Junior sister, I really need to control you.

In the shop of Yutan Temple.

Li Yinsheng placed the order decisively.

It's common knowledge that there are usually no stewards in the shops.

Given that all the disciples are direct descendants or true disciples, the direct descendants of the abbot are naturally the most reliable.

However, if the female shopkeeper hadn't revealed her identity, Li Yinsheng would never have considered her as a direct descendant of the abbot.

A direct disciple is to inherit the master's mantle and position. Each person can only have one direct disciple; this is a fixed rule written into the precepts.

She looked to be only twenty-five or twenty-six years old. For someone of that age to be chosen as a direct disciple from among a group of true disciples by the abbot must mean she possessed extraordinary talent.

Li Yinsheng sighed inwardly.

Unfortunately, despite his nearly 100 years of profound cultivation, his methods were completely inadequate.

Otherwise, anyone with a similar cultivation level would have been able to easily discern the female shopkeeper's cultivation level.

He could only rely on his cultivation level to sense the energy flow and roughly estimate that the other party should have thirty or forty years of cultivation... right?

Shaking his head, Li Yinsheng stopped dwelling on these things.

Apart from the lost Zhenguan Gong technique, the Xuanzhen Temple's Sutra Repository still retains about 70-80% of its other inheritances. The missing techniques can be made up for with some time.

At that moment, he was more concerned about something else.

"Shopkeeper," he leaned forward slightly and asked seriously, "you just said that if I hire you to set up the formation, not only will the deposit be waived, but the total price will also be cheaper..."

"I wonder... exactly how much cheaper it will be?"

As Li Yinsheng approached, the female shopkeeper instinctively held her breath, then said, "How about 100,000 talismans?"

Li Yinsheng's eyes lit up, and he muttered to himself.

"One hundred thousand... is equivalent to the price of an ordinary array master setting up a small-scale spirit refining array."

What they received was the Tongming Refining Spirit Array, personally set up by the direct descendant of the Jade Altar Temple's abbot.

This is a huge profit!

But the female shopkeeper, hearing his mutterings, seemed to misunderstand something, and pinched her own earlobe: "Still think it's too expensive? Ninety thousand talismans?"

It can go down even further?!

Li Yinsheng felt that if he bargained a little more, there should still be room for negotiation, and he could lower the price even further.

But after all this, he had actually gained quite a bit of advantage, so after a little thought, he gave up the idea.

"Then thank you very much, shopkeeper," Li Yinsheng said.

In response to Li Yinsheng's thanks, the female shopkeeper nodded, paused, and then said, "My surname is Meng, Meng Yu. I'll be the temporary shopkeeper; please call me fellow Daoist."

"Alright, Fellow Daoist Meng," Li Yinsheng readily agreed.

"How should I address you, fellow Daoist? Which Daoist temple do you cultivate in? Where do you plan to build the formation?" Meng Yu asked.

"I am Li Yinsheng from Xuanzhen Temple. As for the location of the formation, it is on Xuanzhen Peak of my temple," Li Yinsheng said.

Upon hearing Li Yinsheng mention Xuanzhen Temple and Xuanzhen Peak, a clear look of confusion flashed across Meng Yu's face.

Which Taoist temple is this? I have absolutely no recollection of it.

But she quickly put that question out of her mind.

Of the dozens of Taoist temples under the Zhengyang lineage, only about a dozen have become renowned, all because they excel in certain skills or techniques.

This Xuanzhen Temple... it's probably a relatively small and unremarkable Taoist temple, which is why she doesn't remember it.

Meng Yu asked, "Then, Fellow Daoist Li, when do you plan to begin constructing the formation?"

"The sooner the better, it just depends on when Fellow Daoist Meng has some free time," Li Yinsheng said without hesitation.

"I can go right now," Meng Yu said immediately.

"Now?" Li Yinsheng was somewhat surprised. "But Fellow Daoist Meng, aren't you the manager? Are you free to leave now?"

"It's alright, I'll go set up the formation, someone will take my place temporarily," Meng Yu said.

"Oh..." Li Yinsheng didn't dwell on it and said, "Then, Fellow Daoist Meng, shall we set off now? I'll take you to Xuanzhen Peak."

"I'm going to the storeroom to get the materials for setting up the array. Setting up the Spirit Refining Array is complicated, so I'll need to call two more assistants. Fellow Daoist Li, please wait for me a moment."

Meng Yu then served Li Yinsheng a plate of water chestnut cakes and hurriedly went into the back room.

Li Yinsheng ate and drank, and a moment later Meng Yu led two people out of the back hall.

The two people behind her, a man and a woman, looked a little older than her, but they followed her with a very respectful expression.

Moreover, Li Yinsheng noticed that in addition to her original Qiankun bag, Meng Yu had an extra Qiankun bag with the name of Yutan Temple printed on it, presumably for official accounting purposes.

Li Yinsheng exchanged greetings with the two disciples brought by Meng Yu, and then left the shop under Meng Yu's guidance.

Standing on the bluestone road, Li Yinsheng was a little troubled.

He was going to take these three array masters to Xuanzhen Peak to set up an array, but his only means of flying was the Wind-Riding Technique.

Are we supposed to just grab a gust of wind and blow these three all the way to Xuanzhen Peak?

Fortunately, just as Li Yinsheng had the idea, Meng Yu stepped forward, and a jade chessboard flew out of his Qiankun bag. In the blink of an eye, it grew from the size of a palm to a square foot, hovering quietly on the ground for a foot.

Meng Yu was the first to step onto the chessboard, followed closely by the other two.

"Fellow Daoist Li, please show us the way. We're going to your Xuanzhen Peak," Meng Yu said.

Li Yinsheng stepped onto the chessboard, a look of surprise on his face.

One of the functions of a magic weapon is to enable cultivators to fly on objects, but only high-grade magic weapons can have this function.

Low-grade magic weapons like his Frost Leaf Sword, and even mid-grade magic weapons of a higher grade, do not have this effect. Otherwise, he could have flown over by stepping on the sword, so why would he need to generate wind?

But what surprised him was not the superior-grade magic weapon itself.

Rather, this magical artifact did not fly out of the Qiankun bag with "Yutan Temple" written on it on Meng Yu's waist, but rather from another of her own private Qiankun bags.

In other words, this superior-grade ritual implement was most likely not a "business vehicle" provided by the Jade Altar Temple, but rather Meng Yu's own.

This made Li Yinsheng very envious.

A high-grade magic artifact can easily cost tens of thousands of talisman coins, more than the money he spent building the spirit refining array.

Even the stewards of various Taoist temples do not all have high-grade magical artifacts with them.

As expected of the direct descendant of the abbot of Yutan Temple, he is truly wealthy.

As Li Yinsheng sighed inwardly, he pointed out the direction of Xuanzhen Peak.

Without Meng Yu making any move, the chessboard below naturally rose into the air, carrying the four people and soaring through the air in the direction Li Yinsheng pointed.

Li Yinsheng stepped onto the chessboard and felt as if he were walking on flat ground. He looked down at the chessboard with great interest, observing the patterns and restrictions on it.

This was the first time he had ever come into close contact with a high-grade magic weapon; before this, he had never even seen a mid-grade magic weapon.

"Fellow Daoist Li, are you interested in my 'Azure Jade Scale'?" Meng Yu took a step closer to Li Yinsheng and asked.

"Is the Azure Jade Scale the name of this magical artifact?" Li Yinsheng asked.

"Yes," Meng Yu nodded, "Because my name contains the character for jade, and I usually enjoy playing chess, I asked a master from the Casting Furnace Temple to forge this magical artifact."

Custom-made! They must be really rich...

Li Yinsheng was once again filled with emotion.

Before Li Yinsheng could speak, Meng Yu took the initiative to tell him about the time she commissioned the magical artifacts, and Li Yinsheng nodded in agreement.

Although Li Yinsheng only responded to Meng Yu occasionally, Meng Yu continued her storytelling, a stark contrast to her initial taciturn demeanor.

The two of them stood in the front half of the chessboard, while the two disciples whom Meng Yu had called to be his assistants stood in the back half.

Watching Meng Yu constantly talking to Li Yinsheng, the male disciple lowered his voice and said to the female disciple beside him, "What's wrong with Senior Sister Meng? She's usually very quiet and never chats with anyone. It's really strange..."

He and the female disciple beside him were actually a few years older than Meng Yu, but Meng Yu had been cultivating since childhood, entered the sect earlier, and had a higher cultivation level, so she was naturally the senior sister.

"It's not surprising that Senior Sister Meng is like this."

Faced with the puzzled male disciple, the female disciple answered verbally, but her gaze remained fixed on Li Yinsheng's profile, never looking away.

"Junior sister, you're acting strangely today too," the male disciple said, even more puzzled.

The female disciple finally shifted her gaze from Li Yinsheng for a moment, looked at the person beside her with a strange expression, shook her head and sighed: "Senior brother, you don't understand."

……

Not long after, the "Azure Jade Scales" carried the four of them to the front of Xuanzhen Peak.

But the jade scale did not land.

"To build a spirit refining array on a mountain peak, one must first find a suitable spiritual eye location to extract and collect spiritual essence, construct the array for collecting spiritual essence, and then send the collected spiritual essence to the spirit refining array for crafting special spiritual essence..."

Senior Sister Meng stood at the very front, holding a compass in her hands.

"Different mountains have different numbers and locations of spiritual eyes, as well as varying degrees of difficulty in extracting spiritual energy from them. These differences need to be explored using geomancy techniques."

She looked at Li Yinsheng and said, "Fellow Daoist Li, how many spirit-gathering formations have you built on Xuanzhen Peak? Where are they located? Please point them out to me first."

"Once I've located all the spirit eyes, I'll select a few from the remaining spirit eyes that haven't yet been used to build spirit-gathering arrays, and construct spirit-gathering sub-arrays for the Transparent Spirit Refining Array."

Generally speaking, a mountain with a spiritual vein can have hundreds of spiritual eyes of varying sizes.

However, only a few spiritual eyes can easily extract and collect large amounts of spiritual essence. These spiritual eyes have long been equipped with spiritual gathering arrays, and the spiritual essence will be directly supplied to large-scale spiritual refining arrays to continuously refine special spiritual essence.

Although the remaining spiritual eyes can also extract and collect spiritual essence, their efficiency is not high.

However, to provide spiritual energy for a small spirit refining array, you can find several ordinary spirit eyes, build spirit gathering arrays, and add them together, which should be enough.

"Uh..." Li Yinsheng scratched his cheek, speaking somewhat awkwardly.

"Fellow Daoist Meng, to be honest, Xuanzhen Temple did not have any spirit-gathering formations before, and all the spirit eyes were empty. You can just go directly to the best spirit eye."

For the first time, an extremely obvious emotion appeared on Meng Yu's usually calm face—

are you kidding me?

"Is Fellow Daoist Li joking?" Meng Yu shook his head, not believing Li Yinsheng at all.

"It's true that some Taoist temples are short of funds and haven't built many spirit-gathering arrays on their own peaks, but the top-grade spirit eyes definitely need spirit-gathering arrays."

Li Yinsheng sighed, "Our Xuanzhen Temple didn't even have a spirit-refining array before, so what's the use of collecting it?"

There isn't even a spirit refining array!

Meng Yu now felt even more strongly that Li Yinsheng was joking.

A Taoist temple with only a mountain peak but no formations is like a person living in a house with only four walls and no doors, windows, or furniture.

"If Fellow Daoist Meng doesn't believe me," Li Yinsheng shrugged, "why don't we just fly to the best spiritual eye and see for ourselves? It's definitely empty there, so we can just build a spirit-gathering array there."

Seeing that Li Yinsheng spoke sincerely, Meng Yu also became somewhat unsure of herself.

So she nodded and, following the best location for the spiritual eye determined by feng shui, flew there on the jade scale.

A moment later, Meng Yu, who had flown to the vicinity of the Spirit Eye, stopped the jade scale and looked at Li Yinsheng expressionlessly, with a hint of reproach in her eyes.

"Fellow Daoist Li was indeed joking," she pointed to the ground not far below, "Isn't that the Spirit Gathering Array?"

In the direction she pointed, a patch of what was once a dense, wild forest had been abruptly cleared away.

On the cleared ground, a formation the size of a house stood prominently, with several cultivators dressed in gray-yellow Taoist robes around it, constantly making hand seals and casting spells, occasionally throwing in some materials.

"Look, there are still people maintaining the formation, although... even from this distance you can tell the technique is rough."

Meng Yu looked at Li Yinsheng, somewhat annoyed that he was making fun of her.

But soon, she realized that Li Yinsheng's expression was wrong.

Li Yinsheng's face showed neither the mischievousness of someone who had gotten away with a joke, nor the embarrassment of being exposed. Instead, it carried an undisguised coldness, and his dark eyes narrowed slightly, their chilling light intimidating.

"Fellow Daoist Meng, those people below are not from Xuanzhen Temple," Li Yinsheng said.

"If I'm not mistaken about the Taoist robes, they should be disciples of the 'Yellow Crane Temple' on the next mountain."