Cultivating Immortality from the Book of Life and Death

Chapter 427 Establishing a Stronghold. (First Update!)

The mountain valley is flanked by towering cliffs, covered with various trees, creeping figs, and tall grasses. Perhaps due to the long-term erosion by the blood mist, the vegetation here has a faint crimson hue. Looking down from below, it resembles a waterfall of blood, flowing majestically all the way to the flat ground at the bottom, where a dense, pale red meadow lies.

Zheng Que chose an open space near the high cliff on the left and began to set up the formation.

He channeled his true energy, continuously casting out talismans.

The talismans flickered in the air, their spiritual energy circulating among them, forming array patterns.

Perhaps because of the activation of the talismans, ghosts appeared from time to time during Zheng Que's formation, attempting to disrupt the formation or attack Zheng Que.

But as soon as these ghosts showed themselves, they were dealt with by Qingli and Niannu.

About an hour later, Zheng Que cast the final spell, and all the floating talismans instantly lit up, quickly outlining a complex pattern before disappearing.

The next moment, the area where he was located was suddenly covered by an invisible shield, isolating it from the outside world.

This is the [Sound-Locking Concealing Array], which can isolate sound from external perception.

It is also the most basic formation when building a stronghold, which can prevent ordinary ghosts from sensing the presence of living people within the formation.

After briefly testing the formation and confirming there were no problems, Zheng Que set up a second defensive formation outside of it.

This formation is called the Earth Spirit Tortoise Shell Formation. It requires talismans issued by the Immortal Exam and a large number of spirit stones as a catalyst to connect with the power of the earth's veins.

Once this formation is complete, it can draw upon a continuous stream of earth vein power, sufficient to defend against attacks from the ghostly creatures beneath the [Iron Tree Prison]...

It took Zheng Que about two hours to set up the defensive formation. He counted the cost and found that it had used 50,000 low-grade spirit stones and more than 100 mid-grade spirit stones.

Of course, the reason he paid such a high price was because the area he set up was quite large; otherwise, he wouldn't have needed so many spirit stones.

After the two formations were set up, Zheng Que tried entering and exiting several times to make sure everything was in order, and then looked at the opposite cliff.

Amidst the blood mist, one could see lush vegetation on and off the cliffs, and occasionally, through the dense foliage, one could glimpse tiny points of light—the radiance reflected from exposed natural stones.

This is also why he built his base here. The cliff that forms the valley is actually a small vein of spirit stones.

Moreover, it's an open-air spirit stone mine, so you don't even need tools; you can extract spirit stones just by hand.

The resources at Xue Tong Pass are indeed abundant.

If the person setting up the formation doesn't have that many spirit stones, the first thing to do isn't to build a stronghold formation, but to first occupy a spirit stone mine and accumulate enough spirit stones before making any further plans...

While pondering, Zheng Que shifted his gaze and looked into the depths of the mountain valley, where the terrain became steeper and gradually sank, leading into a series of large karst caves hidden by dense forest.

Inside the cave was a ghost stone field.

Ghost Stone is a low-grade spiritual material, named for the patterns on its surface that resemble ghost faces. It is used to build houses and furniture and has a slight effect on nourishing the body. Its value is not high, and it is not a particularly good resource point within the Blood Pass area, but it is easy to mine.

Therefore, Zheng Que left Qing Li to guard the formation while he led Nian Nu toward the cave.

Creak, creak, creak...

The dense forest is filled with thick layers of fallen leaves, which feel soft and fluffy underfoot.

As soon as Zheng Que and Nian Nu entered the cave, a foul, fishy smell wafted over them. Before they could even see what was inside, countless dark figures flew away in fright.

Thumping...

Countless bats flapped their wings and flew frantically out of the cave. Exploding from the bat swarm were also large groups of thin, rat-headed, human-bodied ghosts. As these ghosts spread their arms, black smoke gathered from their ribs, connected by thin membranes. They resembled bats, with a pair of bright green fangs protruding from their mouths, making them look extremely strange.

Without the slightest hesitation, these ghostly creatures immediately attacked Zheng Que and Nian Nu after they appeared.

Zheng Que glanced at them and immediately recognized them as one of the "vengeful spirits" recorded in the Immortal Examination Compendium, belonging to the [Rat-Bat Ghost] category. They lived in groups and were extremely sensitive to sound...

These ghosts are quite afraid of attacks like the [Soul Howl]. If he summons Shu Yunying, or brings Qing Li instead, he can easily deal with them.

Of course, it's not much of a problem nowadays.

Just as I was thinking this, these ghostly creatures rushed up to me.

Zheng Li immediately slashed open his palm, and the spiritual blood from the wound transformed into wisps of blood mist that surged upwards, vaguely forming a large circle that surrounded the numerous ghosts. As the blood mist rose and fell, it transformed into spiritual blood runes, which quickly imprinted themselves onto the bodies of the charging ghosts.

This is a [Ghost Control Technique] enhanced with Dao Foundation!
All the [Rat-Bat Ghosts] whose cultivation was inferior to Zheng Que's immediately stiffened and were enslaved in the blink of an eye.

A small number of the more powerful [Rat-Bat Ghosts] only paused slightly before breaking free of the spirit blood runes and continuing their charge towards Zheng Que.

These [Rat-Bat Demons] all possessed cultivation levels higher than Zheng Que's.

As the ghosts drew closer, Niannu, who was guarding Zheng Que's side, immediately took action.

Boom boom boom...

The loud noise lasted only a moment, and the battle was over.

All the ghosts not controlled by Zheng Que were dealt with by Nian Nu.

Without hesitation, Zheng Que immediately controlled the newly acquired ghost servants and headed deeper into the cave, while he followed behind with Niannu.

The cave was very spacious, and there was a lot of luminous sand on the ground, which felt soft and spongy underfoot.

They hadn't gone far when a large swarm of [Rat Bat Demons] appeared again ahead.

Zheng Que immediately cast a spell, and the [Rat-Bat Demons] he had enslaved immediately attacked their companions in the cave without mercy.

Ping Pong Pong...

Moments later, all the ghosts in the cave were cleared away.

The remaining [rat-bat ghosts] that had not been completely destroyed became Zheng Que's temporary ghost servants.

Zheng Que looked around. The solid rocks on the cave walls were covered with ghost faces of all sizes; these were all ghost stones.

He immediately gave orders to his temporary ghost servants to try and control them to mine for him, but he soon discovered that these mindless ghosts were simply incapable of carrying out such complex commands...

Looking at the mountainside, riddled with holes and scratches, yet still unable to remove a single decent piece of stone, Zheng Que shook his head slightly. Helpless, he had no choice but to take out an iron ruler from his storage bag and begin quarrying stone himself while teaching Nian Nu.

Dang Dang Dang...

Iron rulers are not professional mining picks and are very inefficient.

Zheng Que dug for a while and only managed to get a few pieces of stone.

In contrast, although Niannu was quarrying stones barehanded, using only her swollen fingernails, she had already amassed a pile of stones beside her, far exceeding Zheng Que's harvest.

Upon seeing this, Zheng Que immediately handed over the quarrying business to Nian Nu.

The temporary ghost servants, under his control, were responsible for transporting these ghost stones back to the stronghold.

After arranging everything at Ghost Stone Field, Zheng Que returned to the stronghold alone.

The empty formation remained unchanged.

The Ghost Bride and Mu Xiangu still hadn't arrived. Zheng Que pondered for a moment and realized that he had too few ghost servants around him who could do the work, so he summoned Ku Lan and Shu Yunying as well.

"Of the three of you, who knows how to build a house?" Zheng Que asked, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Qing Li, Ku Lan, and Shu Yun Ying.

Qingli looked up at the sky and down at the ground, as if she hadn't heard anything; Kulan remained silent, just staring quietly at Zheng Que. Clearly, neither of these two female ghosts knew anything about it.

Upon hearing this, Shu Yunying immediately replied, "This young lady knows how! Shu Que, what kind of house do you want to build?"

Hearing this, Zheng Que nodded slightly. He didn't have any requirements; as long as it was habitable and resembled a base, that would be fine.

However, before he could speak, Qingli spoke up: "Build it higher, with more beams."

"When you hang yourself, you can hang yourself wherever you want."

(End of this chapter)