Chapter 409: All Earthly Matters

Two months passed in an instant, the winds calm and the seas still, and harvest season arrived once more. At this time, Qingming had opened three million mu of farmland, housed 1.2 million residents, and cultivated another 50,000 mu of spiritual fields, yielding ten million jin of spiritual rice every half year.

This season's harvest totaled six hundred million jin—a weighty burden for all of Qingming—so Little Wei Yuan mobilized early: aside from ten thousand elite troops who continued their regular training, every soldier was drafted to harvest grain.

As the grain ripened, spiritual energy surged across the ten-thousand-li landscape, and spiritual rain fell nearly without pause. Though the immortal plants received no divine gift from heaven and earth, the increasingly dense primordial energy of the world accelerated their growth.

At this time, the Moon Osmanthus Immortal Tree had completely broken ties with the Ice Glass Immortal Tree; their followers, once indifferent to each other, now hurled insults back and forth—all within just one or two months.

The Langya Bingli Bingli Shenmu quietly shifted position and gathered a group of followers of its own, watching the Moon Osmanthus and Ice Glass with predatory intent.

The Red Lotus Bodhi and the four orchids observed coldly, refusing to join the three-way conflict. The aquatic immortal plant had yet to sprout and remained in gestation, so though it had some followers, their number was small.

The immortal plants each acted independently, and the three mutually hostile ones created an unexpected situation.

To prevent their followers from being brainwashed and stolen, the Ice Glass Immortal Tree first linked all her followers' consciousnesses to herself, then began brainwashing the Moon Osmanthus's followers.

Whether the orders came from Little Wei Yuan, the girl Yin-Yang, or any data she received, Ice Glass handled everything herself before assigning tasks to her followers. After completing tasks, followers reported back to her first, only then to Little Wei Yuan or the girl Yin-Yang.

After losing several followers to the Ice Glass Tree, the Moon Osmanthus tried to steal back some—but found she could not even touch the consciousness of the other's followers. Only then did she realize, belatedly, that Ice Glass had linked all her followers to herself.

This was no easy task: not only did her workload skyrocket, but even on days without assignments, she had to sift through materials to feed her followers, clarifying their development paths and cultivation routes. Only by having more and stronger followers could an immortal plant grow stronger itself.

The Moon Osmanthus was never diligent by nature, but to avenge this slight, she gritted her teeth and linked all her followers to herself, spending days dizzy and exhausted. Only now did she wonder whether it was worth torturing herself like this over a few lost followers—after all, she still had thousands left.

The Langya Bingli Bingli Shenmu silently linked its followers as well.

Aside from those immortal plants without ambition, other objects of worship—such as Yushan, Little Wei Yuan's statue, the Jade Toad statue, the floating moon, even the vast sky and the Fixed Sea Pearl—left their followers entirely unmanaged.

In such a world teeming with immortals and gods, a small group stood out, even alienated from the world itself.

This group centered on the earliest martial cultivators, gathering those who sought to ascend to immortality through sheer personal strength.

Their dojo had now been built, but they could not agree on a name, so they held a Martial Arts Tournament, with the final three victors each contributing a few characters to determine the dojo's name.

All cultivators unanimously agreed to name the tournament the "First Martial Arts Tournament Under Heaven," a name that caught Little Wei Yuan's attention—he watched from start to finish with great interest.

Several cultivators with extraordinary talent drew Little Wei Yuan's notice; he even thought he saw a tail behind one of them—but when he looked again, it was gone.

The first to reach the tournament finals was unquestionably the genius who stood just one step away from achievement. The other side was far more fiercely contested: most cultivators were nearly equal in strength, yet the one who barely scraped into the finals was the one with the worst talent among the three in the cultivation hall that day.

The final battle began: the genius naturally overwhelmed the mediocre fighter—but the latter deployed countless tricks, his methods bizarre and unimaginable, wielding a chaotic pile of magical treasures, and his movements were lightning-fast—he sprinted across the entire arena, fleeing from the very first moment of the fight until its end, exhausting his opponent into collapse. Little Wei Yuan watched this final battle in stunned awe, deeply inspired: he realized his own past battles had been far too honest, far too rigid. Compared to this mediocre man, even his guided swords and landmines were acts of conscience.

When the name was settled, the three victors' chosen characters—nine, heaven; ten, earth; fight, saint—combined into the dojo's name: Nine Heavens, Ten Earths, Battle Saint Dojo.

At the moment the name was fixed, a storm erupted across the ten-thousand-li landscape; spiritual energy and invisible fortune converged upon the dojo, and through this surge, the mediocre cultivator suddenly felt a revelation—he forged his Dao Foundation!

At the moment the Dao Foundation was forged, a bolt of thunder descended from beyond the heavens—it was a heavenly tribulation!

Could someone in the ten-thousand-li landscape forging a Dao Foundation really summon a heavenly tribulation?

Little Wei Yuan could not stand idly by and let him die—he prepared to intervene and block the tribulation. At that moment, a faint black mist suddenly erupted from the shadow within the moon—like fortune, yet not fortune.

The lightning passed through the black mist and was instantly weakened by ninety percent, now within survivable limits. Even so, the mediocre cultivator barely escaped death; only when Little Wei Yuan infused him with vitality did he survive.

Bearing the thunder's wrath, surviving nine deaths, he forged a newborn morning sun. A great sun should be an Immortal Foundation—but his morning sun was crimson, dull in hue, unstable, more like the first winter sunrise—its warmth faint, barely qualifying as a Heavenly Foundation.

Little Wei Yuan fell into thought.

For so long, had humanity's standard for judging Dao Foundations truly been correct? This winter sunrise was barely even a Heavenly Foundation—but the thunder it summoned could kill an Immortal Foundation. Could heaven and earth itself be mistaken?

The more Little Wei Yuan pondered, the deeper he delved, feeling as if he had brushed against something—the truth hidden behind the world. But as the tribulation ended, the sensation vanished, leaving Little Wei Yuan with a sense of loss.

Just as Little Wei Yuan prepared to leave, he suddenly heard voices.

"After carrying so long, the Lady is finally about to give birth!"

!.

"It's been two hours already—why hasn't she delivered yet?"

"The Lady carried for exactly three months—could it be… she's bearing a demon?"

"Speak lower! If the Master hears you, he'll flay you alive!"

"But that's not the worst. The worst is if the child in her belly hears you! Do you think… it's listening right now?"

Little Wei Yuan's spiritual sense turned to the courtyard and saw the Young Lady screaming inside, several midwives pacing frantically—the child refused to emerge.

Little Wei Yuan frowned slightly and sent a few strands of azure fortune—but to his surprise, the woman could not absorb them. Seeing Qingming's first infant about to perish, Little Wei Yuan sent another strand of celestial fortune.

This time, the celestial fortune entered the woman's body smoothly; her cries grew louder, and the fetus's vitality revived. Little Wei Yuan acted decisively, continuously pouring in celestial fortune. After nearly twenty strands were invested, a loud infant's cry finally rang from the room.

(End of Chapter)