All the way, Zhao Di flew in mid-air for more than ten days, passing by more than a dozen islands. He found that, as Xiao Ye had said, all the small islands with spiritual veins had villages or towns inhabited by ordinary people; while the islands without spiritual veins, regardless of their size and terrain, were all uninhabited desolate islands.
According to Xiao Ye, this is because the weather in Xingchen Sea is very changeable, and there are often hurricanes and tsunamis attacking various islands. If it weren't for the arrays set up by cultivators to protect them, ordinary people would find it difficult to survive. Cultivators have no interest in those islands without spiritual veins. Therefore, even if those small islands without spiritual veins have rich resources such as farmland and orchards, they will not be inhabited by anyone.
In the Starry Sea, unlike in Jin Yan Guo where the mortal world and the cultivator world are completely separate and independent, mortals rely on cultivators to survive. Those who live on islands protected by a cultivator's array must complete assigned tasks or pay a certain amount of spirit stones to continue staying on the island. To the mortals of the Starry Sea, cultivators are tangible, living gods with great powers and lofty status.
Zhao Di became the master of Lugu Island and inevitably had to interact with the ordinary people on this island.
After flying for half a month and arriving at Lüjia Island, Zhao Di did not directly go to Lüjia Mountain to set up his cave mansion. Instead, he flew over the only small town on the island and said to the group of ordinary people looking up at him: "I am the new master of this island, who is the mayor of the island, please come quickly to see me." His voice was not loud, but it clearly entered everyone's ears.
At once, several people quickly ran to inform the town mayor, while the rest stood still in silence, neither daring to move around nor sit down and ignore him. They occasionally stole a glance at the immortal master, but didn't dare look again. However, there were a few children who stared unblinkingly at Zhao Di in mid-air, their eyes filled with infatuation and admiration. The adults beside them quickly pulled the children aside, fearing they would make some improper move and provoke the immortal master.
There were also a few bold ones who took a few more glances at Zhao Di, hoping to see from his face what kind of character this great god would be, who would influence the lives of one or even several generations on the island. Unfortunately, the immortal master's face was always expressionless, without any emotions. If they looked for too long, the immortal master would glance back with a cold gaze, scaring these people into quickly lowering their heads and not daring to look again.
The originally bustling street suddenly became unusually quiet because of this immortal master who descended from the sky.
About half a time later, seven or eight people rushed to this place, with the first one being a slightly fat middle-aged man in his 40s. Because he had run all the way, he was now flushed and sweating profusely. After running to Zhao Di's side, he bowed and said: "I am Zhang Miao, the current mayor of this town. Thank you for waiting, sir. Please forgive me. What are your orders?"
Zhao Diliang took out a token and slowly flew it to the middle-aged man's front, saying: "You lift your head up, can you recognize this thing?"
The middle-aged man stood up and raised his head, seeing the token in front of him, and said: "This thing is the island owner's token, Master Xian is the trusted island owner of this island, right? We are here to pay our respects to the island owner!" After finishing speaking, the middle-aged man knelt down and kowtowed to Zhao Di. The others also followed suit and knelt down in unison.
Zhao's eyebrows slightly furrowed, he wasn't accustomed to such formalities, and said lightly: "Everyone, please rise, no need for excessive courtesy! Zhang Mo, how many spirit stones are needed to maintain the island's protective array each year?"
"As for the island's contribution, based on past experience, it's usually around twenty spirit stones. This island has a small population of only 1.5 million people, and in a year, they can barely gather ten spirit stones." The middle-aged man said this with a hint of trepidation. If this immortal master is not satisfied with their contribution and doubles the amount, then they will have a hard time from now on.
For cultivators, mortals can only do very limited things, which is to serve low-level cultivators and do some hard labor, the amount of spiritual stones that can be earned is really pitifully small.
150,000 ordinary people, including women and children, can earn ten pieces of low-grade spirit stones in a year, which is already not an easy thing to do.
"No need! Here is the spiritual stone for five years. After that, every five years, you come to Luojia Mountain to find me and take a spiritual stone. For the rest of the time, no mortal is allowed to enter Luojia Mountain!" Zhao Di threw down a pile of low-grade spiritual stones in front of the middle-aged man, then turned and left, saying the last few words as he disappeared from sight.
"Thank you, Island Master, I obey!" Although he couldn't see where Zhao Di was anymore, the middle-aged man still bowed respectfully in the direction Zhao Di had left.
The other mortals present were also like this, although Zhao Di's figure was nowhere to be seen, the atmosphere was still eerily quiet.
After a while, the master of Xian Shi Island still didn't reappear, and everyone immediately became agitated!
"Lao Zhang, what did you say! I didn't mishear, right? The Island Master of Xianshi actually doesn't want a single piece of spiritual stone from us as tribute? And in one breath, he gave us 100 pieces of spiritual stone!"
"Yes indeed, heaven has eyes and such a good thing has finally come to our Luojia Island! People from other islands will definitely be envious to death!"
"In my opinion, although the island owner said that we don't need to offer spirit stones, let's still give some anyway, lest we offend the island owner and suffer the consequences."
"I'm not so sure, it's better to save this spiritual stone for now. Who knows when the island master will change his mind or when there will be a new island master? It's always good to be prepared!"
"What Old Zhang said makes sense, let's make some long-term plans!"
……
At this time, Zhao Di had already flown into the Lushan Mountains and began searching for the spiritual eye spring.
Although Da Han had informed him of the specific location in detail, it still took some effort to finally find it in a small mountain cave.
This spiritual spring is indeed small and pitiful, only two or three zhang wide, with a very ordinary spiritual energy. Only within a few feet of the spring water can it be considered a high-quality spiritual vein with a dense spiritual energy.
As for the place where the terrestrial fire of the earth lung can be collected, it is located at the bottom of another mountain peak nearby.
Zhao thought for a moment and then had an idea.
He spent half a day setting up the Six Wheels Absolute Spirit Array, covering nearly half of Lianjian Mountain. After activating the array, it indeed showed extraordinary mystery. At least with Zhao Di's divine consciousness, he couldn't detect any abnormalities within a thousand feet of the mountain peak. It looked no different from an ordinary mountain range, but in reality, what he saw was quite different from the true appearance of the mountain peak. This half-real and half-fake illusion array was extremely difficult to break through. In this way, the spiritual power fluctuations caused by Zhao Di in the cave were all covered up by the array, and wouldn't cause any strange phenomena.
Although Zhao Di had mastered a few extremely simple small-scale array methods when he was refining equipment, they were fundamentally incomparable to this kind of forbidden large-scale array! As for this completely inexplicable thing, Zhao Di could only meticulously follow the requirements of the array method, burying each and every flag and disk in their designated places, not daring to be off by a single hair. Because once there was even a tiny difference, it would cause the entire array method to reveal an extremely obvious weakness.
That day, two polar arrays were deployed, covering a limited area. Zhao's formation was set up around the two small mountain peaks where Lingyan Spring and Dihuo House were located.
These two arrays of law were both activated by mid-grade spirit stones, and in an instant, he had used up seven or eight mid-grade spirit stones. If it were another cultivator at the initial stage of foundation building, they would inevitably feel a pang of heartache.
After setting up the formation of Fa, Zhao Di set up his own cave mansion with Lingyan Spring and Dihu House as the core.
He first took out four or five pieces of fine sword-like artifacts, such as the Gongbu Sword, and continuously chopped at the mountain rocks, digging out a passage about ten feet wide from the Lingyan Spring to the Earth Fire House. He blocked off the original exit of the Earth Fire House, but instead opened up two extremely hidden entrances and exits, one near the Lingyan Spring and the other near the Earth Fire House, both located within the protection range of the Tianfu Two Extremes Array.
Then he opened up the mountain cave where the Lingyan Spring was located into a cave mansion, with seven or eight stone houses that were over ten feet wide and narrow. On the walls and roofs of each stone house, large and small moonstones were installed, and the entire cave mansion suddenly became bright. As for furniture such as tables, chairs, beds, and cabinets, he had already bought some in the market. After opening up the stone houses, he took out these items from his storage bag and placed them in each of the stone houses.
(Fourth update! Thank you for your support, new book seeking collection and recommendation! Friends who have seen this week's daily updates of 10,000 words, please collect this book!)
