Countless array patterns swirled around Li Xingkong's body, while he closed his eyes and rested his hands on his knees. In front of him, a very complex array was slowly rotating.
He would occasionally reach out and pull out a rune, inserting it into the formation that was already mostly complete, then activate the formation to check the effect after adding the rune.
The design of the grand formation was clearly not something that could be accomplished in a short time; it required a great deal of deduction and experimentation. The effect produced was also different depending on the order in which each formation pattern was placed.
This requires designers to have a strong heart, to be able to endure loneliness, and to focus on design.
Li Xingkong is definitely capable of sitting still.
This was already the umpteenth year he had been conceiving the grand formation. Time had flown by so quickly that Li Xingkong, engrossed in the formation, completely forgot about the passage of time.
When he took another array pattern and put it into the array, the entire array suddenly lit up, and a flawless spiritual light covered the entire array.
"It's done!"
Li Xingkong's eyes lit up. This performance meant that his formation was complete.
The array used to reshape the landscape was far more difficult than Li Xingkong had imagined. And the effort he put into this array was far greater than that of the Four Seas Heaven-Regulating Formation.
Fortunately, perseverance pays off, and after so much time, the formation was finally completed.
During the years he devoted himself to adjusting the formation, although he did not continue his cultivation practice, his Divine Sense continued to grow through daily calculations. When the formation was more than half completed, the growth of his Divine Sense finally reached its limit.
Although Li Xingkong could feel his control over his Divine Sense deepening, the range of his Divine Sense stopped increasing. At this point Li Xingkong realized that his Divine Sense had reached the limit of his current physical abilities.
With his Divine Sense cultivated and the formations completed, Li Xingkong had essentially achieved all the objectives of his seclusion, and it was time for him to emerge.
His External Core had already stopped working when he was researching the formation. Li Xingkong estimated that it must have run out of fuel, and since he was in seclusion, no one had added fuel to it, so it naturally stopped operating.
After storing all the formations in front of him back into his Space Bag, Li Xingkong slowly stood up and pushed open the door to the secluded cultivation room.
We're out of quarantine!
There was no need for celebration. Li Xingkong immediately removed the array around his secluded chamber and connected to Earth Star's network to see what the situation was like and what new things had happened recently.
It's so much better to have the internet. Even though Li Xingkong can focus on his cultivation, he still feels a bit uncomfortable without it.
After all, this thing is just too convenient.
His Divine Sense fluctuated and connected to the internet. Li Xingkong's first action was to check the time.
It has been nearly 12 years since he went into seclusion. This time, it took even longer than his last seclusion.
However, Li Xingkong had already anticipated this timeframe. After all, as his cultivation level improved, the duration of each seclusion would only increase. This time, it was only four years longer than the last time, which was already quite good.
The Earth Star's internet was still bustling with activity, but it had clearly changed a lot compared to more than a decade ago.
Cultivators have appeared on numerous websites, and many websites have even emerged specifically for cultivators. There are also many more ordinary people on the internet. If you look closely at the comments, most of them are from the regions that have recently been incorporated into Divine Land.
The current online hot topics are also related to cultivation. Li Xingkong only glanced at them and saw several messages.
"The number of monks allocated to Southeast Asia and the Americas."
"Why is it that only the top 100 students in the annual college entrance examination are eligible to cultivate? We are also Divine Land People, shouldn't we be treated equally and have the opportunity to cultivate universally?"
"Now you suddenly remember you're from Divine Land People? When this policy was being implemented, I heard people saying they were 'Eagle Country aristocrats' who didn't care about anything else?"
"Why should we care what they do? They're just sour grapes. If we give them a spot to cultivate, they'll be labeled as heretics in a couple of days."
It seems that although geographical unification has been achieved in the past ten years or so, there are still many differences in terms of spiritual culture.
"I told my dad about the cultivation technique, so why have I lost all my memories of it?"
"The idiot upstairs, if your dad didn't have any cultivation techniques, that only means there's something wrong with his identity. And you didn't even know that his cultivation techniques were passed down without his knowledge and were deleted?"
"Another idiot, hopeless. He'll just have to live a normal life."
More than ten years have not transformed the entire population of Divine Land into cultivators. Although the number of cultivators has increased year by year, the number of non-cultivators has also increased.
After reading several posts, Li Xingkong gained a general understanding of the current situation.
The people in Divine Land today are basically divided into two groups: cultivators and ordinary people.
Currently, the requirements for ordinary people to become cultivators in Divine Land are much stricter, basically comparable to taking the civil service exam.
If a direct relative does something bad, it will basically affect the spiritual practice of the next three generations.
After glancing at it briefly, Li Xingkong slowly rose from the lunar surface and flew towards White Jade Capital in Earth's orbit.
As for the far side of the moon, after being in seclusion for so long, Li Xingkong still wanted to go back and see his family first. There wasn't a single acquaintance at the far side of the moon base, so he was too lazy to go there.
His figure transformed into a streak of white light under the control of his Sword Control Technique, Li Xingkong shot directly towards Earth Star.
With the enhancement of his Divine Sense, his flight speed in space has been further improved. Previously, he would lose control at a certain speed and would not be able to effectively avoid various obstacles coming his way. But now, that previous speed is just a piece of cake.
He's in space now, and tripling his speed would be effortless for him.
Upon arriving at White Jade Capital, located in Earth Star's orbit, they found many people still busy at work. When they saw Li Xingkong, they didn't seem too surprised and came forward to greet him, continuing with their own tasks.
Li Xingkong wasn't the only one who landed directly in White Jade Capital; there were quite a few other cultivators coming and going, giving White Jade Capital a unique atmosphere, like a cultivator's inn isolated in space.
There are a considerable number of cultivators coming and going here. Most of them are returning to Earth Star, while a small number of them stay here for a while before flying off into space.
Li Xingkong was curious about what these people did. So he stopped a cultivator who was about to head into the depths of the universe.
"Dude, what are you guys doing?"
The man glanced at Li Xingkong's attire, then at the sword beside him, before answering.
"Judging from your appearance, you've probably been in seclusion for a while now."
"Yes, I just came out of seclusion and saw you coming and going. I wonder what you were doing?"
"This is a new job for us."
The man smiled and then pointed to a logo on his clothes.
"Now that our cultivation has reached the required level and we can move freely in space, we can register as scavengers. Our main targets are asteroids and meteorites scattered near Earth Star. Even just a little bit brought back will be valuable."
Li Xingkong looked at his logo, which was an icon of a person standing in space.
"Last time, a cultivator struck Dayun and brought back a 200-ton pure gold asteroid. I was so envious."
"So where is your destination? Is it Kuiper Belt?"
Li Xingkong, and it seemed that this asteroid was the only one with many such asteroids, but the distance was far too great. Could these cultivators hold out until they reached it?
"That place is too far, we can't go there. We basically only come here to make a quick buck when astronomical predictions indicate that an asteroid will pass by."
"However, I heard that Divine Land's base on Mars is almost complete, so we can go and have some fun on Mars later."