Dragon Canon

Upon entering the temple again today, Wei Yuan’s sense of it grew even clearer. Deep within the temple, something was definitely calling out to him. Could the fact that the three-eyed bird had sent him here that day be related to whatever was hidden underground?

Wei Yuan took out his newly crafted equipment and said, “If the undead monster shows up, let me know its location and distance.”

The woman raised the hand crossbow Wei Yuan had made and said, “At noon, it moves slowly even if it’s inside the cave. I’ll shoot at it if I spot it. You just aim at where the impact comes from.”

The two ventured deeper and passed by the four murals. As it turned out, there was no fifth mural. Beyond the fourth mural lay a natural passageway; the undead monster had emerged from there.

As expected, the undead monster heard the commotion and emerged from the passage once more.

The woman fired a bolt, striking its body with precision. But despite the hand crossbow’s immense power, it was unable to pierce through its body completely. The broadhead had elicited a sound like metal striking stone when it sank into its flesh.

Hearing the sound, Wei Yuan immediately channeled his Dao energy. Amid a deafening roar, several flying swords shot out in rapid succession from his equipment. Propelled by the explosion and their own momentum, they instantly ripped the undead monster to pieces!

But more footsteps echoed from within the passage. The woman sprinted over to investigate and cried out in shock, “So many monsters! Let’s run!”

But she didn’t move. Or rather, Wei Yuan had grabbed her before positioning himself at the entrance of the passage.

The heavy footsteps inside the passage had already pointed Wei Yuan in the right direction. More roaring sound blasted the ears, and he fired off every flying sword in the cauldron-shaped box in one go.

Every single flying sword was equivalent to a Dao Foundation-grade mystic artifact. Their potency far surpassed that of a hand crossbow. No matter which part of a monster a sword stuck, it would instantly blow that part to pieces.

But the cave walls began to tremble, and countless footsteps echoed from deep within the passageway. Who knew how many monsters had awakened and were marching toward them!

At this point, even Wei Yuan dared not push his luck. “Run!” He shouted, then scooped up the woman and fled to the outside of the temple.

Feeling the sunlight streaming down from the sky, Wei Yuan finally breathed a sigh of relief. At that moment, wisps of yin qi gathered around him and entered his sea of consciousness. A small patch of fertile soil appeared where the girl Yin Yang was standing, and the vitality in that area began to recover.

Wei Yuan quickly realized that the source of this yin qi was those undead monsters. Could it be that, like the youngsters of the Xu Clan back then, they were unable to find release for some reason and had consequently been purified by Wei Yuan’s All-Gate of Reincarnation?

The fertile soil that had formed this time was also different from before. Not only did it possess vitality, it had also spontaneously developed a speck of spirituality. This change filled Wei Yuan with surprise and delight. The most crucial factor in the middle-stage of the Dao Foundation stage, the spirit awakening stage, wasn’t the accumulation of spirit qi, but the emergence of sentience. The presence or absence of sentience was key to achieving an Avatar, and the nature of said spirituality directly determined the quality of one’s Avatar.

Now that a spark of spirituality had emerged within his Dao Foundation, it meant that Wei Yuan had cleared the first hurdle. The next step was to strengthen and elevate the quality of this sentience.

Wei Yuan’s The Great Realm was unprecedented, so there was no prior experience that he could draw reference from. For now, the first spark of sentience born from the earth itself seemed promising and possessed a certain bearing, though it remained to be seen how it would develop in the future.

Now that he knew the yin qi from the undead monsters could foster sentience for one’s Dao Foundation upon reincarnation, Wei Yuan wasn’t going to simply walk away as a matter of course. He blocked the entrance to the temple and fired flying sword after flying sword into the building, mowing down every undead monster that charged out.

His supply of flying swords was exhausted in the blink of an eye, and only then did he flee with the woman. The undead monsters burst out of the temple, only to collapse to the ground, howling in the sunlight. Those further behind dared not come out and howled futilely at Wei Yuan’s retreating figure.

The focused attack at the temple entrance had killed at least dozens of undead monsters, and the yin qi had expanded the fertile soil beneath Yin Yang’s feet to ten zhang. Remarkably, the area covered by this fertile soil wasn’t affected by the absence of Qingming. It could both supply him with Dao energy and be manifested in reality.

Back at the stone hut, Wei Yuan continued to craft more flying swords. The flying swords he had made before had all dissolved into nothing after slaying the undead monsters and exhausting their Dao energy.

This time, Wei Yuan took his time, crafting the flying swords one by one. He spent the entire afternoon making 200 of them in one go. He also crafted ten cauldron-shaped boxes.

The woman had nothing else to do, so she simply sat beside him and watched him make the swords for the entire afternoon.

Thanks to the fertile soil, Wei Yuan’s Dao Foundation had come back to life and was once again able to generate spirit qi on its own. Although it wasn’t a large patch, it still generated enough Dao energy for Wei Yuan to craft around 300 flying swords per day.

At noon the next day, Wei Yuan and the woman ventured deep into the temple, charging 100 zhang into down the passageway, and slew over 100 undead monsters. They retreated only after exhausting Wei Yuan’s supply of flying swords.

The yin qi he had gained from this fight expanded the fertile soil to 12 zhang, and enriched the details of Yin Yang’s body as well. At this point, she was almost indistinguishable from a real person. He certainly could have mistaken her for a real person if he didn’t look closely at her.

That day, Wei Yuan forged 360 flying swords in one go. After eating his fill and getting a good night’s sleep, he and the woman continued exploring the temple.

Over the next few days, Wei Yuan continued to venture deeper into the temple and slay more undead monsters. The patch of fertile soil kept expanding, and the changes in Yin Yang became increasingly evident.

The core of the Great Realm was the jade hill, but it had fallen aslumber because he had strayed too far away from Qingming. That was why Yin Yang had become the new core of the Great Realm instead.

Several days later, Wei Yuan had explored more than 300 zhang into the passageway and slew hundreds of undead monsters. As the temple extended deeper along the passageway, it transformed into a vast network of natural caves. As Wei Yuan’s senses grew sharper, he grew certain that the call was coming from deep within the earth.

It was late at night, and all was quiet.

Wei Yuan found himself once again in the underground passageway, but this time, all the undead monsters had vanished. The deeper he walked into the passageway, the more he sensed that something lay deep beneath the earth, accompanied by the faint sound of rushing water.

Soon, Wei Yuan entered a vast chamber, where a figure in a black robe whose face could not be seen said, “You’ve finally arrived.”

Before he could respond, he saw one figure after another materialize behind the black-robed figure: Zhang Sheng, bao Yun, Ji Liuli, Founder Xuan Yue, the First Consort, and many, many others. They all smiled at Wei Yuan before crossing over the edge and jumping into the bottomless abyss in front of them.

Stunned, Wei Yuan sprinted to the edge of the abyss and looked down, only to discover that the chasm was actually a portal leading to another world. At the very center of that world was the three-pupiled heavenly eye!

Wei Yuan startled and woke up instantly from his nightmare, only then realizing that his sweat had soaked through his heavy clothes.

The woman was still sleeping in his arms, her breathing steady and even, which gradually calmed Wei Yuan down. He buried his face in her hair once more and instinctively held her close.

She stirred slightly but did not wake up, and the two continued to sleep like that until dawn.

That morning, Wei Yuan used his newly regenerated Dao energy to forge another 100 flying swords. After sharing a hearty meal with the woman, he entered the temple once more.

By now, Wei Yuan’s perception had partially recovered, allowing him to sense farther and with greater clarity. However, the images his perception returned were still very blurry—in the terminology of Xu Wenwu’s world, it was like having a myopia eye degree of 1000.

Just as on previous occasions, Wei Yuan made a little noise and lured the undead monsters out of the passageways. He then killed every last one of them, all while conserving his ammunition by destroying the head with just one flying sword.

Wei Yuan took the lead and journeyed into the passageway. Several undead monsters wandering inside were struck down by his flying swords before they could even react.

After finally clearing every single undead monster within the passageway, the two entered a spacious chamber. The woman fired a crossbow bolt that struck a monster twenty zhang away, and Wei Yuan immediately followed up with a pair of flying swords that cleaved the creature in two.

Working in this coordinated manner—with the woman using her crossbow to guide Wei Yuan whenever they encountered an open terrain—they gradually ventured deeper and deeper underground.

After passing through another passageway, Wei Yuan distinctively sensed that the space ahead had suddenly opened up. Not far ahead, a terrifying, oppressive aura was coalescing, like a cluster of yin thunder that had yet to be unleashed.

The woman’s voice took on a rare gravity as she said, “It seems we’ve provoked something we shouldn’t have.”

“What is it?” Wei Yuan asked.

“A two-zhang-tall undead monster, clad in armor, with a lizard’s head—excuse me, it’s only a skull now. It’s standing up!”

At that moment, the terrifying aura ahead erupted—it was an Avatar-stage enemy!

Wei Yuan acted without hesitation, scooping up the woman and retreating into the passage they’d come through. He then pushed her forward while saying, ‘You go first! I’ll handle him!”

The woman didn’t hesitate either. She said, “Be careful! Don’t forget that you still owe the village a debt!”

“I won’t forget,” Wei Yuan replied while backhanding her butt, causing her to immediately bolt out the passageway like a startled rabbit.

Wei Yuan raised his sword box and aimed it at the entrance. The moment the Avatar-stage undead rounded the corner, a barrage of flying swords immediately hurtled toward it!

Wei Yuan emptied his sword box in an instant and drew another one. Although these flying swords weren’t particularly powerful—they were only Dao Foundation-grade—they still inflicted damage when they struck, not to mention how numerous they were. The monster was knocked back, staggering as cracks appeared in its armor!

No sooner had it regained its footing than Wei Yuan emptied his second sword box[1]. He then retreated, rounded another corner of the passageway, grabbed another sword box, and waited for the Avatar-stage monster to show up. The monster, enraged by Wei Yuan’s attack, roared as it charged out from around the corner, only to be struck by another full barrage of flying swords!

Its armor shattered to pieces, and deep gashes appeared on its withered body. Once again, Wei Yuan retreated to another corner of the passageway, grabbed a new sword box, and unleashed a barrage of flying swords at the monster as soon as it reared its ugly head. Then, he ran off to repeat it all over again.

When Wei Yuan had fired his sixth sword box, the Avatar-stage undead finally let out a defiant, resentful roar and collapsed at Wei Yuan’s feet. A dense cloud of yin qi rose from the monster’s corpse and entered the Great Realm. This cloud of yin qi exceeded the combined total of all the undead monsters that had come before, and it sank directly into the fertile soil beneath Yin Yang’s feet.

At that moment, the spirituality accumulated within the Great Realm finally reached a critical point. With a crack, chunks of stone skin began to peel away from a warrior’s body, and he slowly opened its eyes. Incredibly, they now held a glimmer of intelligence.

1. I probably should name this HFSL but I can’t because I’m not actually sure if it’s honey-combed shape LOL. ☜