Chapter 959: This Is My Eastern Sea

The Tu Mountain Central Court’s tentacles spread across the Western Desert.

Naturally, the first task was constructing first-, second-, and third-grade teleportation arrays along local spirit veins.

Third-grade teleportation arrays are short-range arrays capable of transporting within a thousand kilometers, mostly used by low- and mid-cultivation cultivators.

Second-grade teleportation arrays are long-range arrays covering three thousand to thirty thousand kilometers.

First-grade teleportation arrays are inter-domain arrays capable of transporting personnel between the Western Desert and the Northern Plain; they must be built atop fifth-grade spirit veins, are extremely expensive to use, require strict approval, and are generally accessible only to Nascent Soul cultivators and above.

Currently, Tu Mountain Central Court is constructing second- and third-grade teleportation arrays; as for first-grade arrays, Jiang Ding personally handled them, using pre-fabricated array devices from the Immortal Gate, laying them out across the Great Snow Mountain Sacred Site.

The cost of building teleportation arrays across the region is exorbitant, requiring the Northern Plain’s tax revenue for over fifty years.

But this is necessary.

It signifies Tu Mountain Central Court’s actual control over the Western Desert.

Without teleportation arrays across the region, an army of cultivators traveling from the Northern Plain to suppress rebellion in the Western Desert would spend over a decade just marching, and another few decades searching and tracking enemies—round trip, a century would likely pass.

By then, the melon would be long cold.

Under such conditions, any notion of rule is meaningless; one could only resort to de facto feudalism, appointing Nascent Soul cultivators to manage local regions, as long as taxes were paid, and enforcing Tu Mountain laws half-heartedly.

This, of course, Jiang Ding could not accept.

Poor transportation not only makes rule difficult but also hinders the exchange of goods and technology; though the Northern Plain and Western Desert are nominally under Tu Mountain Central Court’s administration, geographical barriers have turned them into two separate economies, utterly failing to leverage the advantages of immortal industry.

This would drastically shrink his purse.

Even the most oppressive, cruel immortal feudal sects could not squeeze out much profit, and besides, he was a kind and tolerant man—so he got even less.

Therefore, he must establish immortal industry in this small world, even if only basic processing under the Immortal Gate system.

Otherwise, no grand blueprint could ever be realized.

“Down!”

Jiang Ding stood atop the Great Snow Mountain, on a nest as large as a mountain, woven from various spiritual ice.

He formed hand seals, and countless large cauldrons, bronze nails, and other array devices flew outward, anchoring the spirit veins, organizing spiritual energy, and dividing yin and yang.

The array devices were few—only tens of thousands—far fewer than the millions of array devices that had filled the sky when the Six Paths Sect deployed their arrays.

This was because Jiang Ding had low requirements.

Jiang Ding spent months carefully studying the Western Desert’s Yaozu Imperial Court’s Zhenshan Great Array, the Ice Soul Divine Light Array, and found it was also quite

simple, so he modified it himself, commissioned a batch of array devices from the Immortal Gate, and directly built it himself—he was now completing the final step.

Hum!

As the last ice-crystal cauldron settled, the spiritual energy and earth veins over tens of thousands of kilometers stabilized, and mysterious array patterns spread outward.

“Fifth-grade low-rank, Ice Soul Divine Light Sword Array!”

“Hmm, a bit odd-looking—seems even worse than the original Ice Soul Divine Light Array of the Western Desert Yaozu Imperial Court…”

Jiang Ding scanned the surroundings with his spiritual sense and sword intent, carefully inspecting; his small face flushed slightly.

He had previously mocked the Ice Phoenix Clan’s array heritage, calling it crude and incompetent—no wonder such a barbaric, ignorant Yaozu could only handle body refinement, not delicate work like this.

Yet now, after doing it himself, he was even worse than them!

“This is definitely not due to my array skills!”

Jiang Ding’s flush vanished instantly; he declared confidently: “This design is the cheapest—just over a billion low-grade spirit stones, and you get a functional fifth-grade low-rank array.”

“Such thrift, such frugality—it’s a genius design!”

“The brilliance of this array lies in cost control; most people won’t notice, might misunderstand—I’m too lazy to argue with them…”

Jiang Ding mumbled on, uttering words no one could understand.

After finishing, Jiang Ding looked around and threw out a jade sword, landing at the array’s core.

This was a fourth-grade spirit sword imbued with a strand of his spiritual thought, containing essential memories, meant to guard the Great Snow Mountain Sacred Site and activate the array to defend when needed—similar to the spiritual strand left behind by the former Great Sun Sword Disciple Mingguangzi in the Great Sun Sword Sect.

This jade sword’s spiritual strand, combined with the fifth-grade low-rank Ice Soul Sword Array, could handle a Soul Transformation early-stage cultivator well enough—at least not lose.

Perfect. Enough.

Raising the standard further wasn’t impossible, but it would mean losses, violating the immortal principle of centering on economic development.

“The core of this mountain range is a fifth-grade spirit vein—can’t waste it. Must set up a fifth-grade spirit herb garden, spirit beast garden, or something similar…”

Jiang Ding had lived through hard times—he was extremely frugal.

He issued an order to the Political Sect to handle it.

Speaking of which, after conquering the Western Desert Yaozu Imperial Court, Tu Mountain Central Court had gathered many tree spirits, flower spirits, ginseng spirits, grass spirits, and other plant-type beast spirits.

Those that had eaten humans were executed; those that hadn’t mostly joined the Agricultural Sect, under the command of its Sect Master, the Nine Yuan Spirit Ginseng Child, who excelled at cultivating spirit plants.

The Agricultural Sect Master, Chun Sanwa, confidently told Jiang Ding that with these elite troops, next year’s agricultural output in the Northern Plain would rise by at least twenty percent—and would increase further as these spirit plant beasts cultivated the Agricultural Sect’s techniques.

These spirit

plant beasts had special talents in this area.

Jiang Ding did not neglect taxation tied to agriculture; he pulled up relevant intelligence and studied it carefully.

Currently, these spirit plant beasts were loyal to Tu Mountain Central Court—no need to wait generations for clean lineage records.

In the Western Desert Yaozu Imperial Court, the ruling Yaozu were the Ice Phoenix Clan and the Six Royal Clans; these spirit plant beasts occupied marginal positions.

Being marginal in a Western Desert Yaozu Imperial Court built on survival of the fittest was terrifying.

The many royal Yaozu didn’t care if you were fellow Yaozu ; to them, these spirit plant beasts were no different from human slaves—food, sometimes even tastier, with raw consumption commonplace.

“ Yaozu ,” this racial identity, was utterly ethereal.

No royal Yaozu considered pig spirits or grass spirits as kin or members of the same race—they were all just food on the plate, no distinction.

Internal racial conflicts among Yaozu were immense, hardly worse than among humans.

Now, these spirit plant beasts had joined Tu Mountain Central Court and enjoyed equal status as cultivators—they instantly felt they had reached paradise.

“Pay attention,”

“The Agricultural Sect must cultivate human agricultural cultivators—ensure over fifty percent of agricultural talent comes from humans.”

Jiang Ding issued his directive.

This wasn’t racial discrimination—well, it was.

Tu Mountain Central Court must ensure humans are never dependent on other races in agriculture, armament, or any other field; other races can only add embellishments—that’s the principle.

More importantly, just as humans have innate talent in combat, they are indeed weak at first, inferior to spirit plant beasts in agricultural techniques—but with study, as geniuses emerge and techniques improve, they can surpass the limits of spirit plant beasts.

As long as agricultural prodigies emerge, human agricultural technique ceilings will far exceed those of these beast races.

Of course, if phoenixes or azure dragons appear, that’s another matter.

Only the absolute pinnacle human prodigies from the Infinite World might match them—almost impossible for any single world to produce such a human prodigy.

Jiang Ding busied himself, spending time handling Western Desert administration.

Once he confirmed the initial stability of Tu Mountain rule in the Western Desert, Jiang Ding stepped onto the inter-domain teleportation array at the center of the Ice Soul Sword Array, selected the Eastern Sea direction, with no receiving array—thus random teleportation.

“Eastern Sea,”

“Chen Xi is safe—this is my Eastern Sea…”

Jiang Ding murmured, vanishing in the teleportation light.