to repeatedly test out their temporary Dao Foundations had greatly improved their odds.

To begin with, the realm of Qingming was teeming with vitality and spirit qi. The immortal stone’s very existence was also like a blessing of fortune. Thus, once the battle was over, and everyone’s state of mind shifted, a breakthrough opportunity had descended upon all these cultivators.

Finally, Wei Yuan had further bestowed the blessing of Jia Wood Nurtures Life upon them, allowing several who were on the verge of failure due to insufficient spirit qi to successfully establish their Dao Foundations. In the end, out of the hundred who attempted a breakthrough, over ninety of them had succeeded.

Although only three had achieved Earth-tier Dao Foundations—the rest of them had only forged Human-tier Dao Foundations—everyone was still overjoyed. After all, the assessment reports had clearly stated that fewer than twenty of these one hundred were expected to establish a Dao Foundation.

Once all the breakthroughs were complete, Wei Yuan ordered Yun Feifei and Xu Wan’er to tutor the newly ascended cultivators on how to stabilize their realm. Then, he returned to the central peak with Cui Yu to discuss this matter.

The worldly origin qi fluctuations caused by a hundred cultivators breaking through to the Dao Foundation stage at once could not be hidden from the cultivators of the Palace of Absolute Beginning as a matter of course. Wei Yuan briefly outlined the sequence of events and his own theories before waiting for the others to present their opinions.

Sun Yu grabbed the assessment reports on these one hundred individuals and read them carefully. When he was done, he said, “I recognize two faces among these reports. Normally speaking, it should be virtually impossible for them to establish a Dao Foundation because their Dao energy is lacking, and their control is poor. They did not meet the basic requirements for establishing a Dao Foundation. However, Life is a Flash allows one to experience their Dao Foundation in advance, effectively illuminating the path ahead. This leaves only the issue of insufficient Dao energy. Originally in my view, only two or three among the one hundred Body-tempering cultivators could have forged a Dao Foundation. But now, thanks to Life is a Flash, perhaps one in ten might succeed.”

Everyone was taken aback by Sun Yu’s conclusion. The realm had over 100,000 mortals before the battle. Nearly 20,000 had tempered their bodies, but only 300 or so had entered the Dao Foundation stage. If what Sun Yu said was true, then in the future, the same amount of Body-tempering cultivators could potentially produce 2,000 Dao Foundation stage cultivators. When the time came, Dao Foundations would truly become devalued.

Xiao Yu frowned and offered a rebuttal, “But the Dao Foundations that are forged this way are trash with no potential for further advancement. What good are they really?”

Sun Yu replied, “You forget that most of these people would never have been able to forge a Dao Foundation in the first place. Even a Human-tier Dao Foundation is a huge windfall for them. Disregarding all the other benefits, a Human-tier Dao Foundation stage cultivator could live a hundred and fifty years at least. How much do you think that extra lifespan is worth?”

An idea occurred to Cui Yu, and he said, “There are still quite a few good-for-nothings in my clan who are unable to establish a Dao Foundation. It’s not that their families have not provided them with ample resources, they’re just too dull and unwilling to put in the effort. Why don’t I call a few of them over to give it a try?”

An idea also occurred to Wei Yuan. He summoned a few wisps of blue qi from his palm and said, “I have some spare fortune that I can bestow upon them. It should increase their chances by a few percentage points.”

Cui Yu immediately added, “The Cui Clan possesses many secret methods, two of which can draw upon one’s future potential to improve one’s chances of establishing a Dao Foundation. These fellows have little potential anyway, so why not have them switch to these methods? Let them exhaust their future potential to boost their chances—it might even raise the odds by another twenty percent.”

Wei Yuan looked at Sun Yu and asked, “If we’re considering only the present, I seem to recall a few potent elixirs that can boost one’s breakthrough chance at the cost of slightly damaging one’s Dao Foundation. Am I right, Senior Uncle Sun?”

Sun Yu grunted and replied reluctantly, “You are. The Heaven Stealing Pill, Myriad Spirits Powder, and Molten Fire Pill all boast similar effects at the cost of damaging one’s Dao Foundation. I just have one question: don’t you feel a pang of conscience using them this way?”

Wei Yuan didn’t feel this way at all. Also, he thought that Sun Yu, a cultivator whose Dao Foundation was packed to the brim with deadly poison did not have any conscience either. Even if he did possess one, it would surely be poisonous.

Having said all that, Cui Yu remarked, “It would be even better if we could help them grasp the fundamental principles of the workings of Heaven and Earth.”

Xiao Yu couldn’t take this any longer. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just hand each of them an immortal sword, huh?!”

An idea suddenly occurred to Wei Yuan. It wasn’t fully formed yet, so he decided to withhold it for the moment and take his time thinking it through.

Seeing Xiao Yu’s anger, Cui Yu let out a friendly chuckle and set aside his flights of fancy. He then turned serious and said, “I can think of at least a dozen people who fit the bill off the top of my head, and half of them live not too far from here. I’ll write a letter right now; the first batch should arrive in seven days. When the time comes, we can simply assign them to the military ranks for joint training.”

Wei Yuan said meaningfully, “I’ll be imbuing them with fortune—it’s not a cheap investment!”

Cui Yu understood his meaning immediately. “Don’t worry. They may be incompetent, but their families are rich!”

“How much should we charge then?”

Cui Yu pondered for a moment before answering, “I think we should let them owe us a favor first!”

Seeing Wei Yuan and Cui Yu discussing the matter with such seriousness, Xiao Yu set aside his bias and started thinking it over seriously. The more he thought, the deeper his brow furrowed.

After the matter was settled, Wei Yuan turned to Sun Yu and said, “Senior Uncle Sun, we confirmed that firearms offer a massive boost to ordinary mortals. Is there any room left to tweak the gunpowder formula?”

“In what direction?” Sun Yu asked.

Wei Yuan thought for a moment before replying, “I would like to increase the quantity.”

Sun Yu frowned slightly and asked again, “How much?”

Wei Yuan ventured, “How about... fifty... thousand catties to start?”

Sun Yu was startled, but he didn’t lose his temper. Instead, he replied seriously, “In that case, you’ll need to provide me with at least three thousand people. Specifically, I want five hundred miners, one thousand strong, able men, and one thousand women. The remaining five hundred can be anyone.”

Could he really pull this off? Overjoyed, Wei Yuan agreed immediately.

This battle actually marked the first large-scale use of firearms. Although the steel-barreled guns were extremely crude in workmanship, their advantage had been made crystal clear in this battle: they required very little training to use and possessed considerable lethality. In a complex and confined environment such as the underground, that lethality was amplified to the extreme. Just half a catty of gunpowder could kill a Shaman elite, while one full catty could wound even a squad leader.

The bodies of many Shaman squad leaders were living proof that even a Strength Warlock couldn’t withstand five or six shots in a row.

If Sun Yu could mass-produce gunpowder, Wei Yuan would be able to equip every cultivator in the early stage of the Body-tempering stage with a firearm. Without exaggeration, it was a qualitative leap comparable to Life is a Flash.

Another bottleneck was the shortage of steel plates. Firearms placed rather high demands on the quality of the steel tubes. Otherwise, they simply could not withstand the resulting explosion. Although steel plates of this grade wasn’t rare, they must be crafted by specialized cultivators through repeated forging. Fortunately, the realm had recently gained nearly a hundred Dao Foundation stage cultivators at once, and it so happened that forging iron was an excellent way to solidify one’s Dao Foundation. Therefore, Wei Yuan was planning to assign over half of them to forge iron in the name of solidifying their Dao Foundations.

They were only Human-tier Dao Foundations anyway. No matter how much they cultivated, they had no hope of attaining an Avatar.

Having arranged the two matters most likely to boost the strength of the realm, Wei Yuan finally let out a sigh of relief and got ready to head to the Coldbelow.

There was no time to waste. Upon returning to his quarters, Wei Yuan immediately summoned his Master to serve as a guardian. Then, following the method Dream Eater taught him, he commanded his primordial spirit to slip into the void and travel toward the direction his mark was indicating.

There was a blinding flash of light, and Wei Yuan appeared in a cold, desolate world. Standing right in front of him was a beautiful girl in a state of panic.