Dragon Canon

In the dungeon at the foot of the central peak, Tianyu was lying down in a strange posture where every part of his body twisted in a different direction, motionless. It also seemed as if he had lost all sense of the outside world, because Wei Yuan had stepped into his jail cell and watched him for the full duration of a teatime, yet he had showed no sign of change whatsoever.

Speechless, he summoned a jailer and asked, “How long has he been like this?”

“Three days. He hasn’t moved a muscle during this time.”

Wei Yuan was even more at a loss for words. Upon closer observation, he discovered that the mystic energy within Tianyu’s body was ebbing and flowing like the tides, pulsing in a highly rhythmic pattern. Although it seemed like nothing at first glance, it harbored a terrifying power much like the hidden currents of the ocean. Judging by his aura alone, he had actually made further progress and was now just a step away from becoming a Great Warlock. Given the right opportunity, he could advance at any moment.

It seemed Tianyu had turned his cell into a training room, and his imprisonment into a form of cultivation.

Wei Yuan certainly wasn’t going to let him enjoy his imprisonment so comfortably. After a moment’s thought, he drew the Crimson Night Slayer of Immortals, channeled half of The End of All Vicissitudes, and flicked the blade lightly in Tianyu’s direction!

In Tianyu’s consciousness, the Shaman suddenly saw his natural enemy pouncing toward him! Not only was it a mutated variant, it was several times larger than it should be. At the moment, it was opening its blood-red maw—filled with thousands of fangs—and lunging straight for his head!

Tianyu let out a bloodcurdling scream and shot up into the air. Naturally, he slammed headfirst into the prison ceiling before bouncing violently back to the ground. For a moment, he was so dizzy and disoriented he nearly passed out there and then.

“Are you awake now?” Wei Yuan asked with a smile.

Tianyu’s vision was still filled with stars. It took him a while to come to his senses. After he did, he stared at Wei Yuan suspiciously and asked, “What did you do to me just now? Why do I feel like you’ve mastered something extraordinary?”

Wei Yuan replied, “It’s been a while since we last met. Isn’t it only natural that I’ve made a few advancements?”

Tianyu leaned in close to Wei Yuan and sniffed. Then, he suddenly sneezed and exclaimed in shock, “Something just poked me!”

An extremely fine wisp of pale red sword qi slipped out of Tianyu’s nostril and returned to Wei Yuan’s body. The guy was going to rub his nose against him if he hadn’t taught him a lesson.

With that brief interlude behind them, Wei Yuan turned serious. “Do you want to go back?”

“Nope!”

Wei Yuan was caught off guard by his answer. “Why not?”

“The ransom is a minor issue. I’ve discovered that here, with my mystic energy completely sealed off, my cultivation is actually progressing at a rapid pace. What’s more, I’ve had a flash of inspiration and feel like I can raise the tier of my Dao Foundation even further. If you lock me up for another year or so, I might just ascend to become a Wild Warlock directly!” Tianyu’s eyes were sparkling as he spoke; he clearly regarded Qingming as a sacred place for cultivation.

Wei Yan felt a headache coming on. “So, you don’t care about the lives of over one hundred thousand of your people?”

“Over a hundred thousand? That’s above my jurisdiction. There are plenty of Great Warlocks upstairs; you should take it up to them instead.” Tianyu was clearly not the type to shoulder the fate of the world upon himself.

Wei Yuan didn’t waste anymore words on him and said, “Come with me.”

Wei Yuan unlocked the chains, led Tianyu out of his cell, and carried him through the air all the way to the vicinity of Sun Yu’s courtyard. The corpse field was already piled high with over 10,000 dead Shamans, with more being carried in in a steady stream.

Upon seeing the corpses, Tianyu suddenly fell silent, the smile vanished from his face, and a sharp gleam appeared in his eyes. He turned to look at Wei Yuan and asked, “Did they launch another offensive?”

“No. I’ve just captured your city.”

This time, Tianyu was truly taken aback. He knew exactly what the Shaman city was designed to be. After so much time, it should have been garrisoned by at least 100,000 troops, plus numerous Great Warlocks. He didn’t believe for a second that Wei Yuan could have taken it.

Wei Yuan flew him to the other side of the corpse field, where a new camp had been set up. It was crammed full of captive Shamans, so many that they stretched as far as the eyes could see. With a single glance, Tianyu realized there were already over 90,000 Shamans in the camp, and more were being escorted in continuously.

Seeing the attire of these Shamans, Tianyu exclaimed in shock, “You really captured the city?”

“Of course I did. If you want to save them, you just need to do two things.”

Wei Yuan held up a finger and began, “I can let you go, but you must deliver a ransom that is befitting your status. Second, you can exchange human sacrifices for your own people. One human sacrifice for one Shaman—I believe it’s a very good deal.”

Tianyu shook his head immediately. “That’s impossible. These are all ordinary civilians, and they’re only worth the lousiest sacrifices. If you want a superior sacrifice, you’ll have to exchange five ordinary Shaman civilians for each one.”

This came as quite a surprise to Wei Yuan. So, an ordinary Shaman wasn’t even as valuable as a human sacrifice in the eyes of the Shaman race?

“How about three Shamans for one superior sacrifice?” Wei Yuan began to haggle.

Tianyu looked very troubled. “I’m already offering you the lowest price I can offer, and even that might not go through in an actual negotiation.”

“Five it is. I also want either three average sacrifices, one inferior sacrifice, or three substandard sacrifices per captive,” Wei Yuan said. A so-called substandard sacrifice was a human captured directly from the Shattered Realm. These people could not be sacrificed directly and had to be nurtured until they were fit.

“You want the substandard ones too?” Tianyu looked surprised.

“As long as they’re human, I’ll take them all.”

Tianyu gave him a long look before replying, “You’re the first such human I’ve ever met. You have my word that I’ll negotiate the best possible terms for you when I return.”

Wei Yuan replied, “I can only give you ten days. You should know that your people can’t survive in the human realm for long.”

“It’ll be done in three days at most.”

Wei Yuan picked Tianyu up again and flew straight to the edge of the domain. He then removed all of his restraints and said, “Go.”

“Aren’t you afraid that I’ll just walk away?” Tianyu asked.

“I trust you.” Wei Yuan turned and walked away after saying that.

Tianyu stood there in a daze for a moment. He then turned around and vanished in an instant.

Wei Yuan didn’t fly back to the realm immediately. Instead, he slowly walked for a stretch. Truth be told, Wei Yuan didn’t actually trust Tianyu. He simply wanted to create an excuse for himself to kill the Shaman captives.

In reality, as long as the Shamans remained within Qingming’s domain, even if they were given enough food to sustain themselves, they would eventually die in two weeks or so and turn into nourishment for Qingming. Only those who had forged a Dao Foundation could survive long-term in the human realm.

If it were anyone else, they would likely have simply locked the Shamans away and waited for them to die. They would then claim that the Shamans had perished of their own accord.

However, Wei Yuan had never deceived himself. He knew full well that one way or another, it was a massacre. Although there were ten thousand reasons to kill a Shaman—including their females and children—Wei Yuan couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable with the fact. That was why he had set up this exchange. If he could exchange them all for human sacrifices, that would be the perfect outcome.

Wei Yuan shook his head. In the end, he still wasn’t ruthless enough—he always left a sliver of mercy.

Still, this nagging sense of discomfort wouldn’t sway his decision. If Tianyu didn’t return by the agreed-upon time, then he would imprison these Shamans until they died and turned into nourishment for Qingming. In this case, Tianyu would be the one who killed them, or so Wei Yuan told himself.

As night fell, Wei Yuan once again summoned the cultivators of the Palace of Absolute Beginning, this time including Fei Yutong. He had a strong feeling that his junior sister possessed considerable potential and wasn’t far behind Xiao Yu[1] in terms of raw talent. And of course, she still fell short of him.

Fei Yutong was as young as she was innocent. She possessed a very naive view of many things. Having her attend the meeting would at least allow her to see the reality of the world and shed her naivety sooner.

This was just one reason. There was another reason that Wei Yuan did not mention, but everyone understood—only someone with Fei Yutong’s level of natural talent was qualified to be privy to such secrets.

Apart from Cui Yu, every Palace of Absolute Beginning cultivator attending the meeting was an immortal foundation, and even among immortal foundations, there were distinct tiers. If one were merely ranked at the very edge of the center of the river of stars that stretched across the Myriad Manifestations Hall, then they were not qualified to participate in this meeting either.

There were a total of three immortal foundations among the batch sent over by the Skyblue Hall and the Water Blue Hall. However, the other two had just barely touched on the threshold of that tier, and Zhang Sheng felt that there wasn’t much point in nurturing someone with little promise.

Since Zhang Sheng had spoken, Wei Yuan naturally had to obey his master.

Tonight’s meeting held only one agenda item: the development of new farmland and the allocation of spirit food.

At the moment, the realm of Qingming had expanded from 100 li to 200 li, quadrupling its original area and opening vast tracts of land for cultivation.

This was the domain of Trueman Chu He. After a cursory inspection, he estimated that there were 50,000 mu of spirit fields ready for development, not to mention the mundane fields. After weighing various factors, Wei Yuan decided to open an additional 20,000 mu of spirit fields and expand the mundane rice fields to 500,000 mu for this term.

The grain ration for ordinary mortals was increased from one and a half catties per day to two catties, while the ration for the elderly was raised from half a catty to one and a half catties.

Regarding the allocation of spirit food, the standard practice was to prioritize high cultivators and those who were fighting on the frontlines. However, Qingming’s situation was unique: the cultivators who had recently established their Dao Foundations had to work day and night to solidify them. It was quite arduous to say the least.

Therefore, everyone unanimously agreed that all cultivators—regardless of the stage and tier of their Dao Foundation—should receive an equal distribution of spirit food. Of course, this was just the standard allowance provided by the realm of Qingming, those with additional needs could exchange for more using their merits. Qingming cultivators might be lacking in many things, but they certainly had more than enough merits to spare.

When the meeting ended, Fei Yutong—who had listened quietly throughout—followed Wei Yuan. Only when no one was around did she ask, “There are clearly tens of millions of catties of grain kept in the warehouses. Why not let everyone eat a little more? Haven’t the new fields already been cleared?”

Wei Yuan smiled faintly and answered, “The seedlings in the fields are not grain until they have turned into rice and are stored properly inside the granaries. Even if they were to be harvested tomorrow, they still won’t be grain.”

“Why’s that?”

Wei Yuan pointed toward the endless grain fields stretching into the distance and said, “With a single spell of mine, I could destroy over a thousand mu of land in less than a teatime. If a Great Shaman were to cast a blood curse, they could instantly destroy all the grain fields within a hundred li. If we were to eat up all our current stock of grain now, what would we eat then?”

Fei Yutong looked pensive as she replied, “I... think I understand a little now.”

Wei Yuan smiled and said, “You do understand, you’re just not willing to believe in the cruelty of this world yet. But starting today, whether you like it or not, you will have to face it.”

Fei Yutong took a deep breath and said, “Don’t worry, Senior Brother! If the situation calls for it, I can be just as black-hearted as you are!”

Watching the girl skip away, Wei Yuan felt as if a rock had magically appeared inside his chest, choking him.

As the saying goes, “If a disciple fails to learn, it is the master’s fault.” It seems that the Truemen of the Water Moon Hall weren’t much better than those of the Skyblue Hall—look at how they’ve corrupted a once-innocent girl!

After seeing Fei Yutong off, Wei Yuan was just about to sit in meditation and do some homework when suddenly, he sensed something. A violent fluctuation in spirit qi was happening somewhere within the realm, accompanied by an indescribably yin and sinister aura so massive that it had actually formed a huge vortex!

Wei Yuan took flight instantly and reached the location of the yin qi in the blink of an eye. It was the new city where the youngsters lived, and at the center of the vortex lay the camp housing the pregnant girls.

When Wei Yuan arrived, Sun Yu was already examining a girl with a prominently swollen abdomen. Moments later, the healer approached Wei Yuan with a grave expression and said, “The fetuses in the bellies of more than half the girls have suddenly shriveled and died, while the remaining ones are growing rapidly. They are now over eight months old, and it won’t be long before they are born.”

1. Always bully Xiao Yu, even when he’s not around. XD ☜