Dragon Canon

The western regions were a lawless frontier where horse bandits had long run rampant.

An unassuming-looking caravan set out from the seat of Yuyang of Zhao. Just half a month into their journey and thousands of li on the road, they had encountered for separate official troops blocking their path for inspection—and attempting to confiscate their entire cargo on three occasions—and six horse bandit raids along the way, including one chaotic melee involving multiple horse bandit groups, official troops, and a mysterious merchant caravan. It was only after enduring all these hardships that they finally made it to Qingming.

Few in the caravan were privy to the truth of the mission, so to the vast majority of its members, this was a journey steeped in legend. Had they not seen it with their own eyes and experienced it firsthand, who would have believed that the horse bandits of the Shattered Realm would be so numerous, so well-trained, so well-equipped, so coordinated, and so well-versed in military strategy?

Moreover, the horse bandits of the western regions had peculiar tastes and strange habits. Wherever the official troops appeared, the horse bandits were sure to follow, which naturally led to a three-way battle. Adhering to the principle of self-preservation, the caravan sought only to protect itself and avoid combat as much as possible. As long as they maintained a defensive posture, the official troops and horse bandits were often too busy fighting each other to pay them any mind.

In the very first encounter, the horse bandits had routed the official troops. This was bad enough, but the subsequent groups of horse bandits were only more ferocious and better-equipped than the last. They also seemed particularly vicious in their attacks against the official troops for some reason.

The horse bandits wearing masks were a completely different level, though. The caravan had run into twice. In their first encounter, they had absolutely trounced both the caravan guards and the official troops. They then stripped the official troops naked, took their clothes, armor and weapon, and rode off triumphantly into the distance, leaving a group of bare-bottomed pigs shivering in the wind.

In the second encounter, the masked horse bandits had ridden off with the bare-bottomed pigs as well.

At the time, the caravan guards thought they were dreaming—how could mere bandits possibly be strong enough to capture an entire battalion of soldiers?

Fortunately, they later encountered two small bands of horse bandits. After two skirmishes, they managed to restore—at least to some extent—the caravan’s traditional perception of horse bandits.

But before they had even ventured deep into the Shattered Realm, they encountered yet another Zhao merchant caravan. There was clearly something amiss about it. It had only a few large wagons, yet it was accompanied by several hundred guards, every one of whom was riding a horse and pulling along a reserve. A merchant caravan? No, it was clearly an elite cavalry unit.

Wherever there was a caravan, there were bound to be Western Jin official troops. Sure enough, the soldiers appeared like ghosts, immediately shouting that they would confiscate all of the caravan’s possessions, including the wagons and horses. The caravan did not hesitate to fight back, and they routed the official troops as a matter of course.

By this point, the Western Jin troops’ defeat was hardly surprising. In fact, it seemed they had never won a battle.

But then, a band of horse bandits appeared. Their numbers were comparable to those of the mysterious Zhao caravan, but among them were dozens of Dao Foundation stage cultivators! After a fierce melee, the mysterious Zhao caravan found itself outmatched and began to show signs of collapse.

Just then, the masked horse bandits suddenly appeared and immediately launched a fierce assault on the present horse bandit group. Though slightly outnumbered, the masked horse bandits had a hundred Dao Foundation stage cultivators in their ranks!

The melee was chaotic and intense. The mysterious Zhao caravan just barely managed to break free and flee the way they had come. Equally terrified, the Yuyang caravan skirted the edges of the battlefield and sped off, not even daring to look back at the fighting.

This battle fully revealed the savagery of the western regions’ bandits. Even if several elite units from the State of Zhao were to arrive here, they would likely only be able to become official troops, not bandits[1].

The Yuyang caravan consisted of 30 specially crafted wagons in total, with a total of 500 drivers and guards. Having been on the receiving end of way too many scares, they traveled day and night at a breakneck pace. Barring major rivers and cliffs, they forced their way through even undulating terrains rather than taking detours. In the end, they arrived in Qingming safely.

The caravan had brought with them 50,000 bolts of cloth, a large quantity of low-grade spirit plants—primarily tea trees and Purple Crystal Grape Vines suitable for winemaking—as well as several thousand catties of essence of five metals. The so-called “essence of five metals” was a collective term for various rare metals. When added to iron or copper, they could produce a variety of metal alloys with distinct properties. This batch of essence of five metals could be used to produce at least 500,000 catties of high-quality metal alloys.

When the caravan departed, they took with them 3,000 sets of cuirasses, each priced at 20 taels of immortal silver. After accounting for both purchases and sales, the caravan actually left behind over 20,000 taels of immortal silver.

However, as the Pacification Commissioner, Cui Shutong held sole authority over both military and civil affairs within the commandery seat. This batch of armor could be directly issued to his own troops without going through a single middleman. However, the expenditure in the official account books remained unchanged, and the savings from those costs naturally found their way into Cui Shutong’s.

After the caravan departed, Wei Yuan immediately organized his men to clear another 10,000 mu of flatland and 3,000 mu of hillside fields. The hillside fields were specifically designated for growing the Purple Crystal Grapes.

Now that they had cloth, the people of the realm of Qingming finally no longer had to patch their clothes together desperately. At this point, had the supply not arrived, even the Dao Foundation stage cultivators would be struggling to cover themselves. This was also why Wei Yuan always stripped the official troops naked when he raided them as of late—it was in large part to acquire some much needed sets of clothing.

The result of two merchant caravans showing up in the realm of Qingming in a single month was the direct reduction of 5,000 sets of cuirasses and a net profit of 100,000 immortal silver.

After seeing off the Zhao caravan, Wei Yuan sought out Yu Zhizhuo to discuss how to expand the cuirass’ production capacity.

Currently, the realm of Qingming could produce 100 sets of cuirasses a day, which was equivalent to having 1,500 mature craftsmen. However, this was far from enough. The two merchant caravans alone had consumed all the newly produced cuirasses for the month, but also taken a significant portion of their stockpile.

At this rate, Qingming itself would run out of armor.

Yu Zhizhuo was also worrying about this very issue. When Wei Yuan found him, he was in the middle of designing a new type of furnace. The furnace resembled a giant cauldron, capable of holding 10,000 catties of refined ore at a time and producing 4,000 catties of molten iron. However, the Four Symbols Wind-Generating Array attached to the furnace required four Dao Foundation stage cultivators to operate—ideally all Fire-type cultivators[2]—to reduce the smelting time by one-third. However, there were only a few dozen of Fire-type Dao Foundation stage cultivators in the realm right now.

Fire-type Dao Foundation? While wearing a thoughtful expression, Wei Yuan summoned the Immortal Sword—Fake Sun.

At that moment, nearly 1,000 cultivators were mining and smelting ore within the armament workshop, over 700 were operating the iron forging machines, and less than 100 traditional craftsmen were crafting various components. With nearly 2,000 people, the armament workshop was not only forging cuirasses but also producing steel-barrel guns, casting bullets, and manufacturing weapons and farming tools. Truth be told, their operating efficiency was already quite high. By traditional standards, it should have taken at least 3,000 craftsmen to produce the same volume of goods.

After spending the entire afternoon discussing and refining the details regarding the new furnace with Yu Zhizhuo, Wei Yuan headed to the cultivator training camp located next to the drill ground. Cultivators who had perfected their body-tempering or close to and so held prospects of attaining a Dao Foundation were gathered here for their final training to make the push toward the Dao Foundation stage.

There were currently over 400 people in the training camp. The quality of this group of cultivators was quite good; they were mostly former prisoners of war from the official army. The newest batch came from Hsu Li’s former unit, including several dozen of his personal guards. Ji Liuli had personally inspected them and confirmed that nearly all of these guards possessed excellent innate foundations and were capable of forging Dao Foundations. They would not have been selected as Hsu Li’s personal guards otherwise.

Wei Yuan estimated that out of these 400-plus individuals, slightly over 100 would likely form a Dao Foundation.

Seeing Wei Yuan arriving at the training camp in person, all the cultivators present felt excited and somewhat anxious. Most of them had originally no intention of surrendering, but what could they do when Wei Yuan was tempting them with the possibility of furthering their Dao path? Aside from those geniuses capable of joining a sect, who else could resist the allure of a Dao Foundation?

In truth, most of them felt they had been tricked at the beginning. Given enough time, they believed they would have snapped out of it and realized it was all horseshit. However, Wei Yuan had given them no time to come to their senses and dragged them straight into raiding an official army. Some of them had even participated more than once. Once they had made that “pledge of loyalty”, they knew there was no turning back.

After ordering his men to gather all of the cultivators in one place, Wei Yuan dropped a couple hundred immortal swords in front of them. The blades of the immortal swords faintly glowed with flame.

Wei Yuan began, “There are all kinds of Dao Foundations in the world, but it’s not like there are no shortcuts you can take. The immortal swords before you are simplified versions of The Sun. In a moment, each of you will receive one. I will also impart you a mental technique that will help you grasp the subtleties of an Immortal Sword-type Dao Foundation. When you condense your Dao Foundation seven days from now, align yourself as closely as possible with this sword—it will make your path that much easier.

Some cultivators looked excited, while others wore expressions of disdain.

Seven days passed in the blink of an eye, and it was once again time for the monthly Dao Foundation forging ceremony. After the customary three rounds of Life-is-a-Flash warm-ups, the energy of Jia Wood Nurtures Life enveloped the entire area. Ji Liuli, Wei Yuan, Trueman Chu He, Sun Yu, and Yu Zhizhuo were all present, offering hands-on guidance one by one.

Just moments later, worldly origin qi began pouring down from the sky and onto the drill grounds. Then, flaming divine swords rose into the sky one after another. It was truly a spectacular sight.

While observing the magnificent sight, Wei Yuan couldn’t help but feel moved. These people originally had no hope of walking the path to immortality, but now, one in every four was able to establish a Dao Foundation. The senior who had created the Immortal-tier realm stone Qingming back then was as formidable as they were awe-inspiring!

It was a pity that Xiao Yu could not see this beautiful sight of so many immortal swords rising into the sky.

As night fell, the eight cultivators who had preliminarily stabilized their Dao Foundations arrived at the armament workshop. They sat cross-legged around two newly constructed furnaces, each occupying a node within the array. Four freshly forged immortal swords—all of them Fake Suns—manifested and entered the furnaces, causing flames to burst from the openings and reaching heights of several zhang.

In this batch of 400 cultivators, a total of 83 had ultimately forged the Immortal Sword Fake Sun. Over 30 others had failed to forge the Fake Sun and instead ended up with a fire sword instead. Even with how shameless Wei Yuan was, he couldn’t bring himself to call them immortal swords.

Still, a fire sword was a Dao Foundation. They were just slightly inferior to Drizzle.

As for the 40-plus arrogant individuals who were determined to forge a Dao Foundation that was uniquely their own, only 6 succeeded. Their success rate was far lower than that of those who focused solely on comprehending the Immortal Sword The Sun.

Since this group had failed to forge a Dao Foundation, they were ineligible to tend a furnace and could only shovel slag.

No sooner had Wei Yuan stepped out of the armament workshop than he saw a cultivator sprinting toward him. “An envoy from Western Jin just arrived,” the man said. “He mentioned a bestowal for you, Realm Lord—the emissary is due tomorrow!”

Surprised, Wei Yuan asked, “Where is the envoy? Take me to him.”

A short while later, Wei Yuan met the Western Jin envoy in the Guest Town. The envoy had only brought two attendants and ten guards with him. They had ridden at full speed to inform Wei Yuan about the bestowal in advance and avoid any possible confusion or loss of propriety.

After questioning the envoy, Wei Yuan was astonished to learn that the emissary who would be showing up this time was none other than Zhao Tong, the General Director of Writing of Western Jin himself!

This man was a trusted confidant of the King of Jin and a great cultivator in the late-stage of the Avatar-stage. It was said that his Dao techniques were enigmatic and unfathomable. He was a formidable figure for sure.

The bestowal had come out of nowhere. It suddenly made Wei Yuan think of the First Consort, and a vague suspicion began to form in his mind.

Upon receiving the news, Wei Yuan wasted no time in organizing the realm and sealing off all areas that were unsuitable for outsiders. Then, he patiently waited for the emissary to show up.

At noon the following day, 2,000 Feather Forest troops of Western Jin—clad in red sleeves and black armor—stepped into the realm of Qingming. Their uniforms and armor were vivid, their footsteps were in perfect unison, and their army aura was radiant. They certainly looked impressive if nothing else. Qingming cultivators were already leading the way and guiding them all the way to Guest Town.

Wei Yuan had long since gathered his men to await them there.

The 2,000 Feather Forest troops spread out to the flanks, while eight bronze-bodied strongmen carried a large palanquin forward. They set it down once they had reached Wei Yuan. Two eunuchs with rosy brows and pearly teeth then rushed over and raised the palanquin’s curtain. As both eunuchs possessed Dao Foundation stage cultivation, their movements were gentle, precise, and perfectly synchronized. The curtain rose neither too quickly nor too slowly, like clouds gathering and dispersing.

Two more eunuchs placed incense burners before the palanquin, and pure, wispy smoke instantly dispelled any foul air in the vicinity.

At that moment, a black boot adorned with pearls emerged from the palanquin, touching the ground lightly, followed by the sweep of a pale red robe. The robe was fastened with a cyan silk official sash, upon which hung a beautiful jade pendant that radiated an impressive amount of spirit qi.

A figure emerged from the palanquin, his face powdered white, his lips vermillion, and his eyebrows as slender as beans. Upon seeing Wei Yuan, he beamed with delight and lightly tapped a finger in his direction, declaring, “You are just the talent Great Jin needs!”

1. I hope this gives you a new perspective on the “hero emerges from a remote village” trope LOL. ☜

2. For one traitorous second, I was tempted to just slap fire bender onto the doc and call it a day. XD ☜

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