You call this the way of the sword?

Passing through the portal, you enter the interior of the cultivation cave.

Unlike the cave dwelling of Desheng Tower, the cultivation cave dwelling is not large in scale.

The environment is like a cave, about 30 square meters in size, and you can see everything in one go with just one look around.

There was no sky or earth, no sun or moon, no doors or windows, only a crack in the stone ceiling that revealed the seemingly empty darkness outside.

Unable to venture out and explore.

The only passage is the token connecting to the mortal world, which is currently floating on the central stone base of the cave.

Behind the stone base is a couch with a futon on it for meditation.

On both sides are various cultivation treasures such as medicine fields, alchemy furnaces, forging platforms, and talisman array walls. The main idea is that you can be completely clueless, but the empire will definitely provide everything for you.

The only purpose of a cultivation cave is to assist in cultivation.

As Liu Changge said, the empire does not want to mistreat any cultivator, nor will it miss any genius, but how far you can go and whether the empire can devote more effort to you all depends on yourself.

Live, grow up, and then drain the empire dry.

This is what Yu Xia's top management wants to see, or at least what Liu Changge hopes for.

Yang Qingfeng is not an exception.

Every year, every top scorer in the national exams, and indeed all promising talents, receives support from the empire.

This kind of support is undoubtedly a special privilege, but it is also a signal that it will be targeted by external forces at any time.

"Good fortune and misfortune are two sides of the same coin; everything has its advantages and disadvantages."

"But even without the support of the empire, the path of cultivation is not necessarily safe..."

Yang Qingfeng didn't dwell on the matter of the external evils. After all, even the imperial high command couldn't eliminate them, so he could only deal with them as they came.

I walked around the cave and tried it out.

Yang Qingfeng discovered that meditating in the cave would fully restore his mana in just one hour.

The recovery rate is nearly 10 times higher than that of the outside world, and it is accompanied by a feeling of clarity.

This sense of clarity is subtle. It enters the body through the meditation cushion via the array, reaching every part of the body to eliminate fatigue. At the same time, it reacts with certain entities, greatly increasing the recovery rate.

This is not the power of the formation, but the energy of the cultivation cave itself.

It looks like a completely independent space, so where does the energy come from?

Yang Qingfeng was very curious about this, but even after he overturned the couch, peered through the crack in the ground, and observed the void outside the dome for a while, he still couldn't figure out anything.

He couldn't even see or touch the outline of the formation, let alone find any clues.

"We still have a long way to go; there's so much to learn..."

Driven by a thirst for knowledge, Yang Qingfeng tried everything he could do.

There are seeds next to the medicinal herb field. It doesn't matter if you don't know their names; just plant them all.

The alchemy furnace is always kept ablaze.

I didn't dare try alchemy, for fear of it exploding.

There were a few beginner-level pill formulas and introductory alchemy manuals. After glancing at them, I put them into my cultivation space.

The forging furnace is used for refining weapons and is not needed for the time being.

The talisman wall contains a large number of basic runes and basic formations.

They flow and circulate like water, like an incredibly patient old man tirelessly demonstrating the basic knowledge that students should master.

But it only shows, it doesn't explain.

Yang Qingfeng had never been exposed to talisman arrays before, nor did he know how to learn them, but curiosity drove him to stand in front of the wall and become completely engrossed.

The runes are mysterious, and the formations are complex.

The two elements blend together on the wall, existing separately yet complementing and echoing each other.

Just like the constellations we sometimes see at night, when they gather, they are varied and unique; when they scatter, they are a sky full of stars, wonderful and moving.

"it's beautiful…"

After an unknown amount of time, Yang Qingfeng came to his senses and felt an urge to try drawing talismans.

There happened to be a table by the wall, and the Four Treasures of the Study were already prepared on it.

He sat down impatiently, just about to put pen to paper, when he suddenly sensed something unusual in the cultivation space.

The cultivation space is a storage space. Time is frozen inside, and no living thing can enter it. Logically, there should be no movement inside.

Surprised, Yang Qingfeng opened it to check, and a faint blue light immediately shone out.

A cluster of azure light slowly drifted out from the cultivation space.

Upon seeing the items within the ball of light, Yang Qingfeng's eyes widened in surprise.

It's Grandpa's bronze piece!

"How could this be..."

Yang Qingfeng was extremely shocked and immediately stood up.

Since his grandfather died, the bronze piece has stayed by his side without causing any trouble or reacting in the slightest, just like an inanimate object.

But now it has suddenly come back to life!

Where is it going?

Yang Qingfeng suppressed his shock and followed the bronze fragment as it drifted towards the central stone base.

It floated to the token that connected to the real world.

The arrival of the bronze tablet seemed to exert some kind of suppression on the token.

The token suddenly began to tremble and crack, and before Yang Qingfeng could react, it scattered points of light, which were then swallowed by the bronze pieces.

The power was absorbed, and the token rapidly dimmed and could no longer float.

As the token fell to the ground with a thud, the bronze piece immediately took over the stone base and floated there.

"Is it related to the cave dwelling?"

Yang Qingfeng picked up the token and found it covered in cracks. There must have been some kind of spatial array inside to form the passage connecting the cave to the mortal world.

But at this moment, the inside was empty, as if it had been pulled out and eaten by the bronze pieces.

Fortunately, the bronze piece did not move; it floated quietly on the stone base, its broken patterns shimmering with a bluish light, exuding a sense of dying morbidity.

Previously it was completely still, it was a dead object.

Now that I'm on the verge of death, I'll live!

Yang Qingfeng was filled with surprise and doubt, not quite understanding this situation.

But there is no doubt that the token contains the energy that the bronze pieces instinctively seek.

To be precise, it was the energy within the cultivation cave that activated the bronze fragment, and the array hub within the token was the key to absorbing that energy.

Therefore, the bronze piece destroyed the token, inherited the token's array function, and replaced the token to connect the present world and the cave, becoming the array's eye and bridge.

At the same time, the bronze fragment established a direct connection with the cultivation cave and began to draw energy from the cave through the formation.

Thinking of this, Yang Qingfeng suddenly felt both nervous and excited.

He cautiously reached out and touched it, and found that he could indeed return to the present world through the bronze piece, which basically confirmed his guess.

"Can you repair yourself?"

"Are you... spiritual?"

Yang Qingfeng wasn't sure if he was talking to himself or trying to have a conversation. He looked at the bronze piece in a somewhat disordered manner, but out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the cave had changed a bit.

Suddenly, a hazy light shone through a crack in the stone ceiling.

Looking through the crack, the outside world was still pitch black and deep, but there was a vague feeling that it was no longer nothingness.

It was as if the addition of the bronze fragments brought the cultivation cave to life.

This feeling is not very obvious yet, because the bronze piece is just a fragment and its power is limited!

The continued shock, accompanied by a wealth of expandable information, creates more directions that are hidden in the fog but are actually traceable.

Was it an accident?

"Or...is this where you were always meant to be?"

The fusion of the bronze fragments and the cultivation cave was both too sudden and too harmonious.

Yang Qingfeng was unable to make a judgment for a while. After thinking about it for a long time without success, he could only focus on the formation.

First, master the formation in the cultivation cave and understand its principles. Then you will know the source of energy in the cave. Knowing the source of energy may help you find out what the bronze pieces are.

However, learning formations cannot be accomplished overnight, nor can it be done in a day. Moreover, apart from when I am meditating, I cannot perceive the presence of energy at other times.

"In the end, it's because I'm too inexperienced and can't see through anything."

Yang Qingfeng chose to stop worrying unnecessarily and temporarily put all the mysteries out of his mind.

He left the cave and found that dawn was already breaking outside the window.

It seems that quite a bit of time was spent observing the rune array wall earlier.

In that case, let's upgrade.