Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

Cola Novels: turn the page and you're in another world.

After finishing his cultivation, Li Yuan walked out of the stone house to inspect the spirit fields.

The core area of ​​the 3,000-mu spiritual field is covered with light green that stretches to the horizon.

Li Yuan stood on the highest ridge of the field, looking down at the busy spirit farmers.

A dozen or so spirit farmers, bent over and holding small jade shears, moved swiftly through the fields. The three main spiritual herbs—Healing Vein Grass, Soul-Gathering Grass, and Spirit-Gathering Flower—were planted in separate areas and had all now entered their harvest season.

After walking around the fields and checking the quality of several baskets of Continuous Vein Grass and Soul-Gathering Grass, Li Yuan returned to the market.

In the warehouse, medicinal herbs were piled up like a small mountain.

Li Yuan did not put them all into storage, but instead picked out the best quality batch of the Vein-Continuing Herb and auxiliary medicines and brought them back to the stone house.

Both alchemical furnaces were lit simultaneously.

The self-produced Vein-Continuing Grass was thrown into the dark red alchemy furnace on the left, where the spiritual energy and alchemical fire rapidly melted the herb. The auxiliary ingredients were also self-produced, delivered directly from the spiritual field to the furnace without any external procurement.

After finishing refining a batch of Qi-restoring pills, Li Yuan did some mental calculations.

The same quality of the Qi-boosting pill was previously made using purchased medicinal materials.

Now, the costs of planting medicinal herbs produced in Lingtian, the labor costs of Lingnong, and the maintenance costs of the Yinling Canal are all factored into the cost, reducing the cost by nearly 30% to 40%.

That night, inside the stone house.

Li Yuan spread out the ledgers on the table and compiled all the data from the three economic lines: market operations, spiritual field cultivation, and mineral output.

The market operation involves retail sales, wholesale of medicinal pills, and management fee commissions. Monthly income in spirit stones has stabilized at a very considerable figure. After deducting labor costs, array maintenance, and daily expenses, the net profit remains very substantial.

After the spirit field planting line was completed, it didn't earn much spirit stone. However, the self-sufficiency rate of medicinal herbs increased significantly.

Ore vein production line. Monthly output of Firestone has doubled, with a significant improvement in quality. The second mining site is about to commence operations, and production capacity will continue to grow.

A portion of the ore was sold directly in exchange for spirit stones, another portion was supplied to Ji Huaiyuan's weapon-refining shop in exchange for finished weapon-refining products and materials, and the remaining portion was used for barter to obtain auxiliary materials for pills and array materials.

Spirit fields produce medicinal herbs, reducing the cost of pills. Pills are sold for spirit stones, which are then invested in expanding spirit fields and developing mineral veins. Mineral veins produce ore, which is exchanged for materials, which in turn support pill refining and array maintenance. These three lines interlock, forming a stable and self-accelerating positive cycle.

The growth curve of spirit stone reserves is no longer linear, but is rising at an increasingly faster rate.

Li Yuan closed the ledger.

Their own land, their own medicine, their own elixirs, their own shops. From raw materials to finished products to sales, every link is in their own hands. External wars, price fluctuations, and disrupted trade routes have had a minimal impact on this closed-loop system.

The next morning, the conscription notice from Yunyangfang Market was delivered to the management office.

The second batch of expanded formation deployment tasks.

Li Yuan packed up his materials and set off for Yunyang Market that same day.

Upon arrival, the managing steward handed over a new array diagram.

"This is a new formation issued by the sect, called the Earth Vein Formation. It needs to be embedded underground and connected to the earth veins to stabilize the foundation of the expanded area." The steward pointed to several key nodes on the blueprint. "The arrangement method is a bit different from ordinary defensive formations. The array eyes need to be buried very deep, at least three zhang below."

Li Yuan took the blueprints and probed them with his divine sense.

The structure of a ley line array is much more complex than that of a basic defensive array. The core idea of ​​the array is to connect artificially carved spiritual energy channels with natural ley lines, using the slowly flowing spiritual energy within the ley lines to maintain the long-term operation of the array, thus eliminating the need for daily spiritual stone power.

The array's core requires a special type of ley stone, essentially a ore that, after being infused with spiritual energy, can resonate with the earth's veins. The steward has a dozen or so in his material box, all uniformly distributed by the sect.

Li Yuan picked up a piece of earth vein stone and examined it. The material was rough and the spiritual energy content was average.

"The construction area is in the southern expansion zone, and the ground has been cleared," the deacon added. "There are also several cultivators on site casting earth and wood magic to assist. Just call upon them if needed."

Li Yuan nodded and headed to the construction area with the blueprints and materials box.

The southern expansion zone was a newly leveled open space, the soil still fresh. Several untrained cultivators using earth and wood magic were reinforcing the foundation, compacting the loose topsoil into shape.

Li Yuan didn't greet them and immediately began surveying the terrain.

His divine sense probed downwards, passing through a three-zhang-thick layer of soil, and touched the rock layer below. Within the rock layer, a very thin tributary of the earth vein was flowing slowly. The spiritual energy content was not high, but it was enough to maintain the daily operation of an earth vein array.

He selected the location of the first array eye and activated the Earth Manipulation Technique to dig a deep vertical hole in the ground. Under the control of his spiritual power, the soil and rocks parted to both sides, revealing the grayish-brown rock surface three zhang below.

Li Yuan jumped into the deep hole and squatted on the rock surface to begin carving array patterns.

The ley line stone resonated faintly with the ley line tributaries below. An extremely slow stream of spiritual energy seeped from the ley line into the array pattern circuit, spreading outwards along the channels of the copper plate and the guiding stone.

The formation is activated.

Li Yuan's fingertips were still pressed on the earth vein stone when the panel popped up.

[Equipable item detected: Leystone (Complete)]

[Equipment Attribute Preview: Leyline Resonance (Green)]

[Effect: When standing on the ground, spiritual energy can be slowly restored; all vibrations within ten feet underground can be sensed.]

[Preview of Permanentization Conditions: Personally Installing Hundreds of Array Cores]

Green entries.

Li Yuan glanced at the effects. Standing on the ground allowed for a slow recovery of spiritual energy, essentially providing an additional passive channel for spiritual energy replenishment. The ability to sense all vibrations within ten feet underground was an extremely useful detection skill; combined with Dark Fiend's ability to perceive underground demonic energy, the monitoring of underground activities would become watertight.

The condition for permanentization is to personally bury a hundred array points.

The large-scale expansion project of Yunyang Market is still ongoing, and the amount of array formations to be laid is enormous. Each defensive array, earth vein array, and linkage array requires the installation of array eyes, and it is only a matter of time before a hundred are completed.

Li Yuan took out a new vein stone, placed it on the array eye, brought up the equipment slot, unequipped the Hidden Vein and Concealed Breath, and equipped the vein stone.

[Equipped: Leyline Stone]

[Earth Vein Resonance (Green) in effect]

The moment the entry took effect, an extremely faint surge of spiritual energy flowed from the soles of the feet, slowly traveling along the meridians to the dantian. The amount was very small, far less than the absorption speed during active cultivation, but its advantage lay in being completely passive, requiring no manual intervention to continue.

At the same time, every minute vibration in the rock layer three zhang deep beneath their feet became clearly discernible. The shockwaves generated by the earth and wood magic cultivators compacting the foundation in the distance, the pulsation of spiritual energy in the tributaries of the earth veins, and even the tiny friction of a spirit insect digging in the soil all flooded into their senses.

Li Yuan withdrew his senses, leaped out of the deep hole, and began setting up the next array eye.