Chapter 158: Chapter 153: Cave Abode Planning

The Sword Pill had completely devoured the carcasses of over sixty Sighing Crystalids.

Its Profound Light was a trace richer than before, but that was all.

Anton focused his senses on it and shook his head slightly.

After breaking through to the Profound Artifact tier, its gains from even Golden Peak creatures had been drastically reduced.

’To achieve any significant improvement in the Sword Pill’s quality, I’d probably have to kill a Legendary Tier existence.’

Reining in his thoughts, Anton recalled the Sword Pill to his Qi Sea, cast the Wind Manipulation Technique, and flew deeper into the city-state.

He had only given the city-state a cursory exploration before, wanting to avoid alerting the Sighing Crystalids.

Now that the obstacle was gone, he decided to investigate the entire city-state thoroughly, looking for any overlooked resources or noteworthy secrets.

Unfortunately, a full sweep yielded meager results.

The city-state’s main structures and its hidden underground tunnels were all, without exception, empty.

Aside from some petrified Mind Flayer and servant corpses, there was nothing else.

On second thought, Anton wasn’t surprised.

’The social structure of Mind Flayers is extremely peculiar.’

’The entire city-state has only one absolute will—the Elder Brain.’

’All Mind Flayers are but tentacles extending from the Elder Brain. Though they possess independent consciousness, they obey its every command without the slightest thought of resistance.’

’Naturally, they have no concept of selfishness.’

’Hoarding personal wealth is something that simply doesn’t happen among Mind Flayers.’

All the resources of the Mind Flayer city-state had likely been concentrated in that one storeroom, which he had already cleared out.

Anton cast aside his expectations and turned his focus back to the task at hand.

He sank his Divine Sense into the ground and began to investigate the Earth Vein Node—or, more accurately, the Spirit Vein.

To establish a grotto-abode on a Spirit Vein, one must first conduct a preliminary survey.

Ascertaining the vein’s overall scale, the flow of its channels, its coverage area, and its energy stability was essential before any further planning could be done.

It was an extremely tedious task that would require a great deal of time and effort.

Anton worked tirelessly, exploring inch by inch. He penetrated every subtle energy tributary with his Divine Sense, recorded every fluctuation in energy concentration, and gradually sketched a three-dimensional map of the entire Spirit Vein in his mind.

It took a full five days for him to complete his survey of the entire Spirit Vein.

The Spirit Vein wasn’t large, barely meeting the standard for a medium-sized one. However, it was more than sufficient for establishing a "Qi Mansion"-level grotto-abode.

Once the grotto-abode was established, with one or two hundred years of careful nurturing, it had a good chance of advancing to the "True Palace" level.

As for the even higher-grade Grotto Heavens and Blessed Lands, the innate conditions were insufficient, so that was out of the question.

But even so, this was enough.

A place like the Silver Moon Forest, at its absolute best, could only become a "Profound Cottage"-level grotto-abode. A Qi Mansion was unthinkable, let alone a True Palace.

Possessing a Qi Mansion-level grotto-abode with the potential to advance to a True Palace was already an excellent prospect on the current Dawn Continent.

’I can’t be greedy.’

With the preliminary survey of the Spirit Vein complete, the next step was to start drafting the grotto-abode’s construction blueprint.

This was no simple matter.

A grotto-abode is a complete cultivation ecosystem that must organically integrate cultivation, living, resource production, and defense into a self-sufficient whole.

Generally speaking, the planning and establishment of a grotto-abode can be divided into two main parts.

The array cluster and the layout of its functional areas.

These were not independent systems and could not be built separately; they had to be developed in tandem.

The array cluster formed the core skeleton of the grotto-abode, the fundamental guarantee that all its functional areas could operate properly.

The array cluster was composed of three main parts.

The most crucial was, naturally, the Mountain Protection Array.

This was a major defensive array that protected the grotto-abode, using the Spirit Vein as its power source and the grotto-abode’s structures as its nodes to create a three-dimensional defensive system that covered the entire area.

Broadly speaking, it was similar to the Silver Moon Forest’s Great Derivation Cyan Profound Array.

However, the environments of the city-state and the Silver Moon Forest were completely different, so the core requirements for the Mountain Protection Array also differed.

The Great Derivation Cyan Profound Array lacked a Spirit Vein as a power source, making its defensive and offensive capabilities relatively weak and requiring time to accumulate energy. In exchange, however, it possessed a certain potential for growth.

But since the city-state had a Spirit Vein, a much larger and more powerful Mountain Protection Array could be deployed.

’As for growth potential... in a godforsaken, harsh environment like the Dark Nether Realm, it would be incredibly difficult to set up a Mountain Protection Array with that kind of feature.’

Second was the Spirit Gathering Array network.

As the name implies, this was a network formed by connecting multiple Spirit Gathering Arrays with array patterns, also known as an energy-channelling system.

Its core function was to manage and guide the energy produced by the Spirit Vein, regulating the energy concentration in each area of the grotto-abode and distributing it to where it was needed most.

Finally, there was the auxiliary array network.

This was a collective term for a network encompassing a vast number and variety of sub-arrays.

These sub-arrays included, but were not limited to: Spiritual Restriction Arrays for warnings; Revelation Arrays to counter invisibility, earth-burrowing, and Illusion Techniques; Sensing Arrays to monitor abnormal energy flows; and arrays for convenience like Dust Removal, Constant Temperature, and Sound Insulation Arrays.

Some of these auxiliary arrays needed to be interconnected, while others had to operate without interfering with one another.

The difficulty in setting them up was not high, but the process was extremely tedious.

All in all, the difficulty of setting up the grotto-abode’s array cluster far surpassed that of the Silver Moon Forest’s Great Derivation Cyan Profound Array.

One of the main reasons Anton had pushed forward the construction of the Great Derivation Cyan Profound Array was to accumulate experience for this very task.

Otherwise, if he had tried to plan and establish a grotto-abode’s array cluster without any prior experience, he would have been completely in the dark.

Now that he had experience, getting started would be much easier.

The functional areas would mainly include a cultivation zone, an Alchemy Room, an Artifact Refining room, a Spirit Plant Garden, a Beast Garden, a library, and storage areas.

Every functional area would require its own corresponding arrays, and these arrays, in turn, would have to be incorporated into the greater array cluster and managed in a unified way.

Therefore, the planning for the array cluster and the functional areas had to be done in parallel, with neither being neglected.

Compared to the complexity and tediousness of these two tasks, the basic renovations were much simpler.

Tasks like expanding the space, treating the floors and walls, or installing lighting and ventilation systems could all be handed over to his clansmen, not requiring his personal involvement.

Anton planned to first have the Clan send people to clear the petrified figures from the city-state.

The petrified Mind Flayers and servants were blocking various corners of the city-state, both an eyesore and a waste of space.

In addition, the twisted, fleshy-textured buildings throughout the city-state also had to be completely demolished.

Those structures, built by the Mind Flayers by combining Spiritual Energy with organic matter, were bizarre in style and made of a peculiar material. They were neither suitable for Elves to live in nor did they fit the overall plan for the grotto-abode.

After the cleanup, they could proceed with some basic renovations.

This work didn’t require any advanced skills; as long as there were people and tools, it could be done methodically.

During this period, Anton needed to complete the detailed blueprints for the grotto-abode.

This was undoubtedly a massive undertaking.

But he was in no hurry.

Planning and establishing a grotto-abode was not something that could be accomplished overnight.

He had already prepared himself to invest a vast amount of time and energy into it.

With a plan in mind, Anton returned to the Silver Moon Forest and immediately sought out the three Elders to inform them that the colony of Sighing Crystalids had been wiped out.

Upon hearing this, the three Elders froze on the spot, their faces etched with utter disbelief.

They couldn’t be blamed for their astonishment. They remembered Anton mentioning that there were sixty to seventy Sighing Crystalids entrenched in the city-state.

If not for that, they would never have issued a strict order forbidding their people from approaching the city-state.

Yet now, Anton had suddenly told them that the entire colony was gone.

How were they supposed to believe that?

That was sixty to seventy Golden Peak entities!

"Anton... are you telling the truth?" the Third Elder asked, thinking he must have misheard.

Only after Anton confirmed it again did the three finally believe him, falling silent in unison.

"Have you advanced to the Legend tier?" the Second Elder couldn’t help but ask.

"No," Anton said, shaking his head. He explained, "I recently finished refining a Profound Artifact... You can think of it as an Ancient Level Magic Weapon."

"It was thanks to this Profound Artifact that I was able to take care of those Sighing Crystalids."

This explanation, far from diminishing the Elders’ shock, only amplified it.

The Great Derivation Cyan Profound Array had already been shocking enough.

Over the years, they had often marveled at Anton’s mastery of Enchantment.

They never imagined that in the blink of an eye, Anton would produce an Ancient Level magical item.

Who on the Dawn Continent could craft Ancient Level magical items without being a renowned master of Alchemy?

’Without us even realizing it, Anton’s skill in Alchemy has already reached such a level!’

Even though the constant stream of surprises from Anton over the years had left the three Elders somewhat numb, they couldn’t help but be profoundly shocked once more.

After a long moment, the Great Elder finally collected himself. He took a deep breath, suppressing the tempestuous shock in his chest, and asked, "What do you plan to do with that city-state?"

Anton was prepared and replied unhurriedly, "I plan to convert the city-state into a grotto-abode."

"A grotto-abode?" The three Elders exchanged glances, completely unfamiliar with the term.

"You can think of it as a fully functional, heavily fortified, super-large stronghold."

Anton proceeded to give them a detailed explanation in terms they could understand.

Although there were many parts the three found difficult to comprehend, they understood the gist of it.

For example, the grotto-abode would have its own Mountain Protection Array.

Its elemental energy concentration would be higher than the Silver Moon Forest’s—and not just by a small margin.

Furthermore, the grotto-abode would contain a Spirit Plant Garden for cultivating rare plants in bulk and a Beast Garden for taming and raising combat companions.

Once these two functional structures were built, the Clan would have a stable source of rare materials and combat companions, greatly reducing its reliance on outside procurement.

Understanding just these points was enough to fill them with boundless anticipation for this "grotto-abode."

The three Elders looked at one another, seeing the unconcealable joy and excitement in each other’s eyes.

The Great Elder was the first to recover, his gaze burning as he looked at Anton. "To establish this grotto-abode, what does the Clan need to do?"

Anton didn’t mince words. "I need a large number of people to first clear out the city-state, demolish the buildings, and carry out some basic renovations."

"As for the rest, we can discuss it after I’ve finished designing the detailed blueprints for the grotto-abode."

The Great Elder nodded without hesitation. "No problem. I’ll issue the order to allocate personnel right away."

Even if they hadn’t known about the benefits of the grotto-abode, their long-standing trust in Anton alone would have been enough for them to support him with all their strength and without reservation.

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