Starting with the creation of the Immortal Clan through the compilation of the family genealogy.

Chapter 34: The hexagram draws water from the lake, and the ancient steps first appear.

As dawn broke and the thin mist had not yet completely dissipated, it enveloped Yunni Township like a light veil.

Meng Xihong stood in the courtyard, his gaze fixed on the vast mountain range to the east, which the villagers reverently called "Old Immortal Mountain".

After several months of operation, the Meng family's foundation in Yunni Township has been initially solidified, their reputation has gradually grown, and the external threats have been invisibly eliminated by Ji Beichuan and Zhang Xianghua.

With a slight thought, the ancient family genealogy scroll in my mind silently unfolded, and the state of my family members was clearly reflected in my heart like a painting:
Meng Xihong: Peak of Martial Arts Transformation (stable bottleneck, requires a catalyst or persistent effort); Peak of Qi Refining Level 5 in Immortal Path (spiritual energy flows rapidly, urgently needing to be broadened); Initial Foundation in Literary Path (righteous energy seed like a spark, needs nurturing with scriptures and righteousness). Talents: [Martial Arts Foundation], [Literary Spirit and Character], [Immortal Bones]

Bai Muyun: Status: [Stable origin, gradually strengthening Qi]. Qi Refining Level 2 (The stream of spiritual energy, though thin, flows steadily). Talent: [Water and Earth Spiritual Roots]. Attribute: [Immortal Bones (Inherited)]

Meng Yanqing: Martial Arts Mastery (Ming Jin), Condition: [Strong Bones and Muscles, Vital Energy] Entry: [Martial Arts Foundation (Inherited)]

Meng Yanwei: Status: [Clear Mind, Inner Brilliance]. Talent: [Precocious]. Entry: [Literary Spirit and Integrity (Inherited)]

Meng Yanning: Status: [Peaceful Sleep, Spiritual Essence Generating Naturally]. Talent: [Flawless Immortal Bones]. Attributes: None.

Feeling the warm glow emanating from the family genealogy in his sea of ​​consciousness, and the ever-growing, invisible family power, Meng Xihong felt a sense of peace.

Today, this family tree not only clearly reflects the family's current situation, but also serves as a concrete manifestation of the family's accumulated fortune, giving him a greater sense of control over every step he takes in the future.

Immediately, he touched the hexagram panel in his mind with his thoughts.

[Daily Divination, Today's Hexagram: Minor Auspiciousness, Mountain (Gen) - Stop Traveling, Be Cautious When Encountering a Noble Person. Suitable for Exploring Places by Lake (Ze) - Moderate Fortune; Avoid Greed and Rash Adversity]

“Gen Mountain, stop your journey…Be cautious when encountering a noble person…” Meng Xihong murmured, his gaze turning to the Old Immortal Mountain again. “According to the divination, this ‘Old Immortal Mountain’ indeed holds a mystery. We must not be greedy for quick success and act rashly. Let’s start from the outer areas, especially the streams and marshes.”

With the goal set, action was swift.

Every day at the break of dawn or the fall of dusk, when the mountain forests were shrouded in thick fog and sparsely populated, Meng Xihong and Ji Beichuan would stealthily slip into the outer area of ​​Laoxian Mountain, like cheetahs blending into the mountain shadows. Zhang Xianghua would stay behind to guard the courtyard and protect the peace of the home.

He deliberately avoided the paths that villagers usually took to cut firewood and gather herbs, and instead chose secluded places with deep forests and tangled vines.

Within his sea of ​​consciousness, the [Immortal Bone] talent acted like an invisible spiritual lamp, granting him unparalleled sensitivity to the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

His body was surrounded by spiritual energy, and the thin and mixed spiritual energy in the mountains and forests gathered towards him, which was then sorted and absorbed by his own pure spiritual power.

At the same time, this perception is like an invisible tentacle, extending outward to capture any abnormal fluctuations in spiritual energy, hidden dangers, or faint spiritual light of rare and precious materials in the environment.

The daily divination is his compass. He always casts a divination before setting out, and if he gets a "minor misfortune" or "misfortune" sign, he will decisively abandon the target area no matter how tempting it may seem and choose another path.

One day, the divination indicated that "miasma is secretly growing in the southwest valley, which is ominous." He immediately changed his route and detoured around the north slope.

The next day, returning hunters spoke with lingering fear about how a dense, poisonous green miasma had suddenly emerged from a valley in the southwest that was usually peaceful, killing many birds and animals. Had it not been for a divination warning, the consequences would have been unpredictable.

The process of exploration is far from the kind of extraordinary adventures and instant success depicted in traditional folk tales.

Like the most patient gold prospector, Meng Xihong searched for useful "pebbles" inch by inch in the wild mountains and forests.

Using his [Immortal Bone] perception, he discovered faint spiritual energy nodes near several sheltered, sunny mountain hollows or ancient tree root systems where the earth's energy was slightly active. The spiritual energy emitted by these nodes was extremely thin, far from enough to support a cultivator's meditation and cultivation, but it was still worlds apart from ordinary places.

Its most striking feature is that the surrounding vegetation is exceptionally lush and vibrant.

Meng Xihong silently noted down the location and told Bai Muyun after returning home.

Bai Muyun was overjoyed to hear this. On a slightly overcast morning, she carefully transplanted some of the seedlings of "Ning Shen Hua" and "Zhi Xue Teng" cultivated in the herb garden, as well as several newly discovered seedlings of "Qing Xin Cao" with milder medicinal properties, along with the soil and roots, to the vicinity of these nodes, along with Meng Yanqing, whose bones were just beginning to develop.

Without the activation of the spirit-gathering array and the irrigation of the spirit spring, these seedlings can only grow slowly by relying on the meager spiritual energy dissipated from the nodes themselves and natural rain and dew.

But every time Bai Muyun returned from her exploration, she was delighted to find that their leaves were thicker and tougher than their counterparts in the ordinary mountains and fields, and their stems were stronger, with a faint trace of spirituality slowly being nurtured.

During the exploration, there were also some scattered discoveries.

For example, under a shady and damp rock wall, he found several "star-patterned grasses" with faint silver glints on the edges of their leaves, which were auxiliary ingredients for refining low-level detoxification pills; beside a deep ravine entwined with ancient vines, he picked a few pale purple "calming flowers" of excellent quality that exuded a tranquil aura; and among the rocks on a dry streambed, he also identified several pieces of "blue-green stone" that were dark blue in color and heavy and cold to the touch.

Meng Xihong carefully collected all these harvests. The Tranquilizing Flower and Star Pattern Grass were processed by Bai Muyun, who selected the best ones to plant; Meng Xihong used his finger as a knife to infuse the Azure Agarwood with spiritual power, carving basic "Gathering Spirit" and "Stabilizing" runes on it.

The carved azure stones were buried under the foundation at the four corners of the courtyard, echoing the previous one. Although they still could not form a real array, the earth energy flowing in the courtyard seemed to be more concentrated. When Bai Muyun meditated in the courtyard, she felt that her spiritual energy flowed more smoothly.

Little by little, a great tower is built from grains of sand. The family's heritage grows quietly through this unwavering dedication.

Following the guidance of the divination hexagram indicating "a place suitable for exploring watery areas," Meng Xihong focused on a secluded valley rarely visited by people. A stream babbled through the valley, with steep cliffs on both sides, covered in vines like curtains.

He parted the thick moss and drooping vines and, on the upstream side of the stream, he was astonished to find the remnants of man-made stone steps.

The stone steps have long been blurred and broken by the erosion of time and mountain torrents, and are buried in weeds and rubble, but you can barely make out the upward direction.

In the soil scattered near the stone steps, he also found several pieces of severely weathered stone carvings, with indistinct cloud patterns and some kind of ancient animal shape carved on them. The lines were vigorous and could not have been the work of folk craftsmen.

As my fingertips traced the cold, rough stone surface, a faint, desolate, and ancient aura wafted through the air.

The spiritual energy here was noticeably richer and purer than in other areas. Although it was still thin, it invigorated Meng Xihong.

This is definitely not something that formed naturally!
During his rest periods, Meng Xihong would bring his homemade wine and chat with several of the most experienced and relatively tight-lipped old hunters in the village.

After several rounds of drinks, the campfire crackled, and under Meng Xihong's deliberate or unintentional guidance, some fragmented rumors about the deeper parts of the Old Immortal Mountain were pieced together:

“To the west… that mountain hollow called ‘Ghost’s Sorrow’,” an old hunter with a weathered face lowered his voice, his eyes filled with awe, “a few years ago, Old Zhang and I were chasing a lame deer. We got to that area and it was getting dark… hey! Guess what? From the depths of that hollow, a burst of multicolored light suddenly appeared, dazzling to the eye! And then, just like that, it vanished! It was incredibly eerie!”

Another old man, missing a front tooth, took a swig of wine and smacked his lips: "What's the sunset glow? That 'bewitching forest' on the north slope is truly eerie! It looks no different from any other forest, but once you go in, you'll get completely disoriented! The fog seems to appear out of nowhere, a vast expanse of white, and no matter how many marks you make, you'll always end up back where you started! The old folks say it's a formation set up by the mountain god to prevent mortals from disturbing the peace!"

“And then there’s the deepest rift valley,” a taciturn hunter suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse. “When the wind is strong, standing at the mouth of the valley, you can hear a clanging sound inside, like…like someone is hammering stones with an iron hammer, crisp and far-reaching…but that godforsaken place, not even birds poop there, so where would anyone come from?”

These rumors, some true and some false and full of mystery, were recorded one by one by Meng Xihong in the animal skin book he carried with him. He combined them with his own discoveries and repeatedly deduced and verified them in his mind.

The glow of the "Ghost's Bane" faintly echoed the cloud patterns on the ruins he had discovered; the "Bewitching Forest" seemed to be a natural formation; and the strange noises deep within the "Great Rift Valley"... were they the cave restrictions left behind by ancient cultivators? Or the nest of some unknown creature? Or perhaps... something even more dangerous?
(End of this chapter)