Chapter 169: Inscribing

Xu Jingfeng had sent the antidote for the offerings long ago, and Wei Yuan, along with the others, was busy for half the night, finally waking up all the offerings.

Then Wei Yuan circled a camp on the open ground by the forest, first locking all the offerings inside to observe if there would be any abnormalities, and then sent a large number of cultivators to guard it.

After the offerings woke up one after another, their expressions were wooden, doing whatever they were told, neither crying nor making a fuss.

Xu Jingfeng had mentioned this situation long ago; in order to prevent the offerings from making trouble or even escaping, all offerings had been processed with arrays, Dao arts, and drugs. The processing method came from the Shaman Yu tribe, and after processing, the offerings would lose most of their emotions.

Once a person lost their emotions, they would slowly stop thinking, and coupled with the fact that those drugs also had the effect of damaging consciousness, after a while, the offerings would become muddled.

The offerings the Shaman tribe wanted only looked at the Dao Foundation and the Primordial Spirit; as long as these two were intact, it didn't matter if they were stupid or not.

After all the offerings woke up, most of them just sat there quietly in a daze, while a few Upper Offerings were secretly observing the surroundings. They did it very secretly, but Wei Yuan's spiritual sense was so powerful that he naturally discovered their small private actions.

It seemed these people still retained a certain degree of consciousness, but they probably didn't know that every move in the Azure Void was under Wei Yuan's nose. So Wei Yuan prepared to see what they were planning to do first.

After waking up the offerings, Wei Yuan ordered people to send food and water, set up a dozen large sheds, and first temporarily settle everyone. A moment later, Sun Yu hurried over and began to check the state of these people one by one.

If the offerings could recover their consciousness, it would naturally be best, and even if it was only a partial recovery, it would be good. Most of them had practiced cultivation, and their physical fitness far exceeded the standard of mortals; as long as they didn't completely lose their reason, they could take on many jobs.

The arrival of this batch of offerings immediately caused 100,000 taels of immortal silver to flow back to the Xu family. However, everyone had no opinion on this, after all, everyone had seen the power of the Shaman tribe's blood curse, and spending a little immortal silver to buy these offerings back was better than letting them turn into blood curses on their own heads.

Over the next few days, Xu Jingfeng showed unexpectedly high efficiency, actually discovering three Shaman tribe offering transport camps in one go.

After obtaining the locations of the camps, Wei Yuan didn't stop for a moment. First, Behind Bao Yun went ahead to scout the reality of each camp, then Wei Yuan divided the troops into three routes: he and Behind Bao Yun in one team, Ji Liuli leading a team alone, and Feng Tingyu and Cui Yu in a team. The three teams set off at the same time, sweeping away all the camps in one go and snatching back over eight hundred offerings.

To reward Xu Jingfeng's efficiency, Wei Yuan made another deal with him in the name of the Shaman tribe, purchasing a large batch of grain, minerals, and various seeds, thousands of sets of armor, one thousand top-quality strong bows, and one hundred thousand arrows, ultimately allowing 50,000 taels of immortal silver to flow back to the Xu family.

Over the next ten-plus days, tens of thousands more mortals arrived in the realm one after another. Now the number of mortals in the Azure Void exceeded 30,000, and the azure Qi Wei Yuan had accumulated exceeded 70 wisps, and he gained another wisp of advancing azure Qi. This wisp of azure Qi actually came from Xu Jingfeng, which gave Wei Yuan an unexpected understanding of his loyalty.

The human settlement by the small lake already had a considerable scale, and the dozens of four-story wooden buildings built were obviously a drop in the bucket. Even if Wei Yuan divided the original houses into three, cutting each household to only two zhang square, each wooden building could only hold two hundred people. All the wooden buildings together could only settle five or six thousand people, and the rest could only live under temporarily set up sheds for the time being.

The arrival of tens of thousands of mortals instantly kept Xiaoyu, Cui Yu, and a group of young masters and ladies from aristocratic families busy to the point of exhaustion. They were at least people who had studied military strategy, and having been influenced by their family elders, they also knew many ways of driving and managing.

They counted and checked the population day and night, registered cultivators and people with special skills, organized cultivators into separate groups, and then recruited the young and strong, assigning different jobs.

Once there were many people, conflicts would inevitably break out, and some people would naturally take the opportunity to make trouble.

Wei Yuan knew well that in troubled times, heavy codes must be used, so he unceremoniously arrested and killed over a dozen people who intended to stir up trouble, and then had cultivators patrol the city day and night, finally deterring this batch of people who were full of wild nature.

Among those killed, there were several who had one part of reason but insisted on making trouble according to twelve parts, and they were also beheaded by Wei Yuan together. After these guys lost their heads, everyone understood that Wei Yuan was definitely not someone who could be deceived by righteousness.

After strict control, tens of thousands of people finally had preliminary order, and originally, after the registration was completed in two days, they would officially become citizens of the realm.

But there were still some people who were unruly and rebellious, originally wanting to come over to speculate and see if they could fight for a future, but seeing that there were many high-level cultivators in the realm, they knew there was no hope for a future, so they wanted to return to the happy days of robbing houses and plundering everywhere in the past.

If these people had left quietly, it would have been fine, but they still thought about making a profit before leaving. So, taking advantage of a deep night, they attacked and killed guards, snatched a batch of military equipment and magic tools, and wanted to escape.

However, the Shattered Domain was a place outside the law, but the Azure Void was not. Wei Yuan had been alert since they attacked and killed the first guard, and then Zhang Sheng took action, capturing all seven or eight of them in one fell swoop.

Wei Yuan didn't drag his feet, directly beheading all eight of them in front of everyone, the three Dao Foundations being no exception, among whom there was even a late-stage Dao Foundation.

Seven days later, the registration of mortals was finally completed, and the final list filled two large boxes. In addition, there were two backups, all recorded on jade paper. Due to the continuous arrival of mortals, the final registered mortals already exceeded 40,000.

The completion of registration also meant that the settlement by the small lake had control and had become a city, although it looked like most of it was still shanties.

This was the first mortal city in the Azure Void Realm, and if there were no accidents, it would also be the mortal city closest to the core area in the future.

Since there was a city, it naturally had to be named. Wei Yuan searched through everything he had learned in his life, as well as what he had seen and heard since arriving in the Western Domain, and finally decided to name this city "Yong'an" (Eternal Peace).

Once the name was decided, Wei Yuan ordered people to bring paper and pen, spread it on the desk, and then calmed his mind, waved his brush, and wrote the two large characters "Yong'an."

As the last stroke was pressed, it seemed as if the shanties in the North District of Quliu Town, the human offerings beheaded in the array, and those corpses that didn't know when they fell by the roadside flashed before Wei Yuan's eyes, and a little flame suddenly ignited in his heart!

The brush in his hand was as heavy as a mountain and as light as a feather; when he lifted the brush, it seemed as if the entire mountain peak moved with it. The ink marks of the two large characters suddenly blurred for a moment, and then slowly became clear. These two characters were magnificent and grand, possessing the meaning of the vast heaven and earth.

In his life, these were the two best characters Wei Yuan had ever written; even compared to some famous calligraphers of the current era, they were only slightly inferior in technique, but far superior in momentum and artistic conception.

Wei Yuan looked fixedly at the two large characters, suddenly smiled, and tore them to shreds. He casually crumpled the waste paper into a ball, threw it into the wastebasket, then spread out the paper again, and wrote several "Yong'an" in a row, each with its own shortcomings, and the shortcomings were different. The level of these few characters was not even as good as Xu Ziyuan's.

Wei Yuan took the calligraphy and went to Zhang Sheng's residence.

Zhang Sheng was standing in front of the desk, holding a strangely shaped component in his hand, carefully examining it. Seeing Wei Yuan arrive, Zhang Sheng said: "What is it this time?"

Wei Yuan said: "Now the mortals have all been registered, and the city has been formed. This city will be the hub of the Azure Void in the future. The disciple has thought about it repeatedly and decided to name it Yong'an. However, I tried to inscribe the city name, but it was always unsatisfactory. I just wanted to ask the teacher to inscribe it."

Zhang Sheng smiled and said: "So it's this kind of matter. Bring the characters you wrote, and I'll see if you have regressed."

Wei Yuan presented the few pieces of calligraphy, and Zhang Sheng opened them one by one to look at them, commenting casually, all hitting the key points.

However, after reading the few pieces of calligraphy, Zhang Sheng glared at Wei Yuan and said: "These few pieces of yours either lack a skeleton, are too extreme, or are holding onto showing off skills; the errors in each piece are different, which is truly rare! Great Realm Lord Wei, you are telling me that your true level is not like this, right?"

Wei Yuan stood honestly and said: "I was afraid that the teacher would really think I hadn't worked hard."

!.

Zhang Sheng snorted and said: "That wasn't necessary; you have quite a lot of tricks now."

Zhang Sheng pushed the parts and mineral materials on the desk aside, casually spread out a piece of paper, picked up the brush and dipped it in ink, but didn't write immediately, instead thoughtful, and said: "Looking at those pieces of yours just now, your calligraphy should have reached the point of 'transforming intent into characters,' and in terms of attainment, you are not inferior to your teacher. Why don't you write it yourself?"

Wei Yuan said: "The disciple feels that this is the first city, and the city name should still be inscribed by you."

Zhang Sheng no longer declined, calmed his mind, and when he was about to write, the past dozen years suddenly flashed in his mind. He had actually been with this disciple for so many years, watching him grow step by step, laying down a foundation in this place surrounded by tigers and wolves, and building a city from the ground up.

Although this city currently only had tens of thousands of penniless poor people, no one knew what it would become in the future.

Zhang Sheng calmed his mind, his heart was empty and clear, moved his wrist and lifted the brush, and wrote the two characters "Yong'an."

These two characters were upright, peaceful, contained without revealing, round and smooth everywhere, without a trace of sharpness.

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Wei Yuan almost couldn't believe that these two characters were written by Zhang Sheng. Could a peerless sword cultivator who could comprehend four swords of killing also write such characters without a trace of worldly smoke?

Zhang Sheng seemed extremely satisfied with these two characters of his, looked at them repeatedly for a long time, then sighed and said: "Inner sage and outer king, I don't know when I will be able to write such characters again. Take it!"

Wei Yuan reminded: "Master, you haven't signed it yet."

Zhang Sheng said "Oh," and wrote the two characters "Zhang Sheng" on the side. These two characters faintly revealed an incomparable sword intent, and in the end, he couldn't avoid exposing a bit of his true nature.

Having obtained Zhang Sheng's inscription, Wei Yuan naturally went to find someone to mount it. Then it was to determine the various important positions in the city; for the first City Lord, Wei Yuan chose Xiaoyu.

Xiaoyu was very shocked by this, and couldn't understand why Wei Yuan didn't choose so many people in the palace and had to choose him. But Wei Yuan obviously didn't want to hear him decline, and after finishing the matter, he disappeared.

Xiaoyu took a long time to come back to his senses. He naturally knew the importance of Yong'an, which could be said to be the capital of the entire realm in the future. But letting him manage a large city of tens of thousands of mortals, did Wei Yuan find the wrong person?

Xiaoyu threw a pile of very ugly words at Wei Yuan in his heart, and while cursing, he dispelled the idea of packing his luggage, preparing to stay here for a while longer.

Now the Shaman tribe had been hit repeatedly and had begun to withdraw from the Shattered Domain, so the Azure Void was considered to have initially stood firm. Xiaoyu felt that his mission of coming to rescue was considered completed. There were still a lot of things to do in the family, and the cultivation environment in the Azure Void was definitely not as good as the family or the Primordial Palace. Not to mention anything else, just a forbidden immortal sword made him not want to stay for even a day longer.

Xiaoyu originally planned to say goodbye to Wei Yuan in a few days, but he didn't expect this guy to have a screw loose somewhere, suddenly giving himself a City Lord position.

Just thinking that everything was waiting to be done in the Azure Void, Xiaoyu thought about it and finally softened his heart, deciding to put his own affairs aside, stay for another ten days or half a month, and wait until the new city had some look before leaving.

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 170 =====