Chapter 233: Turtle Shell
After they returned to the spiritual vein, Xiang Yu took measurements of the sword before returning it to Li Yao. He decided to craft the scabbard later using the leftover materials from his furnace crafting, for now, she’d have to use it without a scabbard. Luckily, although the spatial treasure couldn’t be stored inside a normal space ring, the empress could store it for her.
For now, his priority was fixing the destroyed formation barriers. The divine sword’s energy burst had shattered not only his personal cave formations but several sect-wide protective arrays as well. Fortunately, the formations weren’t completely destroyed and he could repair them. With his fourth-grade formation mastery, the repairs took only a few minutes per array.
As he worked on the main sect barrier, Elder Huang came over, concern evident on her face.
"What happened?" she asked, gesturing toward the formations. "The barriers suddenly broke all at once. I’ve never seen anything like it."
Xiang Yu paused his repair work. "Junior sister was testing out some new techniques," he said. He wasn’t actively trying to hide the matter of the divine weapon, he just didn’t want to concern his martial aunt. Especially now that she was pregnant.
With the formations restored, Xiang Yu made his way to the Secondary Professions Pavilion. The building bustled with activity as students practiced their various crafts. He found Chairman Liu Qing coordinating between the different schools.
"Chairman Liu," he called out, retrieving the runesmithing textbooks from his spatial ring. "These are new books for the Talisman School. You’re also in the school of talismans right?" he asked. Liu Qing nodded. "Good, you can try going through them if you find the old ones hard to grasp. Also, distribute them to anyone interested. As for the remainder, just put them in the library as usual"
Liu Qing accepted the books with a respectful bow. "I’ll listen to the Grand Elder."
Xiang Yu then headed to the School of Medicine, where injured disciples had already gathered for treatment. As he began examining the first patient, the medicine students arranged themselves in their usual semicircle, notebooks ready.
"This disciple shows classic symptoms of meridian blockage from forced cultivation," he explained while checking the patient’s pulse. "Notice how his spiritual energy fluctuates irregularly..."
As he continued the lesson, treating patients while educating his students, a realization struck him. Ever since establishing the Secondary Professions Pavilion, he’d only been properly teaching the medicine students. The other schools received textbooks and were essentially left to figure things out themselves.
That wasn’t good teaching practice at all.
He made a mental note to restructure his schedule. Perhaps he could dedicate the first hour of each profession’s time slot to proper classroom instruction while crafting low-level items. After the teaching hour, he could retreat to his personal workshop in each school to continue more intensive crafting. This approach would provide proper guidance while maintaining his experience gains.
After treating the last patient and dismissing the medicine students, Xiang Yu made his way to prepare dinner. Fourth-grade spirit food for himself and his master, second-grade for his martial aunt, and first-grade for Li Yao.
Though Elder Huang had reached the Golden Core stage, she still preferred second-grade food. The first-grade spirit food was simply too potent for her newly stabilized cultivation base.
When they were done eating, Li Yao suddenly spoke up.
"I’ll be leaving the sect for a while."
Everyone paused for a moment.
"For how long?" Xiang Yu asked, setting down the utensils he was cleaning.
"Depends," Li Yao replied. "Could be a few hours to a day."
Xiang Yu frowned at the vague timeframe. "A few hours to a day? What exactly will you be doing?"
Li Yao’s expression grew more serious. "I’ll be challenging the Nascent Soul realm."
Understanding dawned on Xiang Yu’s face, followed quickly by the others.
"Good luck," all three of them said simultaneously.
Li Yao smiled warmly at their support. "Do you want any pills or formations?" Xiang Yu offered.
"No need," Li Yao declined firmly.
She remembered what the empress had told her, with her special lightning core and Nine Heavens Thunder Body, using external aids would actually hinder her progress. The tribulation lightning itself was what she needed to absorb.
The Empress nodded approvingly. [That’s right, you need to absorb all the lightning. If we’re lucky, your Nine Heavens Thunder Body might enter the second heaven,] she explained.
...
After dinner, Xiang Yu found himself back in the spirit vein. With Li Yao gone, he couldn’t help but feel a little anxious.
That’s exactly why he was rushing to complete the formation he’d been crafting. His hands moved urgently as he worked on the fourth-grade defensive formation. With this protection in place, he should be able to feel somewhat secure even without Li Yao watching over the sect.
Over the next few hours, he carefully etched intricate blueprints onto formation disks. Since this was designed as a sect-wide formation, he crafted four separate formation disks that would be positioned at each corner of the sect’s territory.
When he finally completed the basic formation blueprints, Xiang Yu didn’t immediately move to deploy them. Instead, he retrieved the disks and began etching completely different patterns onto their surfaces—rune blueprints.
After discovering the incredible versatility of runesmithing, he’d realized these ancient symbols could enhance virtually any tool he made. Including formations.
Why settle for a standard defensive formation when he could create something truly extraordinary?
For the first formation disk, he carefully traced a defensive rune into the metal surface. This enhancement would amplify the formation’s protective capabilities far beyond its original specifications.
The second disk received a regeneration rune. This inscription would ensure rapid self-repair in case of damage, dramatically increasing the formation’s durability and endurance. Even if enemies managed to crack the barrier, it would continuously restore itself, forcing attackers to overcome not just its initial strength but its persistent recovery.
For the third disk, Xiang Yu chose concealment. He wasn’t content with merely defending against Void Traversing realm cultivators—he preferred they never discovered the sect’s location in the first place. However, he made absolutely certain not to repeat his previous mistake.
Last time, his carelessness had allowed the soul clone to exploit his concealment formation by detecting the suspicious blank space where divine sense couldn’t penetrate. This time, the concealment rune he employed was far more sophisticated. Instead of simply hiding the area and leaving an obvious void, it actively imitated the surrounding environment, making the sect appear as nothing more than an unremarkable stretch of wilderness.
The fourth rune was something he’d been contemplating for a while now but never found time to attempt—a qi gathering formation. Well, rune.
Unlike the others focused purely on defense, this enhancement would actively draw spiritual energy from the surrounding region and concentrate it within the sect’s boundaries.
Xiang Yu smiled as he worked on this final pattern. With the level of rune he was implementing, the qi concentration within the sect would become many times denser than even his personal spirit vein. This would dramatically accelerate the cultivation speed of every disciple, enhance his herb garden’s growth rate, and even boost the development of the spirit vein itself.
It was like creating a cultivation paradise like those high level sects he saw in novels.
After completing all four runic enhancements, Xiang Yu carefully gathered the formation disks and prepared to leave the spirit vein. Normally, he would ask his martial aunt to assist with the deployment, but the newlywed couple deserved their honeymoon phase, especially at this late hour.