Author's note to avoid confusion:
The level of the veins mentioned in this chapter refers to their actual levels, not the levels of the energy environment generated through formations.
Example: The Bamboo Sword Sect's spiritual vein is a second-level perfect-grade vein, and because it is so strong, it can power formations to condense a third-level low-grade spiritual energy environment.
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As the sect developed and Aotian grew accustomed to the power of his advancements, two weeks passed in the blink of an eye.
On that particular day, Aotian was focused on his inner elders from the Heritage Pavilion, who were examining the latest inheritance manuals of auxiliary cultivation arts.
Since there were many Core–Tier manuals, the time needed to analyze them and produce knowledge increased considerably. However, with the recent advancement of these elders to the Nascent Soul realm, their analysis speed had greatly improved, and on that day the two would complete the analysis of the four arts, thus gaining enough knowledge for synthesis.
Aotian had even considered having them analyze one art at a time to gradually create, but he decided to have some fun and finish them all together, since he needed all four at once for a specific purpose.
And that day had come.
The two elders of the Heritage Pavilion opened their eyes; the final exercises had been analyzed.
While they awakened, Tian Zhu closed his eyes, guiding the sea of knowledge to fight within his mind, causing four victorious legacies to emerge.
Aotian immediately smiled as he felt the power of formations, talismans, alchemy, and artifact refinement techniques arise in his mind.
The reason for such excitement came from an event about a month earlier, when he had upgraded the Bamboo Sword Sect using his avatars.
At that time, while correcting the Feng Shui, he sensed a change in the spiritual vein of the vassal sect — it had grown stronger. It remained a second-level perfect-grade vein, but it was now more potent.
This puzzled him, since when he made similar changes in the Infinite Dao Sect, the spiritual veins did not strengthen in this way.
Upon investigation, he discovered that the Feng Shui applied to the Bamboo Sword Sect was so powerful that it penetrated into the soil of the entire mountain, completely bathing the spiritual vein, including its core.
In contrast, on the Infinite Dao Sect's mountain — which possessed a third-level low-quality spiritual vein about ten times larger than a second-level perfect-grade one — it was not so simple for Feng Shui to reach so deeply into where most of the vein and its core lay.
Moreover, when he had performed Feng Shui at the Infinite Dao Sect, Zhen Mo had only been at the Foundation Establishment, and his realm did not allow him to see deeply enough into Feng Shui inconsistencies.
The Bamboo Sword Sect's mountain, on the other hand, had a second-level vein. With Zhen Mo's vision, he had been able to create the perfect environment for that spiritual vein, potent enough to reach deep into the earth beneath that mountain.
Now, with his advancement and that of all the outer elders to the Golden Core realm, Zhen Mo possessed a high enough realm to plan a robust Feng Shui enhancement for the Infinite Dao Sect's mountain, covering the entire third-level low-grade spiritual vein.
But before doing that, Aotian decided to wait until he synthesized all the auxiliary arts to Core-Tier.
The reason for waiting was simple. When any technique or inheritance is synthesized, it can reach the power of a realm above — though, of course, it was still not as powerful as a synthesized technique of the actual higher realm.
For example, a Founder-Tier formations inheritance could create extremely powerful Core-Tier formations, comparable to the best inheritances available outside the sect. However, a synthesized Core-Tier inheritance could create formations of much higher quality than anything outside, even using inferior materials, and obviously superior even to a Core-Tier formation created by a Founder-Tier synthesized inheritance.
Knowing that upon creating the Core-Tier arts he would be unable to resist upgrading the sect again for greater power, he decided to wait and update the Feng Shui at the same time. This way, he would make only one general upgrade instead of two. And now that he had achieved it, he could proceed.
Without wasting time, he mobilized his elders — now much stronger — to carry out the change.
'This time I don't have to settle for working with inferior materials, thanks to the wonderful Fenglei Empire, which so generously sponsored us with the entire treasure hoard of their royal vault, entirely of their own free will,' Aotian thought, amused.
This time, the change was much faster, not only due to the realm increase, but also because of the improved skills of the elders and the existing Feng Shui foundation, which only needed to be slightly enhanced.
As for the increase in the elders' skill strength, the outer elders of the alchemy pavilion, for example — now at the 1st level of the Golden Core — could use their accelerated growth abilities to mature a Core-Tier herb in 100 years with a single use, a Founder-Tier herb in 1,000 years, or a Refiner-Tier herb in 10,000 years.
And of course, with Aotian's mastery over the use of these abilities improving little by little each day, he was able to split the uses and not spend them all on a single plant. With his training, the waste from splitting the abilities' uses was also decreasing.
If he split one use of the accelerated growth ability between two Founder-Tier herbs, for example, he could put 450 years into each, losing only 100 years from the original 1,000. If it was five herbs, he could put 175 years into each, losing 125 years.
The more he divided a use of the ability, the less control he had, but he was already much better than in the beginning, when splitting into two uses meant losing 800 years. In fact, at the start he hadn't even been able to split the use at all.
Controlling the flow of the avatars' abilities was still, by far, the most difficult task Aotian had encountered in all his time in the cultivation world, even with his many avatars and minds working together on the problem.
Returning to the present, Zhen Mo was the first to ascend to the skies, mapping all of the sect's Feng Shui.
The task took about four hours, which was fast, since he knew the mountain's Feng Shui very well. He only needed to perceive the subtleties he could now see thanks to his higher cultivation realm.
As soon as he finished the mapping, without hesitation, he generated a blueprint with his ability, and right after, all the sect's elders set out to make the adjustments.
The disciples watched the commotion in a daze.
Among them, a tall and sturdy young man, with a slightly silly expression, looked equally surprised.
His nickname was Little Brick — the very same guy who had asked out-of-place questions in the sect's last competition. The only change in him, aside from being much stronger than before, was that he now wore white robes with golden details, marking his status as a core disciple of the sect.
And, surprisingly, despite his somewhat slow thinking, he possessed great talent in spells and techniques, which ended up attracting Aotian's attention. Because of that, he was accepted as a direct disciple of one of the Heritage Pavilion's inner elders.
"Senior Brother Brick, the elders are changing the sect again!" one of his friends, an inner disciple, said excitedly as he watched the elders flying through the sky, setting up formations and making other changes.
In truth, no one really knew if his nickname was actually Little Brick, but after a friend once tried to defend him by telling a story about his slow mental state, the name just stuck. Everyone began calling him that, and few knew his real name — not that he seemed to care in the slightest.
Little Brick scratched his head, a bit lost.
"What changes?" he asked, confusion in his eyes.
"Senior brother, didn't you hear? When we took over this mountain, the elders made a big upgrade to the sect and created this wonderful cultivation environment. I heard they did the same in the Bamboo Sword Sect, and it turned out amazing there too. I bet they're making the sect even better now, since they're making so many changes," the disciple explained excitedly.
Little Brick thought for a moment, then shrugged.
"Okay. Then let's wait and see the changes."
And so, he simply waited.
Helpless, the other disciple could only wait as well.
So they stayed there for hours, while the disciple kept glancing at that unreliable senior brother, his mouth twitching. He scolded himself for even mentioning the changes and wondered if it wouldn't be better to just excuse himself and return to cultivating rather than waste more time standing there.
But when he opened his mouth to speak after a bit of internal struggle, the entire sect seemed to tremble slightly, surprising everyone.
Little Brick narrowed his eyes as he faintly felt that the sect's environment seemed lighter and purer. Even more shocking, the density of spiritual energy had risen a grade, which left him astonished.
"The sect is truly amazing…" he murmured, impressed.
The disciple next to him, still in shock, eyes wide and mouth open, unconsciously nodded, equally impressed by the sect's power.
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Bao Wuji, deep underground, watched the sect's spiritual vein in a daze.
Its long white roots, filled with dense raw spiritual energy, began expelling small traces of impurities present in its energy under the powerful effects of the Feng Shui.
With the cleansing of these impurities — which Aotian hadn't even known existed in spiritual veins — the milky-white energy seemed even purer and more potent.
The vein now pulsed more effectively and efficiently, causing the energy it produced to rise from low-grade third-level energy to mid-grade of the same level.
When this energy reached the sect's condensation formations, it became high-grade energy.
The vein hadn't changed its level and was still a low-grade third-level vein, but under the effects of Feng Shui, it now worked better than a mid-grade vein.
The sect's environment became even more powerful, free from impurities that could trouble Golden Core cultivators. For those at that level or below, cultivating there was even more advantageous than using mid-grade elemental stones.
Aotian, in his cave, smiled faintly as he felt the sect's changes.
'It seems the Bamboo Sword Sect's energy level didn't rise because the leap from a second-level vein to a third-level one is too large; otherwise its environment probably would have risen in grade just like it happened here.'
He pondered, imagining that might be the reason.
'Anyway, I think I've finished what I had to do immediately in the sect. The matter of the mortal cities at the foot of the mountain will still take some time to show results. But, speaking of the surrounding cities, I have one last change to make in the sect,' while thinking with satisfaction, he suddenly remembered something: an absurd yet logical theory he had while setting up the Feng Shui outside the sect.
With his intent, Bao Wuji emerged from deep underground into the sky and manipulated a bit of the sect's spiritual energy containment barrier.
He shaped it so that a small hole appeared, and forced a bit of internal energy to leak to the outside.
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Second note:
The story has been rather calm due to the wedding, sect development, and power increase. In the next chapter, things will heat up.