Chapter 87

Standing on the city wall, embracing his beloved, Li Xian looked down at the crowds inside and outside the city, and his heroic spirit surged.

In a daze, Li Xian seemed to see a misty, colorful aura gathering from all directions. Some of this aura came from the sky, some from the earth, and some from the mountains, but most of it came from the crowds.

This aura was very mysterious. Li Xian could see it clearly; it could pass through walls and human bodies, then directly merge into his own body.

The aura came mysteriously but seemed endless. Li Xian was amazed, not knowing what was happening.

What surprised Li Xian even more was that after this aura entered his body, his cultivation realm began to rise rapidly. In the blink of an eye, he had advanced from the initial stage of Foundation Establishment to nearly the peak of the initial stage, just a step away from the middle stage of Foundation Establishment.

With the realm improved, the subsequent cultivation became simpler. Chewing a few spirit stones could boost his cultivation!

As he approached the peak of the initial stage of Foundation Establishment, the continuous flow of aura seemed powerless or perhaps lacked the strength to continue. However, the aura still flowed into Li Xian's body. When he reached a certain critical point, this misty, dreamlike aura suddenly overflowed from his body, first flowing into Xia Qingqing's body, then into the bodies of Xu Ren and others behind him.

"Fortune! Is this what fortune is?" Li Xian instantly understood; this was what was called fortune. He had finally stabilized his position in Anyang and gained complete control over it; the fortune of Anyang naturally came under his command.

The entire process was spontaneous, requiring no special ceremony or guidance. Naturally, this process seemed uncontrollable, and Li Xian could not control it no matter what he tried.

The flow of fortune was very regular, starting with Xia Qingqing, then Xu Ren. After the two reached their critical points, it moved to the next level, such as Fang Shijing and others, and then to the generals and the managers of various factories.

At the moment the fortune shifted, Li Xian could vaguely sense the state of each person. However, after the fortune shifted, he lost this feeling.

Li Xian observed carefully, and it seemed that no one else noticed the flow of fortune or felt its existence. They continued to act as usual. Xu Ren was still discussing strategy with Beichen Yuqing, Ling Zhifeng was still examining the feng shui, muttering that the direction of the city gate was not quite right and needed to be adjusted, and that the two sides of the gate needed to be reinforced with chi-dragon pillars (huabiao) to improve the feng shui.

It seemed that only he could see the flow of fortune. Why? Li Xian was a bit puzzled. Having experienced such things many times, his tolerance had increased—so far, everything he encountered had been good.

The next day, when Li Xian convened a meeting with everyone from the factory, they all expressed surprise—everyone's cultivation realm seemed to have collectively improved. Those below the Foundation Establishment stage showed the most significant improvement, while those above the Foundation Establishment stage showed a more subtle improvement.

Xu Ren then came forward to congratulate him: "Congratulations, Young Master. This indicates that you have stabilized your position and fully control Anyang, and you have truly gathered a group of people loyal to you."

Li Xian asked knowingly: "Is this what Mr. Xu referred to as fortune?"

"Yes."

"Then, does this mean I can only enjoy the prosperity of the mortal world and cannot ascend?" This was what Li Xian was most concerned about.

Xu Ren's voice was low: "Young Master, if you cultivate normally, you might not even reach the Nascent Soul stage. By gathering fortune, you can at least cultivate to the Tribulation Transcending stage. Once you reach the Tribulation Transcending stage and have a long life, you can slowly find a way to transcend."

"Ah? That makes sense!"

Xu Ren was a smart person, and one sentence dispelled Li Xian's concerns.

The rest of the meeting was about smoothing out the current situation and addressing any issues as soon as possible.

After sorting out all the issues, Li Xian turned the topic to the most pressing matters—spirit stones and war magic weapons. Currently, these were handled by the Research Department, led by Tang Rong.

"Teacher Tang, how is the progress of the Research Department?"

"The generator and the smelting of black iron have made great progress. We can now produce about 500 kilograms of black iron daily, with a purity of 50%. We also produce two tons of black iron with 95% impurities for use in conductive wires.

Research on spirit stones has not made much progress. However, we have an important discovery: high-voltage current seems to stimulate the absorption of spiritual energy from spirit arrays by spirit stones, but the effect is very weak.

Additionally, the research on war magic weapons is complete.

'War magic weapons' is a general term for all large magic weapons designed for war. These weapons have two distinct features: first, the materials are generally not too high-grade but are large in size; second, they are usually operated by multiple people and have great power.

The war magic weapons we obtained from Cai State are the lowest-grade war magic weapons, known as Floating Cloud Islands, or sometimes as Flying Cloud Islands or Flying Cloud Platforms.

The core of the Floating Cloud Island is the Floating Cloud Array, a very low-grade array that is easy to set up.

However, a single Floating Cloud Island may require thousands of Floating Cloud Arrays to lift it into the air. The few Floating Cloud Islands we captured have a minimum of 2,700 arrays and a maximum of 4,300 arrays.

The more arrays carved, the stronger the Floating Cloud Island's capabilities, whether in speed, height, or carrying capacity. However, the more arrays, the more spiritual energy consumed.

Approximately 2,000 Floating Cloud Arrays running for two hours can consume one low-grade spirit stone."

"Floating Cloud Island? War magic weapon?" A flash of inspiration crossed Li Xian's mind. "Teacher Tang, can more arrays be carved on the Floating Cloud Island? This way, we can fly higher, faster, and carry more weight?"

At this moment, Li Xian thought of something—aircraft carriers!

Tang Rong shook his head: "I have calculated it, and it is very difficult. The material of the Floating Cloud Island is jade, and to carve arrays, we must follow the spiritual veins of the jade. Therefore, the more arrays, the larger and heavier the Floating Cloud Island becomes, and the more spirit stones it consumes. Ultimately, the Floating Cloud Island will not be able to fly at all!

If we do not solve the spirit stone problem, researching the Floating Cloud Island alone is not very meaningful."

Li Xian chuckled, "What if we use black iron conductive wires to make the arrays and light stainless steel plates for the deck? Can we make one or two emergency rapid flight platforms? No heavy crossbows or other items, just enough for snipers to attack from a distance.

For now, that would be enough."

Tang Rong quickly flipped through his notebook and smoothly used the recent mathematical calculations from the Brilliant Stars Group: "This is feasible. However, I suggest using sea soul silk for now, as we need to keep the black iron a secret.

We can make ultra-miniature flight platforms about 2.5 meters in size, reducing the weight by 30 times, with a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour, comparable to the speed of a typical Golden Core cultivator flying with a sword.

With just one spirit stone, it can carry about two tons, enough to carry tens of thousands of bullets and three snipers."

"200 kilometers per hour? A bit slow. Can we increase it to 500 kilometers per hour?"

"The Floating Cloud Array is a low-grade array. To increase speed, we need a higher-grade array, which will increase the consumption of spirit stones."

Li Xian rubbed his head, "Teacher, we have generators."

"Yes, but what use are they?"

"Have you heard of children's spinning kites (windmills)?"

"Ah, I see!" Tang Rong suddenly realized, "We can use the generator to drive the kite in reverse!"

"Exactly, that's what we'll do! But we can't call it a kite anymore, let's call it... a propeller."

"Propeller, a good name! We'll have a prototype in 10 days!" Tang Rong left excitedly.

(With rune technology, we can directly go for an aircraft carrier. Hurry up, recommend tickets. There's another chapter today.)

Page flip AD starts

Page flip AD ends