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

From the moment Yin Yue said "Let's begin," Li Hanshan stopped sitting idly in the stone chamber.

Every morning, he would rise and condense his divine sense into an extremely fine thread, silently seeping out along the gaps in the restrictions surrounding the cave, inch by inch exploring the earth's vein patterns, the flow of spiritual energy, and the laws governing spatial fluctuations within a radius of dozens of miles.

It took him ten whole days to draw a complete map of the earth veins surrounding the mountain where his cave was located in his mind. There was a small tributary of the earth vein flowing under the mountain. The concentration of spiritual energy was not high, but it was stable.

He could have used the earth's spiritual energy to power the teleportation array, which would have saved spirit stones and made the setup process smoother. However, he rejected this plan after completing the diagram. Using the earth's spiritual energy meant connecting the teleportation array's base to the earth's veins, like digging an aqueduct across a river.

Once the irrigation canal is completed, the water flow of the entire river will be affected, and the subtle spiritual energy fluctuations in the earth veins will radiate outward along the direction of the array base, making them easily detectable by the Heavenly Demon Sect's earth vein monitoring array.

Conversely, using spirit stones as the sole driving force, although consuming a large amount of spirit stones, would allow the teleportation array to operate completely independently of the earth's veins, like a lamp locked in a box, its light unable to penetrate no matter how bright it is. He mentally rehearsed this idea several times before officially setting up the array.

When the first array device was embedded in the ground, his movements were extremely slow. There were already several ready-made array bases in the cave, left behind by Yin Yue when he set up the spirit gathering array in his early years. Their positions happened to match the arrangement of the teleportation array devices. He only needed to align the spiritual energy return path of the array device with the nodes of those original array bases, thus saving the process of recalibrating the angle.

He placed a dark golden array artifact in the groove of the first base, and gently drew an activation spell on the surface of the artifact with pure yang energy. The artifact lit up with a layer of warm silver-white light, and then quietly sank into the base, merging with the original spirit-gathering array patterns of the cave.

He crouched down and carefully sensed the connection of spiritual energy between the array device and its base with his divine sense. After confirming that there was no sign of any spiritual energy leakage, he carved an extremely thin positioning line on the floor of the stone chamber to mark the precise location of the first array device, which would serve as a reference for subsequent calibration.

The second array device was positioned on the edge of the rock wall on the east side of the stone chamber. That area had originally been a dead corner used to place wooden frames, and the rock wall was covered with a layer of stone surface reinforced by a restriction. Li Hanshan cleared away the wooden frames and used his spiritual power to polish a smooth groove, roughly the size of a fist, into that stone surface.

When he inserted the array device into the groove, his movements were slightly slower than with the first one, because he needed to ensure that the spiritual energy circulation of the array device formed a precise resonance with that of the first one. That resonance was like a pair of polished gears, where the pitch, rotation speed, and meshing angle had to be perfectly synchronized. He repeatedly adjusted the two array devices for nearly three days before confirming that the frequency of the spiritual energy resonance had deviated from the rhythm of the earth's vein fluctuations and was completely independent of the surrounding environment.

The third, the fourth, the fifth. He became more skilled at embedding each array device than the last, but he maintained the same rhythm, focusing on only one task each day. After embedding one device, he would repeatedly check the spiritual energy circulation of the entire teleportation array with his divine sense, confirming there was no turbulence, no leakage, and no conflict with the original restrictions of the cave. Only after confirming everything was correct would he carve the positioning line for that location, then sit down and meditate for half a day to replenish his depleted spiritual energy before preparing for the next one.

This process was extremely slow. Over three months, he renovated almost every inch of the cave floor and every rock wall.

This speed is actually a bit slow. The setup of the teleportation array itself is not complicated—the twelve array artifacts were all finished products forged by the young female master of the Heavenly Mystery Sect according to his blueprints. The spiritual energy circulation and rune structure of each artifact had been completed in advance. He only needed to embed the array artifacts in the correct positions, activate them with spiritual energy, and then calibrate the resonant frequency between the array artifacts.

If he wanted to speed things up, he could easily embed all twelve array devices into the ground within a day and complete all calibrations within two days. However, the risk of doing so was too great. Each array device would generate extremely subtle spiritual energy fluctuations when activated. Although a single fluctuation was almost imperceptible to the outside world due to the cave's restrictions, if multiple array devices were activated consecutively in a short period of time, those subtle fluctuations would accumulate into an abnormal signal that could be detected by the Heavenly Demon Blood Array.

Therefore, he preferred to slow down the pace, allowing each activation fluctuation to be fully absorbed, dissolved, and calmed by the cave's restrictions before proceeding to the next one.

On the day the seventh array artifact was embedded in the ground, a commotion was heard outside the cave.

Li Hanshan was using his divine sense to perceive the flow of spiritual energy between the array artifact and the previous six when he suddenly sensed an unfamiliar divine sense sweeping past the outer perimeter of the cave's restrictions. The speed was not fast, but it carried an extremely precise intent to probe, as if a ruler was measuring the outline of the entire mountain.

The divine sense was at the mid-stage of the Void Refinement realm, carrying the unique cold and demonic aura of the Heavenly Demon Sect. It paused slightly when it touched the silver-white barrier membrane surrounding the cave, and then withdrew.

He stopped what he was doing and stood up. Yin Yue had already gotten up from the stone platform and walked to the entrance of the passage in the center of the stone chamber. She didn't look at Li Hanshan; her gaze was fixed on the direction of the cave entrance, and a coldness surged in her calm eyes.

A moment later, a voice came from outside the cave. The voice was loud and clear, with a formulaic coldness unique to law enforcers. It penetrated the soundproof array on the outer layer of the cave's restrictions and echoed clearly in the stone chamber: "Your Excellency, the Law Enforcement Hall has been ordered to search for spies from the Joyful Union Sect. Please open the cave for inspection."