The miraculous nature of spirit eye treasures naturally drove cultivators who pursued the Heavenly Dao to madness! Every time a spirit eye treasure appeared, it would trigger a bloodbath in the local cultivation world!
But in the current Yue Kingdom's cultivation world, these spirit eye treasures had long since fallen into the hands of the seven great sects. After all, even if a small sect came to possess such treasures, it would only be inviting its own destruction.
Yellow Maple Valley, for instance, possessed several spirit eye items — a spirit eye stone, three spirit eye springs, and so on. All of them had been unceremoniously divided among the Foundation Establishment and Core Formation cultivators, and even Sect Master Zhong hadn't been fortunate enough to claim a single one.
Naturally, the Nascent Soul ancestor had taken the lion's share.
Now, Han Li had never expected that he, of all people — merely bringing along an ordinary Double Pupil Mouse and spending just over a day — would so easily locate a spirit eye treasure nearby.
It was only the lowest-grade type, a spirit eye spring, and the spring itself was pathetically small, its effects surely quite limited. But a spirit eye treasure was still a spirit eye treasure. At the very least, cultivating near it would be considerably faster than cultivating near an ordinary spirit vein! Even if it only boosted his cultivation speed by half a step, that was still a good thing!
Still, amid his surprise and delight, Han Li felt a touch of puzzlement.
Weren't spirit eye treasures supposed to form only in places with the densest spiritual energy? But the spiritual energy around this mountain wasn't particularly concentrated! How could one have formed here? And what had formed was such a miniature spirit spring — it filled Han Li with equal parts wonder and regret.
But since a pie had fallen from the sky, Han Li certainly wasn't about to let it go.
Although a spirit eye spring could theoretically be relocated, that was something only Core Formation cultivators could manage. Han Li didn't possess such abilities yet. So, naturally, he decided to build his cave dwelling right here, and he designated this spirit spring cavern as his personal cultivation chamber — one he would have to keep thoroughly hidden.
Han Li immediately set about expanding the tunnel he had already carved out.
Wielding his silver sword in one hand and commanding several golden blades with the other, he set to work on the grand project of excavating his cave dwelling. As for the Double Pupil Mouse, it had plunged headfirst into the spirit spring and refused to come out, dozing contentedly in the water.
Relying on the sharpness of the silver sword and the sheer number of his golden blades, after half a day of hard labor, a cave dwelling of considerable size had taken shape. In total, he had carved out thirteen rooms of varying sizes and three spacious halls, each over an acre in floor area.
Although the cave walls were still rough and unfinished, lacking any fine detail, at least they provided shelter. This put Han Li's mind at ease, and he set down his tools.
It was then that he suddenly remembered the Double Pupil Mouse. He hurried back to the spirit spring, grabbed the little beast by the scruff of its still-sleeping neck, flew several hundred li on his flying sword, and released it there — allowing it to find its own way back to the Qilin Pavilion.
The cave dwelling Han Li had built currently had only a single exit. So upon returning, he immediately arranged five small flags and over a dozen low-grade spirit stones according to the method described on the jade slip, setting up a small Misty Labyrinth Formation to conceal the entrance entirely. From the outside, the mountain face appeared completely intact — there was no way to detect that a new cave had been carved into it.
Only after completing these basic protections did Han Li use his silver sword to carve out a simple stone bed, collapse onto it, and fall into a deep sleep. He was thoroughly exhausted!
Over the following days, Han Li remained ceaselessly busy.
First, he found a patch of flat, workable soil in a secluded spot near his cave dwelling and scattered some spirit herb seeds across it. Among these were both the ordinary medicinal seeds he had originally brought from the mortal world and the exotic spirit grass seeds he had collected over the years from the Hundred Medicine Garden. This would become Han Li's own herb garden — all the spirit seedlings he matured in the future would make their debut here.
During his remaining time, Han Li also found some relatively hard green stone on the mountain and carved it into stone tables, chairs, and other furnishings, placing a set in each room. Finally, he meticulously smoothed all the walls and inlaid them with moonlight stones, illuminating the entire cave dwelling as brightly as day.
With that, Han Li's cave dwelling was considered essentially complete.
However, it was painfully obvious that the dwelling's defenses were utterly fragile — nowhere near sufficient to put Han Li at ease for cultivation. In his estimation, he needed at least a comprehensive restriction array like the one protecting the Hundred Medicine Garden. Otherwise, if an enemy intruded while he was cultivating, things would go terribly wrong!
Formation arrays were completely outside Han Li's expertise. He couldn't even set up the most basic formation, let alone anything more advanced like a full restriction array.
But he had no intention of learning the art either! The study of formation arrays was vast as an ocean — if he devoted himself to learning it, he wouldn't achieve even modest proficiency without ten or twenty years. And that would absolutely derail his own cultivation, a loss Han Li simply could not afford!
There might well exist geniuses in this world who could deeply study formation arrays without neglecting their cultivation — or even eccentric prodigies who used formations as their path and used that to advance their own cultivation. But Han Li was well aware that he was not one of them.