In a flash, Fang Ming reappeared inside the Grotto-Heaven. A dozen or so more wandering souls now trailed behind him, all terribly weak, on the verge of vanishing at any moment.
Naturally, he couldn't experiment on the souls of his believers to begin with. Fortunately, there were still some old and frail wandering souls in Anchang who had no faith and were already close to vanishing without a trace. He only had to search carefully to find them.
Fang Ming had examined all these wandering souls with the Qi-Reading Divine Art. Their merit and resentment were both extremely faint; they were all ordinary commoners, chosen to minimize discrepancies.
"M-my lord..." Fang Ming approached an elderly wandering soul. The aura he unconsciously exuded, together with his official robes, was enough to leave the old man trembling in fear as he knelt to pay his respects.
"Don't be afraid. What I'm doing will benefit you. It's a very good thing." Fang Ming offered a mild reassurance.
A flash of red light flickered in his hand, forming a red talisman. Its design was exceedingly abstruse and indistinct. The moment the old man saw it, his mind grew hazy. Fang Ming pointed, and the talisman sank into the old man's forehead.
This was a divine art he had found in Mu Qing's memories. It could completely erase a soul's memories.
As the talisman fully merged with the wandering soul, red light rippled through it. The old man's eyes grew more and more vacant. A moment later, his appearance changed completely. No longer resembling an old man, he became a white ball of light. "It seems his memories really are gone. Since he's forgotten everything—even the shape of his own body—he naturally can't keep his former appearance. He can only become the most natural shape of all, a sphere. This divine art is truly overbearing. It seems to have washed away even his instincts..."
The white ball of light floated in the air, motionless, seemingly lifeless. Fang Ming was startled, then delighted. This was exactly what he needed. Of course, as far as the old man was concerned, all his memories had vanished and could never be recovered. He might as well be dead.
"Ah!"
"Run!"
The surrounding wandering souls saw this and were naturally terrified, scrambling to flee.
Fang Ming waved his hand. A dozen strands of red light drifted out, transformed into talismans, and sank into the wandering souls, turning them into balls of light as well.
After gathering the dozen or so balls of light together, Fang Ming examined them carefully.
"Mm, their sizes are different. That must mean their soul strength varies. I can't tell anything else for now. I'll need more samples and comparisons."
Now came the real business.
Fang Ming silently activated his divine art and opened the cycle of reincarnation again. This time, he was prepared, so he wouldn't recklessly injure his divine body like before.
The cycle turned, absorbing specks of true spirit and carrying them off to an unknown place.
Fang Ming moved a ball of light in front of the fissure. It stirred slightly, as if drawn by the power of reincarnation, but still couldn't pass through the opening and enter the cycle completely. "As expected, it won't work! The soul's overall form has changed, but its weight is still there. It seems I can rule out the influence of memory."
"Let me give you another hand!"
Fang Ming raised his hand. Red light enveloped one of the balls, carrying it through the fissure and into the cycle of reincarnation. It bobbed in the black current, like a little wooden boat beside the great ships around it.
Yet it, too, floated along the black current, until it was swept into the depths at the center and vanished completely...
Fang Ming held his breath and waited a long while. But the great merit or terrible calamity he had imagined never appeared. It was as if what he had done to the cycle of reincarnation was insignificant.
"No, that doesn't make sense. By my estimate, the Heavenly Dao grinds away nine-tenths of a soul before drawing it into the cycle. Then, before reincarnation, it has to use the world's power to shape the soul anew. Those steps must cause some loss as the world's power circulates. Now that I've erased the souls' memories and sent them into the cycle, it should benefit this world. But nothing has happened..."
"Could it be that the effect is too small to notice?"
Fang Ming guessed, then set to work, sending all the balls of light into the cycle.
As the white lights vanished into the center of the black current, Fang Ming examined his whole body again. This time, he used the Qi-Reading Divine Art and looked closely. At last, he found something.
Red qi gathered above his head, seething and churning as it poured into the Golden Seal. It had already filled half of it; this was also the limit of Anchang County.
A layer of golden light wrapped around his Fortune. This was Human Dao Merit, slowly seeping into Fang Ming's Life-Bound Qi and changing his Fate Pattern. But the process was extremely slow. Even after several months, not a fleck of gold had stained his pure-red Life-Bound Qi.
Farther away from his Fortune were two masses of black qi. One was like a ferocious tiger, ready to devour anyone in its path. The other was like a vast, dense cloud, yet somehow gave the impression of being all bluster. These were the hostility of the Supreme Dao and White Cloud Temple.
Everything matched what he had observed last time.
But Fang Ming was keen-eyed and examined it again and again. At last, he spotted a difference.
Around the golden Human Dao Merit was a trace of blue. The light was exceedingly faint, just a single, hazy thread. Fang Ming had looked several times, but the golden light had obscured it each time.
"Blue. This isn't Fortune. I only have one county, and barely ten thousand believers. I don't even have yellow qi. How could I possibly possess the aura of such a great power? This is... Heaven Dao Merit!"
Fang Ming studied it carefully, and Mu Qing's memories gave him the answer.
"Haha... hahaha..."
Fang Ming threw back his head and laughed, utterly elated.
"The heavens have smiled upon me! This is what it truly means for the heavens to smile upon me! The ancients spoke true!"
Merit could be divided into various kinds, but the two main categories were Human Dao Merit and Heaven Dao Merit.
Those who benefited humanity gained Human Dao Merit; those who benefited the Heavenly Dao gained Heaven Dao Merit.
Human Dao Merit was easy to obtain, but Heaven Dao Merit was hard to come by. Their ranks alone made that clear. Human Dao Merit was golden, a pure yellow. Heaven Dao Merit, however, was a pure blue, a whole level above Human Dao Merit.
According to Mu Qing's memories, the gods of his previous life had valued Heaven Dao Merit immensely, yet few had ever obtained any. Only those who truly benefited the workings of heaven and earth could earn it. It was said to have endless uses; if one accumulated enough, one could even use it to attain the position of an ancient god.
Ancient gods were deities born naturally between heaven and earth. Every movement they made carried the power of the world, and they possessed immense abilities.
They needed no human incense offerings to shine alongside the sun and moon and endure with heaven and earth, free and unrestrained.
Of course, the amount of Heaven Dao Merit required was immense. In Mu Qing's previous life, he had never heard of anyone succeeding.
"Haha... My guess was right. The power drawing souls into the cycle of reincarnation in this world is far too weak. Only true spirits can be drawn in. Then the cycle has to consume the world's power to replenish the true spirits, reform them into souls, and send them on to reincarnation."
"That process consumes quite a bit. Now, by sending complete souls into the cycle, I've spared the world that expenditure and allowed it to store up more power to advance itself. Naturally, this greatly benefits the world, heaven, and earth. That's why I can gain Heaven Dao Merit!"
"As long as I persevere, the heavens will smile upon me and bestow merit. Only now do I truly have the confidence to contend with the great momentum of the Hidden Dragon!"
After his wild delight subsided, Fang Ming began calculating the costs and considering the future.
Though this could earn the favor of Heaven, he was really receiving compensation for using his own strength in place of the Heavenly Dao's.
By Fang Ming's estimate, bringing wandering souls into the Grotto-Heaven cost very little, since it was his own domain. He could ignore the expense.
Erasing a soul's memories required the power of a divine art, consuming around five strands of Red Divine Power.
The real cost came from opening the cycle of reincarnation. Each time he opened it, he had to spend nearly a hundred strands of Red Divine Power, and the power continued to drain as time passed.
So he needed to keep the cycle open for as little time as possible and send in as many souls as he could at once. But the fissure was limited; he couldn't just send in as many as he pleased.
He also had to account for how long the souls would take to dissipate. After weighing all the factors and making an estimate, he concluded that washing away a soul's memories and sending it into the cycle would cost at least ten strands of Red Divine Power.
What if he sent souls into the cycle without erasing their memories?
Those souls would surely plunge the world into chaos when they reincarnated with their memories intact. Never mind that he wouldn't receive any merit; the heavens would surely punish him, striking Fang Ming dead!
Ten strands of Red Divine Power were about what an ordinary believer's hundred days of worship could provide, not counting the power consumed when wishes were granted and the like. Fang Ming had been in this world for only about half a year, and barely a handful of his believers had accumulated more than a hundred units of incense on the books.
"Looks like, for now, I can only do this for my believers. I can't expand the practice yet!"
When a soul was sent into the cycle by Fang Ming, it carried its own soul power with it. The Heavenly Dao might even receive a boost from that. Naturally, such a soul would be born with a stronger foundation than other true spirits, which would manifest as a quick mind and a strong, healthy body. That held true whether it was reborn as a human or an animal. That was why Fang Ming had called it a great boon for the wandering souls.
But it cost far too much. If he tried to make it universal, his Divine Power would go bankrupt at once.
For now, he could only offer the souls of recently deceased believers another choice. Of course, they would need more than a hundred units of incense on the books first. Fang Ming didn't plan to charge any fees this time; after all, he urgently needed Heaven Dao Merit.
"Alas... The Heaven Dao Merit required to become an ancient god is as vast as mountains and seas, beyond counting. According to Mu Qing's estimate, comparing it with what I have now, I'd need to send at least a hundred million souls into the cycle just to barely meet the minimum requirement. The road ahead is long and arduous!"
This was an ancient, agrarian feudal society. Wu Prefecture had a population of just over three million. And under Fang Ming's rule, the population had only just passed ten thousand. Once he calculated how much Divine Power he would need, he felt dizzy.
Fang Ming realized that he urgently needed to expand his territory and spread his faith. He would have to occupy at least one prefecture before he had any hope of attaining the position of an ancient god.
What was more, a chaotic age was approaching, and Fang Ming had been swept up in the great momentum of the Hidden Dragon. If he failed, he would have no choice but to hide deep in the mountains. With so few people, he could wait until the monkeys grew old and the seas dried up and still never get anywhere!
That meant conflict with the Hidden Dragon was absolutely unavoidable.
In Fang Ming's view, the Heavenly Dao was like an emotionless intelligent computer. If its authority were measured in numbers, Fang Ming currently had an authority level of one, while the Hidden Dragon had at least a million. If the two came into conflict, there was no need to ask whom the Heavenly Dao would favor.
As for using the Qi-Reading Divine Art to find the Hidden Dragon, that was out of the question. To begin with, the Hidden Dragon's Fortune was still ordinary, beyond even the sight of the Qi-Reading Divine Art.
What was more, the Hidden Dragon was now using the Fortune it had accumulated from the land's ley lines to protect itself and conceal its foundations. Someone like Fang Ming, who harbored hostility, could never break through the ley lines' protection.
Only when the Hidden Dragon surged into prominence, spent its Fortune through warfare, and had yet to establish a stable foundation or replenish its reserves with the Fortune of the people—when it was caught between the blue and the yellow—would the moment be ripe for slaying the dragon!
Even if he somehow overcame every obstacle and killed the Hidden Dragon now, never mind Heaven's punishment, the dragon qi would still be intact. It could simply transfer to the Hidden Dragon's father or brothers. If that failed, there was still a whole clan ready to take its place!
"If the Hidden Dragon were willing to enfeoff the City God as the state religion and worship him day and night, I'd gladly do everything in my power to help him. What a shame..." Fang Ming shook his head, casting the unrealistic notion from his mind.
Finding another Hidden Dragon in Wu Prefecture was an even greater fantasy. By and large, there was no second Hidden Dragon in Wu Prefecture stronger than the one already present. The rest might include a few talented people, but they were civil and military officials the Heavenly Dao had prepared for the Hidden Dragon's founding empire. They were a rank below; when they encountered the Hidden Dragon, they could only bow down and become his underlings. Expecting them to defeat him? Not a chance!
A few others were merely minor enemies for the Hidden Dragon to defeat early on, there to help him gain experience and prestige. They might hold out for a while, but they were sure to be wiped out in the end. If Fang Ming devoted himself to opposing the Hidden Dragon, he would end up just like them.
Before you continue