Chapter 79

Dong Ning, though indignant at Chen Hai's pretentiousness, could not fathom the mystery behind his ability to shatter the Six Jia Secret Shield with a single sword strike. However, if she wanted to break through the bottleneck in her cultivation of the Great Derivation Sword Technique, she still needed to enter the Scripture Pavilion to study a large number of classics.

Every time, Dong Ning would see the towering Chen Hai comfortably curled up behind a desk in the corner of the second floor of the Scripture Pavilion, as if he had never left. His thick, unkempt beard and hair, which had not been combed for months, his swollen face with scars crisscrossing it, but his eyes were unusually bright, like stars in the night sky. Chen Hai always held a low-level mystic technique scroll, fully engrossed in his studies, ignoring everything around him.

The disciples of the Upper Seven Peaks, even if they no longer held the initial contempt and ridicule for Chen Hai, still regarded him as an oddity, and no one took the initiative to get closer to him.

After being burned once, although Dong Ning did not want to provoke Chen Hai again, she could not help but admit that Chen Hai's months-long immersion in the study and enlightenment of low-level mystic techniques was clearly not a deliberate act to attract her attention. Beneath his rough exterior, Chen Hai had a different aura from other inner disciples.

She confirmed that Chen Hai was indeed unaware of their previous marriage agreement, which puzzled her. Chen Hai had been expelled from the Yao clan at the age of seventeen; had the Yao clan not asked for his opinion on the marriage agreement?

She had thought of reviewing Chen Hai's records at the Ancestor Hall to find out why he had been stripped of his cultivation and expelled from the Yao clan, but the Ancestor Hall required a hand order from the sect leader or the head of the Upper Seven Peaks to access the records. Despite her status as the Lady of Yuecheng, she was still blocked by the Ancestor Hall's chief.

As time passed, Dong Ning's curiosity gradually waned, and Chen Hai did not mention the bet again.

Although Dong Ning did not care about a couple of high-grade yellow-level magical treasures, she was unwilling to lose one to Chen Hai, especially since she could not see through the mystery of his sword strike that shattered the Six Jia Secret Shield.

Since Chen Hai never brought up the bet, Dong Ning also stubbornly avoided mentioning it.

Sometimes, Dong Ning even avoided Chen Hai, going to the first floor of the Scripture Pavilion or hiding in the third or fourth floors where inner disciples could not enter to cultivate in peace.

Time flowed like water, and four months passed in a blink. Taowei Mountain entered the scorching summer of the 72nd year of the Yitian Emperor. One day, after a rigorous sword cultivation session in the trial tower, Dong Ning went to the Scripture Pavilion and was surprised to find that Chen Hai, who had been sitting in the corner reading classics for months, was no longer there.

Dong Ning did not pay much attention at first, but after three days without seeing Chen Hai, she learned from the discussions of her fellow disciples that Chen Hai and Zhou Jun had left the mountain for cultivation.

For most disciples who had just entered the Upper Seven Peaks, entering Qiyun Ridge was like stepping into a new world of cultivation.

Whether it was mystic techniques or magical arts, what they encountered in Qiyun Ridge far surpassed what they had learned in the Dao Academy. Even the hereditary noble families with a lineage of over a dozen generations had less complete and rich cultivation systems and collections of scrolls and classics than the Upper Seven Peaks.

Almost all disciples made significant progress in their cultivation during their early days in the Upper Seven Peaks.

Before encountering a difficult bottleneck, almost no one was willing to leave the Upper Seven Peaks for cultivation outside, especially since Chen Hai had not yet successfully opened the Secret Palace of the Spirit Sea when Dong Ning last saw him.

Dong Ning could not understand why Chen Hai would leave the mountain for cultivation at this time, was he going to disgrace the Upper Seven Peaks?

However, Dong Ning thought that just like the marriage agreement that no one mentioned anymore, she should also completely erase Chen Hai from her mind and stop thinking about him.

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At this moment, Chen Hai had no idea what Dong Ning was thinking. After receiving Chen Lie's letter, he, Zhou Jun, and Wu Meng had already returned to Yulong Mountain.

The Yulong Camp was planning to establish a new patrol camp, which might be a precursor to a large-scale military campaign organized by the Grand Protector's Mansion.

Chen Hai and Zhou Jun, eager to establish their careers, naturally did not want to miss the opportunity to join the campaign against the Lanchuan region.

Chen Hai and his companions had been away from Yulong Mountain for more than half a year since entering the Upper Seven Peaks. This time, they returned under the pretext of cultivation outside the mountain. They saw that the buildings in Yulong City had become more densely packed, and the population had increased significantly. The streets were bustling with traffic, a far cry from the desolate hill outside Chenqiao Village a year and a half ago.

Several new roads leading into Yulong Mountain from the new Yulong City had been successfully constructed, and a large number of vehicles and horses were entering and leaving the mountain. Yulong Mountain was now ten to a hundred times more prosperous and busy than before.

These newly constructed stone roads, which could accommodate four horses side by side even at their narrowest points, allowed Chen Hai and his companions to reach Huanglong Yuan Dao Academy from Yulong City in less than two hours.

From Huanglong Yuan to the Medicine Garden, it took less than an hour by horse.

Chen Lie's fief had been officially determined, located in the eastern hills of Huanglong Yuan, centered around Snake Valley, with the establishment of Zhaoyang Pavilion.

According to the Great Yan Empire's system, a hundred li was a county, thirty li was a township, and ten li was a pavilion.

To compensate for the lack of arable land in the deep mountains of Yulong, Zhaoyang Pavilion, centered around Snake Valley, encompassed about twenty square li of the surrounding hills.

This was not a trick by Chen Zhang or anyone else to suppress Chen Hai. The Grand Protector's Mansion directly required the newly enfeoffed marquises like Chen Lie and Chai Teng to choose their fiefs in Yulong Mountain, to root the newly rising noble families in Yulong Mountain and strengthen the Wuwei Army's resolve to develop Yulong Mountain.

The Grand Protector's Mansion focused on developing the area around Huanglong Yuan in Yulong Mountain.

To the south of Huanglong Yuan, in addition to building the South Heaven Gate Fort as an important defense and even deploying defensive magic arrays, several new, sturdy military forts and watchtowers were constructed to form a more solid defense line.

Besides the Stone Gorge, two new roads were also opened to the north of Huanglong Yuan, connecting to the counties and prefectures to the north.

In this situation, Chen Lie could only choose his fief near Huanglong Yuan.

Near Huanglong Yuan, the areas with top-grade spirit springs were limited, and the Medicine Garden was one of the few. Apart from setting up Zhaoyang Pavilion centered around the Medicine Garden, there were no other better choices.

This was a decision Chen Hai made shortly after entering the Upper Seven Peaks.

In the past half year, many of Chen Lie's direct lineages, including Sun Gan, Su Yuan, Xue Quan, Chen Yu, Chen Zhang, and Chen Su, had gradually moved some of their families and clan members to the hills near Snake Valley, choosing sites to build courtyards and settle down.

Chen Hai naturally did not oppose this arrangement. He was very clear that only in this way could the Medicine Garden and Zhaoyang Pavilion become the foundation of the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House, regardless of how Chen Lie's position changed in the future or how long he could stay in the Yulong Camp. The Medicine Garden and Zhaoyang Pavilion could fundamentally become the base of the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House, and the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House could truly form a cohesive force with the Medicine Garden as its foundation.

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In the past half year, the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House had invested a large amount of resources in the construction of the Medicine Garden.

When Chen Hai, Zhou Jun, and Wu Meng returned to Yulong City, they learned from Su Yuan that the Medicine Garden had been built into a fortified city, which also served as the center of Zhaoyang Pavilion.

The fortified city, centered around the Spirit Pool in the Snake Den, was built on the northern part of Snake Valley. The sturdy stone walls extended for three to four li, with crenellations, watchtowers, and arrow towers, constructed to the standards of a mountain fortress.

The private gardens of Chen Lie, Chen Hai, Chen Zhang, Chen Qing, Sun Gan, Su Yuan, Zhou Jun, Wu Meng, Xue Quan, Chen Yu, Ge Tong, Shen Kun, and Zhou Jingyuan, among other direct lineages of the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House, were all rebuilt and uniformly located within the fortified city of the Medicine Garden.

These private gardens and mansions were mostly built around the Spirit Pool in the Snake Den, with numerous halls, pavilions, and private gardens, all exquisitely constructed.

The relatives and close clan members of the direct lineages mostly built their courtyards outside the fortified city. In the nearby Snake Valley, several relatively flat valleys and slopes were chosen to build over a dozen villages to accommodate the laborers and the thousands of new households of attached people...

The hills near the fortified city were the most concentrated in spiritual energy and were mostly developed into medicinal fields for growing spirit herbs and trees. The outer hills were also cultivated into large tracts of farmland, distributed to the attached people for cultivation.

In this way, the Medicine Garden could maintain the basic material supply of Zhaoyang Pavilion through the collection of land taxes and rents.

In the past half year, Zhou Jingyuan and others had discovered two iron ore veins in the hills within the Zhaoyang Pavilion area, opened two mines, and built a smelting plant, employing hundreds of laborers. They could smelt nearly ten thousand pounds of refined iron each month.

Under Su Yuan's direct management, the Medicine Garden's armory was officially expanded in the various counties and prefectures west of the river. Over forty new armories were set up, all staffed with managers and craftsmen directly dispatched from the Marquis House.

In the fortified city of the Medicine Garden, in addition to Zhou Jingyuan being responsible for the two mines and the smelting plant, Su Yuan also dispatched three Spirit Opening Realm senior craftsmen capable of refining low-grade yellow-level magical treasures to Huanglong Yuan.

One of them entered the Huanglong Yuan Dao Academy to serve as the head of the Alchemy Institute, while the other two led dozens of craftsmen and over a hundred apprentices to operate a foundry in the western part of the Medicine Garden fortified city, producing a large number of weapons and armor to supply the various armories...

Chen Lie, as the Marquis of Zhaoyang Pavilion, could appoint officials such as the chief secretary and clerk in the Marquis House. The positions of Pavilion Chief and Pavilion Captain were also directly appointed by the Marquis House.

However, the daily affairs of Zhaoyang Pavilion were too trivial to compare with military affairs. Chen Lie appointed Chen Su and Ge Tong as Pavilion Chief and Pavilion Captain, respectively, to handle the internal and external affairs and defense of Zhaoyang Pavilion.

The mines, smelting plant, and thousands of acres of medicinal fields near the Spirit Pool in the Snake Den would be the core sources of wealth for the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House in the future, and were directly managed by Su Yuan. Chen Su, as a direct lineage of Chen Zhang, was not yet qualified to interfere.

The Disciple Camp, responsible for the training of the reserve forces of the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House, was also the foundation for the Marquis House to compete with the Chai family's disciples in the Huanglong Yuan Dao Academy. Chen Lie still put Chen Hai in charge, with Wu Meng, Zhou Jun, Ge Tong, and Qian Wenyi assisting him.

In addition to the Disciple Camp, the two hundred elite soldiers stationed in the Medicine Garden fortified city, although part of the Guard Camp, were expanded from the thirty elite soldiers Chen Hai had trained, selecting commoners' children.

These two hundred elite soldiers, led by Ge Tong, could be considered Chen Hai's direct lineage. Chen Lie also directly placed this private army under Chen Hai's command.

In this way, the internal power distribution of the Zhaoyang Pavilion Marquis House was basically formed, and Chen Hai officially became the sixth person in the Marquis House, with authority no less than Chen Zhang, Sun Gan, Su Yuan, Xue Quan, and Chen Yu.