Cultivation is just so scientific! Chapter 1584 - 838: Relocation (Part 2)

A wave of helplessness surged through him, but he found himself utterly powerless to alter the situation. Unlike Yin Shilan's case, Elder Su's bodily state offered no simple path to restoration.

After all, Yin Shilan's youth, combined with plentiful resources, allowed her form to heal with remarkable speed.

Yet Elder Su's advanced age had intensified his physical deterioration, further deepened by deep-seated wounds to both heart and soul.

Certainly, should luck smile upon Elder Su, Li Shiming could potentially barter for a modest supply of life-prolonging spiritual treasures, granting a brief extension to his years, though that prolongation would remain severely constrained.

"I will arrange the Shushan cultivators properly!" Noting Li Shiming's clear reluctance to claim the inheritance and treasures, Elder Su delivered his assurance with firm emphasis.

With matters reaching this point, he resolved, in his role as Master of the Shushan lineage, to solidify this branch on Li Shiming's behalf.

"Master, here is some spiritual tea for you to take back and savor at leisure!" After a brief pause in thought, Li Shiming retrieved a jade box and presented it gently, his voice soft.

"I once yearned for this very flavor; with you absent for a century, the memory of your brewed spiritual tea has nearly faded from me!" Elder Su's gaze sparkled with delight as he accepted the jade box, a warm smile spreading across his face.

As he lifted the lid of the jade box and inhaled the fragrance of the spiritual tea within, a subtle shift appeared in his expression, prompting him to seal it shut once more, anxious to contain the escaping aroma.

He instantly recognized the quality of the spiritual tea housed in the jade box—it was fourth-grade spirit tea, a rarity even for Nascent Soul cultivators on the Beishu Continent, distributed in tightly controlled portions.

The single jade box of fourth-grade spirit tea sufficed to cover a Nascent Soul cultivator's allocation for centuries.

In truth, he remained unaware that within the broader cultivation realm, the actual worth of this fourth-grade spirit tea far exceeded his estimates by a factor of a hundred.

"Master, first handle the settling of the cultivators, and once the seven sects have assembled, I'll invite you to deliberate on what lies ahead." Having assessed the state of the Shushan lineage, Li Shiming chose not to linger further and voiced his words.

This monumental relocation of sects across Beishu Continent's history stretched over three months, encompassing the full transfer of six sects from various regions.

The forces of Righteous Path, Demon Sect, and Buddhist sect converged in a single domain.

As the final sect's mountain gate—the Yin Yang Sect's—was positioned, Li Shiming materialized high above the Yin Yang Sect.

He accepted the Sect Jade Order dispatched by the Yin Yang Sect, gaining control over their grand defensive array as well.

In reality, whether possessing the Sect Jade Order or array authority mattered little; it was mere protocol. Given his overwhelming might, subjugating these cultivators required no such tokens—they stood no chance of defiance.

Nevertheless, upholding this ritual proved essential; gathering all seven Sect Jade Orders in his grasp signified the dissolution of the united front among Beishu Continent's seven premier sects.

Henceforth, the Beishu Sect, bearing the mantle of the Beishu Continent, emerged as the sole dominant sect upon the land.

Unlike the former self-styled seven major sects of Beishu Continent, which barely qualified as mid-tier in the cultivation world.

To claim mid-tier status, a sect demanded guardianship by at least a Nascent Soul Middle Stage expert; lacking such a figure rendered it unfit even for that rank, far from major sect prestige.

The Beishu Sect now stood apart; bolstered by a supreme figure like Li Shiming, it truly merited the title of major sect.

Despite vast disparities in cultivation realms among its members, Li Shiming's mandate for total isolation meant the Beishu Sect's deployable Nascent Soul cultivators—counting even the frail elders limited to a single exertion—tallied merely twenty-one, all at Nascent Soul Early Stage.

It bears noting that virtually every sect concealed Nascent Soul cultivators, not through deliberate secrecy, but as many elderly Nascent Soul experts entered self-imposed stasis.

At a sect's hour of dire need, these dormant Nascent Soul cultivators would awaken, offering their last burst of service.

On this occasion, no sect mobilized such hidden Nascent Soul assets, deeming it futile.

Li Shiming's assumption of the Beishu Sect essentially commanded a cadre of aged, weakened, and debilitated Nascent Soul Early Stage forces, devoid of any Nascent Soul Middle Stage presence, with only his solitary pinnacle strength holding the apex.

This reality stirred a profound sense of helplessness in him. Were it not his birthplace, he would scarcely invest such exhaustive labor.

His divine sense swept across the Yin Yang Sect's grand array, while his core magic artifact, IBMz15, dissected the intricacies of the seven grand arrays.

These formations, forged and refined across thousands of years, brimmed with such labyrinthine complexity that even each sect's array specialists couldn't claim total mastery over their own creations.

Li Shiming identified numerous superfluous array nodes, alongside multiple redundant foundations and overlapping cultivation methods.

Surveying the grand arrays of the seven sects left him with a throbbing headache. Without IBMz15's aid in crunching the data and unraveling the seven formations' structures, the task would have dragged on interminably.

Indeed, IBMz15 required just two hours to conceive a fresh grand array, ingeniously repurposing every existing foundation from the original seven.

Positioned at the heart of the Thousand Illusion Sect, Li Shiming summoned five late-stage Golden Corpses to the five cardinal points, his five minds seizing command over them.

This setup extended his direct or mediated divine sense to encompass half the expanse of the Beishu Sect.

"Not enough!" A faint crease formed on his brow as he uttered the words.

After pondering briefly, he called forth the Heavenly Ghost, which materialized in spectral invisibility.

Special mention goes to the Heavenly Ghost's divine sense; that of a late-stage fourth-grade specimen effortlessly spanned the remaining half of the Beishu Sect's territory.

"All cultivators stay in place, do not move!" Li Shiming's command echoed throughout the Beishu Sect.

Certain cultivators had already spotted Li Shiming aloft, puzzled by the unfolding events, and at the directive, they froze in position, while cave-dwellers merely ventured cautious glances outward.

Li Shiming, the late-stage Golden Corpses, and the Heavenly Ghost unleashed their divine senses in unison; with all one hundred ninety-one minds engaged, each array foundation lifted skyward and shifted to new placements.

"This is destroying the great array!" Master Luo from the Thousand Illusion Sect cried out in alarm.

Her bond with Li Shiming permitted her a degree of candid speech.

"Master Luo, wait and see!" Amid his intense focus on the labor, Li Shiming offered her a concise reassurance.

Master Luo fell silent, her attention fixed solely on Li Shiming's maneuvers.

No other cultivator could replicate Li Shiming's array reconfiguration technique, for extracting an array foundation from the earth intact—preserving its links to the formation's spiritual energy—lay beyond the reach of typical experts.

Typically, salvaging components from an old array for a new one necessitated full deconstruction of the prior setup.

During deconstruction, vast quantities of material inevitably perished, yielding scant usable remnants.

One must recognize that the grand arrays of the seven sects each bore unique signatures, with wildly divergent foundations—some ancient relics, others contemporary additions, evolving stylistically every thousand years.

Forging a new array from such disparate foundations proved a hundredfold more arduous than erecting one from scratch.

This explained Master Luo's outburst; the Thousand Illusion Sect's grand array, amassed over millennia, faced obliteration through such disassembly, squandering eons of toil.

Yet moments later, astonishment clouded her vision; though an array master herself, she found Li Shiming's emerging patterns increasingly baffling. Still, the formations' emanations of profound power rang true—Li Shiming was unmistakably crafting a novel grand array.

From an aerial vantage, observers would behold the seven sects' mountain gates arrayed with the Thousand Illusion Sect at the core, the remaining six encircling it in a vast ring.

At present, the seven sects merged seamlessly, enveloped wholly by a singular grand array, its nexus the grandest relocated summit, 'Beishu Main Peak.'

A resounding "boom" reverberated, sending tremors of spiritual energy through every cultivator. Before, with no grand array to contain them, the spiritual veins' energies had dispersed freely into the ether upon emergence.

Now, as the grand array coalesced, an unseen barrier of force enveloped the entirety of the Beishu Sect's mountain domain, sealing the spiritual energy firmly inside the formation.