As the young man recited his verses, the Manifestation lasted perhaps a few dozen seconds before abruptly dissipating.
Once it faded, silence returned to the sky.
Yet people within a hundred li began to react.
The Hundred-Li Resonance Phenomenon!
Verses had stirred heaven and earth into resonance. This was a Manifestation.
A Manifestation of heaven and earth—the Hundred-Li Echo!
Everyone within a hundred li could hear the sound and see the manifestations associated with the verses.
This was heaven and earth's recognition of poetry and prose!
Different verses could also produce different effects and manifestations.
Of course, they had to contain a certain amount of literary talent.
Take the verses the young man had just recited: the moment the words left his mouth, they formed a Manifestation, which stirred the literary energy that filled the world like air, then shaped it into tangible things.
Recite a broadsword, and a broadsword formed. Recite arrows, and arrows formed. Recite falling blossoms, and falling blossoms formed.
Thus, a scholar could summon thousands of troops and horses with a few words, with arrows raining down.
Verses produced Manifestations, and words produced Manifestations. This was also the root of Confucianism's power, allowing it to surpass even Taoism and Buddhism.
When it came to wielding their tongues, who could compete with those scholars?
But Manifestations varied in scale.
Ordinary poems, songs, rhapsodies, scriptural interpretations, and policy essays merely produced a few manifestations around the speaker.
Stronger works were better still, capable of producing manifestations within several meters of the speaker.
And stronger ones?
They could probably fill an entire residence or room with literary energy gathered from heaven and earth, forming the corresponding manifestations.
That was the power of a poem.
Of course, it also depended on who recited it.
An ordinary poem that could only