Elven cultivators

"There's one more thing."

Anton then changed the subject, "Although the clans cannot enter the city-states for the time being, we can develop the surrounding metal mines."

"As long as the roaming Mind Flayers and their slaves are cleaned out, these veins can be safely mined."

The elder immediately nodded: "No problem. I will arrange for people to enter the Dark Region in batches to take over these mines."

With its population surging to nearly ten thousand, the Silvermoon Clan now has a much larger workforce than before.

In addition, there were lizardman slaves.

Even without cooperating with Grayrock Fortress, the clan has enough strength to develop the mineral veins surrounding the city-state.

Afterwards, the group discussed a specific action plan.

Cedric and Roman were appointed to lead the cleanup operation, tasked with eliminating the roaming Mind Flayers and slaves.

Elena and Darian led a team to take over the mining area and carry out various preparations before mining began.

After that, the group collected more than ten dimensional rings and dimensional bags, which they gave to Anton for transporting resources.

Without delay, Anton returned to Silvermoon Forest to store the supplies in the clan's storehouse, and then immediately went back to the Underdark to infiltrate the city-state and move the remaining supplies.

After five trips, he finally emptied the warehouse of all its resources.

Because of the excess resources, the clan had to temporarily build several new warehouses to store them.

Seeing the abundant resources, the entire clan was extremely excited.

In the days that followed, the clan became busy.

Cedric and Roman each led their own teams to begin clearing out the mind flayers and their slaves around the city-state.

With the help of talismans such as calming talismans, tranquilizing talismans, and warding-off-evil talismans, the elves were invincible in dealing with the Mind Flayer.

In just half a month, the forest guard swept the surrounding area clean.

Roman was still not satisfied.

She hasn't had a proper battle in a long time since she destroyed the Molten Thorn tribe.

If she weren't no match for the Sighing Crystal Cluster, she probably would have wanted to go to the city-state to find a Sighing Crystal Cluster to fight.

At the same time, the clan also acquired a total of twelve mineral veins around the city-state.

More than half of them are rare metal veins.

There is also a very rare mithril vein.

It can be said that the output of these twelve mines alone is enough to meet more than 80% of the Silvermoon Clan's annual demand for metal ore.

This is because the variety of mineral veins is not rich enough, and some metals must be purchased from outside, rather than because the mineral veins are not producing enough.

The surplus metal ore production can be invested in the trade routes that the clan has opened up in recent years, enough to increase the clan's annual income by 60% to 70%.

Driven by the tangible and substantial benefits, the elves are full of energy and enthusiasm.

In less than a month, the mining of all twelve veins was on track.

To the relief of the clan, just as Anton and the Grand Elder had said, the Sighing Crystal Cluster didn't care what was happening outside and focused solely on absorbing elemental energy in the city-state, living a happy, secluded life.

However, just in case, Anton still set up a Nine Heavens Thunder Suppressing Formation in front of several rare metal mines, including the mithril mine.

If the Sighing Crystal Cluster decides to attack the mining area, the formation will hold it off for a period of time, giving the elves in the mining area enough time to retreat.

The resource output from the twelve mineral veins, coupled with the large amount of resources acquired at once, greatly alleviated the clan's resource shortage problem.

The clan immediately accelerated its pace of development.

The first step was the expansion of the Spirit Gathering Room.

The clan built more than thirty spirit gathering rooms in one go, which is almost the same number of spirit gathering rooms that the clan has painstakingly built over the past few decades.

This also caused the total number of Spirit Gathering Rooms to surge to seventy.

This is sufficient to meet the current training needs of the clan's Silver-rank warriors and spellcasters.

It can even spare some for use by Black Iron Rank elves.

Secondly, there is the conversion and cultivation of the Eight Desolate Prison Suppression Scripture.

The elders directly lifted the restrictions on the transfer of the Eight Desolations Prison Suppression Scripture, allowing all elven warriors in the clan to freely transfer to the Eight Desolations Prison Suppression Scripture, with the clan subsidizing the cultivation resources.

As a result, the overall strength of the clan warriors increased at a new level.

Finally, there's the crafting of rune-inscribed equipment.

Now that Dragon City is holed up and out of the loop, Andong is unable to hunt dragon offspring.

Although the Sighing Crystal Clusters in the city-state were very tempting, there were too many of them, and he was afraid of stirring up a hornet's nest, so he dared not make a move for the time being.

Suddenly, Anton found himself with nothing to do.

Besides cultivating, condensing the Netherworld Heavy Water, and forging the Five Camps of Divine Weapons, he actually had quite a bit of free time.

After some thought, Anton made a series of new plans for himself.

The first is crafting rune-inscribed equipment.

Previously, the annual production of rune equipment was limited, partly due to limited time and partly due to insufficient raw material supply.

Now that both problems have been solved, the production of rune equipment has increased dramatically.

Anton plans to equip all members of the Forest Guard with rune-inscribed equipment within two years.

Looking across the entire Eldron Plains, apart from the Radiant Flame Legion of Crestor City, no other legion has been able to equip all its members with Glimmer-level magical gear.

However, it won't be long before another forest guard is added.

The second plan was for Anton to forge a new magical artifact.

This trip to move resources from the city-state's warehouse made him realize that not having a storage device with enough space would be a major blunder in critical moments.

This time it's because the distance is relatively short, so I can run back and forth between the two places.

If you find something valuable outside but can't take it with you because your storage space isn't big enough, it will be too late to regret it.

Ultimately, whether it's a dimensional bag or a dimensional ring, the internal space is still too small.

Therefore, Anton plans to forge a special storage artifact.

He quickly found a suitable target in the Great Dao Jade Slip—the Qiankun Bag!

One of the most famous storage artifacts in the cultivation world.

Qian represents Heaven, and Kun represents Earth.

The Qiankun Bag means "a world within a bag".

The bag is as small as the palm of your hand, yet it contains a universe within it, capable of holding Mount Sumeru in a mustard seed.

The internal space of a Qiankun bag varies in size, depending on the craftsman's skill in crafting and the quality of the materials used.

The latter is easy to solve.

Anton disassembled the dozen or so dimensional rings on his hand and used the resulting spatial materials to refine the Qiankun Bag.

It took about a year to finally refine it successfully.

The final product, the Qiankun Bag, has an internal space that is more than thirty times that of an ordinary dimensional ring.

"It's a pity that the crafting skills are still a bit lacking, otherwise the quality could be improved even further."

Looking at the small, palm-sized cloth bag in his hand, which was entirely gray but had its opening tied with gold thread, Anton felt a slight sense of regret.

But he quickly put that regret behind him.

It's just a storage artifact.

If it's not enough, we can just gather materials and forge another one.

Having two or three Qiankun bags in hand is more than enough.

After putting away the storage bag, Anton turned his gaze to the parchment on the table, on which a complex and mysterious array was drawn with dense lines.

This was clearly a battle formation diagram.

That's right, this is Anton's third plan.

He planned to put into practice a long-held idea—to create a "mountain-protecting formation" for the clan!

The main reason it was shelved in the past was the lack of resources.

Now that a large quantity of rare materials have been brought back from the city-states, the resource problem has been solved.

The matter of setting up a "mountain-protecting formation" should naturally be put on the agenda.

Compared to the first two plans, this last plan is undoubtedly much more difficult.

In the world of cultivation, mountain-protecting formations are the foundation of a sect's establishment.

As long as the formation stands, the sect stands; if the formation breaks, the sect perishes.

This is an ironclad rule that has remained unchanged for millennia in the world of cultivation.

The Mountain Protection Formation is not a single formation, but a cluster of formations.

With spiritual veins as its heart and mountains and rivers as its framework, it nests and overlaps dozens of formations for defense, attack, trapping enemies, illusion, and early warning, forming a three-dimensional defense system covering the entire sect.

Given Anton's current cultivation level and mastery of formations, it is of course impossible for him to set up a true mountain-protecting formation.

Silvermoon Forest has no use for it at all.

A true mountain-protecting formation often covers hundreds of mountain peaks, stretching for thousands of miles, with a scale far exceeding imagination.

While the Silvermoon Forest can be described as vast, it is insignificant compared to those sects.

To cover the Silvermoon Forest, a super-simplified version of the "Mountain Protection Array" is sufficient.

That being said, for Anton, who has only set up a few formations so far, totaling less than twenty times, even a super simplified version of the "Mountain Protection Formation" is still very difficult.

However, Anton did not let this deter him.

The process of setting up the mountain-protecting formation was also a knowledge integration of his research on formations in recent years.

If successful, his skill in formations will undoubtedly make significant progress.

After finalizing the plan, Anton did not rush into action but instead proceeded steadily, step by step.

The first step is to select a suitable array diagram.

There are countless formations in the Great Dao Jade Slip that can serve as "mountain-protecting formations".

Many of the formations that Anton saw ignited his passion.

For example, the Zhuxian Sword Formation, which uses swords as its array.

Using a true-grade ancient sword as the array's core and drawing upon the spiritual energy of the seven meridians as its source, when activated, a seven-colored giant sword condenses in the sky, capable of slaying those who have reached the Void Refinement stage and merged with the Dao in a single strike.

The most distinctive feature of this formation is that it "uses offense as a defense".

They claim that killing the enemy is the best defense.

Another example is the Zhou Tian Star Array.

Drawing upon the power of the stars in the heavens, the area illuminated by starlight becomes an array.

The formation is ever-changing, with no gate of life or death, only endless calculations and variables.

Without sufficient mastery of formations, you'll never be able to leave this world in your entire life.

There is even the Demon Clan's Ten Thousand Demon Formation.

Using the essence and blood of ten thousand demons as a guide and the demon totem as an eye, ten thousand demons roared within the formation, and demonic energy soared into the sky.

This formation only recognizes demon bloodlines; humans entering the formation are like sinking into a quagmire, finding it extremely difficult to move forward.

However powerful these formations were, Anton could only enjoy watching them.

At this stage, he simply doesn't have the resources or the ability to make arrangements.

Just like the Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation, where could he find a true-grade sword to serve as the core of the formation?

His own sword pellets were still just magical artifacts.

We can consider these formations later when our strength and hardware have improved.

It's best to be down-to-earth at this stage.