Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

After leaving Nanyuanfang, Li Yuan did not immediately head north.

The blue attribute of the portable cave dwelling needs to be refined through three branches of spiritual veins to become permanent. Right now, it happens to be located on the coast of Shuizhou, where the seabed spiritual veins are dense. If it is not refined through the first spiritual vein before leaving, it would be a waste of the advantageous location.

However, refining spiritual veins is not something that can be done casually.

The larger the spiritual vein, the more spiritual power is required for refining it, and the stronger the resistance.

With his early Golden Core cultivation, it's not impossible for him to force his way through a medium-sized spiritual vein, but the time cost would be too great.

Moreover, most small and medium-sized spiritual veins have an owner.

Pick the smallest one to try first.

Li Yuan slithered along the coastline toward the open sea, fully utilizing his perception of the waterways.

The underwater spiritual vein directly beneath Nanyuanfang is the main vein, quite large in scale and rich in spiritual energy, belonging to Zhou He's territory. The main vein extends from below the cliff of Nanyuanfang into the depths of the outer sea, branching into several tributaries along the way, which in turn branch into even smaller tributaries.

Following the main vein, Li Yuan searched towards the outer sea and sensed an extremely weak small spiritual vein about eighty miles from Nanyuanfang.

The smallest of the small.

The spiritual vein was less than half a foot in diameter, with an extremely low flow of spiritual energy, like a thin, winding stream between thick layers of seabed rock. If it weren't for the fact that the Water Vein Survey had increased the precision of perception by 30%, this level of spiritual vein fluctuation would almost be completely submerged by the complex background spiritual currents in the seawater.

Li Yuan descended to the position directly above the spiritual vein and took out a jade box of emerald green from his storage bag.

A portable cave dwelling.

He channeled a wisp of spiritual energy into the spiritual patterns on the surface of the jade box. The jade box opened immediately, and a curtain of emerald green light surged out from it, forming a semi-transparent sphere about two zhang in diameter in the seawater.

The interior of the sphere was a dry space. In a training area the size of a stone chamber, a tiny branch of a spiritual vein, as thin as a thumb, was curled up in a corner, emitting a faint blue glow.

That's the cave dwelling that Zhou He mentioned earlier, which has its own spiritual vein, and it's currently full.

Li Yuan placed his portable cave dwelling into an empty slot in his equipment inventory.

[Equipped: Portable Cave (Complete)]

[Spirit Vein Refinement (Blue) in effect]

The moment the blue tag was activated, Li Yuan's perception suddenly changed.

The faint, terminal spiritual vein on the seabed had transformed from a vague, fluctuating signal into an energy flow that could be directly touched and manipulated. He could clearly sense the vein's direction, flow rate, and the rhythm of spiritual energy circulating within it.

It's like putting your hand into a stream, with the water flowing through your fingers.

Li Yuan sat cross-legged on the seabed and began to circulate his internal energy.

The refining process begins at the very end of the spiritual vein.

The demonic energy, like an extremely fine needle, slowly advanced along the interface between the spiritual vein and the rock strata, dissolving the bond between them inch by inch. With each inch dissolved, the physical body absorbed that inch of spiritual vein.

The process is extremely slow.

By the end of the first day, Li Yuan had only refined a spiritual vein less than three zhang long.

The refining speed improved slightly on the second day.

As Li Yuan gradually became more familiar with the nature of this spiritual vein, he made minor adjustments to the rhythm of demonic energy output and the precision of his monitoring of the water vein. The coordination between the two spiritual lines became increasingly seamless, and the efficiency of the separation steadily increased.

The afternoon of the third day.

The end of the spiritual vein has been completely incorporated into the physical body, with only a section about two feet long at the root still connected to the seabed rock layer.

The adhesion at the roots was indeed much stronger than at the ends. When the demonic energy dissolved here, a deep tremor came from deep within the rock strata, and the rebound force of the spiritual vein suddenly increased several times.

Li Yuan stopped what he was doing and focused his senses on the section of spiritual vein at the root.

Although the rebound was stronger, it was far from reaching the Golden Core stage's limit. He adjusted the injection mode of demonic energy, changing from continuous dissolution to pulsed attacks—after each injection of demonic energy, he would stop and wait for the rebound to subside before injecting the next time.

After repeating this process more than ten times, the last adhesions at the roots were finally completely dissolved.

After the final adhesions broke, the entire spiritual vein, like a slender root uprooted, was drawn into Li Yuan's body by the spiritual power he released.

A thin spiritual vein appeared around the dantian, connecting the previously scattered spiritual energy lines and stabilizing them.

The spiritual vein was not integrated with his innate magical power, but existed as an independent small cycle, slowly breathing in and out, continuously supplying spiritual energy into his body.

A panel pops up.

[Spirit Vein Refinement (Blue) Permanentization Progress: 1/3]

The first spiritual vein enters the body.

Li Yuan breathed a long sigh of relief.

Three days isn't a short time, but it's within expectations. The first refining process provided valuable experience, and the efficiency of the subsequent two spiritual veins should be even faster.

Just as he was about to get up and leave, he suddenly sensed a faint anomaly.

After the spiritual vein was removed, a small cavity was revealed in the crevice of the rock strata that originally contained it. At the bottom of the cavity was a hard object, half-buried by silt and gravel.

Li Yuan used his spiritual power to peel the hard object out of the mud.

A piece of iron the size of a palm.

The surface of the iron sheet is rusted, but beneath the rust layer, several fine lines are faintly visible. The style of the lines is extremely ancient, not a recent design, but something from a long time ago.

[Equipable item detected: Pulse-Suppressing Iron Piece (Complete)]

[Equipment Attribute Preview: Subtle Vein Sensing (White) - When cultivating on a spiritual vein, the sensing distance for the vein's direction and the location of its eye is slightly extended.]

[Permanentization Requirements: Cultivation level reaches the late stage of Qi Refining]

White text entry. The condition for permanentization is reaching the late stage of Qi Refining.

Li Yuan met the conditions on the spot.

[The term "pulse pattern subtle sensation (white)" has become a permanent entry.]

The effect was immediate. Li Yuan felt that his perception range of the spiritual vein's direction and the location of its points had extended outwards. Although the increase was not large, it was superimposed on the water vein overview and earth vein resonance, giving him an even stronger control over the spiritual vein.

The cavity wasn't deep, but a narrow slit extended horizontally from it. There was something in the slit.

Li Yuan used his spiritual power to probe into the narrow crevice, and successively peeled out seven similarly shaped iron pieces from the silt and rubble. Each piece was about the size of a palm, with a similarly severely rusted surface and a spiritual patina formed by the infiltration of spiritual veins.

Including the previous piece, there are a total of eight pieces.

The latest update is now available on Cola Novels; we await your interpretation.

The patterns on the eight iron pieces are all different, but there is a clear connection between them.

It looks like a jigsaw puzzle that was deliberately scattered.

Li Yuan assembled the eight iron pieces according to the direction of the patterns.

It was incomplete, missing several pieces before it could be pieced together into a complete shape. But the pieces that had been pieced together were enough for him to recognize the nature of this array pattern.

Spirit Gathering Array.

A small array used to gather spiritual energy was carved on iron plates, disassembled, and buried.

Setting up an array in the sea differs greatly from setting up an array on land. On land, a spirit-gathering array typically uses a central point as its core, which can be fixed to the ground to operate. However, underwater, water pressure and geological changes can quickly cause the central point to shift and become ineffective. Therefore, individual array formations in the sea often do not have a fixed central point.

Nested formations can defend against water flow and minor geological changes, but setting up a formation in water is several times more difficult.

Li Yuan put the eight iron pieces into his storage bag and then carefully scanned the surrounding rock strata again.

Along the original course of the spiritual vein, he discovered several other extremely faint traces of array remnants. The remnants were so weak that they would likely have been completely unnoticed if it weren't for the enhanced perception resulting from the recent permanent transformation of the vein's subtle senses.

Long ago, someone set up a complete spirit-gathering array along the course of this spiritual vein.

Li Yuan cleaned up the traces at the scene and then used his Water-based Escape Technique to move towards the outer sea.

The first spiritual vein has been refined; the next step is to find the second one.

The permanent attribute of "Water Vein Overview" combined with "Vein Pattern Sensing" further expanded his perception range of the underwater spiritual veins. His perception spread out in all directions like a giant net, following the texture of the seabed rock layers.

The distribution of spiritual veins in the open sea is much denser than that in the near sea.

The branch veins that branched off from the main vein of Nanyuanfang extended all the way to the outer sea, and within a range of dozens of miles, they branched into more than a dozen spiritual veins of varying sizes. Among them, there were obvious signs of human development next to several of the larger spiritual veins—arrays covering them, spiritual energy markings, and even carved stone chambers and platforms.

It is owned.

Li Yuan bypassed these main spiritual veins and continued his search outwards.

Beside a medium-sized spiritual vein, he discovered several cultivators practicing in the water.

The three sat cross-legged on a stone platform carved out beside the spiritual vein, each holding a fist-sized, pale blue bead. A transparent film of water constantly churned on the surface of the beads, isolating the surrounding seawater at a distance of half a zhang, forming a dry, small space.

Water-repellent beads.

The three of them were all at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage. Their clothing style was different from that of the local cultivators in Nanyuanfang, and was closer to the island forces cultivators that Li Yuan had seen at the docks—dark-colored sharkskin short clothes, with salt stains and sun marks on their arms and necks.

One of the female cultivators was the first to notice Li Yuan.

She opened her eyes and saw a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator moving freely in the water without the aid of any magical artifacts. A hint of surprise flashed in her eyes.

"Fellow Daoist, you look unfamiliar. Are you from the mainland?"

Li Yuan stopped and nodded.

"Liangzhou. I'm here in Shuizhou to do business, and also to check out the underwater spiritual veins."

The female cultivator lowered her guard somewhat. Encountering unfamiliar cultivators in the water was common, but someone at the late Foundation Establishment stage who could move freely at this depth was quite powerful, and there was no need to make an enemy unnecessarily.

"That fellow cultivator chose a less-than-ideal location." She pointed to several spiritual veins around them. "The larger spiritual veins in this area are all occupied, either by various families on the island or by a group of familiar rogue cultivators. Outsiders who want to borrow a vein for cultivation must first negotiate terms with the person who occupied it."

"What about the miniature spiritual veins?"

"Those kinds that nobody wants." The female cultivator shook her head. "They're too small. The spiritual energy flow isn't even enough to maintain the energy required to repel a single water-repelling pearl. Besides, setting up an array on the seabed is difficult enough, but setting up a spirit-gathering array on a miniature spiritual vein is even more thankless and exhausting. The spiritual energy gets washed away by the ocean currents before it can even gather."

Another cultivator chimed in, "If you wish to cultivate, you can look towards the nearshore area. Although there are fewer spiritual veins near the coast, there are also fewer demonic beasts, making it safer. The outer sea has more spiritual veins, but the frequency of demonic beast appearances is also higher. The three of us are all from Bitao Island, and we only dare to stay in this area for long because we are together."

Bitao Island.

Li Yuan wrote down the name.

"Is Bitao Island far from here?"

"It's not far, about six hundred miles to the southeast," the female cultivator replied. "Bitao Island is a medium-sized island with three families and a loose cultivator alliance. We on Bitao Island are not a major force in the outer sea; we mainly make a living by collecting deep-sea spiritual materials and trading for the larger islands."

"What about the major powers in the open sea?"

The female cultivator thought for a moment: "The largest is the Kunpeng Island Alliance, which is said to have a Nascent Soul stage ancestor in charge. Then there are the Coral Palace and the Dragon Abyss Pavilion, both of which are late Golden Core stage forces. Further out in the deep sea, there are several extremely large island groups, which we have only heard of by name and have never been to."

"How much interaction do maritime powers have with land-based forces?"

"Not much," the female cultivator said frankly. "There's a vast ocean separating the sea and the land, and a round trip would be too costly. Most island powers trade through the Tianyue Sect's trading ports, which is much more convenient."

Li Yuan asked several more questions about the underwater cultivation environment and the distribution of demonic beasts, which the female cultivator answered one by one.

The conversation didn't reveal a lot of information, but a few details gave Li Yuan a better understanding of the situation.

The power dynamics among the island forces in the open sea are far more complex than those on the mainland—they are scattered and not united, each acting independently, with larger islands dominating smaller ones, while smaller islands band together for survival. The Tianyue Sect is practically the only stable channel connecting the sea and the mainland, and it almost monopolizes all high-value cross-regional trade.

After bidding farewell to the female cultivator, Li Yuan continued his search in the outer sea.

Avoiding areas with main spiritual veins and dense activity of cultivators, he found a second miniature spiritual vein about 120 miles from Nanyuanfang.

This spiritual vein is even thinner and weaker than the first one, hidden at the bottom of a dead coral reef, with no signs of human development around it.

Li Yuan established a connection and began refining.

With the experience gained the first time, the operation became much smoother. The speed at which the demonic energy dissolved and adhered the rock layers increased significantly, and the prediction of the rebound force by the water vein overview became more accurate.

This spiritual vein was shorter and weaker, and it only took a day and a half to refine it.

The panel pops up the moment the second spiritual vein is fully refined into the body and runs stably alongside the first spiritual vein.

[Spirit Vein Refinement (Blue) Permanentization Progress: 2/3]

Li Yuan sensed that the two spiritual veins were putting some pressure on his body. Although it wasn't too much, it still indicated that it wasn't without its burdens.