Chapter 228: Visitors from the Noble Family

In the barren mountains, several cultivators stopped their work and looked at the somewhat anxious Eldest Senior Brother.

Eldest Senior Brother paced in circles like an ant that couldn't find its direction, his face uncertain. At this time, the youngest cultivator really couldn't watch anymore and said: "Eldest Senior Brother, make a decision early."

Eldest Senior Brother stopped, his face gloomy as water, and said slowly: "Could it be that I have been deceived again?"

"You haven't been deceived just once or twice; your reputation for being a god of foresight has spread everywhere, so it doesn't matter if there are a few more times. Over these years, the only one that hasn't deceived you is the Tianqing Hall."

Eldest Senior Brother sighed long and looked at the barren mountains with no one around and poisonous grass and insects everywhere, saying painfully: "This time, I'm afraid I really implicated you all..."

A group of junior brothers waved their hands: "It doesn't matter, as long as Eldest Senior Brother pays our wages for these few days."

Eldest Senior Brother gritted his teeth: "Go, go to Qingming!"

"Wait, there is no mission, how can we go? Ancestor's rules, you can't run empty-handed when you go out, you must have remuneration."

Eldest Senior Brother slapped his head: "I almost forgot, this is easy to handle!"

He turned to the youngest cultivator and said: "Don't you have an elder brother in the Tianqing Hall?"

"Yes."

"Let him issue a bounty mission, inviting refiners to the Qingming domain to refine magic treasures, and fill in the remuneration casually. Then you take the mission, and let him privately return the merit to you."

The young cultivator was silent for a while and said: "Eldest Senior Brother, the handling fee is very expensive."

Eldest Senior Brother gritted his teeth again: "I'll pay!"

A day later, this small team of several cultivators finally packed their luggage and left this barren mountain where there was nothing.

At this time, within the Qingming domain, the discussion on the siege cannon had already deviated from its original intention and was striding toward the direction of the Great Dao.

According to Xu Wenwu's memory, the concept of a siege cannon was very vague, but its function was clear: its power had to be large enough to blast open solid defensive works, and city walls counted.

In this world, whether it was the human race or alien races, city walls were reinforced with magic arts, changing the material properties, and their solidity was no worse than the reinforced concrete in Xu Wenwu's mouth. To blast open the Shaman tribe's city walls, the power had to be great, great enough to reach the point of loading a hundred catties of gunpowder.

The siege cannon in Xu Wenwu's memory definitely wouldn't work; the cannonballs were too small and the power wasn't enough. The people of the Grand Void Palace in Qingming at this time were all geniuses of the moment; the Immortal Foundation and Heaven Foundation all had powerful Primordial Spirits, and their spiritual sense was like electricity, not smart in the secular sense. After some discussion, everyone abstracted the problem into how to send the cannonballs to the heads of the Shaman tribe's city.

There were many solutions to this problem. Cui Yu suggested directly refining the cannonballs into magic treasures and flying them over like flying swords. Powerful cultivators could also operate multiple cannonballs at once, and the firepower problem could be solved together.

This suggestion was immediately rejected by Wei Yuan for no other reason than that Young Master Cui didn't know how expensive magic treasures were and how burning money it was to hire a refiner. In Young Master Cui's mind, this kind of primary magic treasure wasn't worth picking up if it fell on the ground.

It wasn't a magic treasure, but there were also many means to transport cannonballs. True Person Chuhe suggested that he could plant a few Elephant Tree Demon Vines at the edge of the domain; this was a type of demon that looked like a spirit plant, ten zhang high, with multiple vine arms and immense strength. At that time, cannonballs could be tied to its vine arms, and after swinging them to a certain speed, they could be thrown out, easily reaching a hundred miles away.

It was just that this kind of demon had to grow for thirty years after being planted, and even if transplanted, it would take three years to be used, so this plan was naturally rejected.

The final chosen plan was proposed by Ji Liuli. This plan required setting up a formation within the domain to make the cannonballs float in the formation, and then cultivators would push the cannonballs forward with Dao power, one by one relaying them. Theoretically, as long as the formation was long enough and there were enough cultivators, the cannonballs could eventually be accelerated to sufficient speed, and throwing them a hundred miles away wouldn't be a problem.

And if the formation was long enough, the requirements for the cultivators' cultivation would also be significantly reduced, and any Foundation Establishment would do. As long as there were more people lined up, and each person pushed a bit along the way, they could accelerate the cannonballs to a high speed of a hundred zhang in an instant.

This plan was finally recognized by everyone, and everyone worked together to discuss it for two days, gradually perfecting it.

Wei Yuan really had no money, so he could only use more cultivators and fewer materials, so he decided to build a formation a thousand zhang long, equipped with three hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators, pushing cannonballs in pairs. Now the Qingming domain was waiting to be rebuilt, and there was nothing, just needing Foundation Establishment cultivators to consolidate their Foundation Establishment. The cannon carriage for the siege cannon was ready, and the rest was the power of the cannonballs. At this time, relying on Sun Yu alone, the production of gunpowder couldn't keep up; after all, several raw materials were originally used as medicinal materials, and the stock couldn't be large. So mining was placed in front of Wei Yuan again.

Mining didn't necessarily require experts; knowing a little about earth veins was enough, mainly relying on a large number of cultivators to use spiritual sense to explore underground.

An ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator could roughly explore the distribution of earth veins within three zhang around the mine tunnel. And Wei Yuan could explore three hundred zhang with the help of Qingming. So theoretically, a few hundred cultivators could roughly equal a Dharma Form-level cultivator in mining, and it wasn't necessarily required to have high-level cultivators.

Coincidentally, mining and digging holes were also good ways to consolidate Foundation Establishment.

Although Wei Yuan had many newly promoted Foundation Establishment cultivators on hand, there were more places to use them, and it was clear that there were not enough people.

Just as he was worrying, he suddenly sensed a flying boat sneaking into the domain. The spiritual power fluctuation of this flying boat was extremely weak, and it had flown dozens of miles into the domain before Wei Yuan sensed it.

Fortunately, the flying boat released the mark of the Cui family in time, otherwise the immortal sword above its head wouldn't have been slashed down.

Wei Yuan subsequently appeared in front of the flying boat and led it to land outside Yongan City. An old man walked out of the flying boat, and then one young person after another drilled out of the flying boat, seemingly endless, and finally over a hundred people stood in front of Wei Yuan.

At this time, Cui Yu also hurried over, and was shocked when he saw the old man, bowing: "Fifth Grand-uncle, why did you come?"

The old man had a graceful demeanor, unmoved by anything, looked Cui Yu up and down, and slowly revealed a trace of a smile, saying: "There are many people from the clan this time, although they are all useless, they all have the blood of the Cui family flowing in them, and this journey was not easy. So the elders asked me to send them over, so as not to alarm other families."

The so-called not alarming other families naturally referred to the Xu family.

!.

The old man's demeanor was deep and endless, clearly a Dharma Form high-level cultivator, and not an ordinary Dharma Form.

Cui Yu introduced: "This is my Fifth Grand-uncle Cui Xingjiang, and this is the Qingming Domain Lord Wei Yuan whom I told the family about."

The old man looked at Wei Yuan and nodded: "Truly a dragon and phoenix among people. It is Cui Yu's luck that this child can work with you."

Wei Yuan bowed: "Cui brother is also a great talent, it is a fortunate thing to have Cui brother's help."

The old man took out a small box and handed it over, saying: "This is the thank-you gift for this time. The meaning of the old lady is that as long as three people among this batch can forge a Foundation Establishment, it will be fine. If there can be more, there will be an extra reward."

Wei Yuan took the box, didn't open it, and just put it away, saying: "I will definitely do my best."

The old man nodded and said to Cui Yu: "There are quite a few people in the clan staring at this matter, and those who really need to achieve Foundation Establishment haven't come yet. You have already entered the eyes of the clan elders, and if this matter is handled well, it may not be impossible to go further."

Cui Yu said solemnly: "I will definitely do my best. It's just that my talent is limited, and I don't covet the position in the clan."

The old man sighed, revealing a look of regret, and said slowly: "Although high cultivation doesn't mean everything, the Cui family is big and has a big business, and I don't know how many people are staring at it. Not to mention that the Dharma Form cannot support the entire Cui family, even a True Person Yu Jing cannot support the entire Cui family. If your cultivation is not enough, even if you sit in that position, the people below won't obey you."

Cui Yu said: "It has been like this for thousands of years, I understand."

The old man nodded, didn't say anything more, and drove the flying boat away by himself.

Watching the flying boat leave, Cui Yu suddenly smiled bitterly and said to Wei Yuan: "The truth is this truth, but I am still somewhat unwilling in my heart!"

ps: September should be better than August, so I'll pluck the minimum monthly ticket first.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 229 =====