Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

On a small island outside Luoxia Harbor, Li Yuan sat cross-legged on a reef, once again immersing his senses into the rock strata beneath his feet.

The residual ripples of the seal, detected yesterday, were still slowly rising and falling on the seabed. Using the permanent entry for discerning location, he quickly pinpointed the source to the southeast.

However, due to the separation of seawater and rock layers, such long-distance exploration is ultimately limited; it can only determine the approximate location and cannot confirm the specific depth.

I have to go down there myself.

Li Yuan got up, jumped off the reef, and landed on the shallows on the north side of the island.

No rush. Let's change our equipment first.

Li Yuan took out the Tide Jade Pendant and equipped it immediately.

[Equipped: Tide Jade Pendant (Complete)]

[Water Vein Overview (Green) - Expands the range of divine sense detection in aquatic environments by 50%; increases the accuracy of water-based spiritual energy perception by 30%]

[Permanentization Condition: Complete 50 hours of meditation at the underwater spiritual vein node (0/50)]

The moment the jade pendant's phantom disappeared into his equipment slot, Li Yuan's perception of the surrounding sea area suddenly increased. The previously blurry watercourses became clear, and even the residual ripples of the seal on the seabed were much more distinct than before.

After sensing the effects for a moment and confirming that they were working correctly, Li Yuan turned and walked towards Luoxia Harbor.

To reach the deep sea, you could dive directly, but that's too inefficient. It's best to have a ship as a transit point to reduce the spiritual energy consumption of underwater travel.

He lowered his breath and stepped back into Sunset Harbor.

The Su family's docks remained busy. Three medium-sized merchant ships were being loaded with cargo, and dockworkers were carrying wooden crates back and forth.

His senses swept over the grey-white flagmed speedboat anchored to the south once more.

Two long, narrow fast ships were unloading cargo. Containers were hoisted from the hold and carried onto the dock by several taciturn crew members, then loaded onto a cart covered with a gray tarpaulin. The cart was being pushed towards the north side of the port area.

Dark Insight penetrated the wooden planks and ordinary seals on the surface of the cargo box, touching the extremely faint demonic energy mark at the bottom.

The frequency characteristics are exactly the same as those during yesterday's scan.

The cart finally stopped in front of an isolated stone warehouse on the north side of the port area. The warehouse had no sign, and only a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator with an expressionless face stood at the entrance. After the cart was pushed inside, the stone door closed.

Li Yuan memorized the location of the warehouse and the flow of goods, then withdrew his senses.

Li Yuan found the steward of the Su family who had received him the day before and got straight to the point.

"I'd like to rent a small pearl diving boat to go out to sea and collect some pearls. Half a day should be enough."

The person in charge didn't ask any further questions.

Pearl-diving boats are a standard rental service in Luoxia Port, and it's common for independent cultivators to rent boats to collect spiritual materials in the near sea. The manager called over a boatman and pointed to an old, single-masted boat at the end of the dock.

"That ship is available, equipped with a diving anchor and storage compartments. It costs twenty spirit stones for half a day, with a fifty-stone deposit. You are responsible for any damage to the ship."

Li Yuan paid with spirit stones.

The small boat sailed out of the harbor and headed east-southeast along the coastline.

The boatman was a young man in the late stage of Qi Refining, quick and skillful in handling the boat. Li Yuan stood at the stern, using his Dark Insight passive perception to scan the surrounding sea.

The port gradually receded into the distance.

The small boat continued its journey and entered open waters.

About half an hour later, the Earth Vein Spirit Pivot's perception locked onto the target area. The strongest signal from the seal's aftershocks on the seabed beneath their feet was located less than three miles directly below and slightly east of it.

Stop the ship.

The boatman deftly lowered the diving anchor, and the small boat came to a steady stop on the sea.

Li Yuan flipped over and jumped into the sea, sinking straight down like a fish.

Water is his home turf, and with the combined boost from water speed and the Tide Jade Pendant, his escape speed is even faster, and his senses are becoming increasingly clear.

When they descended to sixty feet, the residual wave of the seal on the seabed was no longer just a vague directional signal.

It was no longer the vague, directional pulsation perceived from a distance on the island, but an energy trajectory whose specific form could be discerned. The aftershocks did not spread uniformly, but radiated outwards from a central point beneath the seabed, with several energy threads extending outwards, each pointing towards a deeper area of ​​the seabed.

Li Yuan continued his descent along the path with the strongest signal.

The silt layer was about three zhang thick. After passing through it, the ground beneath our feet turned into a layer of hard rock.

The presence of numerous calcified coral and shellfish remains within the rock strata indicates that this seabed was once a shallow sea area hundreds of years ago, or even longer.

About twenty feet down, Li Yuan's senses touched a hard plane.

It is not a natural rock formation.

It is a stone slab.

Li Yuan stopped and focused his divine sense on that plane.

A stone-paved road.

The stone slab is about four feet wide and half a foot thick, made of some kind of dark gray rock that has been treated with spiritual energy. The surface of the slab is covered with a thick layer of coral and shells, but at the bottom of the calcification, the neat seams between the slabs and the traces of artificial cutting on the edges can still be seen.

The stone-paved road extends from the northwest, winding through silt and rock layers towards the southeast, its direction coinciding with the radial trajectory of the seal's aftershocks.

Architectural remains from the Xuanyou Sect period.

This path has existed on the seabed for at least several hundred years, completely buried by corals and shellfish. It would have been impossible to discover without the deep perception provided by the Earth Vein Spirit Pivot and the Tide Jade Pendant.

Li Yuan continued deeper into the area along the stone-paved path.

The stone-paved road is intermittent, with some sections crushed or overturned by geological movements, but its general direction always points towards the southeast and deeper.

After descending another forty feet, the Tide Jade Pendant detected an even denser energy convergence point.

The epicenter of the seal's aftermath.

Located about a hundred feet below the seabed, energy radiates outward from that location, spreading in all directions along the stone paths and natural fissures in the rock strata, eventually attenuating into part of the background noise of the underwater veins.

The energy concentration at the center was more than ten times higher than at the edges, but it was still much weaker than that of the Mexico Sealed Zone.

Li Yuan did not approach the center rashly. More than a hundred feet below the seabed, the water pressure and rock density far exceeded those on the surface. Once the backlash mechanism of the seal's remnants was triggered, evacuation would be extremely difficult.

He then turned and searched laterally along the stone path, discovering an unusual area about thirty feet from the center.

A piece of calcified coral.

The coral reef's shape is distinctly different from the surrounding area. Ordinary deep-sea corals are branched or fan-shaped, while this coral reef is almost entirely plate-like, stacked layer upon layer, as if wrapping something in the middle.

Li Yuan used his spiritual power to peel off the outermost calcified shell.

Inside the coral shell was half a stone tablet.

The stone tablet is about five feet high and two feet wide. The upper half is broken off and missing, leaving only the base and the lower half. The stone surface of the tablet is the same as the stone slab path underfoot, a dark gray rock treated with spiritual energy.

The surface of the monument is covered with dense array patterns.

Li Yuan recognized the style of the array patterns at a glance. The standard inscription system of the Xuanyou Sect was completely the same as the array inscriptions used in the branch hall mist array and the jade bead making process archives.

He carefully scanned the surface of the stele with his divine sense, and copied and archived the direction and position of each array pattern.

The inscription is short, and most of it has been blurred by seawater erosion, but a few remaining passages are still legible.

The content closely matches the "terminal branch" entry recorded in the Mexican Jade Pearl Archives.

The inscription mentions the node's number, functional positioning, and hierarchical relationship within the overall sealing system. According to the inscription, this underwater node belongs to the outermost branch of the sealing system, and is at a different level within the same sealing system as the core of the Mo Zhou spiritual vein and the Ku Gu Ling site.

The core of the Mo Zhou spiritual vein is the main trunk. The Dry Bone Ridge is a relay node. This is the tip.

The three are interconnected through the earth's veins and the seabed's spiritual veins, forming a sealing network with an extremely wide coverage.

After Li Yuan finished making rubbings of all the inscriptions, he used his spiritual power to close the calcified coral shell again, restoring it to its original state.

Just as the inscription was being rubbed, a demonic aura suddenly approached from the side and behind.

A water demon in the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, resembling an eel, darted out from the coral reef, clearly startled by the earlier fluctuations in spiritual energy.

Li Yuan raised his hand and unleashed an Ice Spike spell. In the deep-sea environment, water-based magic condensed at an astonishing speed, and the ice spike formed almost instantly, piercing directly through the water demon's vital point.

The water demon struggled for only a couple of moments before sinking.

Li Yuan swam over, cut open the water demon's abdomen, and took out a thumb-sized, grayish-blue inner core from its body.

The moment the inner core was acquired, the perception of related terms was triggered.

[Equipable item detected: Tide Scale Pill (Complete)]

[Equipment Attribute Preview: Water Escape Swiftness (Green) - Increases the speed of water-based escape techniques by 30%, and the power of water-based spells by 30%]

[Permanentization Conditions: Cultivation level reaches Foundation Establishment, accumulated ten hours of underwater escape (0/10)]

Green entry. Water-based movement speed increased by 30%, which, combined with the increased speed of water movement, provides a real boost to movement ability in water.

It also increases the power of water-based spells by 30%.

Li Yuan put the Tide Scale Pill into his storage bag, cleaned up the traces of the water demon's corpse, and floated towards the surface of the sea.

When he returned to the pearl diving boat, the boatman was squatting on the deck chewing dry food. When he saw him surface and climb onto the boat, he casually asked him a question.

"Did you find anything?"

"A few pieces of ore, not worth much."

The boatman didn't ask any more questions and set sail.

It was nearly evening when the small boat returned to Luoxia Port, and the port lights began to come on one by one. Li Yuan returned the boat and his deposit at the dock and walked along the main street out of the city.

He deliberately slowed down as he passed the north side of the port area.

The grey-and-white flagmed fast ship was still anchored at the southern dock, but there was no longer any unloading activity on deck. The stone door of the isolated warehouse was tightly shut, and the early Foundation Establishment cultivator standing at the entrance had changed, but he stood there expressionless as ever.

Li Yuan glanced at the isolated warehouse. The stone door remained tightly shut, indicating that this covert operation was still running smoothly.

He had already noted down the flow of goods and the location of the warehouse, so there was no need to alert them now.