Chapter 61

(Third update! Thank you, adei, for your generous support. To secure the top spot on the monthly ticket list, brothers, let's work together until the very last moment!)

Zhou Jun and the others secretly rejoiced that they had already claimed the surrounding hills in the name of the Chen Clan before officially clearing the spirit spring. If they had been a bit more cautious and waited to confirm the presence of the spirit spring before going through the formalities, the Dao Academy would never have easily agreed to give up such a prime piece of land. Even if a weaker clan or sect tried to seize such a prime piece of land, it would have been very difficult.

An ordinary person is not guilty, but one who possesses a treasure is.

Only great families and powerful sects like the Chen and Chai Clans have the right to own such prime spirit land without fearing others' envy.

Apart from the Spirit Snake Seal, Cold Pattern Iron, and the two broken swords and remnants of armor, which Chen Hai and the others privately divided, there were also two snake skins shed by the demon python, which were the greatest harvest of this expedition. Although these two snake skins were shed by the demon python before it achieved its cultivation, they had been soaked in the mud pond that absorbed spiritual energy, remaining tough and suitable for refining into lower-grade yellow-class spirit armor. Even without incorporating any arrays, they were the top-tier armor.

This time, Chen Hai would not let the Dao Academy benefit. The two snake skins could be used to refine about seventeen to eighteen sets of spirit armor. If they were directly handed over to the Dao Academy, they could only exchange for the equivalent of two or three sets of spirit armor in clan merit. So, he arranged for Qian Wenyi to send the two snake skins to Yulong City to be handled by his uncle, Chen Lie.

Chen Lie was busy with military affairs, but the Chen Clan had other powerful cultivators, and many of his direct subordinates were also capable of refining lower-grade yellow-class mystic weapons and armor. If the more than ten sets of spirit armor were ultimately equipped to Chen Lie's bodyguards, their combat strength would be significantly enhanced.

Chen Hai also believed that his uncle Chen Lie would not treat the Medicine Garden unfairly.

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The news of the discovery of a high-quality spirit spring in Snake Valley quickly spread throughout the Dao Academy. No one thought of taking a share from the Chen Clan, but the Dao Academy sparked a wave of hunting demon beasts and exploring spirit springs. However, other disciples were not as fortunate as Chen Hai and his group.

The Grand Protector's Mansion soon issued an order, stating that all spirit spring resources within the Yulong Mountain range would be owned by the Yulong Great Camp and the Dao Academy. After the order was issued, all possible locations of hidden spirit springs could not be directly granted to individuals. Instead, the Dao Academy would send people to survey the area, first taking possession of the land, and then allowing various clans or disciples to bid for it, with the proceeds used to supplement the construction of the Yulong Great Camp and the Dao Academy.

Of course, before this order was officially issued, the children of the Chai, Li, and Xie Clans had already made some discoveries in Yulong Mountain and preemptively claimed several spirit spring resources as clan property. However, these spirit springs, in terms of location, purity, and abundance of spiritual energy, were inferior to those in Snake Valley.

People even speculated that the spirit spring in the snake den might be connected to the spirit spring at the bottom of the Yellow Dragon Abyss.

It was fortunate that Chen Hai and his group acted early under the name of the Chen Clan. Otherwise, once this order was issued, the area around Snake Valley, covering several square miles, would have required tens of thousands of clan merit points to secure.

With the key spirit spring resources discovered, the construction of the Medicine Garden proceeded much faster.

During this period, Chen Lie visited the Yellow Dragon Abyss again. After personally seeing the spirit spring gushing from the snake den, he directly bought a thousand prisoners in the name of the Chen Clan to serve as slave laborers in the Medicine Garden, accelerating its construction.

The slave system in Yanzhou was no longer widely practiced, but captives, serious criminals, and people captured from enemy territories were all classified as slaves.

After the Yulong Mountain rebellion was suppressed, the Grand Protector's Mansion also conducted a purge in the surrounding counties. Hundreds or even thousands of wandering swordsmen were either killed or driven away, and many civilians associated with the rebels were punished and reduced to slavery.

Chen Hai did not agree with the Grand Protector's Mansion's purge policy. He believed that harsh measures would weaken the strength of the various counties in Hexi, and that most of the rebels were coerced by circumstances and could be divided and pacified with more moderate strategies. However, the military orders from the Grand Protector's Mansion were not something Chen Hai could interfere with at this point.

What Chen Hai could do was promise that the more than a thousand slave laborers assigned to the Medicine Garden would be converted to hired farmers after its completion, and he would also fund the redemption of their families. He planned to purchase large tracts of land outside the Medicine Garden to allocate to the hired farmers for cultivation, ensuring a steady supply of labor for the Medicine Garden.

The earth and wood resources in Snake Valley were abundant, and a large number of thatched huts and sheds were built first.

Li Xianghai also facilitated Chen Hai's work by incorporating the mountain where the Medicine Garden was located into the Nan Tianmen Fort's defense zone. Chen Hai could openly lead his troops to the Medicine Garden to supervise its construction and build roads between the Nan Tianmen Fort and the Medicine Garden, with some of the costs shared by the Yulong Great Camp.

For the most dangerous and remote mountain paths, Chen Hai dispatched his elite troops.

After all, these elites, with some cultivation foundation, had the strength of three to five hundred pounds in each arm, making them much faster at chiseling rocks and opening paths than ordinary people.

For example, Wu Meng, using his Spirit Pattern Sword, could flatten a twenty to thirty-meter-high stone cliff in half a day. If it were dozens of ordinary slave laborers, using grass to burn the rocks and water to crack them, it would take more than half a month to level a single stone cliff.

Chen Hai spent two to three hours each day participating in the construction of the most dangerous mountain paths, aiming to connect the Medicine Garden with the Yellow Dragon Abyss and the Nan Tianmen Fort as quickly as possible. He also treated this as a form of martial cultivation.

Watching the hard-as-iron green stone cliffs collapse like melons being chopped, Chen Hai felt a surge of martial intent and spiritual energy, which became increasingly intense, indicating his progress in martial cultivation.

Under Chen Hai's leadership, Wu Meng, Ge Tong, Zhou Jun, and Shen Kun could not shirk their duties or consider this a lowly task.

Apart from this, the construction of the Medicine Garden was mainly overseen by Zhou Jingyuan, Qian Wenyi, and Zhao Shan.

Initially, several rows of thatched huts were built at the entrance of the snake den. In the remaining time, Chen Hai would meditate in the thatched huts.

In the past, on the western ridge of Nan Tianmen Fort, Chen Hai could only cultivate for half an hour each day by absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. However, with the continuous flow of spiritual energy from the spirit spring in the snake den, his daily cultivation time increased by seven to eight times, leading to rapid progress.

By the end of the 71st year of the Yitian Emperor, heavy snow sealed the mountains. Chen Hai, Wu Meng, and Zhou Jun worked together to open a gap wide enough for two horses to pass side by side on a hundred-meter-high, blade-like ridge, finally connecting the Medicine Garden with the Yellow Dragon Abyss.

Chen Hai, Wu Meng, and Zhou Jun sat under the cliff, taking pills to restore their true essence and vital energy. Thirty or so troops assisted over a hundred slave laborers in building a twenty-meter-long wooden bridge across the mountain stream. Some Chen Clan disciples were clearing the rocks at the bottom of the stone slope...

Once this mountain path was completed, the distance between the Medicine Garden and the Yellow Dragon Abyss would be reduced to less than thirty miles.

The relatively flat valleys on both sides of the mountain path could also be utilized.

Although these areas did not have spirit springs, they were still relatively rich in spiritual energy and had abundant rainfall. Farsighted purple-robed disciples or Dao Academy officials and managers used their privileges to preemptively secure these areas to build fortresses and move their families and children there.

The Yellow Dragon Abyss Dao Academy had recruited nearly two thousand Dao soldiers, with two thousand troops stationed there, but there were three to five thousand slave laborers.

As the construction of the Yellow Dragon Abyss Dao Academy and the surrounding fortresses progressed, and as many disciples moved their families, children, and servants there, the population around the Yellow Dragon Abyss grew to nearly ten thousand in just over half a year, transforming it into a city in the mountains...

During this period, more than a hundred collateral descendants of the Chen Clan and their affiliated troops and disciples were formally sent by Chen Lie to cultivate at the Yellow Dragon Abyss.

These people were all future talents that Chen Lie would use in the Yulong Great Camp, but during their cultivation at the Yellow Dragon Abyss Dao Academy, they mainly resided in the Medicine Garden for training and were naturally under Chen Hai's command for a short period.

The Dao soldiers at the Dao Academy mainly focused on individual cultivation, but Chen Hai, learning from the previous defeat of the Yulong Mountain Dao soldiers, required all Chen Clan descendants or those close to the Chen Clan, as well as their accompanying bodyguards, to strictly follow military regulations and be mixed into a disciple camp under the command of Zhao Shan and Qian Wenyi.

Apart from individual cultivation, these people also had to participate in daily military drills, study military tactics and affairs, and even spend time on the fixed labor tasks at the Medicine Garden...

Although many of these young disciples, influenced by their families, looked down on Chen Hai and were accustomed to a life of luxury, they did not expect such strict treatment at the Dao Academy. Even the cultivation techniques and mystic arts they practiced at the Medicine Garden had uniform requirements. Most of them, being young Dao soldiers who had not yet reached the Mystic Realm, ranging from fifteen to sixteen years old, with the youngest being only eleven or twelve, could not defy Chen Hai.

After a few troublemakers were severely punished by Chen Hai, most of them became obedient. Some complained to Chen Qing, but were ultimately expelled from the Medicine Garden by Chen Hai's iron hand.

Subsequently, Chen Lie allocated over three thousand clan merit points per month to Chen Hai to manage and distribute the resources for the cultivation of these disciples, giving Chen Hai even more power in the Medicine Garden.

At this moment, a black horse galloped from the direction of the Yellow Dragon Abyss. It was a messenger from Chen Lie. Seeing Chen Hai resting there, he quickly dismounted and presented a letter and a lacquered wooden box to Chen Hai.

The lacquered wooden box contained four Pulse-Opening Pills needed for Chen Hai's further cultivation.

The Taowei Sect could only produce a limited number of Pulse-Opening Pills each year, and the demand was high. The Yellow Dragon Abyss Dao Academy did not have a supply, so these four pills were obtained by Chen Lie through other channels. Chen Hai took the pill box from the messenger, opened the letter from his uncle Chen Lie, and read it with a smile.

"What good news?" Zhou Jun asked.

"The imperial decree has been issued, and my uncle has been granted the title of Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis with a fief of a thousand households. It's certainly good news..." Chen Hai laughed heartily.

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