A Treasure Land
No one can guarantee victory in a war.
If the new emperor had any source of confidence, it might only stem from the magical arts of the Mount Tai sacrifice.
With just a little bit of good luck, victory in war is within reach.
It's highly unreliable to rely on luck to determine a nation's major military campaigns, but strategic maneuvering certainly involves an element of chance.
"Your Majesty is walking on a narrow bridge. The Battle of Mayi has left Your Majesty with no way to retreat!"
In Changxin Palace, the Empress Dowager summoned Zhang Xuezhou and recounted the awkward situation the new emperor was in.
From the moment he drew his sword and killed Daojun, the new emperor's path was different from that of previous emperors.
The new emperor did not want to repeat Emperor Jing's life, nor did he want the palace to become a place where cultivators from the Xiong State could trample at will, nor did he want to live a life of compromise and subservience.
As a highly talented cultivator, the new emperor possessed his own pride and integrity, and was unwilling to be coerced and oppressed by the old forces any longer.
"Isn't this a way out?"
Zhang Xuezhou pointed.
Dou Ying and Guan Fu, who were sitting on either side of the Empress Dowager, raised their heads and gave Zhang Xuezhou a wicked smile, which made Zhang Xuezhou feel a chill in his heart.
"This escape route is acceptable!"
The Empress Dowager nodded.
The seven-day mourning period for Dou Ying and Guan Fu has already passed, and their graves are completely covered with yellow earth, but their spirits remain intact, and their minds are relatively normal.
This means that after the physical body dies, the Yang Soul can indeed exist independently.
However, there is no definite answer as to how long this period of existence will last.
"Wang Hui is dead, but we're not. Hehe, this is so much fun!" Guan Fu chuckled.
"It's all about timing and fate," Dou Ying said. "Shedding our physical bodies brings a sense of lightness; from now on, we are no ordinary people!"
"Now that you two have made some progress, you should think about how to further improve your cultivation, so that you won't be powerless and only able to talk a lot!"
The Empress Dowager gave a reprimand, but Dou Ying and Guan Fu laughed and didn't care. The two swayed their bodies and danced back and forth in the main hall of Changxin Palace, with a mix of normalcy and madness.
"They were quite traumatized before their deaths, and now they're practically half-mad," the Empress Dowager said. "It's a pity we couldn't verify the fusion and transformation of Realm Technique back then, which has left them as useless as trash now!"
The Empress Dowager looked somewhat annoyed.
She believed Zhang Xuezhou Zhang Xuezhou's words, but she didn't completely trust them.
For the Empress Dowager, only after the first step was successful could she talk about the follow-up steps; trying to do too much at once would easily lead to failure.
The current verification shows that the first step has been successful. However, if she wants to seek the second step, there are very few imprisoned cultivators at the Divine Ability Realm, and even fewer who have successfully cultivated the Yang Soul Incarnation Technique. She will not be able to find suitable test subjects in a short time.
The Empress Dowager never imagined that Dou Ying and Guan Fu had both practiced the Yang Soul Incarnation Technique, and that their skill level was extremely high. On the other hand, Wang Hui's last-minute preparation was insufficient, and he died instantly when he committed suicide with a confident look on his face. His Yang Soul Body never separated from his body and took shape, so he was just a supporting character in this experiment.
"That's such a pity!"
Zhang Xuezhou needed to integrate the method of Nascent Soul Transformation and also needed a quick method to master the Yang Soul Incarnation Technique. The Empress Dowager had not yet achieved results in either of them, which made him a little regretful, feeling that success was still a long way off.
"Wang Hui's death was due to insufficient skill in the Yang Soul Incarnation Technique. If we want to verify it again, we need to have the ability to cultivate it quickly, rather than having someone cultivate for ten or eight years before testing. We may not be able to wait that long," the Empress Dowager said.
"Even the Empress Dowager finds it difficult to find a quick solution?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.
"It's very difficult," the Empress Dowager said. "The core of this technique lies in the consumption and refinement of Law Power power, and the key to having enough Law Power lies in the body's ability to recover. Only with the combination of Creation Pills and Spirit Jade can one obtain the best external conditions. Even a simple attempt is very costly!"
"If external conditions are favorable, could this create a shortcut?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.
"External conditions that cannot be sustained are meaningless, and even obtaining a quick fix will be of no use," the Empress Dowager said, shaking her head.
"Research is always a step-by-step process. Without such accelerated progress under sufficient conditions, it may be difficult to achieve accelerated progress in a normal cultivation environment. We can still make some attempts in this regard," Zhang Xuezhou said.
"What you said makes some sense!"
The Empress Dowager previously believed that squandering cultivation resources to quickly master the Yang Soul Incarnation Technique was meaningless, and that few people could support such cultivation. However, research always progresses step by step. Without taking the first step of rapid mastery under the guise of extravagance, it might be difficult to see the second step of rapid mastery under normal cultivation. This is indeed an attempt at research.
"If Law Power could be supplied indefinitely, even if it could be continuously refined for a complete cycle, the difficulty of quickly mastering the Yang Soul Incarnation Technique would be greatly reduced," the Empress Dowager said.
"Does the Empress Dowager already have a quick way to cultivate?" Zhang Xuezhou asked with slight delight.
"It's just a theoretical deduction; it's very difficult to achieve in practice," the Empress Dowager said. "Unless you can continuously consume top-grade Law Power -creating pills, it would take about two or three top-grade pills to complete one full cycle. If you want to complete ten or eight cycles to condense it successfully, then the number of pills needed would be very high!"
"A superior-grade Creation Pill..."
"The superior-grade Creation Pill is imperfect; the derived Law Power needs to undergo transformation and change through the body. This slight difference from the top-grade Creation Pill makes it difficult to guide the Yang Soul through the complete refinement cycle!"
Although he could refine top-grade pills, Zhang Xuezhou couldn't produce dozens of top-grade Creation Pills.
"Could you demonstrate a complete cycle?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.
"I don't have enough top-grade Creation Pills to try right now," the Empress Dowager shook her head and said, "This matter needs to be considered carefully!"
"What a pity!"
Zhang Xuezhou sighed.
He wasn't foolish enough to directly ask the Empress Dowager to demonstrate the top-grade Creation Pill; instead, he only briefly mentioned the high-grade Creation Pill, since the production of top-grade Creation Pills was indeed very low.
"His Majesty said you are skilled in refining elixirs and have refined dozens of top-grade elixirs," the Empress Dowager said.
"Thanks to His Majesty's trust and willingness to provide a large quantity of top-grade medicines, I was able to refine some good pills despite the large number of pills I was making," Zhang Xuezhou said.
"To refine top-tier elixirs, you need a sufficient quantity of top-grade rare heavenly materials and earthly treasures!"
The Empress Dowager felt that Zhang Xuezhou was going against the rules of alchemy, but the actual results proved everything. The new emperor's elixirs were no less effective than hers, and he even had elixirs to keep her alive.
She coughed lightly twice, feeling a pang of regret. She realized that she had entrusted the top-quality medicinal herbs produced by Shanglin Garden to a group of mediocre people, and the output was not even as good as Zhang Xuezhou's alchemy results over several days.
Now that time has passed and everything has vanished, how easy is it to possess a large quantity of heavenly materials and earthly treasures again?
If another secret site like Shanglin Garden cannot be discovered, the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains that wind their way up into the north will become a natural treasure trove.
This area has existed for a long time and is a place rarely visited by humans.
No matter how long demons and beasts that don't know alchemy or medicine linger in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, it's useless. Apart from some rare heavenly materials and earthly treasures with relatively obvious external characteristics, many heavenly materials and earthly treasures have not been truly discovered.
From a practical standpoint, the Empress Dowager also desired not to remain confined to the Northern Border, but to take the initiative and launch an offensive until the Xiong State was defeated and the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains were transformed into the territory of the Great Han.
She and Zhang Xuezhou exchanged questions and answers several times, putting aside their cultivation matters to discuss the new emperor's expedition plan.
After much discussion, just as Zhang Xuezhou was about to take his leave from Changxin Palace, the Empress Dowager finally thought of a treasure trove that might contain heavenly materials and earthly treasures.