The first thing Wei Yuan had to do upon returning to his residence was moving out.

Now that he was only one step away from forming his Dao Foundation, he was required to move out of the new disciple valley and head to the zone specifically meant for Dao Foundation cultivators to choose his new abode. Forming a Dao Foundation was one of the most important events on one’s path to immortality. The greater the Dao Foundation one was aiming for, the more stringent the timing and opportunity to form it became. This was why a lot of people spent years just waiting for the right opportunity to improve their Dao Foundation by a tier.

Barring a sudden death, a disciple of the Palace of Absolute Beginning rarely failed to form their Dao Foundation. This was why a cultivator who had completed the Body-tempering stage was viewed and treated as a Dao Foundation cultivator.

Wei Yuan’s belongings were non-existent, so it took him little effort to pack it all into one luggage. In fact, one might say that he had nothing besides books. There were no mundane papers in the Palace of Absolute Beginning. Every book, every text was recorded on a piece of jade paper. Warm like jade and impervious to fire or water, one piece of jade paper could easily store millions of words. Not only that, the user could flip through the contents with a single thought as well. Thus, despite having accumulated over hundreds of books in the past decade, the jade papers only stacked up to a little over a chi.

After completing the handover with the responsible Daoist, Wei Yuan stepped out of the small courtyard before looking back, overcome with emotion. Before he knew it, he had lived here for a decade.

Wei Yuan’s classmates had long forged their Dao Foundations. Thus, no one currently living in the new disciple valley was a familiar face to him. Even some of the newer disciples—those who had joined five years after his entrance—had forged their Dao Foundations and moved out already. Normally, a disciple of the Palace of Absolute Beginning took a year to forge their Dao Foundation if they were quick, or seven years if they were slow. The average was around three years.

Right now, four disciples in his term had formed an immortal foundation. Xiao Yu’s immortal sword, The Sun, and Bao Yun’s Seven Wonders Exquisite Treasure Tree were the most famous of the four. Faction wise, the Traditional Party and the Reform Party had two immortal foundation cultivators each. However, the number of Reform Party disciples were one-third that of the Traditional Party, meaning that the ratio was significantly skewed in favor of the Reform Party. Not only that, the overall quality of the Reform Party’s Dao Foundation was distinctly greater than the Traditional Party’s as well, not to mention their cultivation speed.

This was all thanks to the public account set up by Bao Yun and Cui Yu. After three years of centralized learning, the public account had lent out over five hundred thousand taels of immortal silver. Thanks to this, anyone with some modicum of talent was more or less not lacking in cultivation resources. Naturally, they were able to soar through their cultivation.

Today, almost all the debt had been paid off. Everyone knew they owed Bao Yun and Cui Yu a huge favor. Because of this, the Reform Party disciples were more tight-knit than most and especially united against outside opposition. It was an unexpected but welcome side effect.

The outstanding loan in the public account now totaled only 100,800 taels, of which 100,000 belonged to Wei Yuan. In this regard, Bao Yun was his largest creditor, with a total of 80,000 taels. Xiao Yu was the second largest creditor, with a total of 20,000 taels.

Privately, Wei Yuan owed Bao Yun another 120,000 taels.

Bao Yun had tried to acquire the debt being held by Xiao Yu, but the young man stubbornly refused no matter what she tried. Cui Yu secretly approached the girl three times and ultimately succeeded in acquiring five thousand taels worth of debt and becoming one of the proud creditors of Wei Yuan.

The centralized learning curriculum only spanned three years. Starting the fourth year, the disciples returned to their respective halls and monasteries to train. Since then, they were rarely able to meet each other.

Standing at the courtyard entrance and recalling about the past, he thought that his first three years in the Palace were pretty delightful, even the less savory parts such as the times where he was pinned down by dozens of Traditional Party disciples and beaten blue and black. Thinking back, he thought that it was a different kind of pleasure in its own right. Those memories had never failed to put an unconscious smile on his face.

The next seven years after that were truly dull in comparison. They could be summed up in four words: Lunar essence, pill-eating.

As usual, Wei Yuan greeted the old bastards in the Mother Nature Monastery in his head.

It was time to begin a new life.

A horse carriage wasn’t necessary to travel to his new home. His luggage in one hand, Wei Yuan stepped onto Zhang Sheng’s sword and flew straight for his new abode.

The abodes of Dao Foundation disciples were separated into several zones. The abode he was granted was closer to the Skyblue Hall. The large majority of Dao Foundation abodes were built against a mountainside, and every single one of them was an independent courtyard. The courtyard was ten times bigger than the small courtyards enjoyed by the new disciples and at least several li apart, allowing no chance for neighborly disruptions. It featured a full range of facilities including a cultivation chamber, a pill-making room, a study, a kitchen, and more. Above all else, the cultivation chamber was built directly atop a mountain’s spirit vein. The mountain was a spirit mountain, and its spirit veins had been nurtured for millennia. Naturally, the cultivation efficiency of this place was leagues ahead of that of the new disciple valley.

The open spaces surrounding the courtyards were divided along a central line, and each section belonged to a different abode. How the plots were used was entirely up to their respective owners. From a distance, Wei Yuan could tell that some plots were covered in flowers and grasses, and some were densely forested. However, the large majority of the empty plots remained grassy fields. Perhaps the owners were too busy, or perhaps they could not be bothered to cultivate them. In any case, they had left things as they were.

Wei Yuan’s first thought upon seeing so many empty plots was to turn them into farms of spirit herb or spirit rice. It felt wrong to have unused lands.

Of course, he was aware that his idea was unrealistic. There was a zone in the entrance gate that was specifically made for cultivating herbs or spirit rice. There, the concentration of the ambient spirit qi was ten times denser than that of the outside world. The quantity and quality of the production were far superior to that of a disciple as well.

Wei Yuan knew all this, but he still couldn’t shake off the feeling.

After the handover process was dealt with, Wei Yuan and Zhang Sheng arrived at the study. After taking a seat, his master spread a map across the table and said, “Let’s talk about the major exam. It might be called an exam, but it’s really a trial. Closed door literary exams, arena battles, those worries belong to the low level disciples. From the moment we forge our Dao Foundations and embark on the path to immortality, it is our chosen destiny to change the world and give back to humanity. Dao Foundation disciples aren’t the only ones undergoing a trial either. Avatar Truemen have trials that they must overcome as well. It’s just that Dao Foundation disciples undergo a trial once every ten years, and Avatar Truemen undergo theirs once every fifty years.”

Zhang pointed at a spot on the map and said, “The grass is overgrown, and the hawks are soaring in the north right now. Multiple Northern Liao tribes are starting to invade south and harass the borders once more. The situation is especially worse in Ganning and Bianning of Gan Province. The two commanderies belong to Western Jin. In recent years, Western Jin court was plagued by incompetent governance and lax military preparedness and gradually becoming unable to withstand the incursions of the Northern Liao. The purpose of this major examination is to assist Western Jin in defending the frontier and ensuring these two commanderies remain safe from Northern Liao raids.

“The Palace of Absolute Beginning isn’t the only one who’ll be taking part in this expedition. Other sects will be sending their disciples as well. Since you haven’t forged your Dao Foundation, you will be dispatched to a certain county with other disciples. You might have two, three, four, even five companions depending on the battle situation.”

Wei Yuan asked, “About the Avatar Trueman exam that happens once every fifty years, does it also entail resisting the incursions of a foreign race?”

“Format wise, a Trueman’s exam is far looser than that of a Dao Foundation disciple. It mainly looks at a Trueman’s total merit in the past fifty years. There are rarely major events that entail the participation of all Truemen. The Palace of Absolute Beginning is no minor sect after all. If our Truemen were to emerge in full force, then the entire world would be shaken by it.”

Looking at Wei Yuan, Zhang Sheng said, “When you have forged a Dao Foundation, you should still focus on cultivating for the next decade. The amount of merit you can accrue during normal times is few, so you need to perform well in the major exam. Only then can you obtain the right to gain more cultivation resources, shut up the yappers, and avoid criticism.”

Wei Yuan nodded firmly at that.

Zhang Sheng put away the map and rose to his feet. He declared, “Follow me. Today, we’ll be visiting a good place!”

“Where are we going?”

“The place where all Dao Foundations under the heavens are displayed!”