Chapter 1012: Remaining Behind

The scene was noisy, and even with Dao Thirteen present, it seemed difficult to maintain order.

Zhang Julai slapped the armrest of his chair and roared, "Everyone, shut up!"

The blood kin immediately quieted down, but one still spoke, "Cave Lord, if this is the case, what about our future cultivation?"

"We can't really be expected to 'absorb spiritual energy from heaven and earth or draw power from spirit stones' — what advantage would our Holy Race still have?"

Zhang Julai, having already received Lu Ye's instructions, confidently declared, "Not allowing you to slaughter blood food is precisely for your future cultivation! Although blood food is not difficult to breed, it takes time to mature. If we kill too many, sooner or later we will reach a point where no blood food is available. From now on, every once in a while, I will have people collect fresh blood from nearby villages. This will undoubtedly ensure you have enough for your cultivation."

This change would make it difficult to improve the status of the human race.

A blood kin shouted, "The blood that's been drained... it doesn't taste very good."

The method Lu Ye conceived had naturally been thought of by other blood kin before, but it was only implemented for a short period before being abandoned, mainly due to taste and flavor.

The feeling of devouring fresh blood from a living person was completely different from drinking blood that had been drained in advance.

Blood kin inherently possessed a primal craving for live blood.

However, this difference had no significant impact on cultivation itself.

Zhang Julai roared, "This is my first command as Cave Lord! You will obey it, whether you want to or not!"

Though the blood kin were unwilling in their hearts, seeing Zhang Julai's anger, they verbally agreed. They didn't understand why he would issue such an order.

"Do not even think about acting in secret. If anyone dares to feign obedience while secretly disobeying, and I find out, I will show no mercy," Zhang Julai commanded again.

This was the rule of the Blood Refinement Realm: might makes right. With Dao Thirteen as his deterrent, none of his subordinate blood kin dared to disobey him in his presence.

"Secondly..." Zhang Julai continued, "I intend to attack Baiyue Cave Abode!"

Baiyue Cave Abode was adjacent to Mingyue Cave Abode, and conflicts between them were inevitable. The blood kin who had previously fought Zhang Julai was from Baiyue Cave Abode.

Baiyue Cave Abode had even attacked Mingyue Cave Abode three times, but Sun Miaozhu, leading Zhang Julai and others, had repelled them. However, a few blood kin were lost in those battles, sowing seeds of hatred.

So, when Zhang Julai announced his intention to attack Baiyue Cave Abode, the somewhat dejected blood kin suddenly became excited. One shouted, "We should have attacked them ages ago, Cave Lord! I'll be the first to rush in!"

"Cave Lord, count me in!"

"I'll go too!"

For a time, the group was agitated, eager to rush to Baiyue Cave Abode immediately and teach them a lesson.

Lu Ye stood beside Zhang Julai, observing silently. He was now experiencing firsthand the blood kin's warlike nature. He had a lot of information about the Blood Refinement Realm in his mind, so he wasn't surprised, but information was one thing, and witnessing it firsthand was another.

The blood kin's eagerness to attack each other was solely for blood crystals!

Compared to spiritual energy from heaven and earth, spirit stones, or fresh blood from blood food, blood crystals were the most coveted cultivation resource for blood kin. This was similar to how monster beasts in the Nine Provinces often clashed; monster beasts could also improve themselves by devouring the monster cores of their own kind.

The announcement of the second command immediately dispelled the oppression and discomfort caused by the first order.

Zhang Julai nodded with satisfaction. "Excellent. In that case, we will rest today and set out tomorrow!"

A blood kin asked, "Cave Lord, are all of us going? Do we need to leave anyone to guard?"

"No need to stay behind, everyone will go," Zhang Julai waved his hand. Even the few Spirit Stream Realm blood kin became excited, acting as if they weren't afraid of death, though it was unclear what role they could play.

Having all the blood kin participate was naturally Lu Ye's idea. For him, this battle was bound to incur casualties, especially among those Spirit Stream Realm cultivators, who would likely not return alive.

As long as Dao Thirteen was with Zhang Julai, he could control the battle's outcome. The number of dead or alive would depend on Dao Thirteen's actions.

Lu Ye naturally wouldn't feel pained by the death of blood kin; in fact, the more who died, the better for him, as each blood kin possessed their own blood crystal, varying in quality.

What he currently lacked was blood crystals.

Of course, not too many could die, and he even needed to gather more personnel than currently, because his goal was not just Baiyue Cave Abode.

He had more plans to realize, and all of them required a sufficiently powerful force as a foundation; he couldn't achieve anything significant by fighting alone.

The night passed uneventfully. At dawn the next day, the blood kin of Mingyue Cave Abode, led by Zhang Julai, marched out aggressively.

Dao Thirteen followed them.

Lu Ye remained behind. Ostensibly, Zhang Julai ordered him to guard the cave abode, but in reality, Lu Ye didn't want to waste time. His current strength was limited, and the attack on Baiyue Cave Abode could be handled by Dao Thirteen.

The entire Mingyue Cave Abode now held only the abducted humans besides him, mostly women, with only a few men.

Without blood kin guarding them, they didn't attempt to escape, mainly because they couldn't.

The entrance to Mingyue Cave Abode was suspended on the cliff face, making it impossible for these humans with little cultivation to leave.

Lu Ye set up an alert formation at the cave entrance and then stayed in his own cave dwelling.

He didn't need to worry about those humans; he simply didn't know how to manage them. As for their survival, he didn't need to concern himself. Mingyue Cave Abode had wild beasts caught by the blood kin and spirit rice brought back from nearby villages, which was enough for the humans to survive.

They only needed to take care of themselves. Lu Ye sat cross-legged in his cave dwelling, his mind immersed, observing the new spirit patterns he had acquired from the talent tree.

Previously, in the nameless secret realm, he had only obtained two spirit patterns: one was Soul Control, which had played a significant role; both Dao Thirteen and Zhang Julai were his soul slaves.

Under Soul Control, he had absolute control over his soul slaves, with no need to worry about them developing disloyal intentions.

The other was Shared Spirit Branch.

This spirit pattern was somewhat similar to Colorful Phoenixes Flying Together, both used for borrowing power, but it was easy to cast and difficult to maintain.

Unlike Colorful Phoenixes Flying Together, once that spirit pattern formed, it would be imprinted on the part of Lu Ye and the other person's body that touched, and with Lu Ye maintaining it, there was no possibility of it dissipating.

However, Shared Spirit Branch did not have such strong stability. Once spiritual energy surged, the spirit pattern could dissipate.

Moreover, because this spirit pattern affected more than two people, there would be more uncontrollable factors.

When he first obtained this spirit pattern, Lu Ye didn't think much of it, but now, meditating calmly, he realized this spirit pattern was a deadly weapon!

A deadly weapon that could play a huge role in certain situations.

For example, in a battle between two armies, if one side's cultivators fought independently, even with some coordination, they couldn't borrow power from each other. But if the other side's cultivators were united in spirit, their energies interacting, it would be clear who was stronger.

Even more so, this spirit pattern could be used as a core to set up an unprecedented grand formation, concentrating the power of all cultivators within the formation. If this could be achieved, the effect would be unimaginable.

It was only then that Lu Ye realized he had underestimated the utility of this spirit pattern.

He had borrowed many books on spirit patterns from his master's library and had learned about numerous spirit patterns from them, but this particular spirit pattern was unheard of.

Before activating spirit patterns like Soul Control, Colorful Phoenixes Flying Together, and Telepathic Connection from the talent tree, Lu Ye had never imagined such profound spirit patterns existed in this world.

The path of spirit patterns was indeed vast and profound!

The utility of the Shared Spirit Branch spirit pattern still needed careful study.

However, he could first use this spirit pattern as a core to refine a formation plate. This way, whoever held the Shared Spirit Branch formation could activate its effects at any time, allowing nearby companions to borrow power from each other, thereby enabling them to exert stronger power.

This would be helpful for some of his plans.

Thinking of it, he acted.

Lu Ye had studied artifact refining for two months with Kongkong in the Sword Sect secret realm and had already mastered the basics of the art. He hadn't delved deeper only because he lacked the energy to focus on other matters.

But for him, even without proper tools, refining a formation plate was not difficult, relying on his own fire-attribute spiritual energy.

At most, it would take some effort now that his cultivation was restricted.

He had many materials in his storage bag. He sorted some out and activated his spiritual energy to envelop and burn them.

Time passed. Lu Ye spent half a day refining a formation plate imbued with the Shared Spirit Branch spirit pattern. However, because his current cultivation was only at the first layer of the Cloud River Realm, the refined formation plate was not particularly exquisite.

He poured spiritual energy into it. The formation plate hummed, and a halo rippled outwards. Looking closely, the halo was clearly composed of tiny yin-yang elements, radiating approximately one zhang (about 3.3 meters) in radius from the center of the formation plate.

Lu Ye couldn't help but frown.

This seemed somewhat different from what he had expected... the radius of one zhang meant that cultivators could only borrow power from each other within this range; beyond it, it wouldn't work.