Chapter 273

Although Cui Yu was a standout of the Cui family's current generation, his seniority was still low, and there were others of his generation with better natural talent. Since joining the Azure Void, Cui Yu had basically used all his family contributions and the monthly allowance to exchange for the intelligence Wei Yuan needed.

Wei Yuan was aware of this, but for the moment, he had no good way to compensate him.

With Cui Yu's current status and position in the family, he couldn't yet obtain the core secrets of the various kingdoms' royal families. However, Wei Yuan didn't need to know that much; knowing the information on the surface was enough for now.

Wei Yuan originally had no interest in the Western Jin struggle for the throne, but since Imperial Consort Yuan had hinted so obviously at the end, if he didn't help her, who knew what she might do? If word reached the Prince of Jin's ears, wouldn't Western Jin mobilize its entire national army to flatten the Azure Void?

How to help was a great field of study.

Wei Yuan first organized his current advantages. First was that he held a large army and was stationed at the border. Second was that his personal strength was decent, already capable of fighting against a relatively weak Dharma Form. Third, and slightly further off, was that the Azure Void was rich in produce, and as the realm continued to expand, the output would become increasingly abundant.

In the struggle for the throne, the first point was the most core, and then personal strength played an important role, but it was not as important as the first point.

Wei Yuan exchanged for a large number of historical books through the Merit Hall, wanting to see how those border generals who held large armies in history participated in the struggle for the throne.

As he read, Wei Yuan felt things becoming increasingly wrong; why was it that not only did these people not have good reputations, but they also didn't have good endings?

But in the blink of an eye, he understood the reason: it wasn't that they all didn't have good endings. Some of them had succeeded, had the merit of supporting the dragon, and had heavily beautified their own actions; in any case, at that time, history books were written however they wanted.

A small number of others were particularly successful and simply became the True Dragon themselves. Thus, their deeds were all listed in the founding annals of the Taizu Emperor, not in the biographies of figures Wei Yuan was reading, and certainly not in the biographies of treacherous officials.

After reading further, Wei Yuan finally understood that if the same thing succeeded, it was the founding Taizu or the restorer of the dynasty, or at the very least a founding hero. If it didn't succeed, those with ability went into the biographies of treacherous officials, and those whose ability wasn't quite enough probably only had one sentence: So-and-so raised an army, and the army was defeated.

After reading history books for an entire day, Wei Yuan continuously substituted himself into history, and as a result, he wiped away cold sweat several times.

As for Wei Yuan's own strength, although it was said that it would take another year to break through, that was just data on paper. At this moment, the newly opened one hundred thousand mu of grain fields had already been planted, and soon several thousand mu of sorghum rice fields would be ready for harvest. After the new batch of sorghum rice was harvested, it could be used as seed to open more spiritual fields.

In other words, in at most half a year, after the next two batches of grain were harvested, the contributed spiritual energy would be enough for Wei Yuan to break through. If he was fast, perhaps three months.

Wei Yuan pondered the strength of the realm again.

Strictly speaking, Ji Liuli, like Bao Yun, could not be counted as the realm's standing combat power. The same went for Cui Yu; sooner or later, he would have to go back to inherit the family business. Although the Cui family had more outstanding geniuses in this generation, the Cui family's business was too large for one genius to swallow, and Cui Yu would certainly be able to get a fairly large piece.

Wang Yu, Xu Yi, and other aristocratic children were the same; their better future lay in their families, not in charging forward with Wei Yuan.

Not considering the aristocratic clans, Wei Yuan currently had roughly seven hundred Dao foundations on hand, dozens of which had just been captured. In addition, there were three thousand cultivators who had perfected Body Forging; this batch of cultivators were dragons among men within the realm, but outside the realm, they could only be said to be quite outstanding. Finally, there were tens of thousands of ordinary Body Forging cultivators.

Within the realm, Wei Yuan had used this troop to hold off the attack of one hundred thousand Shaman elites. Although they immediately became useless once they left the realm, Wei Yuan could expand the realm over.

At this time, the realm's ordinary grain had already been harvested, and there were over four million catties of grain stored in the granary.

With soldiers and grain, Wei Yuan had for the first time the confidence to carve out a territory and wreak havoc on the imperial court.

As soon as this thought arose, Wei Yuan was startled; why would he think of these things? If it weren't for these living people in the Broken Realm, he wouldn't be tied to this place.

But it was also a fact that his troops were strong, his horses were sturdy, and his grain was sufficient; was he just going to waste time like this?

Just as Wei Yuan was struggling with himself, Yu Zhizhuo knocked on the door. As soon as he saw Wei Yuan, he was full of joy, grabbed Wei Yuan's hand, and said, "Junior Nephew, you've returned just in time! I just happened to discover a vein of meta-copper underground and have been waiting for you for a long time!"

Yu Zhizhuo appeared very urgent, almost dragging Wei Yuan so that he was about to fly. At this moment, Wei Yuan felt the difference: Uncle Yu's hands were hard and rough, like his favorite ores. Imperial Consort Yuan's hands were soft and agile, seemingly capable of turning into all things in the world, capable of anything; Master's hands...

Wei Yuan hurriedly cleared the dangerous thoughts out of his mind.

Yu Zhizhuo's flying posture was simple and unadorned, but his speed was extremely fast; in the blink of an eye, he brought Wei Yuan deep into the underground mine. Having not returned for just a few days, the mine had extended dozens of zhang deeper underground. Clearly, this progress could not satisfy Yu Zhizhuo, so he had dragged Wei Yuan down at the first opportunity.

At this moment, before Wei Yuan was a vein of ore with some mottled green, containing quite strange ore Qi, with metal as the primary and wood as the auxiliary.

Yu Zhizhuo didn't need to say much; he just pointed forward, and Wei Yuan knew what he had to do, so he unleashed the Golden Light Water Blade Art. But after a moment, Wei Yuan let out an "eh" and stopped the water flow.

Under normal circumstances, if he had been flushing for this long, the mine should have been dug in by more than ten zhang, but at the moment, it had only dug in three zhang. Wei Yuan reached out to dig, and the rock and ore layer was like soft mud under his hands, and he dug out a large piece directly.

After examining it carefully for a while, Wei Yuan only felt that this kind of ore seemed to particularly resist Dao power. Ten percent of Dao power hitting it couldn't exert even three percent of its effect.

At this time, Yu Zhizhuo had already set up an array disk, on which a three-dimensional schematic of the underground mine appeared. From the schematic, it could be seen that the surrounding area had already been dug like a spider web.

"This ore vein is a bit special; the ore is particularly resistant to Dao power and is not ordinary meta-copper. If this component can be separated, it will be a material for top-grade defensive magic treasures. However, we'll talk about the separation later; let's mine first."

Yu Zhizhuo drew a winding line on the mine schematic and then said, "Dig according to this first."

Wei Yuan released another Water Blade Art, but the effect was still not great. In fact, the efficiency of the Water Blade Art in mining was extremely high; even if Yu Zhizhuo's several junior brothers were tied together, they couldn't compare to Wei Yuan alone.

Mining ordinary ore veins was one thing, but when encountering special ore veins, or when large-scale exploration was needed, Yu Zhizhuo particularly liked to pull Wei Yuan along, which could increase the exploration efficiency by dozens or hundreds of times.

Even if the efficiency was only thirty percent at this moment, if someone else came, the efficiency would be even lower, unless they didn't use Dao arts and only used manual brute force to dig.

However, a flash of inspiration struck Wei Yuan's mind, and the water flow in his hand suddenly turned red, beginning to emit rolling heat. The ore vein in front immediately melted rapidly, like ice and snow meeting a scorching sun.

This was Wei Yuan trying to add the newly obtained Red Lotus Honglian Puti aura, and the effect was indeed astonishing. But he had only dug a few times when he cried out "bad" in his heart.

Sure enough, Yu Zhizhuo's eyes lit up, his hands rubbed together, and he was excited beyond measure. Thus, by the time Wei Yuan came out from underground, it was already the next morning. It truly lived up to the old saying from Wei Yuan's hometown: the capable mule is always the first to be worked to death.

He returned to his residence with a body full of exhaustion, and by the way, he learned about a dozen more types of ore. At this moment, Wei Yuan was so tired he didn't want to move at all, when suddenly another cultivator knocked on the door, sent in a letter, and said, "This is a letter for you from the Prefect of Ningxi."

Yuan Qingyan?

Wei Yuan's spirits lifted; did this guy finally know he was wrong and write a letter to surrender?

But when he opened the letter and looked, his anger immediately surged; this was not a letter of surrender, but a letter persuading him to surrender. Yuan Qingyan calculated that Wei Yuan should have run out of grain, so he wrote a letter to persuade him to submit to the imperial court. As long as Wei Yuan was willing to offer up the Azure Void, he could hand over the position of Prefect.

The wording in the letter was earnest, but given Wei Yuan's personality, this letter was less a persuasion to surrender and more a declaration of war. Yuan Qingyan couldn't have been unaware of this point; was he feeling so confident of victory that he had come specifically to provoke him?

However, the current Wei Yuan was already different from the past; he was, after all, a great general among the maternal relatives and felt that sooner or later, he would be able to deal with Yuan Qingyan without anyone noticing. Thus, Wei Yuan pulled himself together, picked up the biographies of treacherous officials again, and looked carefully at how to fabricate groundless charges and how to frame loyal officials.

Thinking of this, Wei Yuan spat several times; what kind of loyal official was Yuan Qingyan?

After resting a little, it was time for the cultivators of the Grand Void Palace to discuss matters. Calling it a discussion was actually an exchange of progress in their respective research. After reading Xu Wenwu's records of his travels, the cultivators were all broad-minded and let their imaginations run wild, researching things that were increasingly strange and bizarre, so no matter how busy Wei Yuan was, he had to attend the routine meetings.

The inspiration for his brilliant honeycomb flying sword launchers came from these meetings.

In the blink of an eye, everyone gathered; in fact, the main room used for the meeting was already quite crowded, and Wei Yuan had always wanted to rebuild a dedicated meeting hall under the main peak, but he had never found the time.

The meeting hadn't started yet when a cultivator suddenly ran over, presented a visiting card, and said, "A little monk has come from outside, specifically asking to see the Realm Master."

"See me? I won't see him!" Wei Yuan now got a headache whenever he heard the word "monk."

!.

At this moment, a Buddhist chant sounded outside the door, and someone said, "Zhao Shi Zhu Wei is indeed busy; in that case, this little monk has no choice but to come uninvited."

As he spoke, a monk pushed the door and entered.

This little monk was not very old, born with red lips and white teeth, and his appearance was extremely good, almost capable of putting most so-called beauties in the world to shame. It was just that his temperament was a bit strange; he didn't have the Zen intent and Buddhist nature of a high-ranking monk who had attained the Dao, nor was he detached from worldly affairs or empty of the four elements.

He had a sense of etherealness, but his sharpness was revealed externally, like a jade knife.

This little monk was able to penetrate to the core of the realm and arrive outside the door under the eyes of everyone in the Grand Void Palace; clearly, he had quite a bit of cultivation.

Seeing Wei Yuan, he chanted a Buddhist name and said, "Zhao Shi Zhu, your actions are perverse and your sins are deep; this little monk has come specifically to convert you. I only hope that you will lay down your butcher's knife and turn back to the shore. It is not too late to repent now."

The little monk's voice was pleasant and melodious, and as he spoke, it had a convincing power, but the content of what he said made Wei Yuan feel more and more wrong the more he listened, and then anger rose from the bottom of his heart.

My actions are perverse and my sins are deep? Could this little monk have bad eyesight and recognize the wrong person?

The little monk seemed to have heard the words in Wei Yuan's heart and said sternly, "Zhao Shi Zhu Wei seems unconvinced; in that case, this little monk will count your crimes."

Wei Yuan sneered; he wanted to hear what this monk had to say.

"You fought a great battle with the Shaman tribe, repeatedly driving civilians onto the battlefield of slaughter, causing boundless karmic slaughter—this is crime one; you forcibly relocated over one hundred thousand people from Quliu Town, and over a thousand died on the road—this is crime two; you disguised yourself as horse bandits, robbed military grain, and killed over a hundred innocent officials and soldiers—this is crime three..."

As the crimes were counted one by one, Wei Yuan's eyebrows gradually stood up.

So, it was wrong for him to lead the entire realm in a death battle with the Shaman tribe? This is called driving civilians?

Before the war, Wei Yuan indeed hadn't asked for the opinions of the common people; except for the children, in times of crisis, regardless of whether they were willing or not, everyone had to go to the battlefield. With the blessing of the masses, any commoner would have a certain combat capability.

But this was a life-and-death battle; how could he take care of everyone's wishes? If he had to ask everyone one by one if they were willing to go to the battlefield before the war, then there would be no need to fight this war; he might as well just surrender to the Shaman tribe.

If this is also a crime, then in this surrounding ten-thousand-li region, there are plenty of people with sins deeper than Wei Yuan's; why haven't I seen this monk visit them? Is it just because I'm easy to bully?

The little monk listed Wei Yuan's eleven major crimes and then shouted sternly, "So many people have died because of you; what else does the Zhao Shi Zhu have to say?"

The little monk's eyes were bright, his momentum was high, and he looked like he was prepared to have a serious debate with Wei Yuan. Debating scriptures was a monk's specialty.

Wei Yuan looked thoughtful, then looked at the monk and said only one word:

"Get lost!"

The little monk's cultivation was ultimately a bit lacking; his face slowly flushed red, and he chanted a Buddhist name and began to roll up his sleeves: "Since the Zhao Shi Zhu is obsessed and doesn't listen to reason, this little monk also knows a little bit of fist and footwork."

In the crowded room, Zhang Sheng, Ji Liuli, Yu Zhizhuo, Sun Yu, and Feng Tingyu all pricked up their ears and raised their heads in an instant. True Lord Chuhe's two spiritual pets were working in the fields and it wasn't his turn to play, so he was calm and composed.

Wei Yuan had been in a bad mood for the past few days and was allergic to monks; hearing this, he slowly grinned, revealing two rows of snow-white teeth that flashed with cold light, and sneered, "So you know a little bit of fist and footwork, huh..."

A cup of tea later, at the edge of the realm, Wei Yuan threw the bruised and battered little monk, covered in shoe prints, outside the realm and said, "Get as far away as you can! For the sake of the Great Treasure Flower Pure Land, I'll spare your life this time. If I see you again next time, don't blame me for specifically hitting your face!"

The little monk struggled to climb up, still unconvinced, and shouted, "You are full of karmic slaughter, the resentment must have already penetrated your Primordial Spirit! Where was this little monk wrong!"

Wei Yuan let out a long laugh and stretched out a hand, which suddenly emitted a hazy brilliance, actually somewhat similar to Buddha light. The light was warm and pure, without a trace of impurity.

Wei Yuan sneered: "Look clearly, where is there even a trace of resentment in this Dharma body of mine from inside to out? If you can find it, I'll admire you!"

The little monk looked carefully and indeed saw it was crystal clear, without filth or impurity, comparable to a glazed pure Dharma body after attaining a fruit position. The little monk suddenly couldn't understand; he had clearly caused so many people to die, so where did all that karmic resentment go?

Amidst the long laughter, Wei Yuan strode away with the Dharma body purified by the precious Honglian Puti tree, leaving the little monk bewildered in the wind.

(End of chapter)