Laboratory

At dusk, the setting sun melted like gold, draping the winding mountain peaks in a soft, warm glow.

On a steep mountain peak, a figure leaped several times through the lush forest before finally landing before a dark cave entrance.

The figure wore a simple white robe. His tall, slender frame seemed to merge with the evening light of the setting sun. Simply standing upright, he possessed the elegant, unrestrained grace of a jade tree amid fragrant orchids.

That figure was none other than Lin Chen.

He swept his gaze around the surroundings, then strode directly into the cave, swiftly vanishing into that trace of darkness.

The sun slowly sank westward. The evening clouds on the horizon shifted through yellow, orange, red, blue, and purple before finally becoming a deep, brilliant blue.

At this moment, a figure suddenly appeared before the cave. Whether in appearance or build, this person was astonishingly identical to the Lin Chen who had just entered!

"Looks like no one followed me." The figure carefully inspected the area once more before walking straight into the cave entrance.

As the crisp footsteps gradually faded, the cave entrance soon returned to stillness. Time slowly passed, until the bright moon climbed over the ridge.

The evening wind swept through the boundless forest, setting the tree shadows swaying. At this moment, a figure lay hidden within the woods, silently observing the cave entrance.

"Looks like no one really followed me." Lin Chen let out a soft breath.

The ones who had entered earlier were all illusions he had created.

Though illusions created with the means of the Qi Refining Stage could be identified upon close inspection, from a distance, they were easily mistaken for real people.

Coupled with the sounds Lin Chen had created using the Illusion Sound Technique to enhance their realism, it would have been enough to deceive any genuine pursuer.

In the films and television dramas of his previous life, Lin Chen had always seen the protagonist leave on the front foot, only for enemies to follow on the back foot. Coupled with this trip to the Marketplace, Lin Chen felt that it was better to be cautious.

Besides, it was not that he was being excessively cautious. It was because the laboratory inside the cave was exceedingly important to him.

Not only did it contain the research results and records of his past ten years, it also held quite a few precious experimental materials.

If anything were lost or damaged, it would greatly affect Lin Chen's plans to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm and prepare for the Golden Core Realm.

This concerned his Dao Path; he could not afford not to be cautious!

It wasn't that I don't understand the principle of a cunning rabbit having three burrows, but the problem is that building a laboratory is no simple matter. Equipment, safety measures, geographical location—all of it has to be considered. With the productive capacity of the Qi Refining Stage, it's completely impossible to build several...

Lin Chen sighed softly to himself.

Then his entire body suddenly exerted force. Using the tree shadows to move unseen, he was as swift as a cunning rabbit yet landed without a sound. Dressed in black and shielded by the night, he quietly entered the cave.

The cave was Pitch Black. Compared to the outside, its environment was even more gloomy and terrifying, and the surroundings were deathly silent. Yet Lin Chen seemed unaffected as he walked deeper step by step, leaving behind a string of inconspicuous footprints.

After turning several corners within the cave, Lin Chen finally arrived before a Stone Wall.

Clearly, there was no path ahead.

Under normal circumstances, Lin Chen should have gone up to feel around for a certain stone, or activated an array, causing the Stone Wall before him to shift aside and reveal a new path.

But he did not do so. Instead, he closed his eyes and carefully sensed the area.

"No one followed me inside..." Lin Chen muttered in the darkness.

The instant he entered, he had set up Spirit Thread at the cave entrance. If anyone came in, he would sense it.

"Since That's the Case..." Lin Chen cast a glance at the Stone Wall before him. Rather than stepping forward, he slowly backed away, placing his retreating footsteps directly over the tracks he had left when entering.

He had deliberately left that trail of footprints behind. If anyone followed Lin Chen into this cave and proceeded along those tracks, they would fall directly into the trap he had laid.

There really was a passage behind the Stone Wall at the end of the footprints, but it was lined with a large number of Flame Talismans. Lin Chen had hollowed out the mountain beneath the passage and raised countless venomous snakes there. The moment anyone entered, the talismans would explode. Even if the intruder did not die, they would fall into a pit of ten thousand snakes.

Misdirection, traps—Lin Chen did not think there was anything excessive about such measures. In his view, no protection for the laboratory could be considered overkill.

If not for his lack of resources, Lin Chen would have covered the place with talismans, arrays, and curses alike. The more insidious, the better. He would absolutely let any intruder experience what true terror was!

Lin Chen continued backing away along his footprints until he finally reached the first turn after entering the cave. He pressed a stone on the nearby Stone Wall, and an entrance soon appeared before him. Lin Chen immediately slipped inside.

"Ah, if only I had a spirit mountain to myself like those Foundation Establishment Realm elders. Why would I need to go through so much trouble?" After closing the Stone Wall, Lin Chen sighed softly and pressed a hand against a wall to the side. At once, lamps lit up one after another.

Before him was a corridor, with several rooms on either side and a staircase leading downward at the end.

"Tap, tap, tap!"

Accompanied by crisp footsteps, Lin Chen entered the first room on the right. It was a study illuminated by Luminous Pearls, where three ten-meter-long bookshelves stretched across the entire space.

The three bookshelves bore three large labels respectively: [Spiritual Energy], [Cultivation], and [Soul].

Lin Chen walked between the bookshelves, slightly Looked Up, and carefully selected documents from them.

These were all research topics Lin Chen had determined based on the Spiritual Energy Law and the directions he had chosen.

The documents on the top shelves concerned recent research, Closely Related to his current cultivation.

For example: [How to Optimize the Spirit Gathering Array], [The Effects on Cultivation of Artificial Spiritless Regions Caused by Spiritual Energy Extraction Thresholds], [Measurement of the Actual Effects of Pills in Cultivation], [Research on Soul Nurturing Incense Version 3.0], and so on.

The middle shelves contained subjects that Still Need To be researched and demonstrated over the long term.

For example: [On the Relationship Between Spiritual Roots, Cultivation Techniques, and Physiques], [Experiments on Using Spiritual Energy to Replace Spiritual Herbs in Creating Non-toxic Qi Pills], [Measurement of Spiritual Energy and Attempts at Energy Level Leaps], [On Whether the Soul Is the Carrier of Memory or an Aggregate of Spiritual Energy], [Research and Proof Regarding the Third Law of Spiritual Energy]...

As for the dust-covered documents at the bottom, they were matters for which he had ideas and directions, but which were nearly impossible to research.

For example: [On Whether Differential Manifolds Can Be Applied to the Arrangement of Arrays], [Whether the Circulation of Spiritual Energy Within the Human Meridians Can Be Constructed into a Correct Mathematical Model], [Does Spiritual Energy Exhibit Quantum Phenomena], and the like.

Lin Chen raised his hand and took down three documents: [Research on Soul Nurturing Incense Version 3.0], [On the Relationship Between Spiritual Energy Levels and Different Realms], and [The Difference Between Different Realms].

These documents were all recorded on paper. As for why he could not use jade slips, the reason was Very Simple: he did not have enough Spirit Stones.

An ordinary jade slip cost one Spirit Stone apiece, could store information for at most a year, and even had limits on the number of times it could be read.

Coupled With the sheer volume of research materials, using jade slips was generally Not Worth the Gain, so Lin Chen often recorded things on paper.

Lin Chen took down the document, left the room, and walked straight ahead.

At the end of the passage stood a wall. Lin Chen approached it and pressed hard on a certain spot. At once, amid the sound of a mechanism activating, a dim passage entrance appeared before him.

Yet strangely, Lin Chen did not step forward. Instead, he turned around and returned to the room he had just left.

When he opened the door, a staircase leading downward had appeared at the far end of the room originally used to collect materials, though no one knew when.

Clearly, the entrance at the end of the corridor was a trap. Only the passage downward within this room was real.

To Lin Chen, the documents above ground all had backups, so it did not matter even if they were damaged. The experimental specimens and equipment underground were different—those were things he had obtained at great cost.

Tap, tap, tap!

Lin Chen descended the stairs, his crisp Footsteps echoing within.

Beneath his feet lay a cement floor fired through a Trick, while Luminous Pearls embedded in the walls on either side illuminated the place as bright as day.

After walking for an unknown length of time, the Footsteps suddenly stopped. Lin Chen halted and looked ahead.

Under the brilliant light, the sight before him was shockingly a series of floating corpses.

No!

To Be Precise, they were not floating in the air, but suspended inside transparent glass jars.

And there was Not Only one such glass jar. As far as the eye could see, they formed a densely packed expanse.

They were Equipped With countless bizarre objects: the remains of demonic beasts, medicinal herbs made into specimens, and even cultivators' torsos.

Arranged in a peculiar manner, they filled every corner of the room with orderly precision.

If people from his previous life saw this, they would likely take it for a mad scientist's experiment. If cultivators saw it, they would believe this was a Demonic Cultivator's breeding ground for poisonous insects.

And this was precisely Lin Chen's cultivation Laboratory!