In the deep bamboo grove, mist curled and drifted.
Chen Yu visited Yang Hongli’s bamboo cottage, but no one was there. Only the cultivators passing along the bamboo path knew that his senior brother had been staying these past few days in a simple green-tiled courtyard beside the lotus pond.
The art of formations is hard to learn and harder to master. Copying the outward shape of an array without understanding its deeper principles is ultimately just a hollow show.
Once one becomes truly proficient, even within the fiercely competitive Three Origins Sect there will be respectable positions and stipends to be had.
Someone like Yang Hongli, so young yet with formation skills near those of an elder, need never worry about spirit stones.
When he wanted solitude he returned to the bamboo cottage to seclude himself, and when he wanted bustle he rented a green-tiled courtyard to experience life’s variety.
He was absurdly wealthy.
After finding the courtyard, Chen Yu was quickly led inside by a child and met Yang Hongli, along with the protective magic formation he needed.
Yang Hongli handed the formation diagram into his hands and said with interest, “Here it is, the Eight-Gate Golden Lock Array. It borrows the principles of Qimen Dunjia and adapts the oddities of formation art, so it differs in essence from mundane array techniques.”
“The Life Gate, the Bright Gate, the Open Gate rotate and shift without end, only leaving the five malevolent gates to draw enemies into the trap. Only brute strength or those inside the array can break them.”“The array’s principles aren’t complicated, but the manifestation level of those five gates depends on the formation foundation. It’s best to arrange it using high-quality Gray Gravel Crystals for optimal effect.”
“Even against mid-to-late stage cultivators it can hold for a time.”
“I also took your suggestion, junior brother. To keep the formation stable I replaced the talismans with more durable Jade Talismans, and adjusted the engraving slightly.”
“With this, it should meet your requirements.”
Stability had indeed improved, but Chen Yu estimated that for the Eight-Gate Golden Lock Array, both the formation foundation and the Jade Talismans would need much larger Gray Gravel Crystals to reach peak performance.
Every single Gray Gravel Crystal used here could serve as the core of a Goblin Ripper, and an array like this required as many as twenty-seven of them.
That’d be enough to assemble twenty-seven Goblin Rippers—pulling that many out at once would hurt.
But one Eight-Gate Golden Lock Array could shelter an entire fortress. To strengthen fortress defenses and guard against goblin raids, saving on those Gray Gravel Crystals was not an option.
Chen Yu expressed his thanks and reached for his spirit stones, but Yang Hongli politely refused payment, only asking that if he encountered any more interesting problems, he remember to bring them to him.
It was clear this senior brother was truly devoted to the Dao.
“A good man indeed,” Chen Yu murmured.
Afterward he asked more about formation principles until his questions were satisfied, then left.
He walked to the market by the lotus pond, which was much livelier than on rainy days.
He went to the usual alchemy shop where he normally bartered pills for food and inquired about alchemy.
He learned that alchemy was no less difficult than formations.
Formation art requires talent to grasp, while alchemy requires knowledge of materia medica, flame control, and object manipulation... The body of knowledge about medicinal pills is as vast as the stars;
one studies it for life. It places great emphasis on seniority and experience.
Chen Yu didn’t expect to become a master overnight, so he bought a few basic medicinal texts: materia medica summaries, an alchemy primer, beginner pill recipes, and a rubbing copy of flame-control techniques.
To his surprise, alchemy not only required flame control, it also made use of object manipulation. The proficiency of object manipulation could even affect pill quality.
He hadn’t realized object manipulation could exert such influence.
Whenever he thought object manipulation might be fading in usefulness, it reappeared in new forms.
This technique was a universal tool of Dao arts—arguably the most valuable path to practice he had chosen.
Besides, he had long since maxed his object manipulation, which saved him a lot of effort.
For pill formulas he chose the Bone-Tempering Yellow Pill because it had potent medicinal properties yet was easier for beginners.
With Yano’s near-knightly constitution, no matter how much he experimented there wouldn’t be serious harm. In fact, because the formula was strong it would speed up his body tempering.
In addition to the Bone-Tempering Yellow Pill recipe, he bought a recipe for a Spirit-Opening Pill.
Cultivators who raise spirit demons often, if they want the beasts to awaken intelligence and speak human language sooner, bite the bullet and feed them Spirit-Opening Pills.
They have the same effect as the Qian Yuan Spirit Nurturing Art in terms of opening awareness, but they can only open intelligence;
they cannot enrich spirituality or fully tame wild instincts.
Speaking practically, most of the mouths to feed in his territory were slimes, Poison-stinger Wasps, and Beetles... wild instincts weren’t the main worry. If they could just stop being so adorable, that would be enough.
Worrying about wildness was ridiculous.
With his limited energy, once he scaled Spirit-Opening Pill production, he wouldn’t need to painstakingly feed each creature one by one.
Though basic, the pills had obvious strategic importance.
After casually buying a few martial arts manuals at the market, Chen Yu left.
...
Riftrock Fortress.
When the final streak of sunset swept across the endless distant woods, two Wasp Watchtowers had already silently risen on the wall facing the goblin stronghold. Like motionless sentries, they looked grim and fierce in the dusk.
After a full day of busy construction, the fortress’s military facilities and the Spirit Gathering Array had begun to take shape.
Perhaps within these next two days this forward fortress would be completed and then expand outward, growing into a stronghold able to house a wasp legion of over a thousand Wasp Soldiers and many more slimes.
Chen Yu had just finished translating those martial texts, converted them into the Common Tongue and sent them to Yano, then bounced down from the wall.
The other items—the Eight-Gate Golden Lock Array plans, the pill recipes and alchemy books—he had already transmitted back to the Eastern Swamp via the gel network.