28: Chapter 28 Illegal Buildings and This Damn Sense of Security
Although he had decided to take drastic measures, Li Mo's thought process always began with calculating the worst-case scenario.
What if he lost?
What if Sima Changfeng ignored the rules and simply flipped the table?
What if the 'Ghost Asura' imprisoned in the lowest level of the celestial prison was a lunatic who would charge into the Sect, killing indiscriminately?
The Scripture Pavilion was indeed sturdy, but it was ultimately built on the main peak, far too conspicuous a target.
Once the Mountain Protection Grand Array failed, this place would be the most obvious living target.
"Even rabbits know to dig several holes to stay alive."
Li Mo's eyes were deep and profound.
"How could I, Li Mo, have only one den?"
The next day, before dawn had broken, with the faint light of dawn just beginning to outline the distant mountains.
Li Mo silently slipped into Chu Linger's room and precisely pulled back her blanket.
He bundled her up, along with Squeak, who was still nestled in her arms secretly munching on a Low-Grade Spirit Stone, its mouth glistening with grease.
"Cousin... it's not even light out yet..."
Chu Linger, bleary-eyed and still half-asleep, mumbled as she dangled from Li Mo's arm.
"I haven't finished memorizing the 'Thick Black Theory' I copied yesterday."
"Forget memorizing. Today, we're putting it into practice."
Li Mo's voice held a trace of barely suppressed excitement. He slung a heavy, oversized bundle onto his back with a reverse motion of his hand, while cradling an ancient-looking compass in his palm.
"We're going to build ourselves a new home."
"A place... where we can sleep soundly even if the sky falls."
The duo and the beast perfectly avoided all patrolling Disciples, moving like two genuine ghosts all the way to the most remote, least-frequented corner of the Heavenly River Sword Sect's back mountain.
The Boulder Field.
This place was located in the northwest, an extremely evil and baleful position relative to the Ancestor Master's tomb mound. Bizarre rocks stood like a forest, and not a blade of grass grew.
The air was thick with the smell of swamp rot miasma mixed with the Yin Evil Qi from deep underground. The Spiritual Qi was so thin it was almost non-existent.
This was the 'wasteland' recorded in the Sect's texts, where even the lowest-level Spiritual Plants couldn't survive.
"Here?"
Chu Linger pinched her nose, looking at the gray, lifeless soil and the strangely shaped black rocks underfoot, her small face scrunching up.
"You call this godforsaken place, where even ghosts wouldn't deign to linger, a good spot?"
"You don't understand."
Li Mo set down the bundle, but his eyes shone with a nearly fanatical light.
"No one comes, no resources, no Spiritual Qi—for someone hiding, this is prime feng shui land!"
"In military strategy, it's called 'placing oneself in a fatal position to be reborn.'"
"In feng shui, it's called 'finding stillness within clamor, darkness beneath the lamp.'"
He slowly raised the 'dragon vein heavenly book · Volume One' in his hand. The pages rustled without any wind.
"But in my view, this place is called 'the hidden dragon lies in the deep.' The surface is a dead end, but underground, a slumbering top-grade dragon vein is locked away!"
"Watch closely!"
Li Mo shouted in a low voice, pushing the power of the [Dragon-Seeking Acupoint Location] entry to its limit.
His pupils instantly turned a deep, earthy yellow. His gaze seemed to pierce through the thick layers of rock and soil, reaching straight down a hundred zhang into the depths of the earth.
There, a vein that seemed cast from liquid gold, yet bound by countless chains of black Evil Qi, lay in silent slumber.
"Right here!"
"Rise!"
Li Mo pinpointed a certain node of the dragon vein and stomped his right foot down fiercely!
*BOOM—RUMBLE—RUMBLE—!*
A dull roar emanated from deep within the earth. The entire Boulder Field trembled violently, as if some ancient behemoth had turned over in its sleep deep in the planet's core.
Chu Linger covered her mouth in shock.
She saw the surrounding chaotic black boulders begin to slide, rotate, and interlock as if manipulated by an invisible giant hand!
The originally rugged ground was forcibly flattened into a mirror-smooth surface under terrifying compressive force.
"Guide the water to form the boundary!"
The spring and autumn brush in Li Mo's hand soared into the air. Its tip traced a mysterious rune in the Void Realm.
*CRACK!*
A precise fissure split the flattened ground. The course of an underground river hidden deep below was forcibly diverted, gushing forth like a water dragon!
The water did not scatter. Instead, it accurately encircled the transformed area, forming a clear, natural moat.
"Gather the Spiritual Qi to form the lock!"
He acted again, pulling out several 'Spiritual Qi Gathering Cores' salvaged from the wreckage of the mechanical birds from his bundle and burying them precisely underground according to the eight trigrams.
*HUMMMMMMMM!*
The surrounding Spiritual Qi, so thin it was negligible, instantly surged towards the area as if drawn by a whale's inhale.
But this Spiritual Qi did not manifest externally. Under the influence of the dragon vein heavenly book's Formation, it was tightly locked inside this area, forming a self-contained Spiritual Qi cycle isolated from the outside world.
From the outside, this place remained that same Spiritual Qi-depleted wasteland.
"Next, the real show begins."
Li Mo grinned, finally opening the massive bundle.
Inside were all the scrap metal and broken machinery he'd scavenged from the ghost market, the wreckage of mechanical beasts, and the various rare metals he'd extorted from Old Ancestor of the Blood River.
"System, load the highest authority blueprint for [Mohist Mechanical Arts]."
Li Mo whispered to the Void Realm.
"Codename: Guixu (Return to Ruins)."
For the next three days, Chu Linger completely overturned her understanding of 'Cultivation' and 'strength' from the past decade.
She watched Li Mo work without sleep, like a possessed creator deity.
He used the geothermal fire as a furnace, melting down what Mortals saw as scrap iron, forging it into precision components that gleamed with runic light.
He used the spring and autumn brush as an engraving tool, inscribing patterns on every piece of metal that she couldn't comprehend at all but felt were profoundly mysterious.
Countless parts were assembled in his hands with unbelievable precision and speed.
Three days later.
A ramshackle-looking hut stood alone in the center of the Boulder Field. Its walls were plastered with straw and mud, a corner of its roof was missing, and it looked like it would collapse in the slightest breeze.
"This... is the 'Guixu' you mentioned?"
Chu Linger pointed at the rickety wooden door that would creak and groan at a push, feeling her intelligence had been insulted.
"Forget people, a wild boar from the back mountain charging at it could knock it down, right?"
"This is called mimicry."
Li Mo wiped the engine oil from his face, revealing a set of strikingly white teeth in the night.
"Come in. Let me show you what 'a world within a world' really means."
He pushed open the tottering, dilapidated door.
Chu Linger, half-convinced and half-doubting, poked her head in and stepped through.
*HUMMMMMMMM!*
One step across felt like crossing between two eras.
The space beyond the door was at least ten times larger than what could be seen from outside!
There was no straw or mud here. The walls and dome were cast as one from a single piece of 'Starlight Iron Essence,' deep as the night sky, fused with heavy, sturdy 'Basalt Rock'! Countless intricate golden runes pulsed like breathing light upon the walls, emitting an aura of eternal permanence.
The floor beneath their feet was laid with complex Spiritual Qi conduits, directly connected to the activated hidden dragon vein below. Surging energy flowed silently beneath the floorboards.
Above their heads was not a roof, but a massive circular water mirror. It clearly reflected every plant and tree within a hundred-mile radius. Tiny red dots even automatically marked every living creature that entered the range, with estimated Spiritual Qi energy levels annotated beside them.
In the center of the room, a large bed carved from ten-thousand-year-old Cold Jade emitted a refreshing, heart-soothing chill.
Beside it were a Pill Furnace that could automatically control the fire, a Spiritual Food Processor that could automatically wash and cook spiritual grains, and a huge bookshelf crammed with various forbidden books and popular novels from the Cultivation World.
"Wow..."
Chu Linger's mouth formed an 'O.' The disdain in her eyes from moments ago had now transformed into a sky full of sparkling stars.
What kind of hut was this?
This was clearly an underground divine palace hidden at the world's end!
"This place blocks all Divine Senseexploration, shields against all celestial divination and fate calculation."
Li Mo lay down contentedly on the Cold Jade bed, letting out a long, comfortable sigh.
"Even if a Soul Transformation old monster arrived in person and scanned the area ten thousand times with their Divine Sense, they would only perceive this as an ordinary, unremarkable boulder."
"Here, we are the absolute Dominators."
This extreme sense of security, having everything under his control, finally allowed Li Mo's nerves, taut for days, to relax for a moment.
"Cousin, you... you're a monster!"
Chu Linger excitedly threw herself onto the bed, rolling around happily. "I'm not living in the Scripture Pavilion anymore! I want to live here!"
"Wishful thinking."
Li Mo rolled over, casually picking up a copy of 'The Interpretation of Dreams' and covering his face with it, speaking lazily.
"This is 'Guixu,' the Sect's final trump card and retreat. It will not be activated unless the sky truly falls."
"Alright, recess is over."
Li Mo suddenly sat up, his gaze falling on the water mirror above.
In one corner of the mirror's surface, several glaringly bright red streaks of light were streaking towards the Heavenly River Sword Sect's mountain gate at an astonishing speed.
"The challenge has arrived."
A sliver of icy sharpness flashed through his eyes.
"Let's go, kid."
"Those people who pride themselves on 'reason' are about to come teach us how to behave."
Li Mo pulled Chu Linger up, the corner of his mouth curving into a cold arc.
"But before that, we need to go back and properly teach those brutes in the Sect who only know how to draw their swords and hack away what it truly means to... 'subdue others with virtue.'"