The only instance Wei Yuan had heard of realm stones was related to the Founder. Upon attaining mastery of his Dao, the Founder had traveled west alone and put down the very first realm stone on a land teeming with foreign races. It was also the origin of the Palace of Absolute Beginning’s mountain gate, the Green Cliffs That Hang Over An Empty Valley. That was it.

The fact that realm stones merited their own major category showed how important they were. This piqued Wei Yuan’s curiosity and prompted him to tap into it and browse its contents. The main category was divided into several subcategories: Basic, Advanced, Supreme, and Variant.

The Basic subcategory contained numerous entries, each with detailed descriptions. The core of a realm stone was forged from an Empty Nether Stone. It possessed the ability to transform the world. The nature of the transformed realm depended on the cultivator who nurtured it. Once planted, the realm stone would transform the world and the fortune within a certain radius accordingly. Generally speaking, it would align with the Pure Realm of Humanity.

Humanity mainly relied on realm stones to expand its territory.

Upon planting a realm stone, a cultivator must nurture it with worldly origin qi and all sorts of precious resources. When it had reached a certain level, it would undergo an advancement.

Generally, the most basic realm stone could transform a town’s worth of land. After a century of nurturing, it would undergo advancement and become a mid-tier stone capable of covering a county’s worth of land. A millennium of nurturing, and it would become a high-tier stone capable of covering a commandery’s worth of land. Only within the domain of a realm stone could the human race freely thrive, multiply, and cultivate the land.

Over a hundred realm stones were recorded under the Basic subcategory. Wei Yuan read each entry carefully.

Realm Stone 377: Nurtured for 17 years, qualified, no special properties.

Realm Stone 491: Nurtured for five years, qualified, no special properties.

Realm Stone 1302: Nurtured for forty-eight years, qualified, possesses weak latent Earth energy.

Realm Stone 2033: Not nurtured, qualified.

……

Each realm stone was labeled and more or less unique. The immortal sects, major sects, and Great Tang shared various information with each other, and matters of great importance such as realm stones were the primary focus of such communications. Most of these realm stones were nurtured between a few years and a few decades. Those that hadn’t been nurtured at all were probably newly forged realm stones.

Some realm stones had returned to the exchange list despite not receiving much nurturing. After reading a couple of descriptions, Wei Yuan got the gist of the reason. At the beginning, the owner of the realm stone had used it to create a territory; a settlement so to speak. However, the foreign races proved too strong for them to resist, and the settlement was destroyed. As a result, these realm stones had to be uprooted and retrieved. Many cultivators perished in battle when the settlement fell, after which the realm stone was discovered and brought back to the human race. It eventually passed into the hands of the Palace of Absolute Beginning.

Behind every realm stone that had not been nurtured for over a century lay many destroyed settlements and even more mountains of corpses.

While sighing, Wei Yuan checked out the price tag of a newly made realm stone. It cost one hundred thousand merits.

He quietly turned away from the page and took a moment to calm himself.

Later, he opened the information page of a seven-year-old realm stone and made a surprising discovery: it was only ninety-one thousand merits. Why was a realm stone that had received nurturing cheaper?

Wei Yuan set down the jade plaque and went to consult an attending Daoist in the inquiry hall.

The Daoist examined him for a moment before answering, “A new realm stone is like a newly mined piece of jade. When it is nurtured, it is imprinted with its owner’s Dao energy. If its new owner’s Dao energy proved incompatible with the previous owner’s, they would have to spend the energy to remove the existing imprint and nurture it from the beginning.

“Even if the new owner’s Dao energy is compatible with the previous owner’s, purity becomes increasingly important over time. The purer a realm stone and the longer it is nurtured, the greater its abilities and powers. That is why a second-hand realm stone is cheaper than a realm stone that had only been nurtured for a short time.”

Wei Yuan exclaimed in realization before humbly continuing his inquiry, “I noticed that the realm stones with seventy or eighty years of nurturing are priced way higher than a new realm stone. Why is that?”

“When a realm stone had been nurtured for a century, it would undergo advancement and increase its coverage tenfold. In short, the benefits of advancement outweigh the detriments of purity by a significant degree.”

Wei Yuan nodded, surprised that expanding territories was a much more complicated subject than he originally thought.

The Daoist could not hold it any longer and spoke up, “Forgive me for speaking out of turn, little Junior Brother, but one must reach the spirit nurturing stage at least if they wished to expand territories in the Dao Foundation stage. This is no laughing matter, and the ferocity of the foreign races is no joke. Lives will be lost. Where do you think the numerous second-hand realm stones in the exchange list come from? The vast majority of them were new when they entered our possession!”

The Daoist decided that he would see through his persuasion until the end. “Little Junior Brother, expanding territories is no child’s play, and realm stones are but one aspect of it. It is far from the whole picture. Let me put it this way. If you wish to expand territories, you’ll need kinsmen and seniors to stabilize the situation, won’t you? You’ll need elites and trusted aides to form the backbone of your army, won’t you? You’ll need money, supplies, and mystic artifacts, won’t you? For the first decade at least, you’ll need to provide for the basic needs—food, clothing, shelter and transportation—of the mortals in your territory, won’t you? All these cost merits, you know!

“Following past precedents, a realm stone costs only half of the merits you’ll need to spend. The other half would go to everything I just mentioned. You are so very young. Where on earth are you going to obtain all the merits you need to pull this off? For now, you should just focus on cultivating yourself and improving your strength.

“But of course, if you turn out to be one of the Seven Surnames and Thirteen Honors, then please forget what I just said.”

The Daoist could not be any more blunt about his thoughts on the matter, besides writing the words, “Learn to walk before you run” on his face maybe. However, his advice was sincere and forthright as they came, so Wei Yuan thanked him wholeheartedly and replied, “I hail from a humble background. I’m only checking this out to broaden my horizons and grow my knowledge.”

The Daoist nodded. “I see. Feel free to ask me anything that you don’t understand. Also, if I may add one last remark: most successful expansions did not rely on ordinary realm stones.”

Wei Yuan understood his hint. When he went back to his table, he began perusing the other three subcategories.

There were far less realm stones under the Advanced subcategory. A dozen or so to be exact.

Life Nurturing Stone: Contains Life-Nurturing energy. Accelerates the growth of all living things within the domain and aids in wound healing.

Life Preserving Stone: Possesses the power to stabilize one’s soul. Temporarily preserve the life of all living things that had sustained a fatal wound within the domain. The affected must receive treatment within two hours. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Although the subcategory contained a dozen entries or so, Wei Yuan could only view three of them in total. The rest required one Heaven Merit to exchange. As for the Supreme subcategory, he did not even possess the qualification to access it. Finally, there was only one entry under the Variant subcategory that he could access.

Infant Fire Stone: Infuses the domain with Fire elemental energy of the Five Phases, carrying primordial vitality. Can create one Infant Fire Pool for forging special mystic artifacts. However, the domain is inhospitable for mortals.

Both Advanced and Variant realm stones were far, far more expensive than ordinary realm stones. Even the cheapest of them cost a whopping five hundred thousand merits.

After he was done perusing the category, Wei Yuan finally realized that his dream of expanding territories for the human realm was still very far away from him. He also understood why the realm stones were so expensive. It was a treasure that could transform the very world after all. Of course it couldn’t be cheap.

Wei Yuan paid the mission hall a visit after leaving the merits hall. Now that he was a Dao Foundation stage cultivator, the number of missions he could accept had increased drastically. However, the missions available to early stage Dao Foundation stage cultivators were as easy as they paid poorly. Most of them paid one to two hundred merits at most, with a rare few breaking the thousandth mark. It was incomparable to the merits he could have earned on a battlefield.

After searching around for a bit and failing to find a suitable mission, Wei Yuan handed the items he wished to be delivered to his family fifty merits as the reward to an attendant. The attendant would automatically identify a suitable cultivator to carry out the delivery for him.

With that done, Wei Yuan visited the Myriad Manifestations Hall next. He wanted to know where his Dao Foundation was located among the river of stars. As The Great Realm was unprecedented, he reckoned that it was probably an immortal foundation. True Lord Xuan Yue and the Trumen’s reactions proved that at least. Also, if the speck of vitality growing on his jade mountain grew into a Seven Wonders Exquisite Treasure Tree, then he dared to say that his Dao Foundation was on par with Bao Yun’s. After all, they would both had a tree, but he would have an extra patch of soil.