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

"Let's go."

After collecting the corpse of the Thousand-Eyed Sea Demon Spider, Li Hanshan decided to leave. Only then did he summon his flying boat and leap onto the bow.

After taking off, the silver-white flying boat flew at full speed towards the fairy island.

The flying boat flew continuously in the night sky for two days and one night. When the pale golden light curtain around the Immortal Island appeared at the edge of his vision, Li Hanshan landed the flying boat on a secluded rocky shore. After storing the flying boat, he used his steward's token to pass through the restriction rift and silently sneaked back to the side gate of the Array Hall.

The hall remained brightly lit, and the array flags and blueprints operated quietly in the light of the luminous pearls. The disciples on duty were tidying up the scrolls at the long table.

Without alerting anyone, Li Hanshan went straight to the teleportation array in the Array Hall and teleported to Qingyun City.

"This is really good stuff."

Li Hanshan exclaimed, "This teleportation array is so convenient!"

When he sensed solid ground beneath his feet again, the shady bluestone plaza outside the Purple Thunder Pavilion's mountain gate had already unfolded in the twilight.

A few golden spirit leaves fell on the stone steps in front of the mountain gate, fluttering gently in the evening breeze. The gatekeeper disciple bowed quickly upon seeing the elder's token he presented. He didn't linger and hurried along the bluestone path shaded by spirit trees toward the cave behind the main peak.

When he returned to the familiar courtyard on the southern slope, the spirit bamboo in the courtyard rustled in the evening breeze, and on the stone table were a few spirit fruits that had not yet been put away and a pot of tea that had gone cold.

Shen Yun was sitting on a stone bench, flipping through a scroll of talismanic jade slips. When she sensed his presence as he pushed open the door, she slightly raised her eyes. Her almond-shaped eyes were first startled, then revealed a natural sense of relief from having waited so long.

"You're back?" She put down the jade slip, her tone calm, but the extremely brief pause at the end betrayed that she wasn't as composed as she appeared. "Much faster than expected. As for the Array Hall... is everything alright?"

Li Hanshan sat down opposite her, placed the dark blue jade slip on the stone table, briefly explained Elder Gong's appointment, and mentioned the follow-up to Zhao Yuan being taken away by the Law Enforcement Hall for investigation. He deliberately omitted the matter of Yin Yue—that involved the Heavenly Dao Oath and could not be mentioned to anyone for the time being.

After listening, Shen Yun remained silent for a moment before nodding slightly: "That's fine. The platform over at the Array Hall is much larger than the Purple Thunder Pavilion; you'll be able to access more things there."

As they were talking, the courtyard gate was pushed open again.

Shen Qingyue and Lin Qingyin walked in one after the other. Shen Qingyue was carrying a basket of freshly picked spiritual fruits. She paused for a moment when she saw Li Hanshan, then her eyes curved into crescents. She quickly walked to his side and sat down, placing the fruit basket on the stone table. She didn't say anything, but just quietly leaned on his shoulder.

Lin Qingyin sat down opposite the stone table. Her aura as a beginner in the Void Refinement stage was calm and restrained. The moonlight fell on her silver-white dress, making her appear even more serene than before she left.

She is the sect leader of the Lan Yue Sect, but during this time, she has been waiting for Li Hanshan to return at the Zi Lei Pavilion.

The four sat around a stone table, the night breeze blowing through the gaps in the bamboo forest, dispersing the relaxed atmosphere naturally brought about by their long-awaited reunion into the twilight.

Li Hanshan spent his first night back home with Shen Qingyue, the second night with Lin Qingyin, and the third night he secretly went to Shen Yun's place in the middle of the night.

The dual cultivation lasted for several days. As the morning light seeped in through the cracks in the cave ceiling, Li Hanshan felt that the spiritual energy in his meridians, which had been depleted by the long battle, had been replenished as before.

Immediately afterwards, Li Hanshan began to study the jade slip. The spiritual light on the surface of the jade slip shone with a warm, cool hue in the morning light, and an extremely ancient spiritual energy fluctuation flowed within it. It was of the same origin as the array flag runes he had encountered in the Flowing Light Array, but it was rougher and more primitive.

He cautiously probed his divine sense into it. The restrictive structure inside the jade slip was like an ancient scroll that had been crumpled and then unfolded again, with layers of runes intertwined and entwined in the void, each movement carrying a brutal and primal sense of power.

The structure of those runes was completely different from the array system currently used by the Immortal Alliance, and even differed from the ancient array theory that Luo Li taught him—they were more inclined to "block" rather than "drain," and were more like using some extreme means to seal off the spiritual energy channels rather than guiding them in a flowing manner.

This was indeed an extremely ancient restriction. He spent most of the day roughly sorting out the overall structure of the runes in the jade slip, confirming that it contained at least three independent restrictions, each using a different sealing logic, nested together like a city gate that was repeatedly locked. To open the innermost layer, all the locks on the outside had to be unlocked first.

More than ten days later, he drifted into a dream. Moonlight shone on the river, and Luo Li sat on a blue stone, dressed in white, her bare feet dangling lightly.

Li Hanshan sat down beside her and sketched out the restriction structure in the void from the dark blue jade slip. The dense runes formed a flowing light curtain in mid-air.

Luo Li leaned closer for a closer look, a thoughtful glint in her clear eyes: "This structure... I've seen similar records in the fragments of ancient ruins. The methods they use are different from those of the Yao Guang Sect; they look more ancient, perhaps from an earlier system of inheritance. Although the Yao Guang Sect's formations are exquisite, they are more focused on 'application,' while these restrictions are more focused on 'defense.'"

She stretched out her finger and slowly moved it along the edge of one of the core runes: "Look here, the way this rune is bound is different from the usual sealing methods. It doesn't use the conventional 'lock' or 'seal,' but rather a kind of 'guidance'—drawing in external spiritual energy into a pre-set dead loop, letting it endlessly cycle and consume within it until it is completely exhausted."

Li Hanshan stared intently, sensing that the rune's movement was indeed different from common sealing techniques. He simulated the arc of the rune with his spiritual energy and indeed detected an extremely hidden circulation path, like a well-designed deep well, constantly rotating, consuming, and evaporating the water that fell into it.

"To break it," Luo Li continued, "we can't attack it from the outside. We must first find the 'pressure relief point' of that vicious cycle and draw out the consumed spiritual energy from that outlet so that the cycle will break on its own."

Her speculation aligned with Li Hanshan's own deductions. The two then began marking the locations of the pressure relief vents one by one on the diagram of the restrictive structure, creating an increasingly detailed flowchart in the void out of order for breaking each layer of the restriction.

The dream lasted for nearly twenty years.

Over the next year, this dream continued seven more times.

In the first dream, they only sorted out the core structure of the first layer of restrictions; in the second dream, they found the first set of pressure relief vents in the second layer of restrictions; in the third dream, they deduced the connection method of the first two layers of restrictions; in the fourth dream, they discovered the set of core runes that were deliberately hidden in the third layer of restrictions; in the fifth dream, they marked the locations of all the pressure relief vents; in the sixth dream, they used their divine soul power to simulate a complete decryption process in the void, confirming that the order of each node was correct.

In the seventh dream, they finally deduced the order of breaking every rune, every turn, and every hidden node in the entire restriction structure diagram. Luo Li reorganized the completed flowchart and marked the detailed breaking methods and the frequency of spiritual power injection next to each key node.

"Grandpa, when you get back, try breaking through the first layer first. With this structure, you should be able to break through about 70%. The remaining part may need some minor adjustments depending on the actual situation," Luo Li said quickly as golden ripples began to appear at the edge of the dream.

When Li Hanshan opened his eyes, the morning light was seeping in through the cracks in the cave ceiling. He sat down at his desk, took the dark blue jade slip in his palm again, took a deep breath, and then probed it with his divine sense. This time, he didn't slowly explore from the outside, but instead locked onto the location of the core runes in the first layer of restrictions. Using a technique he had simulated countless times in his dreams, he condensed pure Yang energy into an extremely fine golden thread and slowly let it seep into the edge of the rune.

The moment his spiritual energy touched the rune, a layer of dark cyan light shone on the surface of the jade slip. He could feel the structure of the core rune tremble slightly under his spiritual energy's touch; although it didn't open immediately, it had already awakened from its initial deathly stillness.

More than a month later, Li Hanshan compiled the restrictive structure in the jade slip into a complete notes. Based on his personal understanding of ancient formations, the notes broke down the extremely obscure rune structures in the jade slip into sets of clear and readable diagrams and annotations, so that even formation masters who had never encountered such ancient restrictions could understand the core logic.

The journal wasn't very long, but each page contained the results of a century of deductions in the dream. The annotations marked on the edges of the runes were precise and detailed, clearly explaining the deciphering methods and the frequency of spiritual power injection at each node.

He brought the scroll to the main hall of the Array Hall. Elder Gong was adjusting the angle of a small array flag in front of the carefully hung array diagram. When he sensed his presence, he turned his head slightly, his gaze lingering on the scroll in his hand for a moment. Then he put down the array flag and walked to the stone platform to sit down.

He took the note, opened it, and flipped through a few pages. At first, he was just going through the motions, but as he turned the third and fourth pages, his speed slowed down noticeably. His gaze lingered on a certain array pattern diagram for a long time, and his fingertips slowly moved along the carefully drawn arc.

He didn't speak, but instead flipped through the scroll from beginning to end, then closed it, held it in his hand, and remained silent for a long time. Only the sound of the spiritual spring water and the subtle tinkling of the luminous pearl reflecting in the mist remained in the hall, like amber soaked in time, freezing this moment in a warm and tranquil atmosphere.

"The reasoning behind the restrictions in this scroll," Elder Gong took a deep breath, somewhat astonished, "has indeed touched upon the core structure of that ancient restriction. You just said that you spent over a year researching it?"