Chapter 1002 - 970: Cultivating the Spirit Vein

Seeing this, with such benefits on offer, Zhang Renmo agreed on the spot; there was simply no way to refuse, and inwardly he was overjoyed.

After the cooperation was settled, Lu Changfeng drafted a contract, the two sides began signing the agreement, and soon they moved on to the actual matters of joint mining.

As for manpower for extraction, since the Zhang Family had been passed down for over six hundred years, they had a huge number of mortals, more than sixty thousand in total, enough hands to work the Ore Vein, so they decided to send three thousand mortals out to mine.

On the Cyan Mountain Sect’s side, they sent ten Cultivators to station at the Ore Vein, responsible for its protection.

Once the discussion was finished, the two sides began to put things into motion the very next day.

Over the course of about half a month, Zhang Renmo recruited three thousand mortals from the family’s towns, and batches of them began migrating toward the Ice Flood Dragon Stone Vein.

Not only that, around the Ore Vein, Cyan Mountain Sect and the Zhang Family joined hands to build villages, towns, and other living facilities to make it convenient for the mortals to work.

Lu Zhiwei, Lu Changfeng and the others started to return to Cyan Mountain Sect, leaving three Foundation Establishment Cultivators to be temporarily stationed there; more fellow disciples would be sent later to garrison the Ore Vein.

Thus, while building villages and towns on one hand and mining the Ore Vein on the other, time flew by in the blink of an eye; spring went and autumn came, and three years passed.

A small town, Ice Flood Dragon Town, had already been established around the Ore Vein.

The town consisted of six villages, with a permanent population of around five thousand.

Half of them worked in the Ice Flood Dragon Stone Vein, working at sunrise and resting at sunset, with generous pay for the mining.

To shelter these mortals, the Zhang Family also dispatched a Foundation Establishment Cultivator to sit in town, and as for the town officials, they arranged clan members with Five Spirit Roots aptitude but low Cultivation to serve, to ensure reasonable allocation of personnel.

After three years of mining, the annual output of the Ice Flood Dragon Stone Vein had stabilized; each year it could produce more than five hundred pieces of Ice Flood Dragon Stone, equivalent to at least fifty thousand Spirit Stones a year.

Cyan Mountain Sect took eighty percent of the profits, that was forty thousand Spirit Stones a year; the Zhang Family received twenty percent, also ten thousand Spirit Stones a year.

An annual income of ten thousand Spirit Stones was no small figure for a Foundation Establishment Clan—equivalent to earning one Foundation Establishment Pill a year.

Other Foundation Establishment Clans would probably have to toil ten or twenty years to accumulate such returns.

Moreover, with Cyan Mountain Sect taking the lead, this income would be long-term and stable; there was no need to worry at all about outside forces coveting it.

Because of the profits from the Ice Flood Dragon Stone Vein, Cyan Mountain Sect had gained another resource industry; they had already sent ten Foundation Establishment Cultivators to garrison the Ore Vein, and had begun forging a Spirit Vein.

In the Cultivation Realm, cultivating a Spirit Vein required use of a Spirit Creation Array, which at minimum was of Tier Two level.

Or, one could directly bury fifty thousand Spirit Stones underground; relying on a large quantity of Spirit Stones to nourish the land, it would take about three years to give birth to a Tier One High-grade Ore Vein.

If more Spirit Stones were buried—for example, directly burying five hundred thousand Spirit Stones—it would be enough to forge a Tier Three Spiritual Vein.

Further up, if one wanted to forge a Tier Four Spiritual Vein, merely burying Spirit Stones would no longer suffice; even burying a million Spirit Stones could at most cultivate a Tier Three Spiritual Vein.

To cultivate a Tier Four Spiritual Vein required a Spirit Nurturing Array, plus one Top-grade Spirit Stone.

Spirit Stones were divided into three Tiers—Top, Middle, and Low—with an exchange ratio of one to one hundred between each grade.

Ten thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones equaled one hundred Middle-grade Spirit Stones, equaled one Top-grade Spirit Stone.

But because the Spiritual Qi contained in Middle-grade Spirit Stones far exceeded that of Low-grade Spirit Stones, and their own output was low, their actual value far surpassed the nominal exchange ratio.

The dozen or so Spirit Stone Veins in Lingxi State produced fewer than one thousand Middle-grade Spirit Stones per year; as for Top-grade Spirit Stones, they were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, extremely scarce.

Basically, no one was willing to exchange a Middle-grade Spirit Stone for a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones; they would all keep them for Cultivation, or use them as High Tier materials in Arrays, Artifact Refining, or Puppet-making.

Top-grade Spirit Stones were even more precious, and were usually held in the hands of Nascent Soul Cultivators; they could be used to rapidly restore Magical Power and assist in cultivation breakthroughs.

At the same time, Top-grade Spirit Stones were also the core energy source of Tier Six and Tier Seven Arrays; their uses were similar to Middle-grade Spirit Stones, but they were more precious and more effective.

Even if someone held four or five hundred Middle-grade Spirit Stones, they might not be able to trade for a single Top-grade Spirit Stone.

Given the projected ninety-year mining period, the role of a Spirit Vein was indispensable and had to be created as early as possible.

Moreover, once they were going to forge it, it should be done in one go to save time.

Lu Yuanshan chose the most straightforward approach, preparing to bury five hundred thousand Spirit Stones around the Ice Flood Dragon Stone to begin cultivating a Spirit Vein.

With so many Spirit Stones being buried underground, they still had to be laid out and buried according to a certain scale and pattern; this was not something an ordinary Cultivator could handle.

Lu Changfeng took on this task, carefully surveying the terrain, delineating the size of the Spirit Vein’s cultivation range, and the locations where Spirit Stones needed to be buried in each place.

For the five hundred thousand Spirit Stones, how far apart each should be spaced to maximize the Spirit Charm within the Stones in nourishing the land—this was exactly what an Array Master excelled at.

It wasn’t as if one could just uniformly or casually bury them anywhere.

Lu Changfeng drew a detailed map and led fifty disciples of Cyan Mountain Sect, each with a copy of the map; they supervised each other and, according to the marked locations on the map, carried out the burial of Spirit Stones with clear division of labor.

Because such a large number of Spirit Stones was extremely tempting, throughout the process, not only were there no Cultivators from outside Cyan Mountain Sect present.

Furthermore, Song Minghui, Zhang Nianchuan and the others were all on the side helping with supervision.

Anyone discovered to be privately pocketing Spirit Stones would be severely punished without mercy.

After all, being short by even a few hundred Spirit Stones could affect the final Spirit Vein Level that could be cultivated, so naturally everything had to be conducted strictly, without the slightest carelessness.

Thus, after more than half a month of continuous busy work, once all five hundred thousand Spirit Stones had been buried in their respective positions, Chen Changfeng spread out his Divine Sense and carefully inspected everything once more.

The deepest of these Spirit Stones lay three hundred meters underground, the shallowest at fifty meters; strung together as a whole, they formed a huge, narrow spiderweb, covering an area of about sixty li in radius.

This range looked small, but once cultivation was complete, it would be enough for ten Crystallization Stage Cultivators to maintain their daily cultivation here.

In a flash, spring went and autumn came, time flew like an arrow, the sun and moon sped by, and three years passed.

After these three years of cultivation, the Spiritual Qi born of the Spirit Vein had grown increasingly dense, and soon it was nurtured into existence, reaching Tier Three Top-Grade level, already meeting expectations.

With the Spirit Vein now fully cultivated, the construction around the Ice Flood Dragon Stone Vein was more or less complete; town, Spirit Vein, and Arrays were all in place.

Subsequent mining operations would be easy to carry out.

With the name of Cyan Mountain Sect here, no one in Lingxi State dared harbor thoughts about the Ice Flood Dragon Stone Vein.

After busying themselves here for more than six years, Chen Changfeng then led Song Minghui, Zhang Nianchuan and the others back to the Sect, leaving only three Foundation Establishment Disciples of Cyan Mountain Sect to guard the place.

Lu Zhiwei had long since returned to the Sect, and in recent years had begun Secluded Cultivation, seldom showing herself.

Central Ancestral Realm.

Shuanghu Mountain.

After more than six years of continuous Secluded Cultivation, Lu Ping’s breakthrough had made tremendous progress.