Chapter 804: What is the Source

The first sub-cave-heaven was running successfully. Wei Yuan pressed on and immediately began to calculate the second orbit.

With the foundation laid by the first one, the second one was much easier. Wei Yuan didn't need to be in seclusion for a long time and could walk around the territory every once in a while to handle various political affairs.

Wei Yuan established the Realm Master's Palace in the central Yong'an City, specifically to handle all immortal and mortal political affairs here. To the left in front of the palace was the City Lord's Mansion, and to the right was the Political Affairs Hall.

Wei Yuan first looked at the issuance of Azure Yuan.

At this time, it had been over a year since the first issuance of Azure Yuan. The demand for Azure Yuan was extremely strong, and it had been reprinted four times. At this time, the circulation quantity had already exceeded one hundred million.

As the issuer of Azure Yuan, the Azure Void Bank had expanded its staff to nearly ten thousand, but it was still busy beyond measure. Just the various deposit and exchange matters had them burnt out.

Major merchant firms wanted to import goods from Azure Void, and initially, they had to borrow a sum of Azure Yuan. Just this one business sector had a demand of sixty to seventy million. Then, the study and life of various aristocratic family disciples in Azure Void also required a large amount of Azure Yuan, which was another twenty to thirty million.

The last part was the salary issued by the merit system within Azure Void. Originally, mortals in Azure Void with the ability to work, not considering cultivation, could earn one merit point on average per year.

This was because there were too many refugees newly added to Azure Void, and the population had expanded tenfold directly. As a result, the competitors for all jobs had mostly increased tenfold accordingly. Subsequently, for the same job, the merit reward was lowered again and again, dropping to one-fourth of the original, and there were still countless people fighting to do it.

But with the issuance of Azure Yuan and the establishment of the universal salary system, in less than a year, the average annual merit per person had unexpectedly risen from one point to three points!

Behind such an astonishing increase was an eightfold expansion of the labor army, as well as a slightly decreased average level of body forging. That is to say, without changing anything, these mortals did three times the work of the past.

Three times the merit plus the equivalent Azure Yuan, the money and grain harvested by an ordinary mortal in the past year directly became six times that of the previous year. As a result, everyone was grateful, and Wei Yuan's azure energy was also continuous and endless.

After figuring out the principle, Wei Yuan was somewhat embarrassed.

These mortals worked hard, did more and got more; these were all things they deserved, and then they had to contribute luck to Wei Yuan. However, outside of Azure Void, mortals didn't even have many opportunities to work, and no matter how much they worked, what they got was still just a little bit that barely kept them fed and clothed.

After being stable and affluent, mortals first forged their bodies and cultivated, and second, they gave birth and multiplied.

Those who could reach Azure Void were all young and strong. Although there were not many women, hundreds of thousands of babies were born over the year. With the birth of almost every baby, their parents would contribute an extra wisp of luck.

Now there were ten million people with merit records in Azure Void, and just issuing salaries had issued thirty million Azure Yuan.

Out-of-town merchant firms keenly discovered business opportunities. If the shops they opened paid in Azure Yuan, there would be corresponding discounts. Thus, Azure Yuan flowed into the hands of the merchant firms, which could be used to repay the Azure Void Bank.

With the issuance of Azure Yuan, the number of cultivators who voluntarily came to Azure Void to work in order to earn Azure Yuan increased significantly, many times more than in the past.

For these cultivators who wanted to join, Azure Void did not refuse anyone, and had a standard process of blood contracts and template oaths to deal with, only that the term was added accordingly. But this term design was very particular; the general standard was to serve Azure Void for ten years, and then within thirty years after the contract expired, one could not be an enemy of Azure Void; after thirty years, one was free.

A large number of cultivators joined, making the demand for Azure Yuan rise steadily, and it had been reprinted several times, but it could never satisfy the demand. Wei Yuan strictly controlled the printing of Azure Yuan, so many people engaged in Azure Yuan exchange business appeared among the people; these people were collectively called Azure Yuan peddlers.

Now the official Azure Yuan and immortal silver were still one-to-one, but in the black market, one Azure Yuan could already be exchanged for one tael and two *qian* of immortal silver.

Although there had been precedents in the world outside the sky, at that time Wei Yuan was in an illusionary realm formed by resentment, just an ordinary person using money, with no feeling at all. But now standing from the perspective of an Azure Yuan issuer, Wei Yuan saw something different.

Immortal silver was the most common basic material in the immortal cultivation world. It was transformed from ordinary silver by cultivators nourishing it with magic power for a sufficient amount of time. To convert one tael of immortal silver, spiritual energy must be in place, either by low-level cultivators nourishing it for a long time, or by high-level cultivators stewing it with high heat. So immortal silver had a price and was extremely stable.

But what about Azure Yuan?

The real cost of printing ten million Azure Yuan was only a few thousand taels of immortal silver. Now that one hundred million Azure Yuan were circulating outside, it was equivalent to one hundred million taels of immortal silver's worth of goods or services flowing into Azure Void.

These people either provided goods or served Azure Void, and what they got was just a few pieces of paper money.

Azure Yuan superficially anchored to immortal silver, but in reality, Wei Yuan did not hoard equivalent immortal silver because of this, and he didn't even deliberately purchase immortal silver at all. In other words, Azure Yuan was actually built on the credit of the Azure Void realm and even Wei Yuan himself.

Wei Yuan suddenly had a thought: if he suddenly announced that Azure Yuan was void, or that it could no longer be exchanged for immortal silver from Azure Void, wouldn't the Azure Yuan in everyone's hands become a piece of waste paper? And the wealth worth one hundred million would fall into Wei Yuan's hands.

Even if Wei Yuan wasn't that dark, and changed Azure Yuan to one yuan exchanging for half a tael of immortal silver, that would be fifty million taels of immortal silver directly into the account. Doing this seemed a bit simple and crude. If it were more refined, such as only deducting ten percent or five percent, or even less, then people might not notice anything at all, and Wei Yuan, who issued Azure Yuan, would already be harvesting wealth silently.

Now the issuance of Azure Yuan had just begun. In the future, if ten billion or even one hundred billion were issued, even if Wei Yuan only harvested a few percentage points every year, he could earn hundreds of millions of wealth out of thin air. Wei Yuan was suddenly shocked; this money grabbing was faster than horse bandits.

Horse bandits still had to rob family by family, still had to sell stolen goods at low prices, and might encounter resistance and suffer casualties. Now Wei Yuan just printed Azure Yuan, and earned more than all the horse bandits in the Western Regions combined!

Moreover, Wei Yuan also discovered that as long as the enemy couldn't beat Azure Void, then how much money was grabbed, and whether it was grabbed fast or slow, actually depended entirely on his own conscience. But Wei Yuan felt that after sitting in this position for a long time, his conscience would disappear sooner or later.

With the increasingly widespread application of Azure Yuan, fake Azure Yuan also appeared. Fortunately, genuine Azure Yuan had the aura of immortal orchids, making it almost impossible to forge. Fake Azure Yuan could only deceive ignorant country cultivators in remote areas and could not affect the overall situation.

Wei Yuan took precautions and established regulations early on: fake Azure Yuan would be confiscated on the spot once discovered; those who knowingly used fake ones would be guilty of a serious crime; those who manufactured and sold fake Azure Yuan would be executed without exception.

However, in over a year of use, Azure Yuan also had many problems. Among them was the increasingly low efficiency of the Azure Void Bank, the operation gradually slowing down, and the official flavor becoming stronger day by day.

Wei Yuan was concentrating on studying the Azure Yuan problem when suddenly his primordial spirit shook, and a vast amount of luck suddenly spewed out from Azure Void, falling into the worldly fireworks!

This luck was red with a hint of gold, unexpectedly a perfect whole. In terms of volume alone, it was already equivalent to a million wisps of azure energy of human luck.

Wei Yuan studied luck and immediately knew that something extraordinary had been born, or a heavy treasure that could affect the development of the entire Azure Void had been born, only then would there be signs of such luck erupting. Moreover, this time the luck was unexpectedly reddish, which was truly unprecedented.

Before Wei Yuan could investigate the source of the luck in detail, Yu Zhizhuo had already rushed into the Realm Master's Palace in a flurry. As soon as he entered the palace door, he shouted: "Junior nephew, quickly follow me for a trip, I'll show you a good treasure!"

No need to say more; just from that wisp of luck just now, Wei Yuan knew this treasure must be extremely extraordinary. He immediately dropped all official business and flew toward the Weapon Forging Workshop with Yu Zhizhuo.

A moment later, Wei Yuan stood in front of a huge precious tool fixed on a bracket.

This precious tool was the size of a house, one zhang high and wide, and three zhang long, crafted extremely exquisitely. From the array patterns, Wei Yuan could tell at a glance that this treasure had already used three-dimensional array pattern technology, and the manual labor alone was worth a lot.

Yu Zhizhuo looked at this precious tool and felt moved, saying: "Last time you returned from the world fragments, you recorded the bits and pieces of the world outside the sky. After I read it carefully, I was deeply inspired.

So I mobilized a group of junior brothers and sisters, brought thousands of apprentices to study bitterly for years, and had the Palace Master give pointers from time to time. Several key parts were even crafted by the Palace Master himself. Thus, a total of over four thousand difficulties, large and small, were overcome, and finally, it was built.

This treasure is called: Inline Three-Cylinder Spiritual Energy Engine."

In an instant, Wei Yuan had the illusion of returning to the resentment illusionary realm of the world outside the sky.

He rubbed his eyes. That's right, this house-sized big guy in front of him was the source of the resonance with the Heavenly Dao, and those pale red lucks also came because of this.

Seeing Wei Yuan's dazed face, Yu Zhizhuo was instantly in a great mood, his face glowing red, and he shouted loudly: "Someone, prepare to start!"

He saw three disciples of the Heavenly Craft Palace step out. They were all Dao Foundation cultivators, with solid foundations and excellent bones, all of them Heavenly Foundation. The three disciples of the Heavenly Craft Palace climbed onto the precious tool, lifted the cover on the top, and drilled in, one cylinder per person, then covered the lid and locked it tight.

Yu Zhizhuo continuously cast magic formulas, starting the precious tool's array one by one. After a dazzling operation, the precious tool suddenly roared, and the rotating shaft at the bottom of the precious tool began to rotate at high speed under the drive of a complex mechanism!

Wei Yuan's weapon refining level was mediocre; he could only barely see that the three cultivators inside the precious tool were continuously inputting Dao power into the array, driving the machine with the array and bringing the rotating shaft to fly at high speed.

The magic treasure's rotation speed and force were both far beyond the level three disciples should possess. Wei Yuan felt that if an ordinary Dharma Form cultivator were to crank it by hand, they would likely reach this level only by risking their life, and they wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.

But the three disciples sitting inside the precious tool outputted Dao power stably, their breath was long, and it looked like they could persist for a long time.

Yu Zhizhuo said: "Compared with traditional wind-driving arrays of the same level, this treasure's output is twice as high. Three Dao Foundation mid-stage cultivators can be equivalent to one Dharma Form. And the spiritual energy utilization efficiency is three times higher. The spiritual energy consumed by a Dharma Form cultivator flying a thousand miles can be flown four thousand miles by this treasure!

This is just the beginning. With continuous improvement in the future, the efficiency can be further improved. I really didn't expect that just the change in the way of spiritual energy utilization, as well as the application of some simple mechanical structures, could bring such a huge improvement!"

Wei Yuan finally understood the source of the luck.

If this treasure could be installed on a flying boat, then as long as Azure Void had enough Dao Foundation cultivators, it could compete with war flying boats driven by Dharma Forms. And Azure Void didn't have much else, but it had the most template Dao Foundations.

This spiritual energy engine actually didn't need fuel as high-level as the Heavenly Craft Palace disciples. If it were improved properly, template cultivators could use it too. If the output wasn't enough, quantity would make up for it; just install a few more engines on a flying boat.

It was just that the bottom of this engine was a complex mechanical and array structure, which was completely different from the previous war chariots. At this time, the three-cylinder was a mature design; it wasn't that one could install as many cylinders as one wanted.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 805 =====