Chapter 368 - 356: The Mystery of the Nodes

Chapter 368: Chapter 356: The Mystery of the Nodes

「Morning. The Administration Office.」

Li Yuan had just sat down when a Mid-stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator in a dark blue brocade robe pushed the door open, entered, and clasped his hands in greeting.

"Pavilion Master Li, I am Xu Zhang, steward of the Liangzhou branch of the Mingyuan Commerce Association from Jingzhou."

Li Yuan gestured for him to sit.

"Steward Xu, please get straight to the point."

Xu Zhang didn’t stand on ceremony. He directly took a Token engraved with the association’s emblem from his sleeve and placed it on the table.

"Our commerce association wishes to open a long-term shop in the Mist Forest Marketplace to expand our business. Our scope of operations will be the same as any other shop—we’ll deal in Spirit Medicine, ores, Talismans, and Magical Artifacts, with prices following the market rate."

Li Yuan glanced at him.

"A long-term shop? Aren’t you just passing through?"

"Our original plan was to be a mobile operation," Xu Zhang admitted. "But the foot traffic and spending power in Mist Forest Marketplace are much higher than we anticipated. The chairman’s thinking is that since business is good here, we might as well put down roots."

He paused, then added, "Important goods can be transported here via the Teleportation Array in Yunyang Marketplace. However, the array’s consumption is significant. A basic transport costs ten Mid-grade Spirit Stones, and the cost increases with the strength of the Spiritual Mechanism in the transported items. So, it’s too wasteful to use the Teleportation Array for ordinary goods; we’ll still have to rely on conventional escorted trade routes."

Ten Mid-grade Spirit Stones for a basic transport.

Li Yuan made a mental note of the number.

"Alright," Li Yuan said. "You can choose the shop’s location yourself, and the rent will be based on the marketplace’s standard rates. There is one rule: the resale of Demon Dao items within the marketplace is strictly forbidden. If discovered, the shop will be shut down and its personnel expelled."

"Understood. That’s a basic rule," Xu Zhang agreed with a nod. He retrieved his Token, stood up, and took his leave.

After seeing Xu Zhang out, Li Yuan handled some routine paperwork at the administration office, then headed straight for Ji Huaiyuan’s Artifact Refining shop in the southern district.

Ji Huaiyuan was in the backyard, sorting through a newly arrived batch of ore.

"Senior Ji, I’d like to discuss the materials for my Lifebound Spiritual Artifact with you again."

Ji Huaiyuan put down the ore in his hands and sat on a stone stool.

"Have you decided what kind you want?"

"Not yet." Li Yuan sat down across from him. "The Magical Artifacts I use now are all external; I can just switch them out. For me, the Lifebound Spiritual Artifact isn’t urgently needed for combat right now. It’s mainly to prepare for the Core Formation stage."

Ji Huaiyuan was slightly taken aback.

"Are you saying you’re already thinking about the artifact resonance during Core Formation?"

"The texts on Core Formation say that during the process, there’s a massive eruption of essence, energy, and spirit. A Lifebound Spiritual Artifact nearby can ride that wave to improve its quality," Li Yuan explained. "So I want to have my Lifebound Spiritual Artifact refined before I attempt Core Formation, completing the blood-essence refinement ahead of time."

Ji Huaiyuan fell silent for a few breaths, his gaze growing more serious.

"Fellow Daoist, you have great ambition."

He stood up, walked over to a pile of ore, and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out several Metal Bars of different colors.

"If you’re thinking long-term, I suggest you don’t create a finished Magical Artifact. Making an embryo will be enough."

"An embryo?"

"An Artifact Embryo." Ji Huaiyuan arranged the Metal Bars on the tabletop. "Once the form and function of a finished Magical Artifact are set, there’s very little room for later modification. But an embryo is different. It only establishes the basic form and core materials, without defining its function. In the future, as your Cultivation improves, you can add more materials, modify it, or even replace the core materials at any time."

He pointed at the Metal Bars on the table.

"Just choose materials with high malleability. Profound Iron Essence, Flowing Silver Ore, Soft Jade Marrow—these are all suitable. The easier a material is to shape, the more room there will be for future modifications."

Li Yuan looked at the material samples on the table and nodded.

"Then I’ll make an embryo. Give me a list of the materials you need."

Ji Huaiyuan took out a blank jade slip, inscribing it as he thought.

"Three taels of Profound Iron Essence, half a catty of Flowing Silver Ore, and a fist-sized piece of Soft Jade Marrow. These three will form the basic framework. You’ll also need a portion of Flame Core Sand as a refining medium."

He handed the jade slip to Li Yuan.

"These materials can all be bought at Yunyang Marketplace; they aren’t too rare. Gather them and bring them to me, and I’ll refine it for you."

Li Yuan accepted the jade slip, thought for a moment, and then suddenly spoke up.

"Senior Ji, you said the materials of this kind of embryo can be replaced later. So if I swap out the Profound Iron Essence for something else, then also replace the Flowing Silver Ore, and finally even switch out the Soft Jade Marrow—if I replace every single material in the entire Magical Artifact, is it still the same Lifebound Spiritual Artifact?"

Ji Huaiyuan was just raising his teacup to take a drink, but his movement froze when he heard the question.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"This question of yours..."

Ji Huaiyuan frowned in thought for a long while before finally setting his teacup down on the table.

"Of course it’s the same. The blood-essence refinement binds you to the artifact’s spiritual core, not the materials themselves. As long as the core isn’t replaced, it doesn’t matter how many times you change the materials."

After he said this, he pondered it for a moment himself. He felt that something wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Li Yuan didn’t press the issue and rose to take his leave.

When he returned to his stone house, Chen Yi was already waiting at the door.

"I need to talk to you," Chen Yi said, his expression serious.

The two entered the stone house, and Chen Yi took out a red-marked jade slip from his robes.

"This is the Sect’s latest intelligence summary. There are a total of five confirmed gathering points for Demon Cultivators around the Ghost Mist Forest."

Li Yuan took the jade slip and probed it with his Divine Sense.

The coordinates for the five locations were marked with extreme clarity. Next to each point was a brief description: estimated number of occupants, frequency of activity, and the time they were last spotted.

"A word of caution," Chen Yi said. "These five points are all surface-level strongholds for the Demon Cultivators, not some kind of hidden dimension. They’re just ordinary caves, abandoned mines, or clearings in the forest, occupied by anywhere from two or three to seven or eight people. Be sure to avoid these locations during routine patrols or when you’re out hunting demonic beasts."

After looking at the coordinates of the five points, Li Yuan asked a question.

"Why don’t the Demon Cultivators live in the spatial nodes?"

Chen Yi shook his head.

"The specifics are unclear. Perhaps the spatial nodes have some kind of capacity limit, or maybe entering and exiting requires special conditions. In any case, most of them are still active on the outside. Only a select few enter and exit those disappearing locations."

Li Yuan nodded and didn’t press further.

Having said his piece, Chen Yi left.

The stone house fell silent.

Li Yuan placed the jade slip from Chen Yi on the tabletop, then retrieved the jade slip he had recorded himself from the depths of his storage pouch.

He laid the two jade slips side by side.

He first sketched a rough outline of the Ghost Mist Forest on a piece of paper, then marked all the locations he knew of one by one.

The first category: points from the fragmented map. It was incomplete, with only four recognizable locations.

The second category: the two locations where he had personally tracked Demon Cultivators before they vanished. One of these overlapped with a point from the fragmented map.

The third category: the five surface-level Demon Cultivator strongholds Chen Yi had just provided.

After all the points were marked on the paper, Li Yuan picked up his pen and distinguished them by category using different symbols.

Then he stopped.

He stared at the paper for a long time.

At first glance, these scattered points seemed chaotic and random, spread out in different directions across the Ghost Mist Forest, with uneven distances between them.

But when he ignored the minor deviations in distance and looked only at the distribution of their bearings, an extremely clear pattern emerged from the paper.

The points were roughly arranged in a circle.

It wasn’t a perfect circle. Some points were slightly inside it, others slightly outside; the margin of error was not insignificant. But considering the vagueness of the fragmented map and the limited precision of locating the surface strongholds, this degree of deviation was well within a reasonable range.

The center of the circle fell deep within the Ghost Mist Forest, about one hundred and forty li northwest of the Mist Forest Marketplace.

He had never been to that area.

Li Yuan recorded the precise coordinates of the center point in his jade slip, then rubbed the paper into ash in his palm.