The merchant caravan assembled at Azure Peak City's western gate just after dawn. Lin Feng arrived early, dressed in his new protective robes and carrying his improved sword. The robes were dark gray, practical rather than showy, with formation arrays woven into the fabric that would harden against attacks. Nothing that would stop a Foundation Establishment cultivator, but enough to turn aside casual strikes from Qi Refining opponents.
Yue padded at his side, her silver mist-form drawing curious glances from the other travelers. Spirit beasts were common enough among cultivators, but bonded companions of her quality were rarer.
The caravan master was a grizzled man named Chen Bo, a mortal who'd spent forty years running trade routes across the western provinces. He looked Lin Feng up and down with the practiced eye of someone who'd sized up countless travelers.
"You're the one Whisper arranged passage for," Chen Bo said. It wasn't a question. "Heading to the western borderlands?"
"That's right," Lin Feng confirmed.
"Dangerous country out there. Bandits, spirit beasts, the occasional rogue cultivator looking for easy prey." Chen Bo spat to the side. "But you've got the look of someone who can handle himself. And Whisper vouched for you, which carries weight in my book."
He gestured to the line of wagons. "We've got five wagons, fifteen guards, and about thirty other passengers—mostly merchants and their families. We move at dawn, rest at midday, camp at dusk. Journey takes two weeks if the weather holds and we don't run into trouble. You cause problems, you get left behind. Understood?"
"Understood," Lin Feng said.
"Good. Find a spot on one of the wagons. We leave in ten minutes."
Lin Feng chose the rearmost wagon, reasoning that it gave him the best view of potential threats approaching from behind. Several other passengers had already claimed spots—a family of textile merchants, an elderly scholar traveling to visit his daughter, and a young woman who kept to herself and radiated the subtle spiritual pressure of a Qi Refining cultivator.
Lin Feng settled into a corner of the wagon bed, arranged his belongings, and let Yue curl up beside him. The wolf's presence was comforting, a constant reminder that he wasn't alone on this journey.
As the caravan began to move, Lin Feng pulled out one of the jade slips from Whisper's information package and began studying the detailed maps of the Shattered Peaks. The region was vast—hundreds of miles of broken mountain ranges, deep valleys, and chaotic terrain. Whisper had marked several potential locations for his fortress, each with notes about advantages and disadvantages.
Northern Valley - High spiritual energy concentration, but bordering Crimson Blade Sect territory. Risk of conflict.
Eastern Ridge - Defensible position, moderate spiritual energy, infested with peak Qi Refining spirit beasts.
Central Plateau - Ancient battlefield, extremely chaotic energy, but richest in resources. High danger.
Southern Depression - Lowest spiritual energy, but safest from sect interference. Limited growth potential.
Lin Feng studied each option carefully. The Central Plateau called to him—high risk but high reward, exactly the kind of location that would allow rapid development if he could stabilize it. But he'd need to assess the actual conditions before making a final decision.
The first three days of travel were uneventful. The caravan followed well-maintained roads through cultivated countryside, passing through small towns and farming villages. Lin Feng used the time to cultivate, pushing steadily toward his breakthrough to Qi Refining Fourth Layer.
He also practiced the advanced coordination techniques Old Ghost had given him. The jade slip contained methods for deepening the bond with summoned units, allowing for more intuitive communication and faster tactical adjustments. Lin Feng worked through the exercises with Yue during their rest breaks, feeling their connection strengthen with each practice session.
[Bond Strength with Yue: 99%][Note: At 100%, additional benefits will unlock]
On the fourth day, the terrain began to change. The gentle farmland gave way to rougher country—rocky hills covered in scrub brush, the roads becoming narrower and less maintained. They were leaving the civilized heartland and entering the borderlands.
That night, Chen Bo posted extra guards around the camp. "We're in bandit country now," he announced to the travelers. "Stay close to the wagons after dark. If you hear the alarm bell, get to the center of camp and let the guards handle it."
Lin Feng volunteered for a watch shift, much to Chen Bo's approval. "Not many passengers willing to help guard," the caravan master said. "Most just want to be protected without contributing. You're alright."
Lin Feng took the midnight to dawn shift, sitting on top of a wagon with his spiritual sense extended to its maximum range. Yue prowled the perimeter, her superior senses alert for any threats.
The night was quiet except for the usual sounds of wilderness—distant animal calls, wind through the rocks, the crackling of the campfires. Lin Feng used the time to cultivate, cycling spiritual energy while maintaining his awareness of the surroundings.
Around an hour before dawn, Yue's alert snapped him to full attention.
Humans, her thought carried warning. Many. Moving quietly. Bad intent.
Lin Feng's spiritual sense focused in the direction Yue indicated. He detected them—roughly fifteen people, all mortals, moving through the darkness with practiced stealth. Their spiritual signatures were weak, but their intent was clear.
Bandits.
Lin Feng rang the alarm bell, the sharp sound cutting through the night. The camp erupted into activity—guards scrambling for weapons, passengers crying out in fear, Chen Bo shouting orders.
"East side!" Lin Feng called out. "Fifteen, maybe twenty. All mortal, moving in fast."
Chen Bo rallied the guards to the eastern perimeter. The caravan's defenders were a mix of mortals and three Qi Refining cultivators—enough to handle mortal bandits, but it would be a fight.
The bandits burst from the darkness with wild yells, clearly trying to intimidate their targets. They wielded crude weapons—axes, clubs, a few rusty swords—and moved with the desperation of people who had nothing left to lose.
The caravan guards met them with disciplined formation, shields up, weapons ready. Steel rang against steel. Men shouted and screamed.
Lin Feng hung back initially, assessing the situation. This was his first real combat since leaving Old Ghost's training—no resurrection formation to save him if he made a mistake. Death here would be permanent.
But the guards were being pushed back. The bandits had numbers, and they fought with the ferocity of the truly desperate. One guard fell, an axe taking him in the shoulder. Another staggered back, blood streaming from a head wound.
Lin Feng made his decision. He dropped from the wagon, drew his sword, and entered the fight.
The difference two weeks of brutal training made was immediately apparent. Lin Feng moved through the chaos with fluid precision, his sword forms executing perfectly. A bandit swung a club at his head—Lin Feng used Form Two to redirect the strike and countered with Form Three, his blade opening the man's throat.
He wasn't fighting constructs anymore. These were real people, with real blood and real screams. For a moment, the shock of it nearly froze him.
Then his training took over. Old Ghost had prepared him for this too—the psychological weight of killing. The old instructor's voice echoed in his memory: "Hesitation kills you faster than any enemy. If you've decided to fight, fight to kill. Mercy is a luxury for the victorious."
Lin Feng's blade became a whirlwind of precise strikes. Form One into Form Four, each movement flowing seamlessly into the next. Three bandits fell before they even realized he was there.
Yue darted through the chaos, her ethereal form phasing through friendly fighters to strike at enemies. Her jaws found throats and hamstrings, her Spirit Step ability letting her appear behind opponents who thought they were safe.
The tide of battle turned. With Lin Feng and Yue reinforcing the guards, the bandits' numerical advantage evaporated. Within minutes, half their number lay dead or dying, and the rest were fleeing into the darkness.
Chen Bo ordered the guards not to pursue. "Let them go. We've won. No point chasing shadows in the dark."
The camp slowly returned to order. The wounded were tended—one guard dead, three injured but stable. The bandits had lost nine dead and countless wounded who'd fled.
Chen Bo approached Lin Feng, who was cleaning blood from his sword. "You fight like a trained cultivator," the caravan master observed. "Not just someone who knows a few techniques."
"I had a good teacher," Lin Feng said simply.
"I'd say so." Chen Bo glanced at the bodies of the bandits Lin Feng had killed. "Clean kills, all of them. Precise. Efficient." He nodded with approval. "You'll have free passage for the rest of the journey. Anyone who fights like that deserves it."
Lin Feng accepted the thanks with a nod, but internally he was processing what had just happened. He'd killed people. Real people, not constructs or training dummies. The weight of it sat heavy in his chest.
They would have killed us, Yue's thought was matter-of-fact. They attacked first. We survived. This is the way of things.
She was right, Lin Feng knew. In the cultivation world, the strong survived and the weak perished. Those bandits had chosen to attack the caravan. They'd accepted the risk that their targets might fight back.
It didn't make the weight any lighter, but it made it manageable.
The rest of the night passed without incident. At dawn, the caravan buried their dead guard with simple ceremony and continued westward.
Over the next several days, Lin Feng noticed a change in how the other passengers treated him. Word of his performance in the bandit attack had spread. People gave him respectful nods. Merchants offered to share their better food. Even the young woman cultivator—who Lin Feng had learned was named Mei Ling, traveling to join a small sect in the borderlands—began sitting near him during rest breaks.
"You trained with Old Ghost," she said during one such break. It wasn't a question.
Lin Feng looked at her with mild surprise. "How did you know?"
"The way you fight. I've seen other graduates. There's a... precision to your movements. An economy of motion." Mei Ling was Qi Refining Fourth Layer, Lin Feng had determined, and carried herself with the quiet confidence of someone who'd survived real combat. "How many times did you die?"
"Four hundred and sixty-two," Lin Feng answered honestly.
Mei Ling's eyes widened. "That many? Most students quit before three hundred. You must have either incredible determination or terrible luck."
"Maybe both," Lin Feng said with a slight smile.
They talked about cultivation—carefully, both aware that revealing too much could be dangerous. But Mei Ling proved to be a useful source of information about the western borderlands and the smaller sects that operated there.
"The Shattered Peaks are avoided by most major sects," she explained. "The chaotic spiritual energy makes it difficult to establish stable cultivation chambers, and the spirit beasts there are unusually aggressive—something about the ancient war corrupted them. But there are resources. Rare minerals, spirit herbs that only grow in chaotic energy environments, and occasionally, intact formations or artifacts from the old sects that fought there."
"Sounds dangerous but profitable," Lin Feng observed.
"Exactly. Which is why rogue cultivators and small groups sometimes venture in. Most don't come back." She looked at him curiously. "What's drawing you there?"
"Opportunity," Lin Feng said vaguely. "I'm looking to establish a... research outpost. Somewhere quiet where I can cultivate without interference."
It was a plausible cover story. Plenty of cultivators sought isolation for breakthrough attempts or technique development.
Mei Ling nodded, accepting the explanation. "Just be careful. The Peaks are quiet because they're deadly, not because they're peaceful."
On the tenth day of travel, Lin Feng felt it—a shift in his spiritual energy, a pressure building against the barrier to the next layer. He was on the verge of breakthrough.
That night, he entered the Spirit Gathering Pagoda and cultivated with singular focus. The concentrated spiritual energy of the pocket dimension flooded into him as he pushed against the barrier with all his accumulated Qi.
The resistance was significant—the gap between Qi Refining Third and Fourth Layer was notable. But Lin Feng had grown stronger through combat and training. His foundation was solid, tempered by hundreds of deaths and real battle experience.
He gathered his spiritual energy into a concentrated point and struck at the barrier.
It cracked. Held. Cracked deeper.
Lin Feng pushed harder, cycling the Fortress Foundation Scripture with perfect precision. The technique resonated with his experiences—the fortress he would build, the troops he would summon, the domain he would establish. All of it fed into his cultivation, strengthening his foundation.
The barrier shattered.
Spiritual energy flooded through his meridians in a cascade, refining his body, expanding his dantian, elevating his existence to a new level. Lin Feng felt his physical strength increase noticeably, his spiritual sense sharpen, his connection to Qi deepen.
[BREAKTHROUGH ACHIEVED!][Qi Refining Realm, Fourth Layer][Spiritual Energy capacity increased by 60%][Body refinement progress: 34%][Spiritual sense range increased to 200 feet][Reward: 100 SP]
[Current SP: 1,410]
Lin Feng opened his eyes, feeling power course through him that dwarfed what he'd possessed just minutes before. The difference between Third and Fourth Layer was substantial—he could feel it in every aspect of his being.
And there was something else. The bond with Yue, which had been at 99%, suddenly completed.
[Bond Strength with Yue: 100% - Perfect Synchronization Achieved]
[New Abilities Unlocked:]- Shared Senses: Host can see through Yue's eyes and vice versa- Combined Cultivation: Yue's advancement now directly benefits Host's cultivation speed- Resonance Strike: When fighting together, attacks can be synchronized for enhanced damage
[Yue Status Updated: Advancing to Qi Refining 4th Layer]
Through their bond, Lin Feng felt Yue undergoing her own breakthrough. The spirit wolf's form solidified, grew slightly larger, her spiritual energy becoming denser and more potent.
When the process completed, Yue looked different. Still made of silver mist, but the mist was more defined now, more solid. Her eyes burned brighter, and the spiritual pressure she radiated had increased noticeably.
Stronger, Yue's thought carried satisfaction. Pack grows powerful.
"We do," Lin Feng agreed, reaching out to touch her head. Through their perfect bond, he could feel what she felt—the enhanced strength, the sharper senses, the deeper connection to him.
He tested the shared senses ability. With a thought, his vision shifted—suddenly he was seeing through Yue's eyes, viewing himself from her perspective. The world looked different through her senses—colors were muted but movement was sharper, and scents carried far more information.
With another thought, he returned to his own perspective.
"This is incredible," Lin Feng murmured. In combat, this ability would be invaluable—he could scout danger without exposing himself, coordinate attacks from Yue's viewpoint, never lose track of her position.
The next four days passed quickly. The caravan continued westward, the terrain growing progressively more rugged. They were deep in the borderlands now, far from any major city or sect territory. The villages they passed were small and hardscrabble, populated by mortals who looked at the caravan with suspicion and hope in equal measure.
On the fourteenth day, Chen Bo called a halt at a crossroads settlement called Broken Stone Village—the same place Whisper's maps had marked as the jumping-off point for the Shattered Peaks.
"This is as far west as we go," Chen Bo announced. "We'll rest here for two days to resupply, then head south along the border. Anyone continuing west is on their own."
Lin Feng thanked the caravan master for the journey and paid the agreed-upon fee. Chen Bo clasped his arm in the warrior's grip.
"You're good in a fight, Lin Feng. If you survive whatever you're planning in those peaks, and you ever need work, look me up. I could use a guard like you."
"I'll remember that," Lin Feng said, genuinely meaning it. Having contacts among the merchant caravans could be useful.
He parted ways with Mei Ling as well. She was continuing with the caravan to her destination further south.
"Good luck in the Peaks," she said. "Try not to become spirit beast food."
"I'll do my best," Lin Feng replied with a slight smile.
That night, Lin Feng stayed in Broken Stone Village's only inn—a ramshackle building that charged two coppers for a sleeping mat and thin soup. He didn't mind. Tomorrow, he would leave civilization behind entirely.
Tomorrow, he would venture into the Shattered Peaks and claim his territory.
The village elder—the same weathered woman who'd given him directions weeks ago—approached him in the common room that evening.
"You're going into the Peaks," she said. Not a question.
"I am."
She studied him with eyes that had seen too much hardship. "Young cultivators come through here sometimes, heading into those mountains. Most don't come back. The ones who do are... changed. Haunted." She paused. "What makes you think you'll be different?"
Lin Feng considered his answer carefully. "I'm not going in unprepared. And I'm not going in alone." He gestured to Yue, who sat at his feet.
The elder looked at the spirit wolf for a long moment. "A bonded companion. That's good. You'll need all the help you can get." She produced a small charm made of twisted wire and faded beads. "This is a warning token. If you make it to the northern valley—three days into the Peaks—place this at the valley entrance. It'll warn others that the territory is claimed."
"Why help me?" Lin Feng asked.
"Because anyone brave or foolish enough to try settling the Shattered Peaks deserves what small help I can offer." She pressed the charm into his hand. "Besides, if you somehow succeed in establishing a presence there, having friendly relations with you could benefit the village. We get raided by spirit beasts from the Peaks every few years. A cultivator willing to thin their numbers would be valuable."
Lin Feng accepted the charm. "If I succeed, I'll remember Broken Stone Village's help."
The elder nodded, satisfied. "That's all I ask."
Lin Feng spent the night cultivating in the Spirit Gathering Pagoda, building up his spiritual energy reserves to maximum. Tomorrow would begin the most dangerous phase of his journey yet.
He reviewed his resources one final time:
[Current Status]Cultivation: Qi Refining 4th LayerSP: 1,410Spirit Stones: 4,247Major Assets: Jade Fortress Model, Legions of the Fallen Grimoire, Ancient Formation DiskEquipment: Quality sword, protective robes, defensive bracer, various talismansUnits: Yue (Qi Refining 4th Layer, Perfect Bond)
He had the power to establish a basic fortress. The question was whether he had the strength to defend it.
Lin Feng pulled out the maps and studied them one more time. After careful consideration, he made his decision.
The Central Plateau. High risk, high reward. The chaotic spiritual energy there would be perfect for the Myriad Fortress System to stabilize and exploit. And the ancient battlefield meant potential artifacts, resources, and knowledge buried beneath centuries of warfare.
It was the choice Shen Wu would have made. Bold. Dangerous. Strategic.
Lin Feng smiled grimly. He was committed now.
He cultivated until dawn, then gathered his belongings and left Broken Stone Village behind. Yue ranged ahead, her enhanced senses alert for any threats.
The path into the Shattered Peaks was barely visible—an old game trail that wound between increasingly jagged rock formations. The spiritual energy grew denser and more chaotic with each mile, fluctuating in ways that made Lin Feng's cultivation base uncomfortable.
By midday, they encountered their first spirit beast—a Stone Lizard at Qi Refining Fifth Layer. It was more aggressive than the ones near Clearwater Town, its movements erratic and frenzied.
Lin Feng engaged it cautiously, using the sword forms Old Ghost had drilled into him. The fight lasted less than two minutes. Form One opened its defenses, Form Six delivered the killing blow. Clean, efficient, exactly as trained.
[Stone Lizard defeated - 25 SP, Beast Core acquired]
They continued deeper into the Peaks. The terrain became a nightmare of broken stone and impossible angles—evidence of the ancient warfare that had scarred this land. In some places, formation arrays still flickered weakly, their power depleted but not entirely gone. In others, the very stone seemed wrong, twisted by techniques that had warped reality itself.
That night, Lin Feng made camp in a small cave and set up alarm formations. The chaotic spiritual energy made cultivation difficult, but he pushed through, adapting his technique to account for the unstable Qi.
The second day brought more spirit beasts—all of them unusually aggressive, attacking on sight rather than fleeing from a cultivator. Lin Feng and Yue fought three separate battles, each one testing the combat skills he'd developed.
By the third day, they reached the Central Plateau.
It was exactly as Whisper's maps had described, but worse. The plateau stretched for miles, its surface scarred by ancient craters and twisted formations. The spiritual energy was so chaotic that it was actually visible—shimmering waves of different colors, colliding and fragmenting in patterns that hurt to look at.
And everywhere, Lin Feng could sense the weight of accumulated death. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands had died here in whatever war had destroyed the ancient sects. Their resentment still lingered, a heavy pressure that pressed against his spiritual sense.
But beneath the chaos and death, Lin Feng felt something else. Potential. The spiritual energy here was incredibly dense—far stronger than anywhere else he'd been, including Azure Peak City. If he could stabilize it, harness it, this place would become a cultivation paradise.
Lin Feng found what looked like the remains of an old sect outpost—foundation stones still visible, a partially intact formation array that flickered with dying light. The location sat atop a rise that gave good sightlines in all directions, with natural cliff faces providing protection on two sides.
It was perfect.
Lin Feng pulled out the Jade Fortress Model and held it up. The system responded immediately.
[Suitable location detected][Warning: Spiritual energy is highly chaotic - fortress deployment will require significant energy to stabilize][Deploy Ironwall Bastion?][This action is permanent and will announce your presence to all spiritual senses within 100 miles due to energy density]
Lin Feng took a deep breath. This was the moment. The point of no return.
Once he deployed the fortress, every cultivator and spirit beast in the region would know someone had claimed this territory. They would come to investigate, to challenge, to test his strength.
He thought about everything that had led to this moment. The old man in the bookshop. Four hundred and sixty-two deaths. The cache at Whispering Vale. Training with Old Ghost. The long journey west.
All of it had been building to this.
"Deploy," Lin Feng commanded.
The jade model dissolved into rivers of light that poured from his hands like liquid starlight. The energy spread across the plateau, touching earth and stone and shattered formations. Where the light flowed, reality bent and shaped itself according to the fortress's design.
Walls erupted from the ground—not the simple stone of the Whispering Vale cache's hidden entrance, but massive fortifications thirty feet high and fifteen feet thick. Formation arrays covered every inch of the walls, glowing with complex scripts designed to repel attacks and stabilize the chaotic spiritual energy.
Guard towers rose at strategic points, their platforms positioned for optimal defense. A massive gate materialized, reinforced with spirit metal that shimmered with protective enchantments.
Inside the walls, buildings took shape with breathtaking speed:
Barracks designed to house troops—currently empty but ready to be filled. A warehouse for resources, its preservation formations already active. A command hall with tactical arrays that showed a perfect map of the surrounding area.
And at the fortress's heart, a keep three stories tall with a cultivation chamber at its core. The chamber connected directly to the spiritual vein running beneath the plateau, drawing in the chaotic energy and filtering it, stabilizing it, making it usable.
The transformation took fifteen minutes. When the light finally faded, Lin Feng stood before a fortress that looked like it had been carved from the mountain itself—imposing, functional, and radiating enough spiritual pressure to make even Foundation Establishment cultivators think twice about attacking.
[Ironwall Bastion deployed successfully]
[Fortress Analysis:]
Location: Central Plateau, Shattered Peaks (High Spiritual Energy Zone) Defensive Formations: Can withstand sustained attacks from Foundation Establishment 7th Layer Current Garrison: 0/100 units Resource Generation: +100 SP per day (doubled due to location's spiritual density) Special: Spiritual Vein Tap - Cultivation speed increased by 300% within fortress walls Special: Chaos Stabilization Array - Converts chaotic spiritual energy into usable Qi Warning: Fortress deployment has been detected by all spiritual senses within 100 miles
[New Quest: First Blood]Objective: Defend your fortress against first challengeEstimated time until first attack: 6-12 hours
Lin Feng walked through the massive gates into his fortress. His fortress. The first real piece of territory he'd ever owned, the first step in building the domain the Fortress Foundation Scripture required.
Yue trotted beside him, her tail wagging with approval. Good den, her thought carried satisfaction. Strong walls. Safe place for pack.
"It's a start," Lin Feng agreed, looking around at the empty barracks and quiet halls. "But we need to fill it. Walls and buildings are just the beginning."
He made his way to the keep and climbed to its highest point—a balcony that overlooked the entire fortress and the plateau beyond. From here, he could see for miles in every direction.
And in every direction, he could sense movement. Spirit beasts, drawn by the massive spiritual energy signature the fortress had released. Possibly rogue cultivators as well, investigating what had suddenly appeared in the Shattered Peaks.
They would come. Soon. And Lin Feng needed to be ready.
He descended to the command hall and began making preparations. The system provided detailed tactical information about the fortress's capabilities, and Lin Feng studied it carefully, planning his defense.
He had 1,410 Summoning Points. Not enough for a full garrison, but enough to create a credible defensive force.
Time to use the Legions of the Fallen grimoire for the first time in real combat.
Lin Feng opened the black-bound book and found the basic summoning technique. Unlike the system's point-based summons, the grimoire required corpses and spiritual energy to create undead.
He still had the spirit beast corpses from his journey into the Peaks. Seven of them, including the Stone Lizard and several others. Not ideal—beast undead were less intelligent than human undead—but they would serve.
Lin Feng set up the summoning formation in the fortress's central courtyard, placing the corpses in a circle and surrounding them with spirit stones. Following the grimoire's instructions, he began channeling his spiritual energy while converting it to death energy using the taught technique.
The air grew cold. The spiritual energy around the fortress developed a dark, oppressive quality. The corpses began to dissolve, their physical forms breaking down into raw essence.
From that essence, new forms rose.
Seven skeletal beasts, their bones reinforced with spiritual energy and bound together by threads of death Qi. Each one radiated power equivalent to its living form—the strongest at Qi Refining Fifth Layer, the weakest at Third.
They weren't beautiful or elegant like Yue. They were brutal, efficient killing machines, driven by a hunger for life energy that Lin Feng could feel through the grimoire's connection.
[Undead Summons Created: 7x Skeletal Beasts][Cost: 7 beast corpses, 500 spirit stones, 30% of maximum spiritual energy][Maintenance: Requires periodic feeding of death energy or spiritual stones][Current Status: Hungry but stable]
The skeletal beasts turned toward Lin Feng with eye sockets that burned with cold fire. He felt their hunger, their instinctive desire to consume the living.
But the grimoire's binding held. They recognized him as master, creator, the one who controlled their existence.
Guard the fortress, Lin Feng commanded through the grimoire's connection. Kill anything hostile that approaches.
The skeletal beasts dispersed, taking positions along the walls with mechanical precision.
Lin Feng checked his status. His spiritual energy was depleted from the summoning, but it would recover. And now he had a garrison—small, but functional.
The sun was setting over the Shattered Peaks, painting the chaotic sky in shades of red and orange. Beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
And in the fading light, Lin Feng saw them approaching.
Spirit beasts. Dozens of them, drawn by the fortress's spiritual energy like moths to flame. The weakest were Qi Refining Third Layer. The strongest... Lin Feng's spiritual sense recoiled from one presence in particular.
Foundation Establishment. First Layer, maybe Second.
They were coming.
The first real test of his fortress, his planning, his strength.
Lin Feng drew his sword and smiled grimly.
Let them come.
He'd built this fortress to endure.
Time to prove it.