Chapter 196: Arrangements

As Han Li continued to delve deeper underground, the temperature in the surrounding air rose rapidly, becoming increasingly scorching, but the tunnel also grew wider and wider, reaching a height of over a hundred zhang at its highest point.

Han Li followed the Essence Fire Bird ahead, occasionally sweeping his gaze across the cave walls on both sides.

The walls of this tunnel were quite smooth, with many places bearing traces of artificial repair.

"Could it be that Fire Refining Elder..." he speculated inwardly.

From this person's title, it was clear that he likely cultivated a fire-attribute technique; the fire-attribute energy here was so rich, it was the perfect place for seclusion.

Thus, the one who set up the prohibitions outside to cover up the truth must have been him.

After less than the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the dull rumbling grew louder and louder, as if countless thunderclaps were rolling.

For some reason, the Essence Fire Bird suddenly doubled its speed.

Seeing this, Han Li naturally sped up to keep pace.

Before they had flown far, his vision brightened, and a vast fiery world appeared before him—a huge underground cavern, thousands of zhang in size.

Above the cavern hung stalactites, fiery red in color, their surfaces covered with blazing flames.

Below was a massive lake of magma, above which floated a layer of fiery red clouds that seemed to burn like flames.

The magma in the lake churned and surged, with huge bubbles occasionally rising and bursting, emitting sounds like muffled thunder.

Fist-sized balls of fiery red light emerged from the bubbles and drifted away.

"Fire Essences!" Han Li's eyes lit up.

The entire underground space was filled with blazing red light, as if the void itself were burning. The temperature had reached an inconceivable level, and even with Han Li's powerful True Immortal body, he felt parched.

Gusts of hot wind blew from the lake surface, stinging his skin with pain.

Yet, seeing this, the Essence Fire Bird was exceptionally excited.

The bird flapped its wings, turning into a silver-white shadow that circled the space, occasionally snatching up clumps of Fire Essences and swallowing them. Sometimes it even flew directly into the magma below, disappearing in an instant, only to burst out from another spot, utterly carefree.

Han Li's heart stirred at this sight.

The richness of the underground fire vein here far exceeded his expectations; no wonder that Fire Refining Elder had used prohibitions to conceal this place.

The Essence Fire Bird would absorb the flame energy here and would likely recover soon.

But it seemed something was still missing...

He took a deep breath, his expression calming, and flicked his sleeve.

Hundreds of red beams shot out—rows of fiery red array flags that landed above the magma lake, forming a huge formation.

As he chanted incantations and shot out hand seals, the entire formation slowly activated. Each array flag emitted red light, coalescing into a massive fiery red formation.

The Essence Fire Bird seemed to grasp its master's intent, immediately ceasing its play and flapping its wings to land at the center of the formation.

The next moment, the flame energy of the entire underground space, as if summoned, converged toward the formation, swirling layer upon layer around the Essence Fire Bird, quickly forming a huge fiery red cocoon.

Han Li rose into the air, flashed, and stopped before a cave wall in the underground cavern. He flipped his hand and produced a giant fiery red brush, waving it to inscribe countless huge runes, forming a flame-shaped pattern.

Then he flickered and appeared before another cave wall, again wielding the giant brush to carve out a flame pattern.

Soon, eight flame patterns were inscribed by Han Li's hand, surrounding the giant cocoon.

Only then did Han Li flip his hand to put away the giant brush and begin chanting incantations.

Hum!

The eight flame patterns all burst into dazzling light, quickly connecting to form another huge formation, enveloping the giant cocoon.

The two formations faintly resonated with each other.

Rumble!

The underground space trembled slightly, and more flame energy surged in, merging into the fiery red cocoon.

At this moment, Han Li could clearly sense that the Essence Fire Bird's power was steadily increasing every moment, and a hint of satisfaction finally appeared in his eyes.

He then made a round of the underground cavern, confirming that both formations were operating smoothly, before returning through the tunnel to the outside.

After a brief glance around, he flicked his sleeve, and beams of light shot out, landing near the valley, quickly forming a huge prohibition that covered the entire valley again.

Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Having resolved the issue with the Essence Fire Bird, Han Li was in high spirits. Instead of immediately flying back to the mountaintop, he flew out of Red Cloud Peak.

Since the sixty thousand li around Red Cloud Peak would henceforth be his territory within the Candle Dragon Sect, he naturally wanted to take a good look and make some preparations.

Thus, spending half a day, Han Li roughly toured the entire territory and set up some sensing formations at various points to prevent anyone from sneaking in.

Within the entire territory, the core Red Cloud Peak was naturally the convergence point of spirit veins, with the richest天地灵气.

However, besides this peak, he also discovered two small spirit lands that were passable by Northern Cold Immortal Domain standards, and over a dozen decent mineral veins.

Most of the mineral veins had been largely mined, while the two small spirit lands had been turned into plots of spirit fields, but they had been abandoned for who knows how many years without care.

If it were other True Immortal elders, they would naturally assign more servants to exploit such spirit fields and mineral veins as a long-term source of spirit stone income.

But Han Li had no interest in this, at least for now. He soon flew back to the top of Red Cloud Peak.

"Elder Li!" Yun Menggui and the others stood in a row at the entrance of the courtyard, bowing to Han Li as he descended gracefully.

Everywhere on the mountaintop had been cleaned spotlessly, and the pavilions and towers looked brand new.

The bamboo and pine trees seemed washed, verdant and dripping; in the small bridge and river, a group of golden fish swam among the green lotus leaves, playing and creating a delightful scene.

Han Li nodded in satisfaction, assigned a few rooms on the periphery of the cave dwelling to Yun Menggui and the others, and sent them off to rest.

Han Li inspected various parts of the cave dwelling, set up some prohibitions, and then came to the spirit medicine garden.

Since this garden was outside, he naturally wouldn't plant truly valued spirit medicines here, but leaving it empty would also arouse suspicion.

After a moment's deliberation, Han Li divided the garden into several areas and took out some common spirit medicine seeds to sow.

He had done such things countless times and was already adept.

Before long, a brand-new medicine garden took shape.

Han Li flipped his hand and produced a jade pot, gently waving it.

A stream of pale green liquid shot out, landing on various parts of the garden.

Then he waved his hand, and a burst of green light shot out, enveloping the entire medicine garden.

Tiny green sprouts emerged from the ground, exuding a tender green vitality.

A smile appeared on Han Li's face. He then turned, walked through the courtyard, and went straight to the cave dwelling on the mountain wall. With a flick of his sleeve, he opened the cave door and strode in.

From the outside, this cave dwelling seemed unremarkable, but inside it was a different world. At first glance, there were over a dozen rooms, including alchemy rooms and artifact refinement rooms—saving him a lot of trouble.

Compared to the courtyard in front, Han Li naturally preferred the environment here. Probably the previous owner of the cave dwelling thought the same.

After a brief consideration, he began to make modifications, converting the most secluded stone chamber into a small medicinal garden, and opening up another stone chamber near the mountain wall, drilling countless small holes in the wall to allow moonlight and starlight to shine into the room in the future, so that the Bottle Gourd could absorb them.

After arranging everything inside the cave dwelling, Han Li walked out again, intending to set up a few more layers of prohibitions on the outermost perimeter.

But just as he was about to cast a spell, his body suddenly stiffened. He turned around and looked toward the spirit medicine garden beside the courtyard.

In the garden, most of the newly sprouted spirit herbs had withered, with only a few still alive.

"What's going on?"

Han Li's face darkened. He walked over quickly and pulled out a withered spirit herb.

Its seed roots were completely withered, blackened as if burned by fire.

He pulled out a few other spirit herbs, and the situation was the same. However, a few types of spirit herbs in the garden were growing well, full of vitality, with no signs of withering.

Han Li immediately spread out his divine sense, and before long, he found the possible cause.

Because the underground fire vein had been uncontrolled for years, its abundant fire spiritual power had gradually seeped upward, causing all the soil on Red Cloud Peak to contain rich fire-attribute spiritual power.

Such an environment was very suitable for the growth of fire-attribute spirit herbs, but if other attribute spirit herbs were planted in this garden, they could not survive.

Han Li looked at the few well-growing spirit herbs in the garden; they were all fire-attribute.

He frowned slightly. Red Cloud Peak actually had this trouble.

No wonder Red Cloud Peak was neglected. When he chose this place, Yu Xiansheng and Qi Liang both had strange expressions.

After a moment's thought, Han Li's brow soon relaxed.

Although this situation seemed troublesome, it was not unsolvable. There were still many ways to isolate the influence of the underground spirit vein, such as setting up prohibitive formations with isolation effects.

Although this would affect the spirit herbs' absorption of earthly vein spiritual energy, he was not too worried, as he used the green liquid produced in the Bottle Gourd to accelerate growth, which had little requirement for earthly vein spiritual energy.

As for the medicine garden beside the courtyard, since it was only for camouflage, he could simply switch to planting some fire-attribute spirit herbs.

With this thought, he stopped dwelling on it and began to busy himself again.