Chapter 140: The Urban Heavenly Dao’s Countermeasure

Back when Lu Yan first obtained the Spirit Marrow Ore, he had already contemplated triggering a spiritual energy revival in the urban version. His goal was to test the theories outlined in the Treatise on the Heavenly Dao.

Initially, his plan was simple: secretly cultivate a single spirit vein for personal cultivation during his time in the urban version. Then, after re-entering the Xianxia version and amassing enough wealth and strength, he would purchase vast quantities of Spirit Marrow Ore.

Upon returning to the next urban version, he would use that ore to plant man-made spirit veins across the major mountains and rivers.

As those spirit veins sprouted in unison, a spiritual revival would naturally follow, fundamentally altering the trajectory of the urban version and pushing the version fluctuation index to its peak.

This was all because he only had one piece of Spirit Marrow Ore. A single man-made spirit vein was far too limited—it could only enrich the spiritual density in its immediate vicinity. Once diffused beyond that, the spiritual energy would become so diluted as to be meaningless, incapable of sparking a true revival.

However, after the Giant Spirit Deity proposed his method of Foundation Establishment through aligning with or defying the grand trend of the Heavenly Dao, Lu Yan realized something:

His opportunity for Foundation Establishment lay within the spiritual energy revival itself.

Thus, without hesitation, Lu Yan discarded his original long-term plan and instead chose to go all in—to trigger a full-scale spiritual revival in this urban version!

Compared to the other two Foundation Establishment paths that relied on technological advancement or inciting war, spiritual revival had immeasurable advantages.

First of all, spiritual revival—unlike developing tech or causing conflict—came with minimal karmic backlash. The latter two would inevitably leave behind cause-and-effect traces, making Lu Yan a visible target.

But a spiritual revival could be explained as a natural evolution of heaven and earth. As long as Lu Yan stayed in the shadows and didn’t reveal his hand, no one would ever suspect that a mastermind had orchestrated the revival behind the scenes. This would allow him to grow in secret, without fear of being hunted down after the next version update.

Secondly, spiritual revival was something that fundamentally transcended the urban version.

To spark a revival in a world devoid of any extraordinary power—wasn’t this already a step beyond the framework of the urban Heavenly Dao?

To Lu Yan, both aligning with and defying the Heavenly Dao came with inherent limitations. They bound one within the Dao’s rules, locking the cultivator inside a predefined framework.

It was just like the Giant Spirit Deity—even if he walked the path of omniscience and could comprehend the Heavenly Dao, he was still trapped within the conceptual boundaries of a single world. He couldn’t leap out and view the many versions from above.

So rather than remain shackled to the Dao’s confines, Lu Yan chose to use spiritual revival to change the heavens and earth, to forge an unparalleled Dao foundation!

And thus far, his layout had gone even smoother than anticipated.

He casually scattered one last ungraded Earth Ginseng seed, activated Forced Growth, and quickly moved on.

Using Forced Growth to cultivate ungraded spiritual plants consumed spirit stones—just one Earth Ginseng required half a stone to grow. Yet in the marketplace, even a mature Earth Ginseng couldn’t sell for that much. It was a complete money-losing operation.

Only someone like Lu Yan, determined to push forward a spiritual revival, would willingly pay such a steep price to grow these worthless plants.

After tossing down the final seed, Lu Yan turned back to gaze upon the spiritual land he had personally forged.

Amid the mist-shrouded mountains, over a hundred glowing points of spiritual energy flickered and pulsed—each representing a spiritual plant he had cultivated.

There were also ore veins—Jade-Iron and Golden-Essence varieties—embedded in cliff faces or buried deep underground.

Individually, these ungraded plants and ores probably weren’t worth more than fifty spirit stones combined, but in the context of this urban version, they were priceless.

As he calculated the spiritual density, Lu Yan silently reflected:

“Just three more days… then I can disperse the fog and open this spiritual land to the outside world.

Once these spiritual plants and ores are discovered and divided up by various factions, it won’t take long before one of them uncovers the truth behind spiritual energy. At that moment, the curtain on this spiritual revival will truly rise.”

“But the revival’s impact is currently too limited—confined to just this region. I’ll need additional methods to accelerate the effect.

Should I scatter spirit stones across the public? Spread cultivation techniques?

Or perhaps use this single spirit vein to mass-produce pills—something akin to the Nine Dragons Power Serum—to expand its reach?”

As these cautious thoughts ran through his mind, Lu Yan’s gaze pierced through the swirling mist and locked onto the foot of Mount Beimang—where crowds of people were still gathered.

Yet just a single glance made him suddenly freeze.

At the mountain’s perimeter, hordes of streamers holding selfie sticks were arguing loudly with security personnel, clearly demanding explanations.

Before long, these influencers began dispersing, getting into their cars and heading back to Luocheng.

And it wasn’t just them.

Regular tourists were also starting to leave—one after another. In less than half a day, the number of people at the base of the mountain had dropped by a full third.

This abrupt shift immediately caught Lu Yan’s attention.

He opened his personal terminal to investigate.

But the moment he did, Lu Yan was stunned to discover that he couldn’t connect to the network.

His personal terminal wasn’t reliant on standard telecom providers—it connected directly via satellite signal. For even that to be cut… meant something was seriously wrong.

“A wide-range signal jammer!”

A signal jammer powerful enough to suppress satellite transmissions. No wonder his terminal couldn’t connect.

If even his terminal was affected, what hope did the tourists below have?

Especially the streamers—they came to Mount Beimang for live broadcasts, clout, and monetization. But with no internet? Why would they stay?

They were likely headed back to Luocheng to upload short videos complaining about Mount Beimang’s ‘scam’, hoping to catch the first viral wave.

Meanwhile, the regular tourists, just here for curiosity’s sake, were easily discouraged by the lack of connectivity and began leaving as well.

Narrowing his eyes, Lu Yan swiftly manipulated his terminal and bypassed the jammer to reconnect to the internet.

Given how popular Mount Beimang had become, Lu Yan fully expected to see it trending under headlines like “Mount Beimang Signal Jammed!” or “Tourists Outraged at Tech Blackout!”

But after scanning the trending topics… there was nothing.

Not a single mention of Mount Beimang. Not even news about Luocheng.

Searching video platforms for “Mount Beimang” yielded only a blank notice.

Just days ago, videos of Mount Beimang had numbered in the hundreds of millions. Now, everything had been forcefully buried. Not even indirect references remained.

This level of suppression—unnatural in the extreme.

“The Eastern Federation government stepped in?”

Lu Yan frowned, deeply puzzled.

Spiritual revival wasn’t inherently a bad thing for the Eastern Federation—at least, not yet. Suppressing the hype would only be counterproductive.

There was no reason or benefit for the government to act this way.

Lu Yan quickly switched his network to the United States and began searching again.

But there too, the results were the same.

No forums, no platforms, no videos—total silence on Mount Beimang.

Lu Yan’s heart trembled slightly.

The United States’ media was controlled by numerous powerful conglomerates and political dynasties. Even Congress itself couldn’t force them to act in unison this quickly, let alone unanimously suppress a topic like this.

This abnormality left only one conclusion.

Lu Yan lifted his eyes toward the blue sky above. And in the vault of heaven, he faintly sensed a trace of invisible malice pressing down upon him.

“This is the countermeasure… of the Urban Heavenly Dao!”

(End of Chapter)