Chapter 71 – A mysterious woman

Soon three months pass, during which he helps Isabella integrate her newly acquired bloodlines with her technique, which is easy thanks to the suppression from the Supreme Divine Authority of the dragons from Feicui Long and the Supreme Divine Authority of beasts from Isabella, which "momentarily" Fernando grants her.

He also finishes Isabella's body cultivation technique, which he creates based on his own body refinement one, mixed with Fernando's and the tyrannical body of the abyssal devil god, from Aldebarand. Besides this, Feicui Long starts teaching her inscription mastery, alchemy, and refinement-smithing, because these are useful skills. The funny thing is that in the beginning he doesn't consider them that way when his master forces him to learn them...

He always refuses to do it, but when he starts living alone, he realizes how necessary these skills are, and even more so in his other 6 lives, particularly in this one where he basically relies on them. It may seem unnecessary, like someone else will do it for you, but it's really not like that. If, for example, you find a medicinal treasure, a high-level plant whose full medicinal power can only be extracted through alchemy, you'll need an alchemist.

Most of them, even if they accept, will ask for a portion of what they produce, and that's if they accept and actually do it, because they could accept and then steal it from you, and you normally won't be able to do anything since such a good alchemist will be backed by a powerful force, and you as a loner won't be able to do anything. But even if you do have a force behind you, your force won't reach a good level without these same people, so no matter how you look at it, it becomes a necessity. And as for time, it's not a problem for cultivators...

Isabella progresses quickly, although her internal cultivation remains at elemental realm grade 7, but after all, she has to make sure her external cultivation catches up with the internal one to avoid major imbalances. For his part, he manages to bring his body cultivation to grade 7, stabilizing his foundation, but he chooses not to progress since he has a lot to do and that is...

He has to finish what's in front of him right now, a building. Even though it's only one story, you can see how big it is. Feicui Long looks at all the girls and says: "Alright, let's go see it. After all, all of you helped build it, some less, others more, but that doesn't matter."

Feicui Long finally begins to reveal to them what the building is: "These three months that we have dedicated everything mainly to the construction of the shared workshop, for inscriptions, alchemy, and refinement-smithing. Originally, I wanted it to be a heptagon of 700 m2 (7534.74 ft2), the same size as the house with the expansions I later made, but after making the plan I realize I need to expand it, for my plan."

Feicui Long, a little proud, says: "I design it in such a way that it is a building in three stages, a nonagon of 700 m2 on the outer part, the inner part a pentagon of 700 m2, and the original core which is already partly built, a heptagon of 700 m2, 2100 m2 total. This consumes approximately 30.9% to 33.3% of the blocks in the spatial storage boxes, which by the way have a capacity of 35 m3 (35.3147 ft3)."

All the girls look on in awe but also with great confusion. They don't clearly understand why such a complex design.

Arianne even asks him: "This looks really complicated, for something aesthetic that you can't even see unless you climb the small hill next to it."

Feicui Long laughs a little and says: "I'm planning for it to have more floors. The nonagon part should have 3 floors, the pentagon 5, and the heptagon 7, with the possibility of expanding it to 5, 7, and 9 if needed. That's why I place powerful reinforced columns. But also, this actually isn't just for pure aesthetics, it has another reason."

Feicui Long opens the door made purely of black iron and materials from energetic beasts to show them the inside: "I know this structure is very particular, but it's to take advantage of one of the ten master formations I placed, called the Celestial Ninth Palace Formation. It's a formation from my master and it's used to harmonize different master formations, energies, laws, and also provide better control and handling of all."

Feicui Long scratches his chin and recalling says: "Based on what she explained to me, this formation gets enhanced if the structure of the nine palaces, the five elemental gates, and the seven heavens is used. And it's that besides the 10 formations I use, I include 5 of mine from formations of absolute craft-level quality, three masterpieces and two works of art."

Feicui Long looks at all of them and they seem to have understood at least up to the point of why the weird structure. It's obvious not all of them understand how impactful the quality of the formations used is. Or so he thinks, because Arianne, whose dream has always been to become a master of inscription to be an alchemist, has her eyes sparkle.

She immediately says: "Absolute craft-level quality, having so many should already put you in the top 10 of this universe!"

Mariane, who looks proud because these mortals finally start to see the greatness of her master, though ironically she herself is a member of the mortal races, even if she considers herself like any other dragon, says: "Well, that's because my master is top 4, and only barely surpassed by the Supreme Goddess of inscription mastery, refinement, and alchemy. And that's just because his logical lines of energy are slightly inferior to hers."

Feicui Long then starts describing the functions of each formation, although he does not point out each one because once assembled it is difficult to tell them apart, so most of those present are not even capable of saying which is which, except for Mariane: "One of the masterpieces is for encryption and coding, it serves to protect, hide the others, and make them harder to damage or decode and decrypt, also to prevent espionage. Another one is for defense, which increases resistance and toughness, but it can also produce a barrier. The last one is for attack and slaughter. The two works of art, one is for energy collection and storage, configured to use any energy but especially fueled by dragon energy, spatial energy, and time energy. The other is the support master formation to improve quality, efficiency, effectiveness, among other things."

Arianne and the others look curious, but even though they try, they can't distinguish which is which, and in Arianne's case, she runs her hand over them trying to understand the formations that way.

Feicui Long continues after that: "The other four are divided like this. Two are originally from his sister, the Supreme Goddess of inscription mastery, alchemy, and refinement. A very talented girl who, despite the divine authority giving her a lot of knowledge, doesn't stay only with that, but improves by herself. That's why she holds three different positions, in the top three of the three areas. She holds third place in inscription mastery, second in alchemy, and first in refinement-smithing. A pity she's not on my side…"

Although he does not say this last part and only thinks it, since he does not want to scare them, because aside from Mariane who has already seen everything for herself, only Isabella who saw his memories is the other one who knows the true power of the enemies, his sister, who especially counts on her god-killer warships.

They may not have as much power as Feicui Long's mobile fortresses, but they are more agile, can launch more attacks because they consume less energy, and best of all, they can use any type of energy. While Feicui Long's fortresses can only use his three energies and the three laws, which makes them very powerful, this also means they are specialized in attack, defense, and resistance or agility and speed. His sister's are more adaptable and can do many things. In that multiversal war, these ships kill billions.

Feicui Long can only sigh for having such an annoying enemy, but in any case proceeds to explain: "These two formations of my sister, the first one is called the wonder of the infinity of creations, and the other, the divine containment formation. One serves as support to improve the quality of creations but also to facilitate complex processes. The other one is to contain, seal, and preserve objects."

Feicui Long, now calmer, says: "The last two he obtains from the top 2 in inscription mastery. By the way, the top 1 is my master. From this girl, the top 2, I obtain the celestial matrix of logical operations. It is the neural network to handle the others, guide energies and laws, as well as stabilize them during the process. The second one is the formation of the labyrinth of the void, a formation for imprisonment, for entrapment, and several other related functions."

Gloria, curious, asks: "So what's the cost of all this? It can't be exactly cheap even if we ignore the building itself, which is made of emerald-colored granite on top."

Mariane then starts to explain: "My master puts everything into this marvel. Even though he uses materials of mortal-quality level, he makes everything work. In fact, to create all this, he uses 500 energy stones and 50 energy crystals. But even that is not enough. We all have to hunt a few hundred beasts, monsters, and other energy beings, regardless of their realm or grade. In total, we use 1500 of those cores, and we also refine the blood of those who had it to complement."

Mariane continues explaining: "We also use an important part of the energy metals that my master brings, one third just in the preparation of the formation, since we don't only need cyan copper to improve the circuits of the formation inscriptions, but also for unifying them. And also iron for the formation anchors, which my master, Callista, Melisa, and I…"

Feicui Long also teaches the twin girls beforehand to use these skills, just like he teaches them to Mariane when he is in his first life. In any case, the four of them work like crazy to produce a total of 2100 anchors.

Mariane continues talking: "Thanks to my master preparing the furnaces in the part that was already built before they left for the Skylion family palace, now it is true that the twins are at a lower level than the two of us. I personally am close to their level, but thanks to the master's support formation, the quality doesn't vary much. In total, there is only a 1% variance and uncertainty. In fact, to make sure that the quality wouldn't affect the formation, he chooses that we create so many."

As they keep touring the building, all of them notice it is a bit empty, although the outer part does have several notable features.

Mariane, who has paused for a moment, resumes the explanation: "Not counting everything we put in, although most of the building is empty on the inside and in the core, the outer part has a massive alchemy furnace, a massive refinement furnace, a massive inscription design table, along with smaller versions, 10 in total."

In the core building is the most important warehouse and it is divided into rooms, with one special and exclusive for Feicui Long and his disciples, with the ultra-secret warehouse that also hides the formation core, with a special mechanism that looks like the floor and with formations.

Feicui Long thinks about the great cost of this core which perhaps is the most valuable of all, since… he uses many things starting with the cheapest of all, he uses three of the five dragon energy crystals of mortal quality level, grade 9, that Isabella's sworn uncle, Robert, gave him, he also uses the energy stone core that he has been keeping as a treasure for energy storage…

But he also uses 7 of the 21 drops of his dragon blood that Mariane integrates and 3 of his own, since Mariane integrates the blood he gives her, which by the way he doesn't make her replace the previous one, since she has always had a slightly mysterious strange lineage, in any case thanks to her integration, she can now produce the three types of blood, the normal, the essence, and the origin blood, in any case he uses 7 of those drops from Mariane with 3 of his own, reducing the 14 remaining since he gives 7 of those drops and another 3 of his own to Isabella, for her to integrate them with her technique, something terribly valuable that if a true dragon saw it, it would cry tears of blood.

Lastly… he uses as the central piece his reverse scale, one of the most important and valuable parts of a dragon, although the myth says it is the weak point of a dragon, it is actually false, what happens is that this scale is partially linked to a dragon's powers, if it is lost it will only lose a little control over those powers and weaken them a bit, the reason why dragons react so violently is because this makes them lose power, the fifth most important thing for the dragon race and also hurts their pride, so it truly is a very valuable piece where one of the purest powers can be found…

All the women end up quite impressed, at the end of the tour, they look at Feicui Long in silence until Caroline, curious, asks: "I know it's for your plan, but why do you want something so big, wouldn't the original size be enough for a workshop that only you, Mariane, the twins, and Isabella are going to use?"

Feicui Long pauses for a moment organizing his words and then says: "It's true that for now it will be just us, even with the 250 slaves I plan to buy, since although I can buy alchemists, refiners-blacksmiths, and inscription masters, they will mostly be apprentices and would be extremely expensive, but even so I want to leave it prepared, so that in the future who knows maybe it will be one of the main sources of income, also the massive stations allow us to create various things in large quantities."

Upon hearing this Arianne's eyes light up she has always dreamed of becoming an inscription master to be able to be an alchemist… maybe this is her chance…

…

Feicui Long after this, starts improving the private garden formation, with several anchors specifically designed for this, these anchors are enhanced with a growth acceleration formation, to help even more with the growth, also for the core he is improving it with the 5 wood element energy crystals, all of this would reduce the growth time from 3 months to 2 and a half months and with the crystals to 2 months.

But he is not only improving it, he expands the garden to 5 times the size, since in its current state, although it produces 4 times more food than they can consume, that is, food for 12 adults and 5 children and therefore could feed 5 times that amount of people, that is, 60 adults and 25 children, when he brings the 250 it would not be nearly enough, so he has to expand the formation to 5 times the size to have leftover food, also because he wants to grow some medicinal energy plants for alchemy, they won't always be able to rely on collecting them to produce medicines and other things.

After that Feicui Long goes to improve the aura projection formation, likewise he uses personalized anchors for this and then goes to the core, this time he is being "accompanied" by Arianne who since he was improving the garden one has been following him but he really doesn't care much.

The aura projection formation, he plans to do something more special to it, since for this he has asked Isabella for 10 drops of blood from the eastern green divine dragon before she integrates the bloodline, he is going to replace the fake dragon blood fruit, although the formation is improved to imitate the aura of a true dragon, it is better to use true dragon blood and as for why he doesn't use his own, it's simple, his has a very particular aura known by his believers… but also by his enemies.

So even though he can reduce the power and strength of the blood aura, to avoid drawing attention it would be too difficult to eliminate those unique traits, something that is solved by using this blood, with that in mind he extends his hand and with it the hidden core comes out, he starts rewriting the formation little by little, while he removes the liquid from the fake dragon blood fruit and puts it in a bottle.

Then in front of the liquid crystal core he places the 10 drops of blood which behave violently for a moment, but at the moment they feel Feicui Long's aura they calm down like a scolded child, after doing this he hides the core even more, even putting a black iron lid with a formation that has the carving coated in cyan copper and purple tin to increase the energy flow, the formation is one of concealment.

With this, the formation that had been momentarily deactivated becomes active again with greater strength thanks to the powerful force of those drops of blood. Before, with the fake dragon blood fruit, the formation only covered at the point where the maximum power was 0.25 km² (250,000 m² or 61 acres), but with the drops of blood it can cover much more, so much that for now he sets it only to 1 km² (1 million m² or 247.1 acres) where the maximum power lies.

Feicui Long is satisfied with this, they could have quite a large town in the future, just covering 0.25 would already be enough for a town of one to two thousand people, but considering that he needs walls, farms, it is better to expand from the start to a moderate size, besides this already covers part of Peridot Serpent Mountain.

While he is thinking about this, a scream from some running girls comes: "Daddy, daddy, a strange lady fainted, Sister Callista needs you to come help…"