Cultivation begins with separation.

Chapter 5 Formation
There are many spiritual plants like apricot trees.

However, according to what Yi Dong knew from the books he had seen in the Taoist temple, this was the only apricot tree in the entire Qingzhou that could absorb and exhale purple air.

This purple air has a certain effect in helping people attain enlightenment.

The so-called enlightenment is a term used by ancient practitioners. According to the Taoist temple, it means refreshing the mind, and the effect is not that great.

At this time, spiritual plants such as the Enlightenment Tea Tree, the Enlightenment Green Bamboo, etc. can be planted on a large scale.

In the past 100,000 years, the Immortal Kingdom has made far greater progress in the use of spiritual energy. Many spiritual resources that were previously rare or even rarely seen in thousands of years have been turned into sustainable renewable resources.

For example, during the chaotic period of cultivating immortals, the Foundation Establishment Pill, Golden Pill, and Infant Transformation Pill, which could make a casual cultivator blow his brains out, were all clearly marked with prices, and as long as you had enough spirit stones, you could basically buy them.

During chaotic times, spiritual plants and spiritual objects are generally classified according to their medicinal effects, from one to four levels, with three grades in each level. The medicinal effects correspond to the early, middle and late stages of cultivators of the same level. Generally speaking, the higher the grade, the more precious it is.

During the chaotic period, Taichu Purple Apricot was only a first-grade, low-grade spiritual plant.

However, in the Taoist temple, many modern practitioners have conducted much more in-depth research on spiritual plants. For example, the medicinal effects of many spiritual creatures are only because they have not grown to a certain stage or have not undergone benign mutations.

When it came to selling the place in the Taoist Academy, the Mu family’s offer was not the highest.

Yi Dong’s reason was mainly because of Taichu Zixing.

He had seen Taichu Zixing a long time ago.

He did not see that the Taichu Purple Apricot was some hidden gem. In fact, this was impossible. After all, the Taichu Purple Apricot had been seen by countless high-ranking cultivators and was determined to be a slightly mutated spiritual plant.

What he valued was Taichu Zixing's longevity.

The lifespan of a normal apricot tree spiritual plant is five to six thousand years. After the Taichu Purple Apricot mutated, based on the superficial knowledge Yi Dong learned in the Taoist temple, he judged that the lifespan of this spiritual plant might have become even longer.

He was interested in the Taichu Purple Apricot not for any other reason, but simply because he wanted to refine it into his own destiny.

Ancient cultivators were able to refine their own magical treasures from the golden elixir.

After research, the current cultivators of the Immortal Kingdom discovered that the natal object can also be refined during the Qi Refining Stage.

Moreover, it is not limited to any tools or magic weapons.

Some modern cultivators refine spirit beasts into their natal spirit beasts, some refine mountains or rivers into their natal objects, and some even refine spirit veins and even energy bodies such as wind, rain, thunder and lightning into their natal spirit veins.

In the Taoist's theory of the innate object, all things can be transformed into the innate object, even humans. Of course, human body research is prohibited in the Immortal Kingdom. At least, intermediate Taoist academies such as Qingzhu Taoist Academy do not have information in this regard.

The current cultivation methods are all-encompassing, and many of them incorporate the content of one’s natal objects.

If possible, Yi Dong naturally wanted to refine the mountains, rivers and even more wanted to refine the spiritual veins into his life.

Unfortunately, the content in this area, just like the nuclear weapons manufacturing information in the previous life, is confidential. It is basically impossible to access it unless you are a child of the top family in the fairyland.

Plant-based natal objects are already considered an outdated version in Taoist research.

That's right, Yi Dong couldn't get access to the methods of refining high-level spiritual plants. Only the methods of refining first-level spiritual plants were delegated to the intermediate Taoist academy.

Plant-based life-transmitting objects are also favored by many lower-level cultivators like Yi Dong. The reason is that refining such things can prolong life.

"Well, once the materials arrive, we can start refining. After refining my life's item, I should also start to break through the third level of Qi Refining."

Yi Dong pondered.

Just then, Yi Dong took out a panel.

I saw a series of information appear on the panel.

This thing is just like Yi Dong’s mobile phone in his previous life.

Thinking of his previous life, Yi Dong couldn't help but think of the dump truck that made his life take a turn. In this situation, he didn't know whether he should be grateful for the steering wheel of the dump truck.

In his previous life, he was just a nobody, just a screw in the world. The prosperous world had nothing to do with him. After traveling through time and space, although the protagonist of the prosperous world was not someone like him who came from a small family, he could at least breathe some happy air in this prosperous world.

So after traveling through time, he didn't complain too much.

After reading the information on the panel, Yi Dong couldn't help but frown.

"Sure enough, interests move people's hearts. Just when things have stabilized, these people started to make trouble."

Yi Dong was not angry. This was the family tradition of the Yi family, or it could be said that this was basically the case with all aristocratic families. Fighting for power and profit was their instinct, and infighting was not just the main theme.

Yi Dong had long understood that there was no warmth in the family of immortal cultivators. In the memories of his previous life, his father Yi Ye treated him as a prop, and he only knew the name of his mother, and he had never even met her in his memory.

A prosperous era is often accompanied by moral decline.

Many cultivators will have a group of offspring.

Having a son is not for inheritance, but to get better "labor".

The Immortal Kingdom does not allow aristocratic families to employ a large number of independent cultivators, and independent cultivators are not allowed to participate in many matters within the aristocratic families, so the only option is to have children.

And having children is not harmful to female cultivators, because elixirs are readily available, and after taking a set of elixirs, a female cultivator may be able to nourish herself.

Open-mindedness has led many female cultivators to change partners more frequently than they change clothes, and the same is true for male cultivators. Many immoral families also practice orthopedic surgery. When Yi Dong first learned about this, his perspective was slightly shaken. It's understandable, after all, Yi Dong's customs in his previous life were similar.

As the number of offspring increases, family ties become weaker.

Moreover, those who cultivate immortality can live longer, so conflicts are inevitable.

Purple Mountain, Yi Dong is the apparent owner.

In fact, there are three other people who are also at the decision-making level, namely Yi Liang, Yi Kang and Yi Qing.

These three people were all cultivators in the late stage of Qi Refining. Although they were of the same generation, they were all forty or fifty years older than Yi Dong.

The most important reason why they were able to cooperate with Yi Dong in planning Zijin Mountain was to build a foundation.

If it were a chaotic time, three foundation-building pills would be enough to shut them up.

Not to mention three Foundation Establishment Pills, even three hundred of them would be nothing to Zijin Mountain.

However, these three people are in their sixties or seventies, and the success rate of foundation building after taking basic foundation building pills is not high.

What they are looking for are more things that can increase the chances of building a foundation.

There are many packages on the market that claim to be 100% foundation-building.

These packages include elixirs, formations, spirit beast organizations and many other things whose prices are artificially made high.

Among these packages, the Foundation Establishment Pill worth 2000 spirit stones is definitely not the most expensive item.

Generally speaking, it is impossible to buy a foundation-building package without more than 50,000 spirit stones.

The spiritual plants on Zijin Mountain plus the spiritual veins, spiritual fields and other fixed assets are only worth about 600,000 to 700,000 spirit stones, and the annual profit is only about 30,000 to 50,000 spirit stones.

This is the profit output that the Mu family could only obtain through channels before. It can be imagined that after the Yi family took over, the profit would drop significantly, if not halved.

Moreover, the formation that covers the entire Zijin Mountain was mortgaged with the money from Zijin Mountain, and the loan must be repaid every year. The brothers and sisters who followed were not beasts of burden, and they also needed wages.

Why is the formation so expensive?
This kind of formation is not the outdated formation used in the chaotic period where a few formation flags are thrown and some metaphysics are combined to make the formation power extremely subtle.

This formation has arranged a spiritual energy network throughout the entire mountain. If spiritual energy is compared to electric current, it is like a densely packed circuit network arranged underground, as well as hundreds of thousands of "circuit board" magic tools and several sets of combined magic weapons in key positions.

It can be said that under this formation, if Yuanying comes, Yi Dong has an 80% chance of killing it.

You get what you pay for. The formation network will also wear out, and it requires a lot of spirit stones for annual operation and maintenance.

Under all these circumstances, where could they find hundreds of thousands of spirit stones to allow those three people to build their foundation?

It was Yi Dong who decided to set up this formation. For this, Yi Dong had given up a lot of benefits. For example, he had given up the income from the spiritual fields for the next hundred years, and he had made various other concessions.

Even so, the three were still not satisfied. Yi Dong wanted to see what else they had discussed.

There are many buildings on Zijin Mountain, all built by the Mu family.

Soon, Yi Dong used the formation to fly to the meeting hall on the mountainside and met Yi Liang and the other two.

Yi Liang has a long, black beard and looks like an immortal. Yi Kang is thin but has bright eyes and looks smart and capable. Yi Qing is strong, wears simple clothes, and looks like an honest man.

"Don't talk about shutting down the formation. I don't agree with it."

"Adong, the people of Xia County are simple and honest. In the past hundred years, there have been no criminals, and no theft of spiritual objects. I am not saying that the formation should be closed forever, but that we should temporarily use other formations as a substitute."

"Yes, the financial situation is tough right now, and everyone is having a hard time. To be honest, I don't want to close the formation."

"Reasonable."

The three of them talked to Yi Dong and tried to persuade him to close the formation.

The main reason is that after the formation is put into operation, the 30,000 acres of spiritual fields can no longer be taken care of. If this continues, the number of spiritual fields in Zijin Mountain will gradually decrease.

The three of them persuaded Yi Dong to use the cheap and affordable ancient formation.

But how could Yi Dong agree? Not only was the power of the ancient formation subtle, but its tolerance rate was also surprisingly low. Moreover, many ancient formations had been thoroughly studied, and as long as specific nodes were attacked, the formation would fail. Even if the formation was changed, the essence remained the same, and the "cracking code" would not be too far off.

Using this kind of code to reveal the ancient array formation, Yi Dong couldn't even sleep peacefully, not to mention protecting his natal spirit creature.

Compared with the low fault tolerance of the ancient formation, the current formation is quite good. This formation is equivalent to a parallel circuit. Destroying a part of it will not cause complete failure. Moreover, with tens of thousands of spiritual energy "power supply" entrances, it can be said that there are no formation nodes at all.

Seeing that Yi Dong refused to listen, the three of them raised their voices three degrees.

Yi Dong frowned.

He didn't understand. Now that he was in control of the Purple Gold Mountain Formation, were these three people crazy?
They are law-abiding people and might not kill them, but putting them under house arrest seems to be an option as they also have many children living outside the country.

Yi Dong couldn't help but feel a little upset. He didn't expect that before the other aristocratic families in Xia County put pressure on him, these three people would already be causing him trouble.

Since Yi Dong refused to give in, the four of them ended up parting on bad terms.

(End of this chapter)