Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

As dawn broke, Li Yuan opened his eyes, feeling extremely energetic.

Spread out the talisman paper, dip it in cinnabar, and begin writing.

With the final stroke, a large number of discarded talismans and six finished talismans were placed beside him.

[Progress of Crafting Enlightenment (White) Permanentization: 50/50]

The conditions for making the "Spellcrafting Enlightenment (White)" permanent have been met.

Is it permanent?

Yes.

[Permanentization successful]

【Insights into Talisman Crafting (White)】 has become a permanent entry.

[Equipment consumed]

Li Yuan put down his pen, folded the three talismans neatly, and put them into his storage bag.

He flipped his wrist twice, and the traces of cinnabar remaining on his fingertips had dried and peeled off on their own thanks to his cleansed constitution.

Eight permanent entries now.

With a thought, Li Yuan switched to the Iron Ox Technique.

As I stepped outside and turned into West Street, I ran into Zhao Hu jogging towards me.

"Deputy Captain, Captain Wang wants you to assemble at the base. He says we're going into the mountains today."

"understood."

Several people were already standing in the courtyard of the patrol team's residence.

Wang De sat on the steps at the entrance of the main house, with Wang Yuan standing beside him.

There were two other unfamiliar cultivators in the courtyard, both with the aura of late-stage Qi Refining, not much different from Wang De. They were both dressed in casual clothes with magical artifacts at their waists.

Li Yuan glanced around but didn't see He Shou.

Wang De looked up and saw Li Yuan, then waved.

"Today we're going into the mountains to take the array master we hired from outside to see that array ruins."

"Where is He Shou?"

"One guide per squad is enough; He Shou's team doesn't need to come." Wang De took out a document and handed it over, which briefly marked today's route and personnel composition.

"The other teams have also arrived. They have also discovered traces of formations in different locations on the mountain. We will take the formation masters to take a look together."

Wang De paused for a moment and looked at Wang Yuan.

"Wang Yuan is going too; he's interested in formations."

Wang Yuan nodded slightly, his tone indifferent.

"I've learned a little bit about formations, and I mainly want to observe and learn something along the way."

Li Yuan nodded, his gaze sweeping over the unfamiliar cultivator in the courtyard, without asking any further questions.

Wang De gave a few more instructions, which were nothing more than not to fight head-on if there was danger and to prioritize the safety of the formation master. Then he waved his hand and let everyone set off.

After leaving the camp, Fang He turned out from a side alley to meet them, walking at a leisurely pace.

"I thought it was something important, that I was woken up early to run errands."

"They said they were guiding the array master." Li Yuan walked alongside him.

"You can lead the way, but you won't let us do anything," Fang He shrugged.

The group gathered outside the east gate of the market. Two late-stage Qi Refining cultivators from the Wang family walked at the front, with Wang Yuan following half a step behind. The rest of the group spread out in a marching formation.

The team advanced along the mountain path towards the outer edge of the Yuanheng Mountains, and Li Yuan slowed down his pace along the way.

"Fang He, I have something to ask you."

"explain."

"You mentioned before that you could make talismans from monster hides. How's your skill?"

Fang He glanced at him sideways, but didn't stop walking.

"What, you want to learn?"

"I want to learn from you."

Fang He scratched the back of his head.

"To be honest, I understand the principles; my master taught me back then. But my practical skills are just so-so. The fiber direction of the demon beast hide, the soaking time in the medicinal solution, the drying temperature—all of these depend on feel. Out of ten talismans I make, only three or four are usable; I can't even recoup the cost."

Fang He shrugged.

"If I really mastered this skill, I could earn a lot of spirit stones just selling talismans. Would I still need to be in the guard team?"

Li Yuan didn't respond, waiting for him to finish speaking.

Fang He thought for a moment and held up two fingers.

"Twenty spirit stones. I'll explain the principles and steps to you step by step. But you have to develop a feel for it yourself; I can't teach that."

"Besides, my own skills aren't great, and my teaching is probably a bit lacking too, so please don't mind."

Li Yuan considered it briefly, then nodded in agreement.

"OK."

"Let's talk about it when we get back, we need to get going right now." Fang He quickened his pace to catch up with the group ahead.

The mountain path gradually becomes steeper, the shrubs become sparser, and more bare rocks appear.

After the group crossed a mountain ridge, the terrain suddenly opened up.

A valley surrounded by mountains on three sides came into view, with a dried-up streambed running through the center of the valley. On the rock walls on both sides, traces of human carvings could be faintly seen—those traces had been blurred by weathering and erosion by moss, but the regularity of the lines was clearly not naturally formed.

Two people were standing at the entrance to the valley.

One of them was in his fifties, thin and with gray hair, which was casually held in place by a wooden hairpin. A few stray hairs fell in front of his forehead, but he didn't care. His eyes were not big, but his pupils were extremely agile when they moved. He was squatting in front of a rock, his fingers slowly moving along the engravings on the stone surface.

The other one had a rugged face and was dressed in the same casual clothes as the two royal family cultivators.

Both of them were at the late stage of Qi Refining, and were slightly higher than the other two Wang family cultivators.

Hearing footsteps, the old man patted his clothes and looked towards the group.

"You're here?"

The voice was soft and a little hoarse.

Wang Yuan stepped forward and cupped his hands in greeting.

"Senior Zhou, Uncle Qu has been waiting for a long time. These are the guides of each squad. They were the ones who discovered the traces of the formation earlier."

The formation master, addressed as Senior Zhou, nodded, his gaze sweeping over everyone without exchanging further pleasantries.

"Let's look at the first place you discovered. Come on, take me there."

Li Yuan stepped forward.

"Please come with me, senior."

After walking along the dry streambed into the depths of the valley for about fifteen minutes, Li Yuan stopped in front of a rock wall.

"This is the place. The traces we found at the time were mainly concentrated on the rock walls on both sides of the streambed, extending for about twenty feet."

The formation master surnamed Zhou walked to the rock wall, reached out and placed his hand on the stone surface, his fingertips slowly sliding along the direction of the engravings.

His brows furrowed slightly, and he muttered something occasionally, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying.

A moment later, he withdrew his hand, walked upstream along the streambed for a dozen steps, squatted down and groped around on the ground for a while, then got up and walked to the opposite rock wall, repeating the same action.

"The marks were not concealed."

He said this without turning his head.

"What do you mean?" Wang Yuan's voice came from behind—he had caught up with them at some point.

"It means exactly what it says." The array master straightened up and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "The person who set up the array left after using it, without deliberately erasing any traces or setting up any means to interfere with identification."

He pointed to the carvings on the rock face.

"But we can't determine what kind of formation it is just by looking at this one spot. The direction of the patterns and the distribution of the nodes look somewhat familiar, but it's incomplete."

The formation master turned to look at the other guides.

"Where are the other locations you found? Take me to see them all."

Over the next hour or so, the team moved between four or five locations in the valley.

Wherever they went, the array master would squat down to carefully examine the engravings, trace their direction with his fingers, and occasionally take out a piece of charcoal from his sleeve to record on the cloth he carried with him.

After inspecting the last spot, the array master stood in the middle of the streambed and spread the cloth out on a flat stone.

The cloth was covered with lines and markings, and several circles were connected by dotted lines.

"Grand Formation".

He used a charcoal pencil to mark several spots on the cloth.

"It's a structure where a large array contains several smaller arrays. The traces you've discovered correspond to different nodes in these smaller arrays, but they all serve the same large array."

Wang Yuan stepped forward and looked at the markings on the cloth.

"What level of array master would be needed to set up an array of this scale?"

The formation master pondered for a moment.

"It requires at least a Foundation Establishment stage array master who has specialized in this field for many years, and it cannot be done by one person alone; it requires the cooperation of several people."

He paused, then glanced at Wang Yuan.

"It's unlikely that the Li family has the capability to set up this formation themselves. Either they hired outsiders, or... this formation wasn't set up recently."

The array master lifted his foot and walked to a rock beside the streambed.

The stone was half-buried in gravel and soil, with only a small portion protruding above the ground, about the size of a human head. Its surface was smooth, and its color was much whiter than the surrounding ordinary rocks, with a faint, warm luster.

"Do you see this rock?"

The formation master patted the stone surface, turned to look at Wang Yuan, and his tone naturally carried a hint of explanation.

"This is called Jade Yang Stone. It is a natural mineral with a dense texture that can bear spiritual energy patterns, making it a good material for setting up formations."

He scratched the stone surface with his fingernail.

"However, this piece is now useless. It was used as the core of a small array, and now it's just an ordinary stone, good for nothing except being hard."

"Refining weapons is useless, and setting up formations is meaningless."

The array master withdrew his hand and pointed to several faintly visible patterns on the stone surface.

"Furthermore, to analyze a formation, you can't start with the formation's core, especially one that's already abandoned. The core is where spiritual energy converges during the formation's operation, not the formation's structural information itself. The true structure must be deduced from the outer nodes and patterns."

He glanced at Wang Yuan.

"If you want to learn formations, you must remember this."

Wang Yuan nodded seriously.

Li Yuan stood to the side, his gaze fixed on the jade Yang stone.

The formation master and Wang Yuan were still talking, while the others were either standing or squatting, some were resting, and some were looking around.

Li Yuan stepped forward, squatted down, and reached out to touch the stone surface.

The panel appeared silently.

[Equipable item detected: Spirit-Containing Jade Yang Stone]

[Item Attribute Level: Green...]

Li Yuan's finger remained motionless on the stone surface.

The name "Yu Yang Stone" is different from the name given by the formation master.

Li Yuan's gaze shifted downwards.

The exposed portion of the stone is small, but the bottom of the stone is deeply embedded in gravel and soil, obscuring its full appearance; most of the stone is buried underground.

Li Yuan withdrew his hand, stood up, dusted off his hands, and returned to the group with a normal expression.