Dao Foundation Theory

The woman who entered had a pair of exceptionally bright, clear eyes. In their depths, it seemed you could see a world brimming with life, passion, and fierce intensity!

Her brows were like swords, her nose like a mountain peak, and her lips so tender they seemed ready to drip with moisture. The corner of her slightly parted mouth revealed the faintest glimpse of her tongue.

The woman wore no makeup. Her hair was casually twisted up and held in place with a hairpin. Her clothes were unusual, too: the bottom half was part pants, part skirt, with the pant legs flaring out like a skirt, while the top was a tight-fitting shirt with sleeves that barely reached her elbows. Compared with the clothes female cultivators commonly wore these days, her outfit was downright outrageous.

She walked to the lectern and sat down with graceful ease, leaning back slightly and propping her chin on one hand. The moment she sat, she naturally exuded a thousand charms, yet those charms were tinged with the biting chill of ancient frost.

She glanced sidelong at the students and said, "Starting today, I'll be teaching you Dao Foundation Theory and guiding your cultivation. My surname is Ji. I'm Ji Liuli—Liuli as in drifting and displaced, not the precious stone."

A girl immediately mustered her courage and stood up to ask, "But the course materials clearly say the instructor is Xu Henshui. Why was he suddenly replaced?"

Ji Liuli said coolly, "Don't waste your thoughts on him. I tossed him outside the mountain gate. He won't be back anytime soon, so give up on him and settle down for class!"

The students exchanged glances, at a loss for what to say. The woman at the lectern gave them a very strange feeling. When she smiled, it was like spring flowers blooming across the hills, but when her expression hardened, it was like leaden clouds sinking low, with a heavenly tribulation about to descend. A few students with especially keen spiritual senses felt as though they were facing a prehistoric beast. Their bodies trembled instinctively, and they couldn't even speak.

Wei Yuan had studied poetry, rhapsodies, and songs, all filled with countless phrases describing beautiful women, but none of them seemed suited to Ji Liuli. Yet to say she wasn't beautiful? Since entering Taichu Palace, Wei Yuan hadn't seen a single female cultivator who could be called beautiful in comparison to her.

Seeing no one speak up, Ji Liuli looked quite pleased. "Since there are no questions, let's begin. You can call me Teacher, Sir, Senior Sister Liuli, or Two-zhang-five Senior Sister. Call me whatever you like. We'll put forms of address aside for now and start with what a Dao Foundation is."

Two-zhang-five Senior Sister? What on earth was that supposed to mean? Before Wei Yuan and the other students could puzzle over it, they heard she was going to teach about Dao Foundations. Everyone hurriedly sat up straight and pricked their ears, afraid they might miss something.

The cultivation world had long since settled on a definition for Dao Foundations. After hundreds of thousands of years, it had been refined to perfection: not a single word could be added or removed. Wei Yuan had just mentally reviewed the definition when Ji Liuli said, "Put simply, a Dao Foundation is about raising an immortal embryo, then piling all sorts of miscellaneous things onto it. Once you can't pile on any more, you hammer it solid and fuse everything into one. That's a Dao Foundation. It's the first stepping-stone on the path to immortality, and the most important one. All your future achievements will be built upon this cornerstone, which is why it's called a Dao Foundation."

"What are all those miscellaneous things? You should have memorized them already. Who can answer?"

A boy steeled himself, stood up, and answered loudly, "Root Bone, fortune, timing, earthly energy, circumstances, accumulated resources, medicine, and tools."

"Good. Knowing what goes into that pile of miscellaneous things is only the first step. Figuring out how to combine them is the second. Two people with exactly the same conditions can end up with vastly different Dao Foundations depending on how they combine them and in what order. That's why this first step is the most important one on the path of cultivation. An immortal sect and an ordinary sect, a master and a hack—they'll give you completely different Dao Foundations. That's why I'm here to teach this class. Hmph. It's one thing to turn your own Dao Foundation into a mess of flowers and weeds, but you want to lead other people astray, too?"

Another girl cautiously stood up and said, "Teacher, that doesn't seem entirely fair. I heard that Instructor Xu is quite strong, too."

Ji Liuli lightly flicked one of her long fingers, and the girl rose into the air. A vine whip materialized overhead and cracked across the little girl's bottom!

After the lash, the girl was released and dropped back into her seat. But as soon as her bottom touched the chair, she bounced right back up, not daring to sit down properly. Her clothes were completely unharmed, without even a wrinkle. It seemed that the lash had hurt, but caused no actual damage.

Ji Liuli said, "Whether someone is strong depends on who you're comparing them to. You saw with your own eyes that he was like a little kitten in my hands, and you still had to ask. That lash was to punish you for being blind!"

Wei Yuan considered this, then boldly stood and asked, "There are thousands of kinds of Dao Foundations. Are they all judged by whether they can fight?"

"What else?" Ji Liuli retorted, then continued, "Since there are thousands of kinds of Dao Foundations, naturally they must be ranked. There's only one standard for ranking them: whether they can fight. Ideally, they can fight right from the Dao Foundation stage. If not, then they'd better be able to fight at the Dharma Idol stage. At the very least, they can do it at the Imperial Scenery stage. But surely you can't reach Return to One and still be unable to fight? What use would you be then? A decoration on Immortal Mountain? Those cultivators who look like ethereal immortals but go limp as soon as they throw a punch are nothing but useless trash, even if they reach Return to One. They only waste the spiritual energy of heaven and earth!"

The students gaped in shock again. Her words were downright outrageous, and she showed no respect whatsoever for the True Immortals of the Return to One Realm. Those were True Immortals!

Ji Liuli continued, "Besides, if you can't fight, do you think you'll even reach Return to One? If you can't fight, every one of you will die halfway through your cultivation! Just remember one thing: the world is in an age of fierce contention. You have to fight to live, fight to cultivate, fight to break through. You have to fight for everything!"

Then Ji Liuli turned to Wei Yuan. "You're Wei Yuan, right? I remember you. Everyone else received a gift from the Patriarch, but you received a gift from the rock beneath the Patriarch's feet."

Laughter immediately broke out in Qisi Hall, and Wei Yuan's little face grew warm.

The boys and girls were laughing merrily when Ji Liuli flicked her finger. Most of them floated into the air, and each received a lash. Amid the sharp cracks, only five people in the entire Qisi Hall escaped the whip.

"No matter what kind of gift it was, a gift from the Patriarch is still a gift. Those who received one can have a little laugh, I suppose. But you lot didn't receive a gift at all. What makes you think you can laugh? That lash was to teach you some self-awareness."

After the round of lashes, most of the students were gritting their teeth in pain. But at least none of these children were delicate. They knew they hadn't really been hurt, and that the pain was only an illusion that would pass if they endured it. Amazingly, no one in the class cried.

What puzzled Wei Yuan was that most of his classmates came from distinguished families. He'd seen plenty of arrogant children during the unified exams, so why had everyone become so well-behaved and polite in Qisi Hall?

He hadn't figured out the answer when Ji Liuli's voice rang out again:

"There are more than a hundred and fifty students in your year, but only thirty-seven of you are sitting here. What about the other hundred or so? They're studying with their own teachers and aren't attending group classes. Those people are the Zhi Gu Sect. As for you, whether you like it or not, you're now part of the Ding Xin Sect. In three years, at the sect's minor examination, you'll compete alongside them and see which side has learned more. They have twenty-one people who received a gift from the Patriarch. So starting today, my job is to give you the strongest Dao Foundations possible. Your job is to take down all twenty-one of them three years from now!"

Every student was competitive by nature, and their blood surged with excitement. Many even forgot the pain in their bottoms. One boy immediately stood up despite the pain and shouted, "Does not receiving a gift from the Patriarch mean we're doomed to lose?"

Ji Liuli gave him an approving look. "Good question! A gift from the Patriarch is really nothing more than a head start on the long road to immortality. It'll be hard to catch up if you only look at the next three years, but over the long run, it doesn't really matter whether you received a gift or not. Plenty of ordinary disciples have eventually surpassed those who received gifts—even within three years. There are many examples of that."

The path to immortality stretched on without end; three years were but a fleeting moment. Every student in Qisi Hall who hadn't received a gift perked up, their fighting spirit rekindled.

"But don't think you're done once you pass the sect's minor examination. There's a Myriad Forms Hall in the palace, where every Dao Foundation that has ever appeared is recorded. Once you forge your Dao Foundation, a record of it will be added to the Myriad Forms Hall, too. Then you'll be able to see at a glance where your Dao Foundation ranks! I don't need to tell you what that means, do I?"

The Senior Sister's words left some students brimming with ambition and others secretly alarmed. It was as if a massive ranking list had been drawn up for every Taichu Palace disciple over the past several thousand years, with everyone's name on it. How could anyone face other people if they ended up near the bottom?

Ji Liuli continued, "The Myriad Forms Hall is just the beginning. Ten years from now, everyone with a Dao Foundation will have to take the sect's major examination. Those who have completed Body Forging will have to take it, too. That'll be your first major examination, and it'll have an official ranking. Once it's over, there's the Merit List. Every Taichu Palace cultivator will be ranked according to their achievements. Aside from the overall list, there'll also be a separate minor list for the Dao Foundation Realm."

The students exchanged glances, feeling that the road ahead stretched endlessly, paved with exams and rankings. Some of them looked troubled.

Their reaction was exactly what Ji Liuli had expected. She sneered. "Taichu Palace may be vast, but there are only so many resources to go around. There'll never be enough for everyone. So who gets more and who gets less? These rankings are what determine that! I know some of you come from prominent families and think that even if you can't get resources from the palace, your families can make up the difference. But why would your Lineage give you resources?"

"The youngest of you is six, and the oldest is only eight or nine. What if, in a few years, your parents have more younger siblings, some of them more talented than you? Will your families still give you as much in the way of resources?"

A few children from prominent families turned pale.

"So! Treasure every class you have under me! As long as you're ruthless enough with yourselves, I can make you stronger! Whatever these rankings are called, you'll fight your way up from the bottom!"

The students' blood surged with excitement once again.

After that, Ji Liuli began explaining the fundamentals of Body Forging in detail. She spoke extremely quickly and concisely, and Wei Yuan felt his mind couldn't keep up. He took frantic notes, and before he knew it, class was over.

After three strikes of the chime, the lesson ended. Ji Liuli said, "Wei Yuan, don't leave yet. Come with me to the Affairs Hall."