Dragon Canon

Wei Yuan immediately stood up and traveled to the shacks where the girls lived with Sun Yu.

After the incident that night, Wei Yuan had gathered all the girls who had intercourse in one place to observe any subsequent changes they might undergo, while also preventing the situation from spreading and affecting the others. All the boys involved were also housed in a separate area, though their supervision was relatively lax. They were required to work and train alongside others.

At the moment, every shack where the affected girls lived contained two rows of bunk beds. The girls either lay or sat in silence, seemingly unaware of what had happened or what it meant for them. However, some were instinctively clutching their lower abdomens or gently stroking them.

Wei Yuan walked over to the girls nearest him and carefully examined their entire bodies. But despite repeatedly scanning them with his perception, he could find nothing out of the ordinary. To all appearances, they were ordinary, living, flesh-and-blood girls. The only difference was that they now had a spark of new life in their wombs.

Sun Yu said, “I’ve already checked them. Everything seems normal. Perhaps a more thorough inspection is needed, but that would require cutting open their bodies and inspecting them closely.”

A vivisection?

As if reading Wei Yuan’s thoughts, Sun Yu said, “There’s no rush. If someone dies in battle in the future, you can simply bring me their body. However, such an examination would inevitably deviate from the most accurate conditions. So, to truly understand what’s happening now, it’s best to find someone who’s already pregnant....”

Wei Yuan felt his hair standing on end. He was just about to ask Sun Yu if doing this would invite divine retribution when he remembered that the Xuanming Hall possessed secret techniques for erasing karmic debt. Moreover, if killing one person could save millions, according to the Heavenly Dao of this world, it would even yield a considerable amount of virtuous merit.

Regardless, Wei Yuan still couldn’t bring himself to accept the idea of dissecting a pregnant girl alive. Sun Yu himself knew he wouldn’t accept it; he’d merely brought it up to let Wei Yuan know that such an option existed.

Faced with over a thousand girls, both men were unsure how to proceed.

After a moment, Wei Yuan asked, “Is this situation normal?”

Sun Yu replied, “Absolutely not! It’s possible for a person to conceive after a single act of intercourse, but the probability of ten people all conceiving at once is very low. A thousand and seventy? The likelihood of this being normal is about as high as my likelihood of reaching the Ultimate Unity stage. Therefore, this can only be the work of a great power!”

Wei Yuan then recalled something else and remarked, “None of the guards could get them pregnant, but a boy of the same lineage and blood could. Do you think....”

Sun Yu understood his meaning and gave it some thought. He nodded. “I’ll find a way to verify this.”

Wei Yuan wisely refrained from asking exactly how he would perform the verification, simply leaving everything to Sun Yu.

It was unnatural for over a thousand girls to become pregnant at the same time. Naturally, everyone was curious about it. Neither Ji Liuli nor Trueman Chu He could find anything out of the ordinary though. Having hit a dead end, Wei Yuan could only set the matter aside for now and wait to see how things would unfold.

There were still many matters to attend to within the realm of Qingming; simply feeding tens of thousands of people was a major undertaking. Although they had just harvested 800,000 catties worth of spirit rice, if the boys and girls were to cultivate to their full potential, they would have to consume at least 2 catties of spirit rice per day, meaning that the harvested rice wouldn’t even last ten days.

While continuing to clear and cultivate the fields, Wei Yuan sought out an upper-grade spirit field and planted the black pearl rice there.

1 catty of pearl rice consisted of 100 grains. Each mu of land could only fit 1 catty of pearl rice, or 100 seedlings. Any more than that, and the spirit qi in the soil would become too weak to sustain them. Each plant yielded around 30 grains, and it typically took three years to mature. The current market price was one tael of immortal silver per grain, while the original seeds were priceless.

Aside from food, clothing was also an issue—an issue that would have to be postponed to a later date. For now, Wei Yuan must arm these tens of thousands of children. While the Shamans and Western Jin were still unaware of this new force, he had to quickly build up their combat capabilities. That way, if an enemy attacked the domain, they could catch them off guard.

Normally, his recently arrived senior brothers and sisters from the Skyblue Hall and Water Moon Hall would represent a significant aid. However, Wei Yuan couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about Ren Suxing. He seemed to wield considerable influence among the Skyblue Hall disciples, but whether this had always been the case or the groundwork he had laid on the way here, Wei Yuan couldn’t say.

Wei Yuan had once tried to check Ren Suxing’s ranking on the merit ranking, but after flipping through it for a while without success, he grew too lazy to keep looking. With Zhang Sheng keeping watch in the domain, no one could stir up any trouble.

Both Wang Yu and Xu Yi were up to the task of instructing the boys and girls. Occasionally, Yu Zhizhuo or Trueman Chu He would also feel inspired to hold a gathering and deliver a lecture. Five plazas had been constructed in the new city, each dedicated to a different Body-tempering stage cultivation method.

Trueman Chu He had cultivated the Earth Origin Scripture during his body-tempering. Thus, that was the text he taught.

The first time the old Daoist appeared on stage, he abruptly realized that he was looking at tens of thousands of people, all packed tightly into the single plaza. He was so startled that he had given his cat a firm pinch to check if he was dreaming. After the cat viciously reciprocated the gesture, and he checked the scratches on the back of his hand carefully, the old Daoist finally confirmed that he was, indeed, not dreaming.

He knew exactly how many boys and girls there were, and how many were practicing the Earth Origin Scripture. However, he never imagined that Wei Yuan would halt all of their activities and have them all attend his lecture at the same time.

Seeing the numbers on paper was a completely different experience from seeing them in person!

Facing nearly thirty thousand pairs of clear, innocent[1] eyes, the old Daoist suddenly felt a sense of solemnity. He sat up straight, produced a horsetail whisk from somewhere, placed it on his lap, and began to impart the true teachings of the Great Dao.

The lecture lasted six whole hours, leaving the old Daoist with a rosy complexion and even a slight increase in his mystic power. During this time, the cat beside him had dozed off and woken up repeatedly. In its half-awake, half-asleep state, when it realized that the old Daoist was still talking, it secretly scratched him a couple times to get him to stop. Unfortunately, Trueman Chu He was so absorbed in his task—nay, his mission—that he hadn’t felt it at all.

Less than three days after the first lecture, the old Daoist could not resist holding another gathering. This time, the crowd was smaller—only five thousand were attending. Even so, he had spoken for four hours.

From then on, Trueman Chu He would hold a gathering to teach the Dao every few days. He was so engrossed that he even neglected his farming duties a bit—but that was a story for another time.

Of course, Trueman Chu He wasn’t the only one who gave a lecture. Yu Zhizhuo had spoken twice, Sun Yu had spoken twice, and Xu Yi, Wang Yu, and Cui Yu each spoke once.

Wei Yuan saw it all, but he could do nothing but sigh deeply to himself, overflowing with envy.

Teaching the children the six universal cultivation methods was a long-term endeavor that would yield results gradually. It was going to take several years at the minimum before they saw any tangible progress. However, Wei Yuan had other methods to instantly boost the children’s combat effectiveness: armor and firearms.

Wei Yuan had long wanted to issue two guns to every person in the realm. This ambition had not waned despite the recent addition of nearly 50,000 children; on the contrary, it had only grown stronger. Now, he wanted to equip every boy with a high-quality, high-powered gun, rather than a primitive steel-barrel gun that could reliably kill an enemy within a range of ten zhang only.

Alas, dreams are beautiful, but reality is cruel. Putting it into practice had proven to be incredibly difficult. Consider, for instance, the firearm’s design: should the gun be muzzle-loaded or breech-loaded? What should the bore diameter be? The material of the gun, the potency of the gunpowder, the shape of the bullet, the material of the bullet, and more—every single one of these issues could be a field of study in its own right.

Wei Yuan had locked himself in his room for two full days, poring over Xu Wenwu’s notes time and again and discussing the matter with Xu Wenwu himself several times. Finally, he was able to make a tiny bit of progress.

To put it more concretely, if the unknown were divided into a hundred squares, then Wei Yuan had advanced two squares. The problem was that after advancing two squares, he discovered that the unknown had expanded from a hundred squares to two hundred.

It was only then he truly understood a famous saying Xu Wenwu had quoted: “The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.”

Wei Yuan couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, while Xu Wenwu had memorized the quote, he hadn’t retained any knowledge of the other achievements of the person who had said it. Scratch that, he didn’t even know what that great figure had actually done.

Still, some progress was better than none. Combining this with Xu Wenwu’s descriptions of so-called modern weapons, Wei Yuan felt that it was only a matter of time before he developed a new type of firearm.

A whole month after the children of the grotto-heaven had lived in the realm of Qingming, Sun Yu sent a message to all relevant cultivators of the Palace of Absolute Beginning: he had successfully developed a new gunpowder.

Everyone immediately gathered at Sun Yu’s residence. Over the past few weeks, Sun Yu had spent every spare moment expanding his courtyard to accommodate various research projects. Now, it was several mu wide and could be divided into seven smaller courtyards: four for poison production, one for medicine production, one for saving lives, and one for gunpowder research.

However, Sun Yu led the group to the clearing outside his courtyard. The terrain here was wide open; it had once been a corpse field where the bodies of the Shamans were piled up. Since there hadn’t been any fighting in a while, after the green qi of the corpses had fully dissipated, they had been cremated and buried accordingly. Thus, it was empty.

The open square was littered with pitted scars from explosions. In many places, the scars were layered on top of one another, making it impossible to tell how many times the area had been “bombarded.”

Sun Yu had already set up an iron table at the edge of the clearing. Stacked on top of the table were several piles of raw materials of various sizes. Wei Yuan recognized the sulfur and the charcoal, but the rest were unfamiliar to him.

Among the cultivators gathered to witness the showing, Xu Wenwu was notably present. He had made considerable progress in his body-tempering and was now in the last minor stage, spirit-tempering. Such progress was considered lightning-fast among ordinary cultivators, and given Xu Wenwu’s original aptitude, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Of course, the cost had also been immense: Wei Yuan had invested dozens of wisps of fortune over time into him to propel his cultivation forward. For any other cultivator, this amount of fortune would have been enough to cultivate seven of eight Dao Foundations. But for Xu Wenwu, it had merely allowed him to successfully complete the bone-tempering stage.

With everyone present, Sun Yu wasted no more time and got straight to the point: “I’ve discovered a brand-new gunpowder formula, roughly three times as powerful as the old one. The ingredients are as follows: I’ve replaced the main ingredient, Ice Flame—that is, saltpeter—with Thunder Sand, and ordinary charcoal with Inch-Gold Charcoal and Fire Gel[2]. I’ve also added two auxiliary ingredients into the mix.

“As for why these changes were made, I’ll explain that later. For now, let’s see how the old-style gunpowder works.”

Sun Yu skillfully mixed a batch of black powder, squeezed it into a ball, and suspended it in midair with Dao energy. Then, he ignited it. For this demonstration, Sun Yu infused every aspect of the powder with his Dao energy to control the explosion, slowing the entire process down tenfold while also magnifying the internal visuals tenfold.

Thanks to this, even Xu Wenwu could clearly see the slowed-down explosion, and he blurted out, “High-speed camera!”

Xu Wenwu had actually mentioned this concept in his notes, though Wei Yuan had dismissed it as useless junk. Judging by his description of camera performance, some cultivators in the Dao Foundation stage could already achieve similar results with the naked eye alone. As for those high-end cameras—supposedly capable of capturing hundreds of frames per second or observing objects at the nanoscale—forget True Lords, many Avatar Truemen could again achieve the same feat.

Moreover, the structure of this world seemed to differ somewhat from the one Xu Wenwu had inhabited. As for the specifics of these differences, Xu Wenwu had long since “returned” the relevant knowledge to his high school teachers, so he was currently unable to discern them. As for his college professors, Xu Wenwu had gained nothing from them, so there was nothing to “return” to begin with.

If it wasn’t for Xu Wenwu’s sake, Sun Yu could have both increased the scale of the explosion and slowed it down by just a factor of two.

Once everyone had had a clear view, Sun Yu explained, “The principle of gunpowder relies primarily on the combustion of charcoal to produce gas and heat, while saltpeter and sulfur serve as oxidizers. The expansion of hot gas is the source of the explosive force. Since everyone here is already familiar with this principle, I’ll start from there.

“First, I replaced the original materials with more potent ingredients, then conducted continuous testing and adjusted the ratios. Finally, based on the properties of the resulting mixture, I added one or two auxiliary ingredients to make it expand more rapidly and powerfully.”

Sun Yu then pointed toward the square and continued, “After extensive testing, I replaced the saltpeter with Thunder Sand while retaining a small amount of sulfur. I also substituted the ordinary charcoal with Inch-Gold Charcoal that has been soaked in Fire Gel, which burns faster and produces twice as much gas, thereby tripling the explosive force. In order to determine the optimal formula, I conducted over seventeen hundred test explosions.”

This was the standard procedure for research and instruction in the Palace of Absolute Beginning. One must not only present the final product but also clearly explain the underlying principles and the fundamental research process. This way, future generations could build upon the work of their predecessors and innovate instead of having to repeat every step themselves.

If others wished to improve the gunpowder further, after hearing Sun Yu’s explanation, they could start directly with the primary ingredients and attempt to replace them with materials that burned faster or produced more gas, thereby avoiding many detours.

In the Palace, a lecture like this typically came at a cost. In fact, it was usually not publicized and kept as part of a hall’s legacy. But here in Qingming, everyone had grown accustomed to sharing their knowledge freely. This was especially true after Xu Wenwu, an otherworldly visitor, had joined their ranks. Everyone had felt their horizons expanding like never before, and inspiration flowing like a spring, leaving them with no time or desire to keep their discoveries to themselves. After all, it was entirely possible that a newer, better idea would appear to them before they could even warm up to a certain idea. Thus, it only made sense to share it as quickly as possible.

But of course, this free exchange of knowledge was limited to the initial small circle only. For instance, Wei Yuan’s thirteen senior brothers and sisters were unable to attend, still idling away at the guest town—which was aptly named Guest Town—and digesting their first lesson.

1. IDK if you guys know about this, but these days when a Chinese describes someone’s as having 清澈 eyes, they meant they’re so dumb you can see that there isn’t a speck of knowledge anywhere in their eyes. XD ☜

2. I conducted a bit of research and reading Chapter 298 it definitely seems to be referring to gun cotton, which is 3 times more powerful than black powder and produces almost no smoke, even though the short-form of the literal term used here, 火胶, actually means collodion. However, this could be because Xu Wenwu is a dumbass and everyone is basically working off misinformation (or even just different interpretations by different regions. If two people can interpret a single statement differently, two regions certainly can do the same). Ultimately I decided to just literally translate the term and avoid all that hassle altogether. ☜