81: A serendipitous encounter in a mouse hole and "spiritual stone WIFI"

Cleaning up, clearing away the trash.

It sounded simple, but doing it made the group of Cultivators deeply understand the meaning of "starting a business is hard."

The Steel-toothed Rats were truly ruthless characters who chewed through stone like tofu, leaving the entire periphery of Lijian Valley riddled with holes. Abandoned mine shafts had been widened into a labyrinth of rat paths, and the ground was covered everywhere with rubble and dirt they had dug out, mixed with a certain indescribable smell—it was practically impossible to find a place to step.

"Oh, my dear mother," Zhao Iron Pillar pinched his nose, poking at the debris at the entrance of a rat hole with a long tree branch. "Are these rats part dung beetle? They sure can make a mess!"

Wang Wu directed several Agricultural and Labor Hall Disciples, cautiously using Cleansing Wind Spells to clear large areas, but with little success. Senior Brother Li led others to check the structural safety of the abandoned mine shafts, and his voice could be heard from time to time shouting: "This tunnel roof is unstable, stay away!" "There's a pitfall here, mark it!"

Senior Brother Zhang was the busiest. He led the people from the Research Hall, holding various self-made detection Magical Artifacts, poking here and shining lights there. He called it "surveying the geological structure and residual mineral veins," but in reality, his eyes were glowing with greed, as if he wanted to tear apart every stone to see if there was a Treasure Trove hidden inside.

Wen Youyi acted like a foreman, pacing with his hands behind his back on the open ground that had been initially cleared. He stopped occasionally to measure with his feet, muttering to himself: "The view here is open and it's sheltered from the wind, suitable for the headquarters... This side is close to the water source, but the terrain is a bit low; it needs to be raised, otherwise, it'll flood in the rainy season..."

"Boss! Boss! I've found something!" a Research Hall Disciple ran over excitedly, holding a dusty stone with obvious gnaw marks. "Look at this!"

Wen Youyi took the stone; it felt slightly heavy in his hand and the surface was rough, but at the break, there was a faint, almost imperceptible fluctuation of Spiritual Qi.

"Is this... waste residue from raw Spirit Stone ore?" Wen Youyi sensed it carefully. The Spiritual Qi inside was pathetically thin, and the texture was murky. No wonder the Sect had deemed it unworthy of mining; even the Steel-toothed Rats had only taken two bites before tossing it away in disgust.

"It's more than that!" the Disciple said excitedly. "Senior Brother Zhang detected similar weak reactions deep inside several major rat holes! Although the quality is poor, the distribution seems to have... some kind of pattern!"

A pattern?

Wen Youyi's heart stirred, and he immediately followed the Disciple to Senior Brother Zhang's location. It was an entrance to an old mine shaft beneath a cliff face that had been enlarged by Steel-toothed Rats. It was pitch black inside, emitting a heavy smell of earth and rat musk.

Senior Brother Zhang was lying on the ground with a compass-like Magical Artifact in front of him, its needles trembling slightly. "Youyi, you've come at the right time!" He didn't look up, his tone excited. "Strange, so strange! According to the Sect maps and conventional mineral vein distribution, the Spirit Stone veins here should have been exhausted long ago, and any remains should be scattered and chaotic. But these weak spiritual points I've detected, although their energy reaction is very faint, there seems to be... a kind of extremely subtle resonance between them?"

"Resonance?" Wen Youyi crouched down and began to sense carefully as well. He mobilized a sliver of Mental Energy, extending it underground like a tentacle. Sure enough, at the nodes of the abandoned mineral veins that had been gnawed to pieces by the Steel-toothed Rats, he captured a very peculiar phenomenon.

The residual Spiritual Qi that should have been dormant or dissipated had not completely vanished. Instead, it seemed to be constrained by some invisible force, flowing between those nodes at an extremely slow, almost stagnant speed.

It wasn't natural dissipation, nor was it human guidance. It was more like... a spontaneous, inefficient network connection based on some underlying rules?

An absurd yet bold thought flashed through Wen Youyi's mind like a bolt of lightning!

He stood up abruptly, his eyes wide, startling Senior Brother Zhang and the Disciple beside him.

"I think... I understand a bit now!" Wen Youyi's voice trembled slightly with excitement. "Think about it, isn't the 'spirit net' of this world like a giant net covering the entire world, forcibly extracting the spiritual power of Cultivators? And these broken, abandoned mineral vein nodes, for some reason (perhaps geological structure, or perhaps residual Formation marks from the mining back then), still maintain a tiny bit of 'networking' capability. But they are too weak to be effectively identified and utilized by the 'spirit net' main System, just like... like forgotten network nodes with terrible signal!"

Senior Brother Zhang was stunned: "Nodes? Network? Youyi, speak human!"

"Simply put!" Wen Youyi took a deep breath and pointed at the ground. "These abandoned mineral veins might have naturally formed a very, very weak, local, unwanted 'mini spirit net'! Although the signal is poor and the energy is weak, it is independent of that large 'spirit net'!"

An independent network!

These words boomed like thunder in Wen Youyi's heart!

They had been struggling to find a way to evade the "spirit net" harvest. Whether it was the "Human Body Micro-Universe" plan or the "local area network," they were still in the theoretical and conceptual stages. Yet right before them, in this Lijian Valley that everyone regarded as a wasteland, there might naturally exist a ready-made "mini network" beneath the ground—one that was dilapidated but indeed independent!

This was truly... finding it after wearing out iron shoes in a fruitless search! No, it was spending a lot of effort cleaning up, only to pick up a Treasure Trove in a rat hole!

"Quick! mark every node where this weak resonance reaction is detected!" Wen Youyi ordered excitedly. "Senior Brother Zhang, concentrate all the strength of the Research Hall. We need to analyze the structure, scope, and operational rules of this 'mini spirit net'!"

The atmosphere of the entire Mutual Aid Society was ignited once again! The originally tedious cleaning work instantly turned into an exciting "treasure hunt" operation.

Over the next few days, the periphery of Lijian Valley was covered with small flags marked with special paint. The Research Hall Disciples worked day and night to record data and map out the distribution of the nodes.

The results were both heartening and laughable.

This naturally formed "mini spirit net" covered roughly the area of the Lijian Valley periphery occupied by the Steel-toothed Rats. Its shape was very irregular, like a piece of moth-eaten cloth. The flow of Spiritual Qi within the network was incredibly slow, and the energy intensity was pathetically low—it was estimated that it would barely be enough to light up even the lowest-grade illumination talisman.

"What... is the use of this thing?" Zhao Iron Pillar scratched his head as he looked at the densely drawn but pitiful-looking node distribution map. "The energy is so weak, it's not even enough for me to take one breath while I Cultivate."

"Iron Pillar, take the long view!" Wen Youyi held the map like a peerless treasure, his eyes shining. "It doesn't matter if the energy is weak; we can find a way to 'charge' it! The key is its 'independence'! It's not within the jurisdiction of that large 'spirit net,' or rather, it's too broken and small, so it's ignored by the 'main System'!"

He became more and more excited as he spoke: "Think about it, if we can repair and strengthen this network, even if it only covers this small area of Lijian Valley, then when we Cultivate, transmit messages, or even conduct small energy experiments inside, wouldn't it be possible to avoid the 'spirit net's' monitoring and cut?"

"Like... like secretly pulling our own network cable into a dilapidated, unnoticed little dark room?" Senior Brother Zhang tried to understand using Wen Youyi's terminology.

"Yes! Exactly!" Wen Youyi slapped his thigh hard. "Although the internet speed is a bit slow and the signal is a bit poor, it's safe! And hidden!"

He immediately made new deployments: "Research Hall, suspend all other non-critical projects and focus all efforts on two directions: First, study how to safely inject energy into this 'mini spirit net' to enhance its signal strength and coverage stability; second, study how to interface our 'Mind Net' with this 'mini spirit net' and turn it into our exclusive, physically isolated 'Inner Network'!"

"As for this 'mini spirit net'," Wen Youyi looked at the blueprints, rubbed his chin, and showed his signature, slightly mischievous smile, "let's call it... 'spirit stone wifi'! Although the signal is currently so weak that we might not even be able to load a picture, at least it's our own network!"

"Spirit Stone... Wai-Huai?" Everyone chewed on this strange yet fitting name and laughed.

Who would have thought that the key technical Breakthrough in the great cause of resisting high-dimensional harvesting would actually begin in the abandoned mineral veins gnawed out by a group of rats, which everyone had regarded as trash?

Just as Wen Youyi was full of ambition and prepared to go all out on "network infrastructure," Senior Brother Li, who was in charge of external relations, brought some news.

"Youyi, Senior Sister Mu from the Hundred Herbs Pavilion sent word that there's movement over at Black Wind Mountain. The Blood Fiend Cult seems... to be conducting some kind of large-scale blood sacrifice. It's quite a commotion, and the resentment is soaring to the heavens."

Wen Youyi's gaze sharpened.

A blood sacrifice? What are they trying to summon? Or... are they offering a sacrifice to the so-called "The Ones Above"?

He looked at the Lijian Valley base that had just begun to take shape, and then thought of the abnormal movements at Black Wind Mountain.

"The home needs construction, but we can't ignore the 'BUGs' outside either," he muttered to himself. "It looks like I'll have to multi-task."

(End of Chapter)