Ch. 6929 April
After getting back to his house, Alexei spent about twenty minutes sorting through the ridiculous haul they had pulled from that dead cultivator's storage ring, then headed to his bedroom.
The spirit stone windfall came at the perfect time. With that many mid-grade stones in his hands, expanding the underground farm was no longer just an idea. It was something he could pull off. He could add more lamps, build more terraces, and grow more crops under tightly controlled conditions.
His little mountain base was turning into a proper underground complex. Which was either impressive or deeply concerning, depending on how you looked at it.
According to the Eastern Territories Spiritual Flora Compendium, which Yan had lent him and which was way more technical than he liked, the whole spiritual plant ecosystem worked on a pretty simple energy conversion system.
Profound-tier plants needed at least twice the ambient spiritual energy found in the Eastern Territories just to grow properly. Even then, their efficiency was extremely low, converting only a small portion of that energy into pure spiritual essence. At best, they would attract a few minor spirit beasts, mostly birds, insects, and other creatures that were hardly worth mentioning in cultivation terms.
Earth-tier plants required triple the energy, with higher-grade versions needing anywhere from five to ten times as much. The top-grade Earth-tier plants could convert pure spiritual energy at a rate comparable to a Qi Refining cultivator actively meditating.
In demonic beast territories, plants like these were usually guarded by Core Formation-level creatures. It made sense. If you were a beast and found something that passively boosted your cultivation, you wouldn't just leave it lying around. You would stay close and guard it.
Heaven-tier plants needed at least ten times the standard spiritual energy, with top-grade specimens potentially requiring up to twenty times the baseline. Their conversion rates matched Core Formation cultivators.
In the wild, these were almost always protected by Nascent Soul-level beasts. Some of the older, more intelligent ones even tried to cultivate the plants themselves, collecting seeds and planting them in areas with decent energy flow. The success rate was apparently terrible, but they kept trying anyway.
And here was the interesting part that most cultivators didn't seem to understand: higher tier wasn't always better.
If a spiritual plant didn't get enough ambient energy to sustain itself, it would ramp up its absorption rate just to stay alive. That meant it stopped outputting pure spiritual energy entirely, sometimes for years, until conditions improved.
A low-grade Heaven-tier plant placed in an environment with less than five times the Eastern Territories' baseline energy was completely useless. It wouldn't produce any pure spiritual energy. At best, it might survive, but it would never flower or bear fruit, and it wouldn't help anyone cultivate.
Even at six times the baseline, the situation didn't improve much. That same Heaven-tier plant would only produce output comparable to a Profound-tier plant, making it highly inefficient.
Meanwhile, in that same six-times environment, even Earth-tier plants could produce several times more pure spiritual energy than a Heaven-tier specimen grown under normal conditions.
That was why Alexei, with Yan's help, had planned every terrace level in his underground farm for maximum efficiency. Each ring of spirit stone lamps created a different energy density, and he matched those conditions with the right tier of spiritual plants so they could grow at their peak.
At the moment, the inner sections near the densest lamp clusters were filled with high-grade Heaven-tier plants, while the outer rings gradually shifted down to low-grade Profound-tier varieties.
As for Yellow-tier plants, they were basically weeds. They didn't even require spiritual energy to grow, so there was no point wasting valuable underground space on them when he could just scatter seeds outside and leave them alone.
Even with this setup, the farm was already producing enough pure spiritual energy to support Qingxue's cultivation. She was at the Dharma Aspect realm, and her energy demands were absurd, yet it was still enough for her and everyone else in the Aureate Summit Sect combined.
More importantly, it meant they could cultivate without interruption and never worry about running dry.
But Alexei's obsession with expanding the farm wasn't just about helping other people.
He had discovered something interesting. Whenever he stayed in areas rich in pure spiritual energy, his cultivation would increase on its own. That meant he had stumbled onto the laziest cultivation method possible. He could just sit in a room full of spiritual plants, fish if he felt like it, and let the energy do the work for him.
If he could scale that up with more plants, denser energy, and better conversion, he might be able to push through cultivation realms just by staying in the right environment.
And if pure spiritual energy worked, then spirit marrow should work even better.
According to Qingxue, spirit marrow was simply pure spiritual energy that had been condensed into a solid form. In theory, that meant he could consume it and directly boost his cultivation.
The only problem was getting any.
Even with all the wealth he had gathered, he could only synthesize six top-grade spirit stones, while nine were needed to form a single piece of spirit marrow. He was still three stones short, and top-grade stones were far from easy to find.
He closed the compendium and tossed it onto his desk.
---
The next morning, Alexei woke up earlier than usual.
He sat up, stretched, and had barely gotten out of bed when someone knocked on his door.
"Alexei? Are you awake?"
"Yeah, give me a second."
He got dressed quickly and went to open the door.
Qingxue was standing outside, holding a small tray with two cups of tea, both still steaming.
"You're up early," she said, sounding a little surprised. "I brought tea. I thought we could go over the expansion plans for the underground farm before the monkeys arrive."
"You made tea?"
"Yan made it. I'm just delivering it."
He took one of the cups. It smelled like some kind of floral blend, way too fancy for his taste, but he wasn't about to complain.
"Thanks. Yeah, we should figure out the monkey situation before they show up with their entire brewing setup and expect everything to be ready."
They headed to the main hall together. Alexei sipped his overly fancy tea as he tried to estimate how much space a troop of spirit monkeys would need.
Once they sat down, Qingxue unrolled a map of the mountain's interior while Alexei went over everything he had to deal with today and started sorting out his priorities.
First, the spirit monkeys would arrive in three days. They were bringing a large amount of equipment, mainly brewing tools and their stockpile of monkey wine. He needed to prepare a proper area for them. At the very least, that meant living quarters, a brewing facility, and farmland for whatever ingredients they used.
Second, he needed to find a Nether fortress, kill Wither Skeletons, collect their skulls, summon the Wither, and take it down to get a Nether star.
Third, he had to assimilate the pile of magical artifacts and spirit stones they had collected. That could run in parallel with everything else since it mostly required time and experience rather than constant attention.
Fourth, he needed to set up a proper transportation network using the Nether.
The earlier tests in the Verdant Vine Mystic Realm had already shown that the Nether wasn't especially dangerous for cultivators. Most of the mobs were only around the Foundation Establishment level, which made them more annoying than threatening.
More importantly, those tests had confirmed something else. His Minecraft abilities didn't carry over through tools.
Yan and Qingxue had both tried using his pickaxe, sword, and shovel. The tools worked well enough. They were sharp, durable, and could break ordinary materials, but that was all they did. They couldn't mine blocks, access his inventory, or trigger any of the strange mechanics that made them useful in the first place.
That meant any cultivator entering the Nether through one of his portals would be heavily restricted. They could still open chests, collect items, and kill mobs for loot, but they wouldn't be able to break blocks or reshape the environment the way he could.
That was a huge advantage when it came to security.
The downside was obvious. All construction had to be done by him alone, which slowed things down more than he liked. Still, it was a small price to pay.
He stood up, stretched, and grinned.
"Alright, time to grind."
---
Later that afternoon, five men who looked middle-aged, but were likely much older, arrived alongside two elderly cultivators. They descended from the sky and landed in the open plaza before the Sect Master's Hall.
Zhengxing was already waiting for them with his hands clasped in greeting.
"Welcome. Please, follow me inside."
The seven visitors exchanged brief glances. They hadn't expected the sect master of such a minor faction to be at the early Nascent Soul stage, which was unusual for a place this remote.
Even so, early Nascent Soul was nothing special to them. Their expressions stayed neutral, polite but without any real respect.
One of the middle-aged men gave a short nod.
"Sect Master Qin, we will need you to gather all of your sect's cultivators. We have some important questions to ask."
The words sounded polite, but the tone made it clear that this wasn't a request.
Zhengxing didn't take offense. In the cultivation world, hierarchy was absolute, and these people were already being restrained by speaking to him directly.
He had seen far worse. Some high-level cultivators would simply release their spiritual pressure across the entire mountain and force everyone to gather in the plaza without a word of explanation. Compared to that, this was almost courteous.
"Hm... Please wait a moment."
He already had a good idea of what this was about.
If he was right, it had something to do with the headless corpse they had found in the forest.
The Aureate Summit Sect had a simple way of summoning its members when needed.
In the main plaza, just outside the Sect Master's Hall, stood a large bronze bell about two meters tall. It was graded as Profound-tier, which sounded impressive until you realized that pretty much every ranked sect on the continent had one.
The bell's internal formation arrays allowed it to vibrate the surrounding spiritual energy and project sound across vast distances. More importantly, anyone within range would hear it at exactly the same volume, no matter where they were standing. Someone right next to the bell would hear the same thing as someone a hundred kilometers away.
The transmission ranges were standardized: Yellow-tier bells could reach sixteen kilometers, Profound-tier reached 160 kilometers, Earth-tier could cover 1,600 kilometers, and Heaven-tier bells could theoretically broadcast across 16,000 kilometers, though no one had ever tested that because who the hell needed to summon people from that far away?
After three clear tolls of the bell, Zhengxing returned to the main hall where the seven visitors were waiting.
"Please be patient. Our sect members live fairly spread out across the mountain."
The visitors nodded slightly, settling into chairs on the left side of the hall without much comment. They closed their eyes and entered light meditation, conserving energy while they waited.
About seven or eight minutes passed before the first arrivals showed up.
A booming voice echoed into the hall before its owner even appeared.
"Sect Master, what's the emergency? You don't usually ring the bell unless something important is happening."
The seven visitors frowned slightly. Barging in while shouting was hardly proper etiquette, but then again, this was a remote sect in the middle of nowhere. Standards were probably different out here.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the hall as two men approached, their massive builds making them look like walking fortresses. They entered side by side, and their presence alone made the space feel smaller.
Curious about their strength, some of the visitors released faint probes of qi. The waves were soft, meant only to gauge their general realm without digging deeper.
Among demonic cultivators, that kind of probing would have been taken as an insult. Here, however, the orthodox cultivators treated it as normal. As long as it stayed a light scan and didn't turn into a forceful inspection, it was acceptable in a public gathering. Doing the same in private would still be considered rude.
Of course, a soft scan wasn't foolproof. Anyone with good control over their qi could interfere with it. Lowering one's apparent realm was easy, while raising it was much harder. In theory, it could be done, but only if the person had qi strength close to that level. Otherwise, they could only create a vague sense of pressure, not a convincing illusion.
Even so, most scans were still reliable. Few cultivators bothered to hide their strength, and many preferred to show it off. Appearing weaker brought no advantage in a setting like this, so most people let their true realm be seen.
One was at the high stage of Spirit Condensation. The other stood at the peak of Foundation Establishment, and the fluctuations in his spiritual energy made it clear he was close to breaking through to Core Formation.
Their mental ages were harder to judge. Somewhere between forty and fifty, perhaps. Their rough appearances suggested lives filled with hard labor and constant strain.
One of the middle-aged visitors glanced at them and thought they could just as easily be thirty. Body cultivators often aged in strange ways.
The blacksmith glanced over the seven visitors already seated in the hall, then walked to the right side and took a seat without saying a word. His apprentice followed and stopped behind him, arms crossed as he stood guard.
The hall remained quiet for another three minutes.
Then a man and a woman descended from the sky outside, each carrying a sword. They entered without speaking and took their seats beside blacksmith, closing their eyes as soon as they sat down.
The elderly visitors straightened slightly at the sight.
Another Nascent Soul cultivator had arrived.
The young man's spiritual energy felt sharp, tightly restrained like a blade ready to be drawn. Even sitting still, his sword intent was obvious. On top of that, he was already approaching the mid-stage of Nascent Soul, yet his mental age looked no older than his mid-twenties.
One of the elders narrowed his eyes. Nascent Soul before thirty was rare. This one clearly had potential.
The woman behind him was no less impressive. Her expression matched his almost perfectly, suggesting they were either siblings or shared the same master. Her cultivation was at the high stage of Core Formation, and her mental age seemed to be around twenty-one or twenty-two.
Another talented sword cultivator.
Less than two minutes later, a stern-looking man in administrator's robes arrived on a flying sword, with a boy riding behind him. The sword came to a precise stop in front of the hall steps, controlled so cleanly that several of the visitors gave slight nods of approval.
The man himself was at the peak of Spirit Condensation and seemed close to breaking through to Nascent Soul, likely within a decade if nothing went wrong.
Then one of the middle-aged visitors glanced at the boy and suddenly paused, doing a double-take.
The child was at the peak of Body Tempering. And he couldn't have been older than seven or eight.
The visitor mentally compared that to his own sect's recent batch of new disciples. More than half of them were still stuck at the Qi Sensing stage. The most talented among them had only just reached early Body Tempering and were still a ways off from advancing to the middle stage.
Under normal circumstances, it wasn't unusual for a new disciple to spend five or even ten years grinding through Body Tempering. Sixth-rank sects and above usually conducted evaluations twenty years after recruitment, cutting loose anyone who hadn't reached Qi Refining by then. Smaller sects took even longer, or didn't bother with evaluations at all.
Which made this child's achievement remarkable.
A seven-year-old at peak Body Tempering would be considered a genius even in a first-rank sect. At minimum, the boy had to possess a mid-grade heaven spirit root, possibly higher.
Across the entire continent, that might not stand out. But in the spiritually thin Eastern Territories, this was core disciple material for any second-rank sect.
What a waste, the visitor thought, shaking his head internally. Talent like that, stuck in a backwater sect.
Another two minutes passed before a young man dressed like a scholar entered the hall. He was another peak Spirit Condensation cultivator. Although he seemed a step behind the administrator in terms of reaching Nascent Soul, there was no doubt about his ability.
Seven or eight more minutes passed before the last group finally arrived. Two women and a young man entered the hall alongside a red-haired girl. The moment they stepped inside, everyone's attention shifted to the girl.
One of the middle-aged cultivators near the door stood up without thinking.
"Foundation Establishment?" he blurted out. "How old is she?"
The others quickly turned to look.
They all knew what the Eastern Territories were like. Spiritual energy was thin, resources were scarce, and cultivation was slow for most people. Reaching Foundation Establishment at seven or eight years old wasn't just rare, it was almost unheard of. Even reaching that level at seventeen or eighteen would make someone a top talent, the kind sects would raise as future successors.
Prodigies like that were supposed to exist only in the outer regions, where spiritual energy was denser and resources far more abundant.
Soon, their attention shifted to the white-haired man standing with her. He met their gazes calmly.
They couldn't sense his cultivation at all.
That only meant two things. He was either extremely weak or far beyond them. Given the situation, traveling with a Foundation Establishment child and two high-realm cultivators, the answer was obvious.
His spiritual energy felt unusually pure. Even from across the hall, it carried a clean, refined quality that suggested either a heaven spirit root or access to resources most sects couldn't afford.
The young man himself didn't look remarkable at first glance. His features were ordinary, but his white hair and unusual eyes set him apart in a way that felt anything but normal.
After seeing the red-haired girl, no one present believed he was ordinary.
One of the elders stood up, smoothing his robes as he composed himself. He put on a polite smile and looked toward the red-haired girl.
"Forgive the interruption. I am Elder Ming of the Thousand Winds Sect, a second-rank faction. Our sect has always valued talent, and we would be honored to extend an offer."
He paused, making sure his tone stayed respectful.
"If either of you young cultivators ever wish to join a larger sect with more resources, Thousand Winds would welcome you as inner disciples. We have training facilities, Spirit Condensation-realm instructors, and access to Earth-tier cultivation techniques."
Zhengxing's expression twitched as he watched the exchange unfold.
That guy was recruiting right in front of him, in his own sect hall.
Elder Ming was being polite about it, at least on the surface. He wasn't making demands or throwing around his cultivation base. He simply extended an offer, the same way any sect would when they came across exceptional talent.
Even so, it still stung.
The three cultivators from Wolf Mountain Sect exchanged brief glances. They had originally planned to approach the children in private after the meeting, offering generous terms in the hope of securing at least one of them before the others could act.
Now it seemed Thousand Winds had moved first.
Mengyao, the red-haired girl, barely spared Elder Ming a glance.
She had no interest in his offer. The Aureate Summit Sect already gave her everything she needed: a teacher who understood her strengths, training resources suited to her cultivation method, and, more importantly, strange food that boosted her progress far beyond anything she had ever heard of.
There was no reason for her to leave.
What bothered her more was the seating.
In formal settings like this, the left side of the hall was the position of honor. Important guests sat on the left, while those of lesser status took the right.
Yet the seven outsiders had seated themselves there without hesitation, as if it were only natural.
In her eyes, they hadn't earned that place.
She kept her thoughts to herself. Yan showed no reaction, and since her master didn't take issue with it, neither would she.
Elder Ming continued to smile at them, waiting patiently for their answer.
Then his expression froze.
Cold sweat formed on his forehead as an overwhelming pressure descended on him. His knees bent under the weight, and his breathing grew heavy. Every instinct in his body urged him to kneel, to lower his head, and to submit.
There was a Dharma Aspect cultivator in this room.
"Elder Ming, what's wrong?"
The other visitors noticed the old man's expression and exchanged confused glances.
Elder Ming's face had gone stiff. His posture, which had been straight moments before, now bent slightly forward as if weighed down by an invisible force.
"I apologize if I have caused offense. I spoke out of turn."
Facing the cold, unfriendly gaze of one of the female cultivators, Elder Ming felt like his brain was short-circuiting.
What do you do when you try to recruit someone and accidentally target a Dharma Aspect Venerable?
Seeing the others still seated calmly beside him, unaware of what was happening, he turned and hissed at them:
"Stand up and show respect to the Venerable."
"Venerable?" The old men and middle-aged cultivators froze, then scrambled to their feet. "Dharma Aspect?"
Based on Elder Ming's reaction, the Dharma Aspect cultivator had to be one of the two women who had just entered. They didn't know which one exactly, and they weren't going to probe with their spiritual senses to find out.
Just from looking at them, both appeared absurdly young. Their mental ages couldn't be more than mid-twenties at most.
Nothing like the ancient Dharma Aspect elders in the Eastern Territories, whose minds had long since started deteriorating from age.
"Please forgive our earlier rudeness."
In the Eastern Territories, only about 1 in 1000 peak Nascent Soul cultivators ever managed to break through to the Dharma Aspect realm. People like them had almost no chance unless they ran into some incredible opportunity.
On top of that, a single Dharma Aspect cultivator could easily deal with more than a dozen peak Nascent Soul cultivators at once, as long as they were nothing out of the ordinary.
When the previously confident old men suddenly quieted down, Mengyao straightened her back a little, feeling a sense of satisfaction.
She knew of the Thousand Winds Sect. It was a fairly solid second-rank sect.
If she remembered correctly from her past life, all of its top experts, including the sect master, had been wiped out by the Ghost Sect during the war. If the Immortal Alliance hadn't stepped in afterward to stabilize things, the sect would have likely fallen apart on the spot.
Even then, their ending was not much better. She vaguely remembered that they eventually declined to a third-rank sect.
She had heard rumors that when the Aureate Summit Sect destroyed the Ghost Sect a century later, there had been a female cultivator involved who was already at the Tribulation Transcendence realm.
That cultivator had been described as powerful, composed, and devastatingly effective.
Mengyao suspected Yan's cultivation was already at the late or peak stage of Dharma Aspect, possibly even approaching Tribulation Transcendence. Even though Yan always insisted she was only at Nascent Soul whenever Mengyao asked.
She didn't believe that for a second.
She kept her expression neutral, but internally she was pleased.
"It's fine," Qingxue said. When she saw that her act had the desired effect, she decided not to push the matter any further. She walked over to the right side of the hall and took a seat. Alexei followed behind her without saying a word.
That left the seven visitors standing awkwardly, unsure of what they were supposed to do.
By custom, a Dharma Aspect Venerable should be seated on the left. There was no way they could take seats above her, especially after getting on her bad side earlier. Sitting down now would only make things worse.
Sensing their hesitation, Zhengxing stepped in to ease the tension.
"Now that everyone from our sect is here, what brings you all today?"
"Ah, right. There's something important we need to discuss."
The topic shift gave them an excuse to move. Several of the cultivators stepped into the center of the hall.
"We have been pursuing a grey-robed cultivator. We wanted to ask if your sect has seen such a person pass through this area recently?"
"A grey-robed cultivator?" Zhengxing kept his expression calm. "I'm afraid you've come for nothing. We haven't seen anyone like that near our sect."
It wasn't exactly a lie. By the time they found the man, he had already been lying dead on the ground.
"In that case, we've troubled you for no reason." The old men didn't press further and turned to leave.
They already had what they needed.
The cultivator they suspected to be the Ghost Sect's leader had clearly died here. For them, it did not matter who had killed him. What mattered was that he was gone. With that problem resolved, they could act more freely and move ahead with their plans to attack the Ghost Sect's remaining forces.
"Please accept this as a small token of our gratitude."
Whether the sect admitted anything was irrelevant. Basic courtesy still had to be observed.
The leading elder hesitated for a moment, looking reluctant, before taking out a jade token from his robes.
Alexei's eyes lit up. Did they just drop loot?
"This is a credential for the Primordial Origin Tower. If your sect is interested, in one year's time you may use this token to send one disciple along with ours to train there. Our sect only received three of these tokens in total. I only had one in my possession. I hope your sect won't find it insufficient."
The other cultivators traveling with him all glanced at the token.
It was a credential from the Primordial Origin Tower.
Most sects below the third rank had probably never even heard of it, but its reputation was well known among the higher tiers. According to legend, the Primordial Origin Tower had been left behind by an ancient immortal sect as a trial ground for its disciples. The tower had 52 floors, and each one was a self-contained world guarded by spiritual beasts created by its formation arrays.
The higher one climbed, the richer the spiritual energy became. Even Tribulation Transcendence cultivators could gain tremendous benefits from training inside.
Of course, that only mattered if you could reach those higher floors.
Inside the tower, raw cultivation level wasn't the deciding factor. Instead, it imposed a form of suppression based on mental age, allowing only those with younger mental states to climb further.
Up to now, the highest floor anyone had ever reached was the twenty-ninth, and even that was already considered the limit for most Tribulation Transcendence cultivators. Beyond that point, only someone at the Celestial Bridge realm might be able to go further.
The problem was that such experts were almost impossible to find in the Eastern Territories, and even if one did appear, it was unlikely they would still have a youthful enough mental state to qualify.
Seeing the pained look on Elder Ming's face, along with the shock on the others, Zhengxing immediately realized how valuable this was.
"You are too generous," he said as he stepped forward to accept the token.
It didn't come away easily at first. He had to tug a bit harder before Elder Ming finally let go, and even then the old man looked like he was watching a piece of his soul depart.
Zhengxing stored the token in his robes, already planning to learn more about this Primordial Origin Tower later.
Elder Ming still looked reluctant to leave.
The other cultivators also seemed like they wanted to offer something to build goodwill with the sect.
A young Dharma Aspect cultivator meant limitless potential. On top of that, the disciples they had seen were all unusually talented.
If the Aureate Summit Sect only had some frail old Dharma Aspect elder on the verge of mental decline, they wouldn't be this eager to establish connections.
But after thinking it over, none of them really had anything else of value to offer on short notice.
In the end, they simply handed over their sect tokens to Zhengxing as well, providing a way to contact them or visit their sects in the future.
After that, they departed as quickly as dignity allowed.
"Uh... they're just leaving like that?" Alexei muttered, watching them go. "They said like ten words total, dropped loot, and left?"
"What else would they stay for?" Yan asked, smiling slightly.
"Hm... fair point."
Alexei glanced at the jade token in Zhengxing's hands, already wondering what kind of ridiculous cultivation trial this Primordial Origin Tower was.
Probably something designed to kill people in creative ways while calling it "training."
The brief meeting hadn't taken much time at all. By the time Alexei got back to his house, less than half an hour had passed since the bell first rang.
---
Over the next two days, Alexei focused on construction as he prepared for the arrival of the spirit monkeys. They would need a proper place to live, so he chose a site about thirty meters above the villagers' residential area, close to the spiritual plant cultivation zone.
The structure covered nearly 800 square meters in total and was divided into two main sections: a living area and a work area.
The work area was relatively small, less than 100 square meters, and was meant for brewing and storing spiritual wine. The rest of the space, more than 700 square meters, was reserved for living.
He split the living area into three parts: a cultivation zone, resting quarters, and a section of farmland for growing brewing ingredients.
The overall layout followed the same pattern as the villagers' homes, with a large open space in the center and individual living quarters arranged around the edges.
The central area measured 14x14 blocks, all covered in grass blocks, for a total of 196 square meters. At the very center, he placed a high-grade spirit stone lamp. Around it, he planted nine low-grade Heaven-tier spiritual plants and forty Earth-tier plants, creating a steady source of ambient energy for the monkeys to absorb.
Four blocks out from the cultivation area, he set up farmland for the monkeys, covering another 288 square meters. Beyond that, he added a ring of flowing water, both for practical use and to improve the environment.
Everything fit within the 225x25 block range of the single high-grade spirit stone lamp.
As for the living quarters, each monkey was given about nine square meters of personal space. For them, that was already more than enough. They didn't need much beyond a place to sleep and somewhere to keep their belongings.
For the entrance, Alexei carved out a separate opening on another side of the cliff, keeping it apart from the main residential access and giving the monkeys their own path in and out.
The entire colony ran on a single high-grade spirit stone lamp, keeping the setup simple.
Ch. 7015 May
Two months had passed since the spirit monkeys moved into their new quarters, and honestly, Alexei barely noticed they were there.
He had been too busy with his latest project to pay attention to much of anything beyond redstone circuits, portal mechanics, and the mountain of gold blocks his new farm was producing.
The monkeys kept to themselves mostly. Occasionally one of the younger ones would show up at his door with a clay jar of spirit wine, bow politely, and vanish before he could say anything. The wine was good, so he didn't complain.
The only real disruption came from Yan, who had developed an unfortunate habit of getting drunk and wandering into the wrong bedroom.
The first time it happened, he had woken up to find her sprawled across his floor, snoring loud enough to wake the dead, with an empty wine jar still clutched in one hand.
The second time, she had somehow made it onto his bed before passing out.
The third time, he was starting to suspect she was doing it on purpose.
"You know there are only three houses in this whole complex," he said the morning after the fourth incident. "Mine, Qingxue's, and yours. So the chances of you accidentally ending up at my place every single time are complete bullshit."
Yan had just smiled at him, completely unashamed, and walked out without a word.
He still wasn't sure what to make of that.
But personal drama aside, the past two months had been productive as hell.
His biggest gain was the freedom to farm experience whenever he wanted. It was unlimited, on demand, and ridiculously efficient, to the point that his old mob farm felt like a complete joke.
The breakthrough had come when he finally sat down and did the math on Minecraft's mob spawning mechanics.
The rules were simple: within any 128-block radius, the game would spawn a maximum of 70 hostile mobs. If two spawning zones overlapped, neither one would reach the full cap. They would split the available spawns between them, which meant both farms would run at reduced efficiency.
To maximize output, the optimal distance between two separate farms needed to be at least 256 blocks. That way, each one got its own independent spawn cap without interfering with the other.
Which meant he could build multiple farms and stack their production rates.
Mob Farm Number Two was the result, and it was on a completely different level.
This time, he built a zombified piglin farm.
The design exploited a specific quirk of Nether portal mechanics. In Minecraft, whenever a Nether portal generated, there was a chance that zombie piglins would spawn on the east side of the portal frame. The larger the portal, the higher the spawn rate.
Since his system ran on Bedrock Edition, the rates were even better.
On average, a portal would produce a zombie piglin every few activations. Sometimes more, sometimes none, but over time it balanced out to roughly one spawn every two seconds per portal.
Which was insane.
He had built each portal at 20x20 blocks, partially because bigger portals meant better spawn rates, and partially because it made the kill chamber easier to construct.
The mechanics were elegant in a brutal sort of way.
On the non-spawning side of each portal, he set up a lava blade system and linked it to a series of water dispensers. Observers placed facing each other created a feedback loop that kept the lava reacting continuously. Whenever a portal deactivated, usually because the water flow destroyed it, the lava would pull back. That gave the portal enough time to reignite, which reset the setup and allowed the cycle to start again.
On the east side, where the piglins spawned, he built a collection system.
The 20-meter portal frame created an 18-meter active zone, which was the spread distance of two water source blocks. That left two meters of space at the end, just enough room to install a trident killer.
Spawned piglins got swept up by the water current and funneled directly into the rotating tridents, which killed them. Their drops were sorted by a hopper system. Swords and nuggets got incinerated. Gold ingots were collected, crafted into blocks, and transported back to his main storage via a network of water streams, ice paths, and bubble columns.
The experience orbs, meanwhile, were diverted into a dedicated 5x5x5 experience collection pool he had built specifically for this farm.
At the moment, he had six portals running across three separate trident killers.
The farm's efficiency had hit roughly 10,000 mobs per hour.
Every day, the auto-crafter alone was producing over 600 gold blocks.
And the experience gains were absurd. According to his tests, the farm was generating at least 1.2 million experience points per day, which was enough to go from level 0 to level 536 in a single 24-hour period.
"This is the most beautiful thing I have ever built," he had said, standing in front of his new creation as gold blocks clinked into storage chests and experience orbs swirled in the collection pool.
It had taken him nearly two months to finish. But it was worth it.
With this much experience available on demand, he no longer had to worry about running out. He could assimilate artifacts, convert materials, enchant gear, and still have more than enough left over.
He had even repurposed his original mob farm. Since he no longer needed it for experience, he removed the trident killer and converted it back into a 1x16 collection platform, the way it had originally been designed for villager collection.
Unfortunately, even after letting it run for an entire day after the conversion, he hadn't gotten a single villager spawn.
As for his progress in the Nether over the past two months, there was none. He had been too busy building the piglin farm to do any real exploring. The portals, redstone, water systems, and bubble columns had taken up all of his time.
Even so, he had made progress in other areas. He had finally taken the time to assimilate the Hundred Ghost Banner he had looted from the dead cultivator's storage ring.
The artifact alone had cost him 490 levels of experience to fully convert, but he figured a Heaven-tier magical artifact would be worth it.
The first time he tested it, however, the summoned ghost appeared, immediately slapped him across the face, and then died to the Thorns enchantment on his armor.
He stared at the fading spirit in disbelief. "Are you fucking serious? I spent 490 levels on you, and the first thing you do is attack me?"
Apparently, that was exactly what it did.
On the bright side, the ghost had been worth over 80 levels of experience when it died, and the banner still had 92 more stored inside. In a way, it was like carrying around 92 rechargeable experience batteries. Not exactly convenient, but useful when he was desperate.
The downside was the spectacle. Releasing one meant wailing spirits, dark energy, and the full horror-movie treatment. There was nothing subtle about it.
He made a mental note to only use it when he was alone, or when he simply didn't care who he scared.
The rechristened artifact sat quietly in his storage, waiting for the next time he needed a quick boost.
[Human Emperor Banner:
Spiritual Energy Circuit V
Soul Absorption V
Yin Malice V
Suppression IV
Durability III
Auto-Repair III
Evil Soul Nourishment III (92/121)]
"Human Emperor Banner," he had muttered, reading the new name. "Because 'Hundred Ghost Banner' wasn't pretentious enough."
---
Late that evening, Alexei stood in his survival base, holding the Spirit Essence Gourd in one hand.
He had been stuck at the Muscle Tempering stage for a while. Even with the richer qi in the surroundings and the spirit fruits he had taken, his progress had stalled. Then again, he hadn't had much time to properly cultivate.
He tilted the gourd and let a single drop of spiritual liquid fall into his mouth. The moment it touched his tongue, his mind cleared, like fresh air rushing into a closed room. The change was immediate. The surrounding qi stirred and began flowing into his body in thin, steady streams, drawn in by the shift within him.
[Qi Refining - Qi Sense (First Stage)]
"Huh. That was easier than I thought."
He opened his status panel, ready to check his updated stats, but paused the moment it appeared.
The entire interface had changed. It still showed his basic information, like his name, level, and cultivation realm, but now there was a new section labeled Details.
[Details:
Vitality Bonus: 0%
Spiritual Power Bonus: 0%
Health Regeneration: 0
Qi Regeneration: 0
Movement Speed Bonus: 0%
Attack Bonus: 0%
Metal Attack: 1%
Wood Attack: 1%
Water Attack: 1%
Fire Attack: 1%
Earth Attack: 2.5%
Light Attack: 1%
Darkness Attack: 1%
Ice Attack: 1%
Wind Attack: 1%
Thunder Attack: 1%
Void Attack: 1%
Time Attack: 1%
...]
The list went on for more than twenty different stat categories, all showing bonus percentages.
Above his cultivation realm, a simple experience bar had appeared. There were no numbers, just a visual indicator of how far he had progressed.
He tapped on the Known Techniques section and selected Verdant Lamp.
[Verdant Lamp (Heaven-tier):
Cultivation Speed: +530%
Spiritual Power Bonus: +300%
Vitality Bonus: +300%
Movement Speed Bonus: +50%
Attack Bonus: +100%
Wood Attack Bonus: +300%
Fire Attack Bonus: +200%
Health Regeneration: +2.5 per second
Qi Regeneration: +1.5 per second
Technique Effects: Burning Essence, Verdant Renewal
(Burning Essence: All attacks deal additional fire damage
Verdant Renewal: Health regeneration effects increased by 100%)]
Alexei stared at the numbers.
Cultivation Speed and Spiritual Power Bonus were new additions. A 530% boost to cultivation speed alone was absurd, pushing him far beyond anyone using a normal technique. On top of that, the 300% increase to spiritual power and vitality meant his overall strength would jump just as dramatically.
The rest only added to it. High bonuses to wood and fire attacks, a solid boost to movement and base attack, and then the regeneration on top.
With Verdant Renewal doubling his recovery, it would be hard for anyone to wear him down in a prolonged fight.
He tapped [EQUIP].
The moment he did, a flood of knowledge rushed into his mind.
It didn't feel like learning something new. It felt like remembering something he had always known. The circulation patterns, the breathing rhythm, and the small adjustments needed to get the most out of the Verdant Lamp technique all settled into place, as if he had been using it for years.
His breathing shifted, while his spiritual energy began to circulate through his meridians in the exact pattern the technique required.
The urge to sit down and start cultivating rose almost immediately.
He stopped himself.
He opened the Known Techniques section and scrolled through the list.
[Wind-Walking Technique (Earth-tier):
Movement Speed Bonus: +15%
Spell Effect: Wind-Walking
(Grants 100% movement speed increase to self or allies.
Duration: continuous.
Cost: 6 Qi per minute.)]
[Flame Fist (Profound-tier):
Fire Attack Bonus: +7%
Spell Effect: Flame Fist
(Projects a burst of flame in a straight line. Power and range scale with Qi input.)]
[Firefly Light (Yellow-tier):
Fire Attack Bonus: +0.1%
Spell Effect: Firefly Light
(Generates a small flame that follows the user. Each active firefly costs 1 Qi to create. Can be used for illumination or impressing people.)]
[Intermediate Earth Reinforcement:
Vitality Bonus: +10%
Defense Bonus: +15%
Spell Effect: Earth Reinforcement
(Reinforces the body with earth-aspected Qi, increasing durability and resistance to damage. Effect can be applied to specific areas or the entire body. Qi cost scales with coverage and intensity.)]
[Intermediate Earth Coating:
Defense Bonus: +20%
Tool Durability Bonus: +20%
Spell Effect: Earth Coating
(Coats a weapon or body part in condensed earth-aspected Qi, increasing durability and impact force. Can be applied partially or fully. Qi cost scales with coated area and thickness.)]
He stared at Firefly Light again.
"0.1% fire attack bonus... Are you serious right now?"
He glanced at his Qi stat.
[Qi: 23/400]
The Verdant Lamp technique's regeneration effect was already working, slowly refilling his Qi reserves.
"Let's test it."
He snapped his fingers, and a small crimson flame appeared beside his head, about the size of a ping-pong ball. It hovered in place, giving off a soft red glow and a faint warmth.
It wasn't hot, just warm enough to feel comfortable. The light was stronger than he expected. The 100% fire attack bonus from Verdant Lamp was no joke. The Brightglow Pearl might as well be obsolete now.
"Let's see how the boost works with other spells."
He had already tested Firefly Light. It was useful for illumination, but completely useless in a fight. Flame Fist, on the other hand, was meant to be a real attack, and with the Verdant Lamp boosting it, the damage should be noticeable.
He drew on the last two points of qi in his reserves and felt the energy move through his meridians before gathering in his right fist. He stepped in and threw a punch.
WHOOOM.
Crimson fire erupted from his knuckles and shot forward in a concentrated blast. The flames stretched more than ten meters before slamming into the far wall of his base and exploding in a burst of heat and light.
"Okay… that was way more powerful than I expected."
The technique itself had no upper limit on qi input, which meant he could theoretically dump as much energy into it as he wanted. The problem was efficiency. Past a certain threshold, the qi consumption spiked dramatically while the power increase became marginal.
Either the technique had a built-in cap, or his cultivation level was too low to push it any further.
He opened his status panel again to check the updated interface.
Most of the changes were cosmetic. The layout had shifted to prioritize numerical values, displaying all his stat bonuses in a clean, organized format. The only thing still locked was his Bound Natal Artifact slot, which he honestly didn't care about.
His Minecraft gear already functioned like magical treasures anyway, and in most cases, it was better.
What did catch his attention was the new health display.
His health bar still showed ten hearts, but now each heart represented six points instead of two. That brought his total health to sixty, which was a decent boost.
The hunger bar, which used to occupy the center of his HUD, had been replaced by a row of sky-blue pixel hearts representing his qi. The ten drumsticks that showed his saturation had been shoved to the side, squeezed in next to his armor value.
There was also an additional experience bar now, and above his level display, a new indicator showed his current cultivation realm.
"Huh. I guess that's my qi bar now."
He spent the next twenty minutes testing every piece of equipment he had on, checking how each bonus interacted with the cultivation system.
The panel updated in real time as he worked. Resistance boosts, fall damage reduction, and even environmental protections appeared and disappeared as he equipped and removed different pieces of gear, letting him see exactly how everything fit together.
The health regeneration enchantments caught his attention the most. With Blessing of Flowers and Regeneration II, his passive recovery had already reached eleven points per minute. Unfortunately, healing from enchantments didn't benefit from Verdant Renewal, so that part stayed the same. The Verdant Lamp worked differently. Its base regeneration of 2.5 points per minute counted as a direct effect, which meant Verdant Renewal doubled it to five. Altogether, his total recovery came out to sixteen health per minute. At that rate, going from zero to sixty would take less than four minutes, which was more than acceptable.
His maximum qi was 420 after the Verdant Lamp's 300% bonus to spiritual power. He had no idea whether that was high or low for someone at his level, but for now, it felt like enough.
When he entered a meditative state, his regeneration rose to 129.675 per hour. In areas where the spiritual energy was thin, it dropped sharply to 14.02, and in places with no ambient qi at all, it fell to zero.
The only exception was the Verdant Lamp. Its 1.5 qi per minute stayed constant, completely unaffected by the environment. It almost felt like the technique was generating qi out of nothing, separate from the world around him.
That was when he finally understood what it meant.
Without the Verdant Lamp, his regeneration would barely reach 2.6 per hour. With it, the difference was overwhelming. The gap between having a Heaven-tier cultivation technique and having none at all couldn't even be compared.
"Time to see if Qingxue will teach me anything new."
---
When he arrived at the courtyard, he found exactly the people he expected.
Qingxue sat in the pavilion, quietly reviewing a scroll. Nearby, Yan lounged with a cup of tea, which probably had some spirit wine mixed into it. Not far from them, Mengyao practiced her sword forms under the watchful eye of Mu Qiunye, Cheng's disciple.
She watched Mengyao's movements with a critical eye, occasionally offering corrections.
Mengyao stayed focused. She had only recently broken through to the Foundation Establishment stage, but her progress had been so fast that she hadn't had the time to properly learn spells. Most of her effort had gone into stabilizing her cultivation and refining her swordsmanship.
She couldn't suddenly start using a variety of high-level techniques without drawing attention. Rapid cultivation could be explained by talent, but instantly mastering spells she had never learned would be much harder to justify.
Then again, when she thought about it, she hadn't mastered many spells in her previous life either.
Her time in the Celestial Path Sect hadn't even reached a full hundred years, and after her death, her soul had drifted for more than two centuries. With her peak only at the Nascent Soul stage, there was no way she could have had access to truly high-level techniques or rare spells.
Even the cultivation technique she had planned to use after her rebirth, the one she found in a secret realm, had only reached the peak of the Earth tier.
In the end, she had just been an ordinary cultivator with decent talent who managed to reach the Nascent Soul stage. People like her weren't rare in the Eastern Territories. The only real difference was that others had often cultivated for much longer.
On top of that, spiritual energy in the Eastern Territories was thin, which made high-consumption spells impractical. Pure spell cultivators had long since declined. Using a few powerful spells would drain as much energy as fighting in close combat for an extended period.
Because of this, combat in the Eastern Territories focused far more on endurance.
"Qingxue," Alexei called out as he approached. "Got time to teach me a few techniques?"
Qingxue looked up from her scroll. "Have you broken through to Qi Refining already?"
"Yeah, just now. Figured I'd come see what you could show me."
Yan, who had been half-asleep in her chair, perked up immediately. "Hold on, let me see."
Before he could react, she was already in front of him, hands reaching for his face.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking your meridians. Stay still."
He sighed and let her poke at his temples and neck for a few seconds before she pulled back, frowning slightly.
"You just broke through to Qi Refining, right? You can't use proper spells yet. Even the most basic Qi Refining techniques require more qi than you have at your current stage. You should focus on stabilizing your foundation first."
Alexei raised an eyebrow. "I've got a Heaven-tier technique. I should be able to manage a few spells."
Yan's expression shifted. "You have a Heaven-tier technique?"
"Yeah. Didn't I mention that? Got it in the Verdant Vine Mystic Realm."
She reached out and grabbed his face with both hands, forcing him to look straight at her. "You're not messing with me, are you?"
"Why would I lie about that? Now get off me."
He pulled free from her grip, stepped back, and immediately began circulating Verdant Lamp.
Spiritual energy in the surrounding area stirred and began flowing toward him in visible currents. A faint aura radiated from his body. Even someone with no cultivation talent could sense the quality of the technique just from watching him operate it.
More than that, the level of mastery was obvious. His circulation was flawless.
Yan stared at him, her mouth slightly open.
Qingxue looked equally stunned. "How long have you been practicing that technique?"
"Just today."
Qiunye, who had been observing from the side, gave him a sharp look. "You're at Qi Refining, yet you can operate a Heaven-tier cultivation method?"
"Seems that way."
On the Profound Sky Continent, techniques were divided into three stages: Body Tempering techniques, Qi Nourishing techniques, and True Cultivation techniques.
The first two corresponded to the Body Tempering and Qi Refining stages respectively. True Cultivation techniques, even the lowest Yellow-tier ones, required successful Foundation Establishment to practice.
Operating a Heaven-tier technique at Qi Refining should have been impossible.
Alexei decided to push it further.
He wanted to test Flame Fist properly. The survival base had been too cramped to get a real sense of its power, and with Qingxue and Yan present, he could get an expert evaluation of its strength.
"Alright, watch this."
He channeled all sixty points of his qi into his right arm, feeling the energy compress and ignite. Fire wrapped around his fist.
"Flame Fist!"
He punched toward the open sky beyond the cliff.
BOOOOM!
A massive wave of heat exploded outward. Crimson flames roared forward, expanding as they traveled. By the time they dissipated, they had reached nearly four hundred meters and swelled to a diameter of fifty or sixty meters.
The shockwave rattled the pavilion. The temperature spiked enough to make everyone take a step back.
Qingxue, Yan, and Qiunye all stood frozen, staring at the lingering embers drifting through the air.
"That..." Qingxue started, then stopped. "That was a Qi Refining cultivator's spell?"
Yan shook her head slowly. "Even someone at mid-Foundation Establishment would struggle to produce that kind of output. What technique did you use?"
"Flame Fist."
She frowned. "Flame Fist isn't a Qi Refining technique. That strike was at least mid-stage Core Formation level… so how… Your cultivation method must be giving you ridiculous boosts."
"Yeah, they're pretty good."
Mengyao had been watching the whole exchange. In the end, she simply sheathed her sword and walked over.
Unlike the others, she wasn't surprised.
Her senior brother had a twelve-element spiritual root. She still had no idea what his actual cultivation level was, and at this point, she had stopped trying to figure it out. If he could do something like this, then it was nothing unusual for him.
Her master said he was only at Qi Refining. And she was supposedly only at Nascent Soul.
That was obviously nonsense. A Nascent Soul cultivator couldn't refine ten-pattern pills.
It was all just an act to keep the other disciples from losing confidence.
Still, one thing puzzled her.
Why did her senior brother shout the name of his spell before using it?
Yan turned her attention back to Alexei. "How did you burn through all your qi that fast?"
In the cultivation world, the qi sea functioned like a sealed container filled with water, while spiritual roots acted as the pipes connecting it to the meridians. If you wanted to accelerate the flow of spiritual energy through your body, and your meridians couldn't expand, the only option was to compress the qi in your sea and force it through at higher pressure.
But meridians had limits.
Forcing a spell beyond those limits would cause severe damage, and doing it repeatedly could leave a cultivator permanently crippled.
Unless necessary, almost no one did something that stupid.
With the level of power Alexei had just displayed, even a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator would have suffered meridian damage. Someone at Qi Refining should have been torn apart from the inside.
"Do you feel any discomfort?"
Alexei shook his head. "I'm fine."
Yan's eyes narrowed. She stepped forward, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him closer, hands already moving to check his meridians.
"Hold still."
She pressed her fingers against his temples, then his wrists, sending probes of spiritual energy into his body. Her expression shifted from concern to confusion, then to outright disbelief.
"Your meridians are completely undamaged. You shouldn't even count as a Qi Refining cultivator yet. So where did all that spiritual energy come from?"
She focused harder, sending her spiritual sense deeper until she located his qi sea.
Then she froze.
"Your qi sea is massive. It's three times the size of Mengyao's, and hers is already abnormally vast for Foundation Establishment. Compared to an ordinary Earth-grade spiritual root cultivator at the same stage, his is seven or eight times larger."
That was absurd. On the Profound Sky Continent, cultivators below Core Formation simply couldn't cast Profound-tier spells. The qi consumption was too high, and their meridians couldn't handle the throughput.
But that wasn't even the strangest part.
"His qi is regenerating," Yan muttered, still probing his internal energy. "I'm not sensing any ambient spiritual energy flowing into his meridians, but his qi sea is refilling on its own."
She pulled her hand back and stared at him.
"Where is that energy coming from?"
Alexei shrugged. "Probably the technique."
"Techniques don't work like that."
"Then yours is just bad."
Yan froze for a second, clearly not expecting that answer. She rubbed her forehead, trying to process both what she had just seen and what he had just said. After a moment, as if deciding she was done arguing, she reached out and poked his stomach.
"At least you're not hurt. That's the important part."
Alexei pushed her hand away. "Can you stop touching me?"
"Why? Does it bother you?"
"Yes."
She smirked but stepped back.
Alexei turned his attention to Qingxue, refocusing on why he had come here in the first place.
"So, about learning techniques. Got anything new you can teach me?"
Qingxue considered for a moment, then asked, "Have you learned any hand seals?"
"Uh... No? The earth techniques I learned didn't require them."
"Those were basic techniques. More advanced ones need hand signs." She raised her hand and formed a simple sword-finger sign, with two fingers extended and the others curled inward.
"Oh, I can do that." He copied her right away. "So this is how you usually cast spells? You just make signs and channel qi?"
"Not quite. Do you know any other seals?"
He made a peace sign with one hand. "Does this count?"
Qingxue sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.
Just as she had expected. He didn't know anything.
Heaven-tier cultivation techniques contained at least thousands of hand seals, and each one required time to refine and simplify according to the user's meridian structure. Yet she had never seen him practice any of them.
When she had first learned a Heaven-tier technique, it had taken her several months just to get it running at a basic level. Simplifying all the seals had taken over thirty years.
She reached into her storage pouch and pulled out a thick manual titled Comprehensive Guide to Arcane Hand Seals.
"You need to learn the corresponding seals for a spell, then simplify them step by step according to your own meridian pathways. Only after you have reduced the seals to their most efficient form can you be said to have mastered a technique. Even when learning from jade slips, the process is the same."
Alexei took the book and flipped it open.
[Table of Contents]
[84 Celestial Constellation Seals]
[48 Elemental Trigram Seals]
[18 Yang Command Seals]
[18 Yin Command Seals]
[12 Temporal Cycle Seals]
[30 Heavenly Principle Seals]
[36 Earthly Foundation Seals]
[36 Astral Dominion Seals]
[72 Netherworld Seals]
[Nine Categories - 354 Seal Techniques Total]
The table of contents alone told him nothing useful, so he turned the page.
[84 Celestial Constellation Seals:
Eastern Azure Dragon Formation: Horn, Neck, Root, Chamber, Heart, Tail, Winnowing Basket
Southern Vermillion Bird Formation: Well, Ghost, Willow, Star, Net, Wings, Chariot
Western White Tiger Formation: Legs, Bond, Stomach, Hairy Head, Net, Beak, Triad
Northern Black Tortoise Formation: Dipper, Ox, Maiden, Void, Rooftop, Encampment, Wall...]
He stared at the illustrations.
Each diagram showed hands twisted into positions that looked impossible. Fingers bent at angles that should have broken them, and some seals required both hands to form completely different shapes at the same time.
"What the fuck..."
He flipped through more pages. Each category of seals apparently specialized in different fields.
The Celestial Constellation Seals focused on divination and aura observation. The Elemental Trigram Seals specialized in the five elements and movement techniques. The Yang Command Seals were oriented toward combat and destruction.
Each seal also had its own corresponding flow of spiritual energy through the meridians. According to the manual, many powerful spells required combining seals from multiple categories to function properly.
He tried to replicate one of the simpler diagrams.
His fingers refused to cooperate.
"What the hell? Why won't my hand do the thing?"
He tried again, focusing hard, willing his fingers into the correct positions.
They still wouldn't bend the right way.
Yan, watching from the side, was clearly struggling not to laugh. Her shoulders were shaking.
Alexei shot her an annoyed look. "This is ridiculous. These positions are anatomically impossible."
"They're not. You're just bad at it."
"Oh, really? Then you try it."
"I already know all of them."
"Of course you do."
He flipped to another page, showing an even more complex seal that required fingers from both hands to interlock in a pattern.
"Mengyao," he said, noticing the girl watching curiously from the side. "Want to give this a shot?"
He refused to believe anyone could look at these twisted hand signs and replicate them on the first try.
"Nine-Colored Lotus Seal?" Mengyao raised both hands, palms facing upward, right hand beneath the left. Her middle finger curved from below, hooking onto the base of her left hand's middle finger.
The movement was fluid, precise, and looked completely natural.
Alexei stared at his own hands, which had somehow managed to tangle themselves into a knot while he wasn't paying attention.
He flipped to a different page.
"What about this one?"
[Thunder Ancestor Seal: Both palms facing upward. Left fingers curl inward; index and little fingers hook onto the right index finger. Right middle finger passes between the left middle and ring fingers. Left thumb presses the right little finger, while the right thumb presses against the ring finger.]
"Thunder Ancestor Seal?" Mengyao's hands shifted rapidly, forming the seal.
"Damn..." Alexei was starting to suspect his hands were defective.
Or maybe people on the Profound Sky Continent had some kind of genetic advantage when it came to hand seals. Maybe Mengyao was some kind of innate seal-forming prodigy.
"Hahaha!" Yan finally lost it, doubling over with laughter.
Alexei handed the manual to Mengyao and turned back to Qingxue.
"Is there any spell that doesn't require hand seals?"
Qingxue shook her head. "Hand seals are the foundational entry point for all spells, divine abilities, and cultivation techniques. There are no shortcuts. In fact, hand seals are actually the easiest part of learning spells. The real difficulty is simplifying hundreds or even thousands of seals into the spiritual energy pathways best suited to your own meridians. That process can take decades."
Alexei stared at her.
"Decades for a single spell... Yeah, I'm out."
He closed the manual and handed it back to her.
"Sorry, but this is completely beyond me. I'm not spending thirty years learning to twist my fingers into pretzels just to cast a fireball."
Qingxue looked mildly amused. "What will you do instead?"
"I'll just use technique jade slips."
Yan was still laughing.
Alexei waved them off and headed for the exit. "I'm going to go shear some sheep. At least that's productive."
---
After a quick detour to the livestock pens, where he collected wool from three very annoyed sheep, Alexei headed back to his house.
It was mid-afternoon, and he still had a few hours of daylight left, which was enough to properly test his cultivation speed.
He entered the mountain interior and went straight to the floating island, where the spiritual energy was the densest.
The moment he stepped onto it, his body reacted instinctively, drawing it in without effort. He walked to the center of the pavilion and sat down cross-legged on the stone floor. Then he closed his eyes and began circulating Verdant Lamp.
The technique moved smoothly, opening familiar pathways as qi flowed through his meridians. His breathing slowed and his heartbeat steadied as his thoughts gradually quieted. Before long, his mind settled into a calm, focused state, leaving only the steady flow of qi moving through his body.
Time lost its meaning.
He had no idea how long he had been sitting there.
A soft voice pulled him back. "Alexei. It's getting late."
He blinked and slowly opened his eyes, his vision taking a moment to clear.
Qingxue stood in front of him, leaning slightly closer. "It's already evening."
"Evening?" He frowned, still disoriented, and looked at her in confusion. "It felt like ten minutes."
"That's normal. Time passes differently when you're deep in cultivation."
"Oh… that's kind of terrifying."
He got to his feet and stretched. His joints popped, and his muscles felt stiff after sitting in the same position for so long.
"Huh. So that's what they mean when they say 'a day in meditation feels like a moment' in novels."