A few days later, Ye Qingxuan came to Qingli City once again.
This time, Ye Qingxuan was planning to use Qingli City’s teleportation array to travel to Huangfeng City, the city closest to Wanling Mountain.
Huangfeng City was one of the five neutral cities in Xingluo Prefecture that had a Nascent Soul cultivator guarding it.
Neutral forces were those that did not participate in conflicts between any powers and would not expand their own territory.
The other four neutral cities with Nascent Soul cultivators stationed there were: Baixiu City, Fengluo City, Dijian City, and Tiandao City.
As long as a city’s population reached over a million, it could establish mutual teleportation arrays with these five great cities.
As the capital of Qingli Prefecture, Qingli City naturally also had teleportation arrays connecting to these five great cities.
The more teleportation arrays a city had, the faster cultivators could circulate through it, which was more beneficial to the city’s development.
These five great cities were also among Ye Qingxuan’s future targets for expanding his business.
With the population he had gained from Qingguang City, the million-population threshold was not a problem at all.
The reason Qingguang City had not built teleportation arrays connecting to the five great cities was simply that Zhou Qingguang did not have enough spirit stones to hire a formation master of the fifth rank or above to construct them.
This, however, was an easy matter for Ye Qingxuan.
Once the teleportation arrays were connected, doing business in these five neutral cities would become much easier.
By then, he could also use these five cities to attract a steady stream of cultivators to settle in his new city.
Through Qingli City’s teleportation array, Ye Qingxuan quickly arrived at Huangfeng City, the closest city to Wanling Mountain.
Huangfeng City was founded by the great cultivator Huangfeng Daoren, who had reached the peak of the Nascent Soul realm. Its area covered a full… well, it was very large anyway.
It was said that this Huangfeng Daoren secretly raised a swarm of spirit beast yellow bees with considerable combat power.
After arriving at Huangfeng City, Ye Qingxuan did not linger long in the city.
Leaving Huangfeng City and confirming the direction of Wanling Mountain, Ye Qingxuan took out his flying boat and flew toward Wanling Mountain.
It took him several days to finally reach the territory of Wanling Mountain.
“So this is Wanling Mountain?”
Ye Qingxuan looked at the peak before him that pierced straight into the clouds, wreathed in white mist with occasional flashes of spiritual light, and nodded in satisfaction.
He spent some time flying a full circle around Wanling Mountain.
He found that the entire Wanling Mountain covered roughly over a hundred thousand square kilometers, with a height beyond reckoning.
The surrounding area was also dotted with numerous spirit veins of the first through fourth ranks, forming spirit lands of various sizes.
These spirit lands included hills, valleys, and water pools—all kinds of terrain imaginable.
Flying high above Wanling Mountain, Ye Qingxuan looked down upon the land below.
After some mental calculation, Ye Qingxuan decided to build a city three thousand kilometers long and wide, centered on Wanling Mountain.
Wanling Mountain could then be developed into individual cultivation caves and spirit lands for cultivators to rent for training or farming.
The numerous spirit lands around Wanling Mountain would also be enclosed within the city and developed into spirit vein villas.
The remaining areas would be used to settle ordinary mortal residents, distributing farmland to them so they could support themselves.
However, building a city this large was not something that could be completed in a short time.
Not to mention the other structures within the city.
Just the city walls alone would require Ye Qingxuan to consume a considerable amount of materials.
This time, Ye Qingxuan was not planning to use spirit materials to build the city.
If he used spirit materials for everything, Ye Qingxuan would probably go bankrupt.
So for the city walls and the buildings within them, Ye Qingxuan planned to use ordinary mortal ore as raw material.
Beyond that.
The city’s protective grand formation—this was something he could not be careless about.
For a city covering a full nine million square kilometers, if he used formation discs to set up the formation, it would require at least tens of thousands of formation discs.
So Ye Qingxuan decided to build the formation foundations directly beneath the earth.
Using 1,080 formation foundations as the base, drawing upon the power of the earth and the spiritual energy within the spirit veins, he would set up a sixth-rank mid-grade city-protecting grand formation.
Moreover, by building formation foundations and using them as the basis for the formation—
Ye Qingxuan could inscribe multiple types of formation patterns onto the foundations, layering multiple formations together.
Two fifth-rank spirit veins, plus the hundreds of spirit veins below the fifth rank in the surrounding area and the power of the earth, would already be barely enough to support a sixth-rank mid-grade city-protecting grand formation.
Even if there was a slight energy shortfall when the grand formation needed to be activated, he could simply invest some top-grade spirit stones at that time.
As for the formation’s attributes, Ye Qingxuan decided to focus on the Five Elements with Yin and Yang as support.
After thinking it over for a moment, Ye Qingxuan decided to use Five Elements essence and Yin-Yang essence as the primary materials to build the 1,080 formation foundations.
Sixth-rank Five Elements essence and Yin-Yang essence were worth roughly 600 top-grade spirit stones per cubic unit.
Building one formation foundation would require approximately one cubic unit of material.
So, to build this city, Ye Qingxuan would need to spend roughly 648,000 top-grade spirit stones just on the 1,080 formation foundations.
With the current net profit of the Tianfu Shop, it would take Ye Qingxuan several years to earn back that many spirit stones.
Within the city, Ye Qingxuan planned to set up another ten thousand small-scale teleportation arrays distributed throughout the city for the convenience of residents.
The materials needed for one small-scale teleportation array would cost about one top-grade spirit stone.
Ten thousand small-scale teleportation arrays would total ten thousand top-grade spirit stones.
For the Five Elements essence, Yin-Yang essence, and the materials needed for the small-scale teleportation arrays, Ye Qingxuan planned to procure them from within the Xuantian Sect.
But for the ordinary mortal ore needed to build the city, Ye Qingxuan intended to purchase it locally in Xingluo Prefecture.
Actually, this kind of ore could be found everywhere.
It was just that the quantity Ye Qingxuan needed was too large—if he mined it himself, it would take considerable time.
Ye Qingxuan did not want to waste time mining ore himself.
Formations were the city’s primary means of defense, so the city walls did not need to be built too tall.
For a city three thousand kilometers long and wide, Ye Qingxuan planned to set the wall height at ten meters and thickness at one meter.
Just for the city walls alone, Ye Qingxuan would need 120 million cubic meters of material.
Adding the buildings within the walls, Ye Qingxuan planned to purchase one billion cubic meters of ordinary material in one go.
After finalizing the plan—
Ye Qingxuan’s true body far away in the Xuantian Sect had already begun taking action.
Although Ye Qingxuan’s main consciousness was currently in his external avatar, Gui Xuanzi, this did not affect the daily activities and cultivation of his true body.
After having Zhu Dafu procure the needed materials—
Ye Qingxuan planned to refine the 1,080 formation foundations himself.
As for the formation discs for the ten thousand small-scale teleportation arrays, to save time, Ye Qingxuan subcontracted them to various channels of the Tianfu Shop for refinement.
While his true body was taking action—
Ye Qingxuan’s external avatar in Xingluo Prefecture also began preparations.
First, he piloted his flying boat back to Huangfeng City and found the Zhenbao Pavilion within the city.
As a neutral Spirit Transformation-level power that only did business, the Zhenbao Pavilion could be found in almost every large city.
“Honored guest, is there anything I can help you with?”
Just as he entered the Zhenbao Pavilion in Huangfeng City, a beautiful woman at the Foundation Establishment realm greeted him with a smile.
“Do you sell ordinary mortal ore?”
“Ordinary mortal ore? You must be wanting to build a city, honored guest?”
She did not seem surprised by Ye Qingxuan’s question—instead, she directly stated his purpose.
Hearing this, Ye Qingxuan was somewhat surprised, but he did not try to hide it. He simply nodded lightly:
“That’s right!”
