Chapter 977

Nearly twenty million people migrated into Qingming, a matter of immense scale. Simply maintaining order along the route and setting up supply points mobilized nearly one million people. Wei Yuan directly deployed all fifty thousand of his second-line troops, barely managing to transport everyone into Qingming.

Qingming now has a fully matured procedure for handling incoming populations: first, centralized registration and physical examination, then a one-hour disinfection in a cultivation array that strengthens the body and eliminates illness, after which they are randomly assigned to cities by civilian settlement.

Freight vehicles waited nearby; once each city gathered several hundred people, they were transported in batches to designated locations. The receiving cities had already received advance notice and allocated residential zones along with farmland.

Most newcomers were relocated to peripheral cities, dispersing into newly built villages to reclaim wasteland.

The sheer number of migrants far exceeded Wei Yuan’s expectations, so most areas hadn’t even prepared housing in time. Fortunately, Qingming’s construction industry was highly developed, and simple apartment buildings could be erected at astonishing speed. In the initial phase, migrants were temporarily housed in tents, but a daily bowl of meat soup was enough to quell all discontent.

The two million people relocated from Zhao Guo varied in quality, but after half a year of adequate food and rest, their physical condition improved noticeably, and many began contributing blue qi.

After another year, once their bodies were fully restored, the young and strong without hidden ailments could begin body casting—by then, over half would contribute blue qi. Three years later, once their foundational cultivation was solid, they could begin taking elixirs, dramatically accelerating their progress. At this point, most would contribute blue qi, while a minority who entered body casting would generate a second stream of blue qi.

But this generation’s achievements would end here; the true hope lay in their offspring.

Children began being born gradually in the second year, with a massive wave of newborns appearing in the third year. From this year onward, the innate talent of newborns improved markedly, and the number of candidates capable of body casting increased several-fold.

Amid the chaos, another major event arrived: the Dao Foundation Ceremony, repeatedly delayed due to the campaign against Ji Guo, was once again due to be held.

It was the first month of Hongjing Year Three, the heavens bitterly cold, the earth’s energy tightly withdrawn—but within this utmost yin, a trace of lesser yang was gestating, and vitality was about to surge. An ideal time to forge a Dao Foundation.

Moreover, the most popular Dao Foundation template in Qingming at present was Yuehua Tianlan; holding the ceremony now would slightly increase its success rate. Hence, Xiang Xiaoyu had written over a dozen letters urging Wei Yuan to begin preparations, each one more plaintive than the last—so much so that Wei Yuan now winced at the sight of Xiang Xiaoyu’s letters.

Everyone knew exactly how to conduct the Dao Foundation Ceremony. Qingming’s internal cultivators had even divided the ceremonies into phases, naming them Qingming Phase One, Phase Two, and so on, based on the ceremony’s timing.

Cultivators from each phase addressed one another as fellow graduates, each harboring a desire to compare their phase against the others. The earlier phases had higher average quality, but later phases had far greater numbers, and none would yield to the others. Meanwhile, many aristocratic youths from outside proudly boasted of being from Qingming Phase One or Two, often bragging without cause.

The Dao Foundation Ceremony required Wei Yuan’s personal Zhuchi —only he could activate Shazha Zhongsheng, the crucial technique that increased the success rate of forging a Dao Foundation. This divine art, once a battlefield-turning strategy that enabled the weak to defeat the strong, had now become nothing more than a stepping stone for new Dao Foundation cultivators.

To prepare for the ceremony, Wei Yuan returned to Qingming half a month early, managing the myriad complications brought by the two million migrants while also organizing the ceremony’s logistics. The foremost issue: which Dao Foundation template to promote.

Each ceremony now produced thousands of template cultivators, directly impacting Qingming’s future development, so Wei Yuan dared not neglect it. He meticulously reviewed every newly submitted Dao Foundation template, ensuring it was sufficiently outstanding before adding it to the official recommendation list, which was published in advance for cultivators to choose from.

This ceremony saw the addition of cultivators from Zhao Guo, whose culture prized martial prowess; thus, over ten thousand additional body-cast cultivators joined, bringing the total to over sixty thousand fully accomplished body-cast cultivators—the highest number in the ceremony’s history.

Alongside existing templates, dozens of new ones were submitted, mostly bizarre, eccentric, and unconventional Dao Foundations. Yet the existing templates were already highly refined; surpassing their low thresholds proved extremely difficult.

But one Dao Foundation made Wei Yuan’s eyes suddenly brighten.

This Dao Foundation was named Yuewu Dao Tai, continuing Qingming’s tradition: the more flamboyant the name, the lower the threshold.

This Dao Foundation followed the Taiyin lineage, making it perfectly suited for recommendation now. In terms of Dao Foundation alone, it barely scraped the edge of the Human-grade threshold—it still had requirements, and in this regard, it was vastly inferior to Yuehua Tianlan, whose threshold was practically buried underground.

Yet what made Wei Yuan’s eyes light up was that Yuewu Dao Tai came with an inherent phase: Wan Hua Jin Dan!

Cultivators practicing Yuewu Dao Tai, if possessing decent innate talent and exceptional comprehension, could forge a Dao Foundation of Earth-grade or even Heaven-grade quality—making it a premium Dao Foundation that adapts to the cultivator’s innate constitution.