The Might of the Ice Formation

However, the honey had to be collected no matter what. Long Xuan looked at the fist-sized queen bee in his palm, coughed lightly, and said kindly, "Bingbing, your relatives have been staying in my Medicine Garden for so long, it's time for them to pay their taxes."

"This Medicine Garden is mine, and they've taken up residence Medicine Garden. Don't you think they should pay taxes?"

"All the spirit medicine here were painstakingly grown by me, and the pollen they collected is all mine. Since they took my things, shouldn't they pay taxes?"

"Their hives are protected by my Ice Formation, shielding them from predators. They're 100% safe living here, so shouldn't they pay a protection tax?"

"I've carefully calculated it for you: scenery tax, safety tax, drinking water tax, single person tax, honey collection tax, income tax, property tax, asset tax, protection tax, head tax, breathing tax, sunbathing tax, peaceful and prosperous life tax, land value-added tax, arable land occupation tax, environmental protection tax..."

Long Xuan counted the taxes on his fingers, but eventually found that ten fingers were not enough, so he had to give up.

Okay! That's all I can think of for now. I'll add more later if I think of anything else.

"These taxes combined aren't much; each household only needs to hand over half of their honey each month."

"Go and collect taxes from each household right now. Anyone who resists will not be given royal jelly to drink in the future."

Long Xuan pointed excitedly, then suddenly paused, wondering if he had been too harsh.

Those Spirit Bee are all obsessed with honey; harvesting their honey is like taking their lives. Won't that force them to rebel?

Let's hope Bingbing isn't overthrown as soon as she takes over as queen bee.

He realized that if he wanted to increase the number of Ice Bee and make them combat-ready as soon as possible, he had to provide them with plenty of food, as the more food they had, the faster they would reproduce.

Besides, I'm all alone, and my appetite is limited. I can't eat that much honey, and taking too much would be a complete waste.

Based on these three considerations, Long Xuan changed his mind about increasing the tax rate by 50% and decided to only charge 20%, entrusting Bingbing with the task of collecting the tax.

Bingbing seemed very interested in collecting honey from door to door. She swallowed hard and couldn't wait to get started.

With the queen bee's bloodline suppressing them, and the coercion and enticement of royal jelly, all the Spirit Bee obediently submitted.

There are no peasant uprisings in the world of spirit beasts; Long Xuan is completely overthinking it.

But to his surprise, this clever little devil dared to disobey his orders and collected twice as much honey. As for the extra honey, it took it all to its own home.

If Long Xuan knew what it had done, I wonder if he would be furious.

After successfully collecting the honey, Long Xuan was in a great mood. He immediately made a cup of honey water, used the Divine Ice Flame to create some crushed ice, added it to the honey water, and took a delicious sip.

After drinking the cool honey water, he immediately felt a refreshing sensation throughout his body. The sweetness was mixed with the fragrance of flowers, and the icy coolness was simply indescribable.

The honey made from fourth-grade pollen was indeed delicious and did not disappoint Long Xuan. After drinking a cup, he immediately showed an expression of intoxication.

"This is life! A glass of honey water, and I'm as happy as a god!"

"Indeed! Nowhere is as comfortable or safe as staying at home." Long Xuan raised his cup and sighed.

However, just as he finished speaking, the Ice Formation suddenly began to shake violently, as if it had been violently struck by something.

Long Xuan was startled by this sudden turn of events, which also interrupted his reflections.

What's going on? We just agreed that staying at home would be safe. Where else could there be danger? Could a meteorite fall from the sky? Long Xuan was shocked.

Just then, the Killing Formation of the Ice Formation seemed to be triggered by something, and one after another, icy blue fireballs flew out of the sky and crashed into the distance.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh..."

Long Xuan felt the sound of fireballs whistling past his ears, and countless fireballs flew over his head. In an instant, it was as if fire was falling from the sky, madly crashing down on the outside of the formation.

Soon, a barrage of explosions erupted outside the formation, the dense sounds of bombardment echoing endlessly, as if the earth were being bombarded by eight artillery regiments in succession, causing the ground to tremble violently.

"Is this Shulia's firepower?" Long Xuan was stunned by the terrifying sight.

Although he had set up the Ice Formation, he hadn't expected Ice Formation firepower to be so intense. This was the first time he had activated the Killing Formation Ice Formation, and the first time he had witnessed its offensive power.

Long Xuan immediately ran in the direction of the fireball. When he reached the edge of the formation, he saw a group of spirit beasts attacking his Medicine Garden. He finally understood what was going on.

Although the Beast Tide has been intercepted by the Gu Cultivator Alliance, complete interception is simply impossible.

Small groups of beasts still occasionally slip through the defensive line and venture deep into the rear of the human world.

There are already news reports of spirit beasts slaughtering villages.

Clearly, this herd of beasts must have been the stragglers who broke through the front lines, penetrated deep into the heart of the territory after passing through multiple defensive lines, and were preparing to plunder Great Stone Village.

However, Long Xuan's large Medicine Garden is right in front of Great Stone Village, which happens to be the only way for the spirit beast army to pass through.

As a result, his large Medicine Garden was naturally subjected to a fierce attack by the spirit beast army. The spirit beasts seemed to want to take the opportunity to wipe out this stronghold. This was truly a disaster that came out of nowhere, and it was not safe to stay at home.

Was I somehow taking the blame for Great Stone Village?

Long Xuan was stunned for a moment, but despite the massive attack on his Medicine Garden by the spirit beast army, he was not flustered at all.

In this world, the strength of Gu cultivators and the power of formations are completely disproportionate.

Don't underestimate him just because he's only a lowly Gu cultivator at the Spirit Gathering Stage; his Ice Formation is far beyond the attack power of a Gu cultivator at that Spirit Gathering Stage.

If the attack power of the formation were equal to the cultivation level of the Gu cultivator, how could Master Jin dare to settle in the wild, or Di Xin dare to settle in the grasslands?

An array with the attack power of Spirit Gathering Stage would never give them such a great sense of security.

Long Xuan's formation was inherited from Master Jin's cave-protecting formation, and with the addition of the Divine Ice Flame as the Formation Eye artifact, its power increased several times over. How could an ordinary beast horde possibly break through?

Just look at the firepower in the sky; it's enough to show how powerful this formation is.

"You think you can just break through my Ice Formation like that? You're overestimating yourselves! You've messed with the wrong person! You're finished!"

Looking at the army of spirit beasts fiercely attacking the formation, Long Xuan revealed a disdainful expression.

The fireballs in the sky rained down like rain, the dense barrage of fireballs fiercely bombarding the beast horde, causing screams of agony to erupt from the animals.

The ground was covered with inextinguishable frost flames. The spirit beasts engulfed by the flames were either burned to death or turned into ice sculptures.

Their thin Spirit Armor was completely useless, like paper, and the cold flames could burn through it with ease.

The power of the Divine Ice Flame far surpasses that of Long Xuan's Blazing Flame Palm. If you are hit head-on by the Divine Ice Flame, then even if you are a peak first-tier spirit beast or a beast king, you will die instantly.

This army of spirit beasts was incredibly unlucky; they accidentally stumbled into such a Peerless Vicious Formation. They were truly cursed beyond measure...

This horde of beasts numbers around five hundred, quite a large number, and includes all sorts of spirit beasts, even air force units that fly in the sky—it's a ragtag army.

However, the firepower of the Ice Formation was simply too intense, and this small number of beasts was no match for it.

Dense fireballs bombarded the center of the beast horde, relentlessly raining down on their heads. In the blink of an eye, the entire spirit beast army was decimated, with most of the beasts killed or wounded, and all of them stunned by the blasts.

Even flying spirit beasts in the sky could not escape their fate; dense fireballs swept across the sky like anti-aircraft missiles.

The flying spirit beast nimbly dodged, avoiding one, then the second... but ultimately couldn't dodge the tenth.

After being hit by the fireball, it screamed in agony, its entire body enveloped in blue flames, and plummeted from the sky, crashing heavily to the ground.

If you're lucky, it will land directly on the back of a ground-based spirit beast, burning the beast to death along with it.

The scene was nothing short of hell on earth. Fire was everywhere, from the sky to the ground, leaving no place to put your feet. The fire burned endlessly on the ground, scalding your feet, and the screams of spirit beasts filled the air.

This army of spirit beasts suffered heavy losses in just one encounter; countless spirit beasts perished in the sea of fire, a truly horrific scene.

When the army of spirit beasts realized that this was a forbidden area that could not be attacked, it was too late to escape.

The Killing Formation had an extremely large attack range and was incredibly powerful. Even though the remaining spirit beasts were frantically trying to escape, they were killed in droves. It was unknown how long it would take them to get out of the Killing Formation's attack range.

In the end, only a few dozen spirit beasts were lucky enough to escape; the entire rest of the main force perished here—it was truly a tragedy.

After all the spirit beasts died, the fireballs finally stopped pouring down, the great formation slowly began to operate, and it returned to its original calm state.

If it weren't for the corpses of beasts and the Earth Flame scattered here, telling what had just happened, it would be hard to imagine that a fierce battle had just taken place here, and that this seemingly stable formation could have such terrifying destructive power.

Long Xuan was still in a daze. The terrifying scene of fire falling from the sky was so visually stunning and spectacular that it was even more intense than the special effects in a blockbuster movie. He found it incredibly exciting.

He took a deep breath, his eyes gleaming with excitement, and quickly rushed out of the formation.

There are five hundred animal carcasses outside, and a whole lot of materials left behind. We've struck it rich!

You must know that his Divine Ice Flame is different from normal flames. Normal flames would burn a spirit beast to ashes, leaving nothing behind, including the Spirit Insect parasitizing its body.

His Divine Ice Flame is different. Most of the creatures burned by the Divine Ice Flame will turn into ice sculptures, while their animal bodies will be preserved intact.

Moreover, frozen meat can remain fresh for a long time, so he could sell it to Qian Clan Tavern and make a small fortune.

There are five hundred animal carcasses here; they could make a fortune just by selling the meat.

Long Xuan was overjoyed and called his clones back to retrieve a large number of Storage Bag. Then they began to scavenge for treasures all over the place.

There were a full five hundred beast corpses, some big and some small. It would take him half a day to collect them all, and he didn't know if his Storage Bag would be enough.

When Long Xuan casually stuffed an elephant into his Storage Bag, he saw the ice sculptures closest to him and couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear.

"Hey! Isn't that the legendary Beast King? How are you guys?"

Long Xuan laughed loudly. After seeing what kind of beast king was inside the ice sculpture, his eyes lit up and his smile widened.

Good heavens, this tiger king is actually Overlord Tiger!

The Overlord Tiger possessed abnormal defensive capabilities, but it still couldn't withstand the damage from the Divine Ice Flame. It was instantly killed before it could even unleash its full power, making its death truly unjust.

Most importantly, after a year, Flame Clone has collected almost all the Supreme-grade Spirit Insect and beast materials needed for the Dragon Gu Recipe.

All that's missing is a Supreme-grade Spirit Insect related to tigers and a tiger king's beast material.

His Gu Recipe is only missing a part of the tiger king's paw to completely complete the puzzle of the Divine Dragon.

And just as expected, the Tiger King beast materials that Flame Clone hadn't collected for a long time actually came to him on their own.

Not only did it deliver a perfect tiger paw, but coincidentally, there was also a Supreme-grade Spirit Insect in its Spirit Core.

With both top-quality materials in hand, the Dragon Gu Recipe now has all the most difficult-to-collect materials.

Although the remaining materials, large and small, are numerous, they can all be purchased with Spirit Stone, so there's no need to worry.

In other words, when he created the Dragon Gu Recipe, he could refine the Gu on the same day, which was incredibly efficient.

At first, he was worried about how to collect so many top-quality materials, and whether it would take ten years to collect them all.

I never expected that the materials for the Gu Recipe would be prepared before it was even created. Life is truly unpredictable.

The elephant was quite heavy. After putting it into the Storage Bag, he felt a bit tired. So, as usual, he handed over all the dirty and hard work to his clones to get some exercise, while he supervised their workout.

After putting the tiger king, now an ice sculpture, into his Storage Bag, he once again revealed a smug smile; he had indeed had a lot of happy things happen today.

However, just as he was walking into the Medicine Garden, his gaze, which had already moved, suddenly turned back to the spot he had just looked at.

He couldn't help but rub his eyes, and when he looked at that spot again, his expression changed drastically.

"Damn it! Where are my Spirit Stone?!"

Long Xuan was completely dumbfounded. He ran Formation Eye towards the center of the formation and hurriedly touched the empty air with his hand.

This is the backup energy source for the formation. There are mountains of Spirit Stone to power the formation, but it's completely empty now, without even a single Spirit Stone.

"Where are my Spirit Stone?! I have such a huge Spirit Mountain!"

Long Xuan was on the verge of collapse; his smug smile from just moments before had vanished.

At this point, he was forced to confront a terrifying truth: people must believe in science and the law of conservation of energy.

The more terrifying the attack power generated by the formation, the more energy is needed to create such terrifying attack power.

The sky was like it was on fire just now, which was quite exciting to watch, but the energy consumption was also quite intense. Attack power and energy consumption are directly proportional.

If he wasn't mistaken, the array's energy reserves seemed to have been depleted by the previous barrage of attacks.

This is tragic; extreme joy turns to sorrow.

Extremes beget their opposites; if a formation is too powerful, it may not necessarily be a good thing.

It seems he acquired five hundred beast materials effortlessly, but if the cost of the formation is taken into account, he might not have earned much.

That was clearly an overkill, resulting in too much unnecessary waste.

It was also his first time being inexperienced and he made a mistake; sometimes, you really can't let the formation handle everything automatically.

The formation has three sources of energy. One source is the spiritual energy from nature. The formation absorbs spiritual energy from the air every moment to maintain its daily operation, ensuring that the formation is always running.

The second source is the spiritual energy storage facility at the center of the formation, which is also where Spirit Stone are stored. Each formation needs to store a massive amount of Spirit Stone here, and the higher the grade of the Spirit Stone, the better. Of course, it would be even better if there were higher-grade energy sources available.

If the spiritual energy in the air cannot sustain the energy consumption of the formation, then the formation will draw upon the spiritual energy of the Spirit Stone here.

The third energy source comes from the treasure at the Formation Eye. This third energy source has the highest energy level and is related to the formation's maximum attack power and upper limit, providing the formation with the greatest power.

Activating the Killing Formation will inevitably increase energy consumption. The meager spiritual energy in the air is definitely not enough, and we will have to use the Spirit Stone from the reserve.

The terrifying sight of the sky turning into a fiery inferno just now must have consumed a lot of energy; otherwise, something strange would have happened.

It's perfectly normal for Spirit Stone to run out...