I'll make you the furnace and the cauldron, so you can refine Yin and Yang and prove the Great

On the bluestone plaza outside the workshop, dozens of Purple Thunder Pavilion disciples had already assembled. Shen Yun stood at the front of the group, her deep purple dress fluttering slightly in the evening breeze. She held a silver-white communication talisman in her hand and was whispering something to a middle-aged man dressed in a steward's uniform. The man had a thin face and a dark purple token hanging from his waist, clearly one of the steward elders of the Purple Thunder Pavilion.

As Li Hanshan and Shen Qingyue emerged from the workshop's side door, Shen Yun's gaze swept over them, lingering for a moment on Shen Qingyue's complex expression, which still held a hint of something more. She then looked away. She carefully put away the communication talisman in her hand and nodded slightly towards Li Hanshan: "You've come at the right time. This beast tide is larger than expected, and the front lines need talisman masters' support. I'll be away for a while. Your progress on the second-level talisman is just beginning, so you don't need to go to the front lines."

As she spoke, she turned her gaze to Shen Qingyue: "Qingyue, you stay behind and continue learning how to draw double-layered talismans from Fellow Daoist Li. The front lines are too chaotic, and your cultivation is not yet sufficient; going there would only cause trouble."

Before Shen Qingyue could retort, Li Hanshan stepped forward first. He stopped in front of Shen Yun, clasped his hands in a fist and said, "Sect Master, this disciple is willing to go to the front lines. The study of the second level talisman can wait until we return. The front lines need manpower, and this disciple cannot stand idly by."

Just kidding, how could Li Hanshan not take such a good opportunity?

Shen Yun's gaze lingered on his face for a moment. She could sense that his seriousness in speaking was not mere politeness; there was a certainty in his eyes unlike that of ordinary disciples. After a few moments of hesitation, she spoke: "Are you sure? The front lines are not like the workshops; every wave of beast tides results in numerous casualties."

"Confirmed," Li Hanshan said. "I have wandered the Central Continent for many years and have witnessed countless life-and-death situations. Moreover, I also want to see with my own eyes how the Immortal Alliance fights against the beast tide."

Shen Yun looked at him, and after a moment nodded slightly: "Alright. Then you go too. Qingyue, since your junior brother is going, you should go with him. Consider it practice for applying talismans in actual combat."

She spoke in a calm tone, but Li Hanshan noticed that when she said the words "follow him," her gaze swept back and forth between the two of them very briefly, as if it were a deliberate arrangement.

Shen Qingyue's brows relaxed slightly. She took two steps closer to Li Hanshan and stood beside him without objecting. Shen Yun withdrew her gaze, turned to the disciples who had already lined up, and pointed towards the teleportation array in the center of the square: "Let's go."

The teleportation array was built on a stone platform at the end of the plaza. Its base was inlaid with six dark purple spirit stones, their surfaces crisscrossed with fine silver patterns, and the edges were engraved with a runic structure that Li Hanshan had never seen before. He had initially thought it was just a launch platform for some kind of long-distance flight artifact, until Shen Yun walked to the center of the array base, took out a pure silver token from her sleeve, and inserted it into the array's eye. Suddenly, the patterns on the entire platform lit up, and the silvery-white light spread rapidly from the center outwards like a lit lamp wick, enveloping everyone on the platform.

That light was no ordinary spiritual light; it carried an extremely pure spatial fluctuation, like the subtle sound of silk being unfurled after being compressed to its limit.

Standing within the light, Li Hanshan's Void Refinement level divine sense instinctively probed the glowing runes beneath his feet. The patterns were unlike any array he was familiar with, yet their core logic somehow resonated with the spatial runes Luo Li had taught him. Suppressing his surprise and doubt, he maintained a calm expression and turned to Shen Yun: "This is... a teleportation array?"

Shen Yun stood at the edge of the array, adjusting the angle of a certain rune. Hearing this, she raised her eyes slightly: "Yes. The Immortal Alliance has deployed more than ten small teleportation arrays along the Nanling defense line, specifically for the rapid mobilization of troops. This is a technology that the Immortal Alliance has only recovered in the last few hundred years; it was lost before."

Her tone was calm, as if she were talking about something she was used to: "There are also corresponding teleportation arrays built on those islands at the front line, which can save a lot of travel time."

Her words were like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, creating ripples in Li Hanshan's heart.

Teleportation array.

In the territories of the three major demonic sects in the Central Continent, the teleportation array technology has long been lost. Nowadays, even cultivators at the Void Refinement stage can only rely on flying boats and escape techniques to travel, and long-distance travel often takes months or even years.

The Immortal Alliance has actually restored this technology—although on a small scale and with limited coverage, the fact that they were able to rearrange the teleportation array itself shows that their understanding of the laws of space far surpasses that of the Demonic Sect.

The light reached its peak shortly after he finished speaking. The array base beneath his feet emitted a deep hum, and the silvery-white light suddenly contracted, enveloping everyone on the platform and causing them to rapidly collapse in a certain direction.

Li Hanshan felt as if his body had been swept into a gentle vortex, and the surrounding scenery was stretched, crushed, and reassembled in an instant, and his vision had completely changed with each breath.

A salty sea breeze swept over him. Beneath his feet was no longer a cobblestone plaza, but a flat plateau paved with dark gray reefs. Waves crashed against the reef walls at the edge of the plateau, producing a rhythmic roar, the spray shimmering silvery fragments in the twilight. The air was thick with the pungent smell of the sea and the dampness of the water, mixed with a faint, eerie aura emanating from the massive, rapidly moving shadows beneath the distant sea.

Li Hanshan's Void Refinement level divine sense silently spread out the moment he landed. He sensed that within a radius of a thousand miles, there were hundreds of islands of similar size scattered like stars in the sky. Each island was shrouded in the fluctuations of a defensive array, and the figures of cultivators could be vaguely seen moving between the stone fortresses and towers on the islands. The islands were arranged in a ring, surrounding a sea area shrouded in thick fog in the center, guarding that foggy area like stars surrounding the moon.

His divine sense attempted to penetrate the thick fog, but upon reaching its edge, it felt as if it had touched a flattened copper wall, repelled by an extremely steady force. The fog was even thicker than he had anticipated; his divine sense vanished without a trace, disappearing into the sea before it had penetrated even a hundred miles.

His heart skipped a beat—what was hidden inside that heavily guarded core area? He withdrew his gaze and returned it to the rocky platform beneath his feet, his expression remaining unchanged.

Shen Yun had reached the edge of the plateau, her gaze sweeping over the rapidly approaching shadows on the sea. Her voice was grave: "The beast tide has reached the first line of defense. Our mission is simple—defend this island and prevent any sea beast from crossing this line."

She turned around, her gaze sweeping over the dozens of disciples behind her, finally settling on Li Hanshan: "This island defense operation will accumulate merit points. The Purple Thunder Pavilion will also distribute corresponding rewards based on merit points. You've only recently joined the Immortal Alliance, so if you can accumulate enough merit points during this beast tide, you can exchange them for more cultivation resources in Qingyun City. If you have enough merit points, you can even enter the Immortal Island to cultivate."

"Immortal Island?" Li Hanshan asked, following her lead, his eyes filled with just the right amount of curiosity.

Shen Yun pointed to the sea shrouded in thick fog: "That's the Immortal Island. The core area consists of three large islands. The spiritual energy concentration on those three islands is dozens of times that of the outside world. Moreover, it is said that on the most central island, there is an ancient formation that can slow down the flow of time—three days on the island are equivalent to one day outside. The effect of cultivating there for a year is equivalent to three years outside."

As she finished speaking, a sea breeze blew from the direction of the thick fog, gently lifting the strands of hair at her temples. Li Hanshan stood beside her, his gaze fixed on the depths of the fog-shrouded sea, the final piece of the puzzle in his heart finally falling into its correct place.

One year is equivalent to three years!

A formation that slows down the flow of time. The Immortal Alliance was able to rise from the brink of destruction in just a thousand years, with the number of Void Refinement cultivators skyrocketing from a handful to over fifty, all thanks to this time-accelerating formation. Those cultivators sent to the core of the Immortal Island for cultivation essentially gained several times more cultivation time out of thin air, naturally enabling them to break through bottlenecks more quickly.

This means that although the Immortal Alliance may seem to have only fifty Void Refinement cultivators, the number of people secretly cultivating within the formation is far greater than those on the surface, and their true strength is far deeper than the three major demonic sects estimated.

Shen Yun nodded slightly: "Once this wave of beast tide ends, if you can accumulate enough merit points, I can recommend that you go to the outer perimeter of the Immortal Island to cultivate for a period of time."

"However, entering the core area requires extremely high merit, and it's very difficult for ordinary people to reach that threshold." As she spoke, her gaze returned to the rapidly surging waves on the distant sea. "Let's hold off this wave first."

Standing on the edge of the plateau, Li Hanshan gazed at the approaching outline of the beast tide. His Void Refinement level divine sense was like a drawn bowstring, taking in all the layers of demonic energy fluctuations.

He could sense that most of the sea beasts in the beast tide were at the Golden Core to Nascent Soul level, but in the deeper demonic energy fluctuations, several exceptionally heavy auras were slowly moving forward, like reefs rising from the depths of the sea.