At the exact moment he opened a hole in the formation, Aotian already knew there was a 99% chance his plan would work.
The reason? The sect's spiritual energy didn't want to escape on its own.
Before getting into why this was special, it's important to remember that, in the cultivation world, one of the greatest dilemmas is the range of cultivation environment that spiritual veins can provide.
According to what Rihai had revealed at the start of their journey together, when he first arrived at Blue Cloud City a year ago, spiritual veins, when undiscovered, release energy into the surroundings nonstop, but it ends up dispersing into the air without accumulating in one place.
Then cultivators arrive, create formations to trap this energy in a specific area, and use the raw energy of the veins themselves as the power source for these massive spiritual energy-gathering formations, covering the cultivation mountains.
The larger and farther these formations extend, the more raw energy they drain from the veins to keep functioning. And, if not careful, they can put so much strain on a vein that it collapses.
The energy a vein draws is relatively infinite, but the vein itself needs time, and forcing it can cause its collapse.
Because of this, the usual consensus is to keep the gathering formations covering only the mountain area and where the roots extend.
Aotian had also studied spiritual veins extensively with his avatars, even analyzing where the veins draw their energy from. And during these investigations, he discovered they don't create energy from nothing, but rather, somehow draw it directly from a mysterious underground source.
He had even sent Bao Wuji to dive deep underground in search of it, but after descending for an entire day, he still hadn't seen the source. Aotian then made him return, afraid there might be something dangerous that could harm him at such depth.
Back to the present — Aotian knew the biggest problem with creating a larger environment with a vein's spiritual energy was that, the bigger the gigantic gathering formation, the heavier the raw energy drain on the vein to maintain it. But what if… the gathering formation wasn't needed?
Normally, this would be impossible because, without the gathering formation, the energy would disperse into the air. While enriching the surroundings, once spread too far, it would become too diluted for a cultivator to maintain their cultivation.
But here was Aotian's turning point.
With the improved Feng Shui outside the sect, Aotian realized that the spiritual energy within wasn't escaping — in fact, it was the energy from outside that was eager to pour in.
Now, with a perfect Feng Shui setup for a third-level environment inside the sect, he realized that the condensed energy of that level, even when the gathering formation had a hole in it, had no desire to leave.
Bao Wuji, flying in the sky, right after opening the hole and seeing no energy escape, forcibly pushed a bit out.
The energy, expelled from the Feng Shui environment, tried to return, but Bao Wuji blocked it, and it slowly dispersed into the air, enriching it before spreading enough to become negligible.
Seeing this, Aotian blinked in wonder and, without mercy or hesitation, shut off the spiritual energy gathering formation.
The great invisible bubble that covered the sect suddenly vanished, but nothing changed inside it.
Even so, everyone in the sect felt the great energy array simply shut down, making the air vibrate the moment it disappeared, revealing just how much energy had been there a moment earlier.
If before many sect members had left their caves upon sensing the environment's energy increase with the Feng Shui upgrade, now absolutely no one stayed inside.
The gathering formation was simply essential for any cultivation mountain, and its disappearance would be a major problem for any other sect… except the Infinite Dao Sect.
"Tian'er! Something happened!"
An anxious voice came from outside his door. Aotian immediately stood, walked over, opened it, and came face to face with his wife, Liu Rihai, whose blue eyes held a trace of anxiety — which quickly shifted to puzzlement upon seeing him so calm.
"Tian'er, you seem calm… do you know what's going on?" she asked, confused, her heartbeat slowing as she saw how composed he was.
Aotian kissed her cheek and took her hand, pulling her out of the cave.
"Don't worry, the sect just shut down the spiritual gathering formation," he explained with a small smile.
Rihai stared at him, speechless, her mouth open.
"But—" she began, but he cut her off:
"Don't ask, it's better if you see for yourself." He winked playfully at her.
With her little blonde head still confused, Rihai soon found herself outside the cave, guided by Aotian, and noticed that the energy dome covering the sect had indeed vanished — but to her surprise, the ambient energy remained, not decreasing at all.
On the contrary, it even seemed heavier.
And indeed, it was. Without the massive glutton known as the gathering formation — the structure that consumed the most energy in a sect, as it needed to confine tons of high-grade energy in one space — the vein now felt much stronger, free from that enormous leech sucking away its raw energy, and began releasing spiritual energy with much greater force.
Although the quality hadn't risen again, the efficiency with which it worked had increased greatly.
Without the collection array, Aotian could now calmly construct energy condensation formations all the way to the foot of the mountain, allowing the entire sect—and even the worms at the foot—to enjoy high-grade Third-Level energy. And there would still be plenty of strength left in the spiritual vein to send energy outward, feeding the Feng Shui set up outside the sect.
With the external Feng Shui preventing low-grade First-Level energy from escaping, and the spiritual vein nourishing the outer energy with its excess, Aotian believed that after upgrading the Feng Shui outside a few more times—something the rising ambient energy would allow—in a few months or at most a year, that whole vast region would reach an environment with at least perfect-grade First-Level energy.
'There, in that area I strengthened with my own hands, will be born the foundations of the Infinite Dao Empire.'
Aotian thought, a radiant gleam shining in his black eyes.
"How… is this possible?!"
Suddenly, Rihai's incredulous voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
He turned his gaze to her wide blue eyes, finding her both cute and amusing. Moving behind her, he wrapped his arms around her slender waist and kissed her cheek.
"Of course, it's thanks to the sect's excellent Feng Shui," he explained calmly, gently brushing her beautiful golden hair off her snow-white right shoulder and resting his chin there, while his hand returned to embrace her waist.
Rihai blinked at his words. Aotian had already told her that the sect had applied exceptional Feng Shui—why the environment had changed so much a month after they conquered the mountain—but she hadn't known that its effect could be as powerful as what she was seeing now.
"Our sect… is really something else."
He heard her murmur, feeling the vibration of her words through his chin resting on her shoulder.
Rihai was in disbelief at the sect's ability to manipulate Feng Shui so perfectly as to generate such an unbelievable effect—something practically untouchable for others, even for her powerful Liu family at its peak.
As Aotian explained in more detail why Feng Shui allowed them to remove the collection array without affecting the sect, her admiring gaze only grew.
And while Rihai marveled, the rest of the sect was equally stunned. Unfortunately, for most of them, there was no one to explain things as Aotian was doing for Rihai.
After answering her questions, Aotian suddenly grew serious for an instant before his face returned to normal. Since his chin was still on her shoulder, Rihai didn't notice the fleeting change in his expression.
In the sky, Bao Wuji, who had been secretly monitoring the spiritual energy, suddenly vanished.
Hundreds of thousands of miles from the sect, above the sea, his body emerged from a rift in space, which quickly closed. Pulling out a spirit stone, he rapidly recovered his energy, and minutes later, he opened another rift and stepped through without hesitation. A flicker of rage flashed in his eyes.
Back in the Infinite Dao Sect, a cold light shone in Aotian's eyes.
'If any of those bastards interfere with my chance to improve my roots, I swear I will destroy whatever force they belong to.'
The cause of his anger was that, before the eyes of his ten avatars on the Beiyan continent, thousands of people had gathered, and in front of them all — blocking the entrance to a massive red wooden gate — stood a young man with an arrogant smile, one hand behind his back and the other calmly waving a white fan.
Behind the gate rose a colossal black dome, so tall it vanished into the sky, completely blocking the view of whatever lay beyond. Its size exuded a crushing, breathtaking pressure.
Aotian couldn't say for certain, but by comparison, he estimated that the dome was more than fifty thousand times larger than the current mountain of the Infinite Dao Sect—an absolutely terrifying size.
The young man before the gate looked down with disdain at the crowd, which at that moment included Aotian's avatars, standing together in a corner with grim expressions.
He closed the fan and pointed it toward the ground, and with a cold smile, delivered his ultimatum to everyone:
"Stray dogs, why are you hesitating before the great opportunity this young master offers you? You don't think you can simply run away if you refuse… do you?"