Recruiting Manpower

Jiang Yun decided to give a lecture at the foot of Spirit Bamboo Mountain a hundred years later, and ordered several Hall Masters under him to spread the news.

The various living beings at the foot of the mountain began celebrating wildly when they heard the news.

At first, the living beings drawn here by the spiritual energy had not been without designs on the Spirit Bamboo Mountain Dao Field.

In the beginning, some people came outside the Dao Field's mountain-protecting formation to request an audience with its master, but after a long time, there was still no response from within the formation. Some scheming creatures therefore guessed that the Dao Field's master might have gone out and not yet returned. Wicked thoughts arose in their minds, and they began making small-scale attempts to attack the mountain-protecting formation.

At first, Gao Shou and Ling Xi, who were stationed inside the formation, ignored them. Who would have thought these people would become increasingly brazen and attack the formation with even greater abandon? Their attacks were completely useless against the protective formation formed by layering the Twelve Yuan Chen Guardian Array with the Lesser Heavenly Cycle Star Formation, but their behavior truly disgusted Gao Shou and Ling Xi. The two therefore activated the formation slightly to retaliate, effortlessly reducing this group of unwelcome guests, whose highest cultivation was only at the Mystic Immortal realm, to ashes.

After that, everyone else understood the Dao Field's power, and no one dared come over to cause trouble recklessly.

A hundred years passed in the blink of an eye. During this time, as news of the lecture spread, groups of living beings began rushing toward Spirit Bamboo Mountain. To maintain order and prevent disturbances, Yuan Tong and the others voluntarily recruited some people from nearby tribes to serve as law-enforcement personnel and manage the crowd of listeners gathered outside the Dao Field.

When the hundred-year deadline arrived, Jiang Yun transmitted his voice to everyone in the Dao Field. He then appeared with Huang Bao on a prepared cloud platform beneath Spirit Bamboo Mountain. Huang Bao had now been taken in by him as a page of the Spirit Bamboo Mountain Dao Field.

Without saying anything unnecessary, he sat cross-legged atop the cloud platform and began lecturing on the path of cultivation.

Dao Sound rang out like the bells at dawn and drums at dusk, striking the hearts of every living being listening below.

He explained everything from drawing spiritual energy into the body to overcoming tribulation and becoming an immortal, and from transforming the acquired body into an Innate Dao Body. His lecture was extremely detailed.

He divided the realms below the immortal realm into four stages: Foundation Establishment, Origin Core, Spirit Transformation, and Tribulation Transcendence. After Tribulation Transcendence came the achievement of the Earth Immortal realm.

He then continued from the Earth Immortal realm, explaining all the way to tempering the physical body and primordial spirit with the aura of laws and achieving the undying Golden Immortal realm. During this, he also taught methods for cultivating several minor divine abilities, such as the Spirit Rain Technique. After the lecture ended, he answered their questions and cleared up their doubts.

Three hundred years passed like this, and the lecture finally came to an end.

Taking advantage of the opportunity while everyone had gathered to listen to the lecture, Jiang Yun did not leave immediately afterward.

He used this opportunity to give the many listeners a brief introduction to the Spirit Bamboo Mountain office's situation. He then left several Hall Masters behind and had them prepare to recruit personnel for each hall before rising and leaving the cloud platform with Huang Bao, returning to the Dao Field in a flash.

During the following period, Jiang Yun devoted himself to organizing the various miscellaneous branches of learning mentioned by the Dao Ancestor during his lecture, including alchemy, artifact refinement, formations, and talismans, in his bamboo house. Once organized, he placed them all in the Scripture Hall. These kinds of knowledge were an excellent supplement to the cultivation and combat methods of the innate and acquired living beings, making their methods more systematic and diverse!

His Hall Masters also took advantage of the reputation gained from this lecture to gradually recruit quite a few people. Some of the better prospects were kept by their sides and carefully nurtured, while the other ordinary personnel were assigned together for onboarding training. After a period of training, they were quickly distributed among the various halls to fill the vacancies.

With sufficient personnel, each Hall Master began implementing the plans they had agreed upon step by step.

Chi Mei's Web began gathering intelligence from an area spanning ten thousand to a million li in every direction. After compiling it, they handed it to Yuan Tong's Mission Hall, which issued the corresponding missions.

After accepting a mission, people would receive the relevant mission information. Once they completed it, they would wait for Chi Mei's Web to confirm the completion status, after which the Mission Hall would issue the corresponding Merit Points.

Using the Merit Points they obtained, everyone could exchange for the spirit treasures, spirit medicines, spirit materials, and other things they needed at Gui Sun's Exchange Hall. Of course, they could also exchange such items for Merit Points at the Exchange Hall, but the items would be valued at only seventy percent of the price set by the Exchange Hall.

At first, some of the items in the Exchange Hall had been provided by Jiang Yun. Only after they had trained a group of talented people skilled in artifact refinement, alchemy, talisman drawing, and other fields did Jiang Yun finally let go of the task, greatly easing his burden.

The Enforcement Hall under Gao Shou was by far the busiest. He had to arrange people to patrol the various halls and the area around the Dao Field, regularly send people to clear out undisciplined living beings and invading fierce beasts within the territory, and select suitable personnel to guard some important locations. Seeing how complicated his duties were, Jiang Yun assigned him several more assistants to lighten his workload.

As for the other two halls—the Transmission Hall overseen by Xue Yu and the Scripture Hall overseen by Ling Xi—although they were core institutions, their duties were actually the simplest and were not complicated to manage.

Another thousand years passed in the blink of an eye. By then, the Spirit Bamboo Mountain office had gotten on the right track, and all its institutions were operating smoothly.

Thanks to the continued progress of repairing the earth veins outside the Spirit Bamboo Mountain node, Spirit Bamboo Mountain was not much taller than it had been several hundred years ago. After the clogged spiritual energy was cleared, the Spirit Vein also began recovering its vertical growth. The mountain as a whole had become gentler than before and was no longer as steep.

By then, the area radiating from Spirit Bamboo Mountain had expanded to more than four hundred thousand li, and the first-stage goal of one million li was no longer far away.

In addition, the eight outer strongholds had been initially established. According to the original plan, as the Spirit Bamboo Mountain node expanded outward, strongholds would gradually be established in stages around the periphery, using individual points to drive overall development. The eight strongholds of the first stage would be distributed six hundred thousand li from Spirit Bamboo Mountain. This would allow them to hold the million-li boundary in the future while still leaving some buffer zones.

For these eight strongholds, Jiang Yun selected several suitable races and gave them preferential treatment in the areas of cultivation techniques, divine abilities, and so on. After making some arrangements, he had them move in.

These eight secondary strongholds had been placed relatively far from Spirit Bamboo Mountain, outside the area covered by its Spirit Vein. Therefore, before arranging for these tribes to settle there, Jiang Yun set up a simple Lesser Heavenly Cycle Star Formation at each node. He then had the Hall Masters under him send capable subordinates to build branch halls at the eight locations.

Only after the spiritual energy at each node had become abundant did he begin arranging for those tribes to migrate. This operation was something he had learned from his ancestors' method of relocating people to consolidate the frontier. He had not expected that, even in a different world, this knowledge would still prove so useful.

During these thousand-plus years, Jiang Yun found time to return to Pengxuan Grotto-Heaven and inspect its development.

His little page, Rong Guang, had fairly good aptitude after being refined by the Three Lights Divine Water, and had nearly reached the True Immortal realm during this period!

Seeing that everything in the Grotto-Heaven was operating smoothly and that a large batch of reserve personnel had grown tremendously, Jiang Yun felt very gratified. He then rewarded each Hall Master and Rong Guang with a drop of Three Lights Divine Water.

Next, he selected two thousand people from the Grotto-Heaven, including cultivators from the Earth Immortal to Mystic Immortal realms, and brought them back to Spirit Bamboo Mountain, assigning them under Yuan Tong and the others. After all, the living beings from the Grotto-Heaven World were more trustworthy to use!