Chapter 35: The Spatial Stone Immortal Mansion

Tang Yi arrived at a manor a few days ago, which had been left behind by the previous tenant. It appeared to have been abandoned for quite a long time; despite the protection of lingering array formations, it had ultimately failed to withstand the eroding power of time and nature.

"Isn't this place a bit too rundown?" Hei Gangyan said, looking at the manor.

"It certainly is rundown, lacking even a basic dust-clearing array. Big black guy, I'll leave this to you. Flatten the whole thing so we can build something new from scratch!" Tang Yi nodded and said.

Hei Gangyan moved swiftly. After a burst of rumbling noise, a flat expanse of ground lay before Tang Yi's eyes. The location Tang Yi had chosen was a valley, its outermost perimeter surrounded by multiple layers of mountain ranges. Nestled within was a relatively flat valley, accessible only via a narrow winding path between the peaks. The spot where Tang Yi currently stood was precisely the largest of these valleys.

"Alright, listen up, the lot of you. This place will be our home for quite some time to come, so it's time to get to work and build our own houses with our own hands," Tang Yi said to the companions beside him.

Erecting a structure was a trivial matter for immortals, but crafting a building that was both aesthetically pleasing and highly functional was not something every immortal could effortlessly achieve. What Tang Yi intended to build now, however, went far beyond mere beauty and utility.

Tang Yi produced a vast array of materials, utilizing universal stone as the foundation to set up a sturdy reinforcement array. He then used cyan jade stone to lay down a gathering-qi array, and the overlap of these two formations formed a multi-dimensional defensive array. These foundational stones were seamlessly integrated into the pillars and beams of the house Tang Yi intended to construct. After three days and nights of material cutting, smelting, construction, and a series of other meticulous tasks, a brand-new estate appeared before the eyes of the six companions.

"Not bad at all. Go find your own rooms! Once I set up the outer defensive array, I will seek out a secluded place for closed-door cultivation for a period of time to refine our immortal mansion so that we can resume our journey smoothly. For now, I'll park the Immortal Vessel right in the grand plaza of this estate, and you can all figure out what to do yourselves," Tang Yi said before heading out to set up the perimeter formations.

The five of them waved their hands dismissively and hurriedly went off to claim their respective quarters.

After arriving in the Moyu Star Region, Tang Yi had already thoroughly scouted the various surrounding areas. His decision to settle on Xingguang Star was primarily driven by the discovery that a neighboring star system possessed a planet exceptionally suited for weapon and artifact forging.

With Tang Yi's cultivation level at the late stage of Celestial Immortality, he could travel from Xingguang Star to this forging planet in the blink of an eye using his spatial teleportation ability, requiring no intermediate stops along the way.

This planet was quite peculiar, lacking the typical axial rotation and orbital revolution of ordinary planets. It possessed only an orbital revolution, with one side permanently facing the sun while the other remained in eternal darkness. Tang Yi arrived at the boundary dividing the light and dark halves of the planet. One side was a realm of blazing volcanoes, the other a domain of towering glaciers, yet the narrow strip in between enjoyed a perpetual spring. Nevertheless, not the slightest trace of living aura could be detected here.

Tang Yi approached a sheer cliff face. Up to this point, Tang Yi had never practiced any traditional immortal cultivation methods; his realm and cultivation level had reached the late stage of Celestial Immortality solely due to a unique supernatural ability. Unfortunately, lacking the support of orthodox immortal arts, he had remained permanently capped at this stage. Tang Yi's ambition was not only to forge an immortal mansion but also to invent immortal techniques uniquely suited to himself.

Tang Yi brought his hands together and then pulled them apart, instantly carving a passage into the sheer cliff face. Not long after Tang Yi stepped inside, the passage sealed itself up as seamlessly as if it had never existed at all. By this time, Tang Yi had already carved out a spacious stone chamber deep underground. He produced several forging furnaces used for artifact crafting, arranging them in a neat row. With a series of rapid hand seals from Tang Yi's ten fingers, wisps of fire began to sprout from the base of each furnace. The bright red flames bore a striking resemblance to the legendary Samadhi True Fire. There was no alternative; although Tang Yi possessed a unique ability to summon flames akin to the Samadhi True Fire, their duration was far too brief to be used for artifact forging, though they made excellent tools for starting fires.

Tang Yi tossed the materials into the respective furnaces for smelting, a process that would require a considerable amount of time. Having drawn the subterranean heat upward from the earth's core, he temporarily left the furnaces to run on their own. He crossed his legs and seated himself upon a slab of crystalline jade stone he had just produced, placing the spatial stone, a head-sized piece of frozen crystal ice, blazing flame gold stone, nine-star parting-fire gold, thousand-layer azure dragon wood, and heavenly gang dust-clearing stone one by one onto the jade platform.

Tang Yi first placed the five-element immortal essence materials into a single furnace for smelting. It took three months to refine these materials into five distinct elemental pearls. He then used immortal essence to shape the spatial stone into a carving knife, inscribing the Five Elements Genesis Array upon its surface. Once carved, he drove the five elemental pearls one by one into the array nodes embedded within the spatial stone. Sinking the five head-sized pearls into the spatial stone was like dropping a single water droplet into a vast river—they blended in completely without a ripple or a splash. Yet, a noticeable transformation came over the spatial stone: the faint gray-white glow it had previously emitted gradually grew purer and brighter, indicating that the array inscribed upon the stone, combined with the five-element essence materials, was beginning to take effect.

Having completed this step, Tang Yi had to wait for a period before proceeding further, as the materials within the smelting furnaces still required time to mature. During this interval, Tang Yi began the creation of his own immortal techniques and spells.

Three months later, the materials had finished smelting. Tang Yi integrated a drop of his own primordial blood essence into the spatial stone to bind it to his soul, channeled a thread of immortal essence into it, and focused his thoughts. With a mental nudge, Tang Yi stepped directly into the interior of the spatial stone, while the stone itself lay quietly upon the crystal jade platform, continuing to emit an increasingly clear and brilliant radiance.

Upon entering the spatial stone, Tang Yi looked around to find a realm of primordial chaos. However, it was slowly growing clearer, and the spiritual breath of the five elements was steadily growing denser—all thanks to the workings of the Five Elements Genesis Array.

The internal volume of a spatial stone was determined strictly by its physical size. If one were to cut a spatial stone, although it could theoretically yield two smaller spatial stones, the internal space would shatter back into chaos, and everything within it would be obliterated. The same catastrophic result would occur if one attempted to fuse two spatial stones together. Furthermore, such feats could only be accomplished by those who had attained the realm of Immortal Emperors. Consequently, no one under normal circumstances would ever attempt such a thing.

What Tang Yi needed to do now was to use these refined materials to reinforce and stabilize the interior of the spatial stone. The spatial stone's interior originally lacked any source of natural light, which required a specialized material known as Heavenly Brilliance Powder. By integrating this powder into the upper vault of the spatial stone, an artificial light source akin to the sun could be generated within, as the powder possessed the property of absorbing external celestial spiritual energy from the immortal realm through the spatial stone's walls and converting it into solar illumination inside.

While the air within the spatial stone would generate itself automatically, it would normally be devoid of any immortal spiritual energy—meaning there would be no ambient immortal or spiritual qi for anyone to cultivate within. However, with the blessing of the Five Elements Genesis Array fueled by the five-element immortal items, the situation was entirely different. It could generate five-element immortal qi within its internal space, making cultivation entirely viable, which explained why such stones could command such astronomical prices at auctions.

After nearly half a year of continuous refining within the spatial stone, coupled with customized modifications of every array he knew, Tang Yi had successfully covered every inch of the spatial stone, both inside and out, with protective and supportive formations.

"Phew! Finally done!" Tang Yi let out a long breath and said. He darted up into the midair of the internal space and inspected every detail carefully, nodding in satisfaction.

Inside the spatial stone now, the sky was a pale, gentle blue, hovering at a height of nearly ten thousand meters, completely free of any oppressive feeling. The ground area spanned nearly two thousand square kilometers. Tang Yi had used earth-shaping techniques to carve out a massive lake nearly a thousand meters deep from what was originally a chaotic landscape, complete with a shoreline of extremely fine, soft sand. True to his habitual love of luxury, those who followed Tang Yi had picked up the exact same bad habits. Just look at this: when Tang Yi returned to the stronghold after finishing the spatial stone mansion, not a single soul was in sight. All five fellows were hiding inside the Immortal Vessel, amusing themselves to their hearts' content! And they were clearly having the time of their lives.

Old man Cangmu was tucked away inside Virtual Pod Number One, lounging on a sandy beach wearing sunglasses while sipping a drink, soaking up the artificial sunlight, and being waited on by bikini-clad virtual beauties.

Hei Gangyan was in Warehouse Number Zero, having dozens of automated robots throw a barbecue feast for him, though heaven only knows where he managed to procure such a massive quantity of meat.

Ling Bing was even more eccentric, having frozen herself solid inside Virtual Pod Number Five, leaving a note hanging on the door that read: "In deep freeze for five hundred years. Wake me up early only if something good happens!"

Little Vajra, that insatiable metallic foodie, stationed himself permanently right beside the smelting foundry, devouring raw metals without a single moment of rest, supposedly in order to break through a cultivation bottleneck.

Little Fire Spirit was holled up in Virtual Pod Number Three, endlessly tweaking and fussing over his video games.

Surveying the scene from the control room, Tang Yi shrugged speechlessly. But when his gaze shifted toward a particular spot, he let out a miserable, blood-curdling howl: "What the hell! My universal stone!"