Dragon Canon

Wei Yuan could not bear the sight of the girl standing in front of him for even a moment longer. He left his sea of consciousness in a state of agitation.

The room looked exactly as he had left it. A ray of sunlight streamed through the window, casting a beam filled with floating specks of dust. The area bathed in sunlight was naturally warm, but the shadows felt exceptionally chilly today. Wei Yuan instinctively shivered and moved himself into the sunlight. Only then did he feel a bit better.

A copper plate was lying on his desk. Without thinking, Wei Yuan picked it up and stroked it lightly with his hand, instantly polishing it into a smooth copper mirror with his Dao energy. He then held it up and looked into it.

What appeared in the mirror was a completely withered face of him, skin clinging to the bones without a shred of flesh in between, while blood constantly flowed out of two hollow eye sockets!

Wei Yuan turned his face, and the reflection in the mirror followed suit.

He set down the copper mirror and plucked a few strands of his hair, igniting them with Dao energy. The hair burned very slowly and emitted a dark blue flame. The blue smoke it gave off was tinged with a faint crimson glow.

Wei Yuan watched impassively as the hair burned into ashes, then waved his hand to brush it away.

There was a tube of divination sticks and two irregular wooden slabs used for Turtle Shell Divination on the table. He always kept them on hand, and he always carefully divined his fortune before every major operation.

But now, Wei Yuan felt there was no need to perform a divination—not when the outcome was plain to see.

After he composed himself, Wei Yuan re-entered his sea of consciousness and gazed at the still girl once more. Her eyes were tightly shut, including the two that had regressed into two small black dots.

The girl had become much taller than when he had captured her in the first place, though she was still on the shorter side compared to other humans, reaching up only to Wei Yuan’s chest. However, her appearance was unimportant; what mattered was her true nature.

She appeared to be a girl, but in reality, she was a special type of Dao Foundation—a humanoid Dao Foundation. There were tens of thousands of human Dao Foundations, but humanoid Dao Foundations were extremely rare. Even if they existed, they only appeared to be human—they weren’t true humans at all. However, the girl standing before Wei Yuan gave him a very peculiar sensation. If he wasn’t examining her closely, he would occasionally mistake her for a real person.

She seemed to be a unique entity existing somewhere between a primordial spirit and a Dao Foundation, though at present, she was like an empty shell, lacking a consciousness of her own.

What really caused Wei Yuan’s hair to stand on end, though, was the fact that she possessed her own Dao Foundation!

Just behind her brow, two slender streams of qi—one black, and one white—were circling each other, rotating slowly.

The moment he laid his eyes on them, Wei Yuan was forced to step back from his sea of consciousness and take a moment to collect his thoughts. It was only after he assessed the state of his fortune and mentally prepared himself that he dared to return to his sea of consciousness and study the two slender streams of qi intently.

It was the Yin Yang Qi!

Countless Dao Foundations had climbed upward throughout the long history of the human race. The highest among them had even reached the complete forms of the four Sacred Beasts and become Immortal Lords who dominated their era.

Above that, it was said there were people who attained pure yin or pure yang. However, these were all legends with no concrete records. Those with minor yin and minor yang were relatively more common and had clear records, but such Dao Foundations were also slightly inferior to the Four Sacred Beasts.

Yet now, the complete Yin Yang Qi had appeared before Wei Yuan’s eyes!

Without exaggeration, such a Dao Foundation was infinitely close to the Great Dao. If it was placed within the Myriad Manifestation Hall of the Palace of Absolute Beginning, even the center of the river of stars would be insufficient to contain it. The only place it deserved to reside was the endless space above the entire river of stars.

If anyone were to achieve such a Dao Foundation, assuming that they didn’t meet a premature end, it was a foregone conclusion that they would dominate the present age. They would also likely become the greatest being ever in the entire history of the human race!

There was just one problem: the girl had been captured from the Realm of Coldbelow and converted from a Warlock.

There exists a natural balance in the Great Dao. A pheasant could never transform into a Vermillion Bird out of thin air—this was a universal truth that had been proven since time immemorial. For instance, cultivators were once obsessed with turning stone into gold during the Distant Antiquity Era, only to discover that the Dao energy expended was far more valuable than the gold itself.

Wei Yuan had originally intended to capture just a few ordinary Warlocks. In fact, he had assumed the female Warlock he had captured was ordinary—at most, she was a minor prodigy with slightly better talent than Tianyu, and perhaps eight times the intelligence of that rockhead.

But now, witnessing the Yin Yang Qi before his eyes, Wei Yuan realized just how wildly off the mark he had been, so much so that his mind occasionally went blank, as if trying to escape reality.

As the undisputed top student of the centralized learning curriculum—as someone who had scored perfectly in nearly every subject—Wei Yuan knew full well that, forget sacrificing an “ordinary” Warlock who wasn’t even a Great Warlock yet, even if every Shaman, human, and all other living beings within one hundred thousand li of this place were sacrificed together, it would still be impossible to manifest the Yin Yang Qi!

Wei Yuan ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. Even the likes of Tianyu could tell that the diminutive Warlock was anything but ordinary. She had to be so extraordinary, in fact, that he didn’t even want to think about it!

At that very moment, even the usually arrogant Bay Laurel Immortal Tree tree branch in his Dao Foundation was standing perfectly still, as if it was merely a fake plant.

The area where the girl was standing was changing at an extremely slow pace. No one could say what the final outcome would be.

Wei Yuan was normally fearless, but at this very moment, he deeply, deeply regretted his decision to stretch his dirty paw and grab the diminutive Warlock’s ankle.

The most terrifying curse the Shamans could cast was not a Great Bloodline Curse, which could curse everyone who was related to the target by blood. The curse above that was called the Great Karmic Curse, and it was capable of killing any and all entities connected to the target via karmic ties.

During a class where his instructor was explaining the Great Karmic Curse, he had said that it was the difference between a nine familial extermination and a ten familial extermination. In fact, the Great Karmic Curse went even further than a ten familial extermination, killing even the target’s enemies.

Wei Yuan knew very well that his fortune and his Dao Foundation were extraordinary. Should a Great Karmic Curse befall him, there was actually a good chance he might not die completely. However, the next target of the curse would undoubtedly be Zhang Sheng—in this case, even his father, Wei Youchai, would have to take a back seat.

Wei Yuan left his sea of consciousness, pushed open the door, and walked to the entrance of Zhang Sheng’s room. He then knocked gently on the door.

“Come in.” Zhang Sheng’s voice sounded from within—calm, warm, and pure.

Wei Yuan entered the room and found Zhang Sheng sitting by the window, holding a volume of A History of Tang in his hands. Upon seeing Wei Yuan enter, he set the book aside and gave him a smile. “Did you gain much from this trip?”

Wei Yuan stood ramrod straight and bowed his head. He began quietly, “Master, I... I’ve messed up.”

Zhang Sheng asked, “Is it because of the Great Warlock you killed? Is he the son of some Shadow Warlock?”

Wei Yuan gave a wry smile. “It might be worse than that.”

Zhang Sheng’s eyebrows shot up, and fighting spirit began to burn in his eyes. “The son of a Sky Warlock?”

“It... might be worse than that still.”

Zhang Sheng’s expression turned grave. “Tell me everything in detail.”

And so Wei Yuan recounted the entire incident exactly as it had happened. However, he didn’t dare to materialize the girl, fearing that some powerful beings skilled in divination might be able to sense her presence. Instead, he produced a small amount of soil imbued with the Yin Yang Qi and placed it before Zhang Sheng.

His shifu stared intently at the soil and did not move for a very, very long time. It wasn’t until the sun began to set that Zhang Sheng finally replied, “To be honest, this isn’t really a big deal....”

Wei Yuan’s heart instantly settled when he heard this. For the longest time, his master was his greatest support and pillar of strength.

Seeing Wei Yuan breathe out a huge sigh of relief, Zhang Sheng continued with a blank expression, “... After all, it literally couldn’t get any worse.”

Zhang Sheng rose to his feet and began pacing back and forth across the room, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper. Seeing him like this, Wei Yuan’s heart began to race once more.

If it was just him, then Wei Yuan would have nothing to fear. However, the Shamans’ Great Karmic Curse was utterly indiscriminate—it would drag everyone, whether or not they were connected to Wei Yuan’s predicament, into it. Forget the Skyblue Hall, Bao Yun, Ji Liuli, Xiao Yu and more would not escape its grasp. As for his mortal family, every single member would fall dead without a sound.

After pacing back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, Zhang Sheng finally came to a halt and said slowly, “You’re single-handedly upending the fates of two races. If this matter isn’t handled properly, you wouldn’t be purging just the two of us—it is very likely that the entire Skyblue Hall would be purged from existence.”

Seeing Wei Yuan’s flabbergasted expression, Zhang Sheng suddenly broke into a grin and declared, “What’s there to fear? I am here. I won’t let you come to harm.”

Wei Yuan didn’t believe a word of it. Zhang Sheng could be a True Lord right now, and he likely still wouldn’t be able to withstand the Shamans’ Great Karmic Curse. His master was great in every way except his inability to swallow his pride, even in death.

The master knew exactly what his disciple was thinking, of course. He said calmly, “You misunderstand. Of course I am not omnipotent.”

Just like that, Wei Yuan grasped Zhang Sheng’s true meaning. He was saying he would die before any harm befell Wei Yuan.