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

The sound of flowing water murmured in his ears. The moment Li Hanshan emerged from his dream, the first thing he sensed was the concentration of spiritual energy in the cave, which had been imbued with the energy of the time-based array. He sat on a futon in the meditation room, while Shen Qingyue lay on a cushion of spiritual grass not far away, her breathing long and steady. The silver-purple lightning energy continued to flow slowly along her meridians in her sleep, like a tamed stream flowing quietly in a narrow riverbed.

He didn't rush to get up, but instead closed his eyes and went through the rune structures that he and Luo Li had studied together in the dream again in his mind.

If the acceleration rate of the time array is truly five or six times that of the outside world, it means that five years spent on this core immortal island would equate to less than a year in the outside world. If he were to dedicate all of this time to cultivation and comprehension, the foundation he could accumulate in these five years would be equivalent to decades of arduous cultivation in the outside world.

More importantly, the time he spent in the dream seemed to have changed as well. Originally, as his cultivation level increased, the dream could last for about twenty years, but perhaps due to the change brought about by the time array, this time he stayed in the dream for a full thirty years!

"That's an unexpected bonus."

He opened his eyes. Shen Qingyue's eyelashes fluttered slightly; she had woken up. She turned her head to look at him, her clear eyes still carrying the hazy quality of someone just waking up, before finally regaining their brightness. "Husband, you're awake."

She sat up, her long, silvery-purple hair cascading over her shoulders, leaving a warm indentation on the herb mat from her tossing and turning. Li Hanshan reached out to smooth a strand of hair that had fallen beside her ear, and when his fingertips touched her warm earlobe, she blushed slightly but did not pull away.

In the days that followed, their cultivation rhythm gradually stabilized.

Most of the daytime was spent in the quiet room. Shen Qingyue sat cross-legged opposite him, her silver-purple innate lightning power flowing endlessly around her, like a tamed river flowing quietly in a narrow channel.

Li Hanshan guided her spiritual power with pure Yang energy, smoothing out and restoring the subtle disturbances within the lightning force. With each complete cycle of spiritual power, he felt the silver-purple lightning pattern within his body become clearer, like an ancient rune repeatedly drawn, radiating tiny arcs of electricity on the surface of his pure Yang primordial spirit.

During their nighttime dual cultivation, he primarily used his pure Yang energy to nourish her foundation. Although Shen Qingyue's Thunder Spirit Body had been activated, her foundation was still not stable enough, and each dual cultivation session required him to expend a large amount of pure Yang energy to help her stabilize her realm.

He could feel his pure yang energy becoming more and more refined with each continuous output, like a knife that is repeatedly tempered, shedding a layer of impurities with each polishing to reveal a denser texture underneath.

Every ten days or so, after Shen Qingyue fell into a deep sleep, Li Hanshan would get up, pass through the silver-white light barrier, and walk towards the room on the left that was occupied by Shen Yun.

Shen Yun never refused him. Sometimes, when she was meditating by the spirit spring pool, she would open her eyes when she saw him push the door open and enter. Her gaze would fall calmly on him, and then she would turn slightly to make room for him on the spirit grass mat.

The dual cultivation with Shen Yun was completely different from that with Shen Qingyue. Shen Yun's spiritual power was of higher quality. That Void Refinement level primordial power was like a bolt of lightning compressed to the extreme. Every time it surged into his meridians along the point where the two of them met, it would stir up a layer of fine golden ripples on the surface of his pure Yang primordial spirit.

The tempering power far exceeded any time he cultivated with a Nascent Soul cultivator, as if an entire volcano was compressed into a thin stream and poured into the depths of his dantian.

He could feel his cultivation level rising at a visible rate. The Void Refining Essence flowing into his meridians from Shen Yun's body was of extremely high quality, and each round of dual cultivation increased both the purity and total amount of his spiritual power by a small amount. Meanwhile, as he was outputting energy, he was also refining the silver-purple lightning patterns that were already covered with his pure Yang primordial spirit.

Inside the cave, the alternation of day and night was imperceptible; the sound of the spiritual spring and the consistently rich spiritual energy in the air served as the only reference for the passage of time. He didn't know how much time had passed—perhaps ten days, perhaps more than a month—when that familiar pull finally surged from the depths of his consciousness once more.

This time, the dream lasted much longer than the previous one. After discussing with him, Luo Li didn't rush to end it. Instead, she used her soul power to guide his consciousness, allowing him to continuously refine himself within the dream for an entire long cycle.

She could sense the influence of the time array on his soul, like an extra ripple cast on an otherwise stable river, making the communication between the two more intimate.

"Sir, when you come in next time, I've found a new fragment of a formation manual in the ancient ruins. It might be of reference value for your time formation." Luo Li said as the dream was about to end. The moonlight fell on the slightly upturned corners of her mouth, like a carefully polished mother-of-pearl.

Li Hanshan remembered these words. When he exited the dream, the concentration of spiritual energy in the cave and the sound of the spiritual spring were still the same. Shen Qingyue was in the quiet room studying the basic runes of the Purple Thunder Talisman. When she saw him wake up, she raised her head and gave him a gentle smile.

Time flows by like water, silently passing by.

It's unclear how much time passed—perhaps a year, perhaps two—but Shen Qingyue's cultivation level steadily climbed from the peak of the mid-Nascent Soul stage, breaking through to the late-Nascent Soul stage, and then progressing towards the threshold of the Deity Transformation stage. Her Thunder Spirit Body had been continuously nurtured by pure Yang energy for so long that the innate thunder power had completely merged with her, and every inch of her meridians had been tempered to an extremely clear and transparent state.

Meanwhile, Li Hanshan and Shen Yun's dual cultivation maintained a regular rhythm. With each completion of a spiritual energy cycle, he could feel his cultivation level gradually approaching the threshold of the eighth level of the Nascent Soul stage. Although that barrier remained solid, it was no longer out of reach.

His research into the Dao of Runes continued. He applied the rune structure improvement techniques he learned from his dreams to the creation of sixth-order purple lightning runes. The adjustments made after Luo Li's guidance indeed increased the efficiency of spiritual energy flow by a full 30%. The batch of sixth-order purple lightning runes he created were of more stable quality than before, with almost no stagnation in the flow of lightning energy at the core nodes.

However, when he tried to apply that technique to the more advanced seventh-tier purple lightning talisman, he encountered an insurmountable bottleneck.

There are no complete blueprints for runes of the sixth rank or above in the Purple Thunder Pavilion's heritage. Shen Yun herself only obtained a few incomplete rubbings of seventh-rank runes by chance during her travels in her early years. They were so incomplete that even the most basic framework could not be completed.

Without a complete lineage to support him, relying solely on his own exploration to deduce the complete rune structure of the seventh-order Purple Thunder Talisman is like the blind men and the elephant.

He thought about it for a long time and finally made a decision. Since the path to the seventh rank was not feasible for the time being, he might as well turn to in-depth research on the second-order runes.

The technique of layering double runes can theoretically double the power of a rune. If a sixth-order purple lightning rune can be layered in the form of a double rune, the power of the released lightning should be able to reach the threshold of a seventh-order spirit rune, and there is no need to break through the structural bottleneck of the seventh-order rune.

Those techniques and the rune structure of the Purple Thunder Talisman are logically similar at the underlying level. After repeated deductions, Li Hanshan finally found a way to combine the double rune with the sixth-order Purple Thunder Talisman.

In his real-world cave dwelling, he sat down before the talisman-making table, spread out a sheet of sixth-tier purple lightning talisman paper, channeled spiritual energy into the tip of his brush, and drew the first arc on the dark purple surface. This time, his brushstrokes were slower than ever before, each talisman carrying the certainty of meticulous refinement. As the first layer of talismans was completed, spiritual energy circulated across the surface of the paper, then he held his breath and began to layer the second layer upon it.

The pen tip moved more slowly. The overlapping patterns were like threading a needle through a finely woven web, each step executed with extreme precision. The sound of the spiritual spring water flowed quietly in the cave. Shen Qingyue sat not far away, quietly watching his back, not daring to make a sound to disturb him.

Finally, the moment the last stroke was made, a burst of silver-purple lightning, far more dazzling than a single-layer sixth-order purple lightning talisman, erupted from the surface of the talisman. The lightning circled the talisman several times, then slowly receded and settled like a tamed river, leaving behind a finished talisman with a stable spiritual light and intricate, woven patterns.

Double symbol. Done.