68: Chapter 68: The entire clan unites to rebuild the main peak!

The expansion of the Lightning Fruit Orchard began in early spring.

Sun Caiya bore a heavy responsibility and dared not make the slightest mistake, redrawing the planning map for the three-acre plot seven times.

She revised it again and again, striving for perfection, and was only barely satisfied with the eighth version.

"Plant the Thunder-Attracting Spirit Wood in the northeast corner; the spacing must be seven feet and three inches, not a hair more, not a hair less."

Sun Caiya demonstrated personally, teaching five juniors of the cheng generation behind her; the eldest was only twelve or thirteen, while the youngest girl was a mere seven or eight years old.

"The roots of the spirit wood love moisture but fear wind. The northeast corner is sheltered from the wind and can also intercept the thunder spirit qi leaking from the mountain ridge."

As she spoke, she handed the shovel in her hand to the young girl behind her.

"Chengyue, you dig the first hole."

Sun Chengyue took the shovel, said nothing, and squatted down to start digging.

A twelve-year-old girl with a Four-Element Spiritual Root, her cultivation talent was mediocre.

But her hands were very steady. Steady hands are helpful for drawing talismans and nurturing Spiritual Plants. While the other clan brothers nearby were still gesturing, she had already dug a standard planting hole.

For a Spiritual Plant Farmer, there are special considerations for digging cultivation holes depending on the type of Spiritual Plant...

Especially for low-level Spiritual Plant Farmers, whose own cultivation strength is not high.

Therefore, when nurturing Spiritual Plants, they must pay attention to these details to increase the survival rate as much as possible.

Sun Caiya glanced over, a look of joy in her eyes.

But she didn't praise her, simply handing over a sapling of Thunder-Attracting Spirit Wood.

Sun Chengyue held the root ball of the spirit wood with both hands, slightly adjusting the orientation of the roots before placing it in the corresponding position.

"Roots facing two points northeast, right, Great-Aunt?"

Sun Caiya was stunned for a moment; she hadn't taught this yet.

The orientation of the Thunder-Attracting Spirit Wood's roots directly affects its efficiency in absorbing thunder spirit qi. This was a detail she had only figured out after poring over her Manual for three days.

"How did you know?"

Sun Chengyue looked up, her dark eyes unusually bright. "I saw that the tips of these spirit wood roots have a darker side, which should be the direction more sensitive to thunder spirit qi."

"The dark side facing northeast points right toward the mountain ridge..."

Sun Caiya stared at her for three breaths, then slapped the back of her head.

"Aren't you the clever one? Just plant it properly!"

Though her action was a bit rough, she couldn't suppress the upward curve of her lips.

This girl is a natural!

So what if she has a Four-Element Spiritual Root?

The path of Spiritual Plants doesn't look at Spiritual Roots; it looks at one's affinity for vegetation. This is something that cannot be taught; it is innate.

If her talent and aptitude are sufficient, she might not lack a chance for Foundation Establishment in the future.

Half a month later, the three-acre grove of Thunder-Attracting Spirit Wood was finished. The area handled by Sun Chengyue had a survival rate 20% higher than the others, showing her excellent talent!

Sun Caiya kept quiet about it.

But from that day on, the Spiritual Plant maintenance Manual she carried with her gained another reader, and the Family's Spiritual Plant Legacy gained a successor.

...

The spirit wood was planted; the next step was the Magical Artifacts.

Sun Tieshan's Forge had been burning for three full days and nights.

This taciturn man had never been cut out for cultivation since childhood. Now over seventy years old, his cultivation was barely at the seventh level of Qi Refining.

As an Elder of the clan.

To continue the Legacy, he spent over twenty years just to barely manage refining Medium Grade Magical Artifacts, which was already the limit of his life's work.

It wasn't outstanding, but it was enough for the clan.

To build a Cultivate environment for the Old Ancestor, the clan specifically ordered him to refine a batch of special Lightning-Storing Magical Artifacts, shaped like bronze pillars and engraved with Lightning-Conducting Artifact Patterns.

They could temporarily store the lightning attracted by the Lightning Attraction Array and then slowly release it for the surrounding Spiritual Plants to absorb...

The principle was simple to state, but the execution was grueling.

Lightning is fierce by nature; ordinary materials simply cannot withstand it, and even a slight deviation would lead to a Furnace Explosion.

Sun Tieshan tried over a dozen Spiritual Metal ratios and wasted more than twenty Spiritual Bronze Pillars before he finally got the hang of it...

"Thirty percent Iron-Wire Sand, twenty percent Black Iron Essence, and an outer layer of Gold-Bronze Essence Ingots..."

He stared at the glowing red bronze pillar blank in the furnace, one hand stirring the Wind Technique to heat the various Spiritual Materials in the cauldron, allowing them to Fusion fully.

Once the Spiritual Materials melted into liquid, Sun Tieshan tapped his finger, and a glob of golden liquid fell onto the forging table, where he shaped it with a golden hammer...

With every strike, Spiritual Qi was hammered into the object.

Sun Tieshan controlled the Spiritual Qi to carve a layer of artifact patterns onto the surface of the bronze pillar, requiring him to split his mind two or even three ways!

The difficulty of Artifact Refining is second only to the path of Formations among the Four Great Immortal Arts.

The hammering continued as the special artifact patterns began to extend inward bit by bit until the lines took shape, intersecting and connecting with each other...

The moment the final hammer blow landed, an extremely faint hum echoed from within the bronze pillar, as if something were waking up!

At this moment, the veins on Sun Tieshan's forehead bulged, and the muscles in his arms were strained to the limit.

"Clang—!"

The entire bronze pillar shook, and the dark patterns on its surface all lit up at once. The lightning-conducting lines took shape, emitting a strange, pale golden spiritual glow.

Medium Grade Magical Artifact: Lightning-Storing Pillar, completed!

After catching his breath for a moment, Sun Tieshan slapped a Lightning Talisman onto it.

The talisman paper brightened for a moment and then glowed steadily.

The lightning-storing artifact patterns were functioning normally. Qualified!

Sun Tieshan's expression didn't change; he simply placed the Lightning-Storing Pillar on the rack behind him, where eleven finished products were already sitting.

Today was the twelfth.

A total of thirty-six were needed, to be set up in various locations on the Main Peak...

Sun Tieshan meditated to adjust his breathing for a moment, then opened the furnace to refine once again. Countless Spiritual Materials flew into the Artifact Refining furnace as the Wind Technique continued to heat them...

Then, he continued to hammer!

...

A few days later, the Magical Artifacts and spirit wood were gradually in place.

Next was the Second-Tier Lightning Attraction Array.

Sun Lin stood at the summit of the Main Peak, a Formation Map about ten feet wide spread out before him. This lightning attraction Formation was massive in scale.

Formation Flags, Formation Plates, Eye-Anchoring Stones, Formation Bases, and Spirit-Attracting Pillars connecting to the Spiritual Veins...

There were over a thousand components, and there were seven Jade Slips just for the Formation assembly. Although it was a bit complex, it saved the time of having a Formation Master come in person.

According to the records, even a minor Qi Refining cultivator could complete the assembly.

Sun Lin looked it over three times and then three times more, finally finalizing the positions for the Formation.

"Set the Formation Eye in the center of the summit, embedded into the node of the Main Peak's Spiritual Vein's second branch, and then use twelve lightning-storing bronze pillars for conduction..."

Gradually, Sun Lin constructed a vision of the finished product in his mind.

"The coverage area needs to expand to the entire Hongtian City..."

"The lightning is first drawn in by the array, then gathered and filtered a second time by the spirit wood and lightning-attracting bronze pillars, finally being converted into the purest thunder spirit qi and poured into the Herb Garden."

"For the Spiritual Plants, this is a hundred times gentler than being struck directly by lightning."

Sun Lin had a plan in mind, and then he set to work with full effort.

Setting up the Formation alone took half a year.

As he meditated and grasped the details bit by bit in this wholehearted state, Sun Lin unknowingly Breakthrough from the sixth level of Qi Refining to the seventh.

But he hardly noticed it himself, his entire mind focused on the Formation.

The world of the Dao of Formations is far vaster than the Talisman Way.

A talisman is a point; a Formation is a plane.

Talismans emphasize precision; not a single stroke can be off by a hair.

Formations emphasize the overarching trend; one must incorporate the flow of Spiritual Qi of an entire area, the textures of the Earth Veins, and the Feng Shui of the Four Symbols into the deduction.

The deeper Sun Lin delved, the more joyful he became.

He discovered that compared to the Talisman Way, his study of the path of Formations seemed to be even deeper and more thorough...