Dawn's first light was faint, and the wind atop Gazing Star Cliff remained bitingly cold, like a blunt knife repeatedly scraping against the rocks.

After a night of formation guidance, the originally violent and chaotic spiritual energy field underwent a subtle change. A faint silver starlight descended from the nine heavens, converging mid-air with the grayish-yellow earth energy rising from the base of the cliff. If one had opened their spiritual eye, they would have seen these two vastly different forces being combed by an invisible hand, forming a slowly rotating vortex ring around the cliff's periphery.

The outer ring was turbulent like a meat grinder, tearing apart the chaotic fierce winds; the interior, however, gradually stabilized, forming a relatively calm eye of the storm.

Inside the cave dwelling, it was still damp and chilly. Fine beads of water seeped from the stone walls, dripping onto the bluestone slabs with hollow, lonely echoes.

Su Ming crouched before the newly opened medicinal plot, his sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms half-covered in mud. In his hands, he held a "Silver-Spotted Heart-Clearing Orchid" he had just transplanted from his old residence in Clear Stream Valley.

This orchid looked somewhat wilted, the silver spots on its leaves dull and lackluster.

Su Ming tapped the tip of the orchid's leaf with his fingertip, his brow slightly furrowed. "The Silver-Spotted Heart-Clearing Orchid prefers shade and tranquility. The Star Baleful Energy here on Gazing Star Cliff is like being scraped by knives. I hope it doesn't get blasted to death."

"Picky."

Lin Yu's voice sounded lazily within the Consciousness Sea. "Only greenhouse flowers fear wind and rain. Since this orchid originally mutated due to the remnant Sinking Star Iron vein, it inherently carries the 'star attraction' property."

Hearing this, Su Ming fell into thoughtful contemplation. He activated the Like Water Art, condensing a drop of deep blue spiritual liquid at his fingertip, but this time he deliberately mixed in a trace of the surrounding Star Baleful Energy.

The spiritual liquid dripped onto the roots.

The previously drooping orchid shuddered violently. The silver spots on its leaves suddenly lit up, like a greedy drunkard, instantly sucking the drop of spiritual liquid completely dry. It even stretched its leaves in an incredibly human-like manner, craning towards the sliver of starlight penetrating through the cave ceiling.

"Truly a life that thrives on hardship," Su Ming chuckled, deftly planting the remaining dozen or so spiritual plants one by one.

He specifically set up a miniature "Spirit Gathering Funnel" around the medicinal plot, not to gather energy, but to filter it. It filtered the violent stellar force into fine, dense needle-like threads, continuously stimulating the root systems of these spiritual plants.

"Speaking in biological terms, this is called induced mutation," Lin Yu commented. "The harsher the environment, the more potent the things that survive become. If you can cultivate this batch of Heart-Clearing Orchids into 'Star Dew Orchids' here on Gazing Star Cliff, then when your divine sense is exhausted in the future, this stuff will be a life-saving fast-acting medicine."

After handling the spiritual plants, Su Ming straightened his back and patted the dirt from his hands.

He walked to the center of the cave dwelling, surveying this spacious yet crude new home.

"Next, comes the main course."

Su Ming retrieved from his storage pouch that pile of materials resembling a small hill: the Star Pattern Steel scrap brought back from Iron Wall Pass, the Red Essence Copper gifted by Zheng Tieshou, and some unknown ores he had picked up at the Ghost Market.

"The original defensive formation of this cave dwelling was the 'Mystic Turtle Immovable Formation'," Su Ming analyzed while sorting the materials. "A typical common variety, focused on brute-force resistance. It might hold up against cultivators of the same level, but if it encounters a Golden Core true master, or a monster of the Rockheart Insect King's caliber, this formation would be no different from paper."

"So it needs to be changed."

Su Ming nodded, a flash of sharp light in his eyes. "Concealment, flow splitting, and... redundancy."

He spread a huge blank formation diagram on the ground. Raising his brush, he didn't rush to make a mark. Instead, he closed his eyes. The Border Defense True Seal on his chest grew slightly warm, and countless intricate formation lines flowed, disassembled, and reassembled within his mind.

That was the underlying logic of the seventy-nine great formations of the Northern Border.

"Large-scale formations are difficult to destroy because they have countless 'backup lungs'," Su Ming murmured to himself, his brush beginning to sketch on the formation diagram. "If one node explodes, the adjacent nodes immediately take over the spiritual energy flow. Through complex parallel circuits, the impact force is dispersed deep underground."

"I want to replicate a miniature version of Iron Wall Pass's defensive system here on Gazing Star Cliff."

Su Ming's brush tip glided across the paper. The originally stiff lines became incredibly smooth under his current "Formation Master's perspective."

"The main formation core will be set at the celestial star position on the cave ceiling. Auxiliary formation cores will be buried into the underground fire veins. One above, one below, forming a counterforce."

"No, not a counterforce," Lin Yu suddenly interjected. "A counterforce generates spiritual pressure, like a pressure cooker—easy to explode. It needs to cycle."

"Dual circulation?" Su Ming's brush paused, then his eyes lit up. "Borrowing the artistic conception of the Like Water Art, use water spiritual energy to neutralize and regulate the 'dryness' of stellar force and the 'violence' of earth fire. Make them mesh and rotate like millstones."

"That's it," Lin Yu laughed. "This is called the 'Minor Heavenly Cycle Star Array · Earth Vein Dual Circulation Concealment Grand Formation'. The name's a bit long, but it's good for intimidation."

With the plan decided, Su Ming hesitated no longer.

He did not use Dan Fire to smelt the materials. Instead, he employed his most proficient skill: the water grinding effort.

Deep blue water spiritual energy transformed into countless drill bits as fine as gossamer threads, enveloping the hard Star Pattern Steel. There were no sparks flying, no clanging sounds, only the extremely faint "rustling" noise of water cutting through metal under high pressure.

Su Ming's gaze was terrifyingly focused.

On every piece of formation base material, he carved densely packed "micro-pores." These pores weren't for aesthetics but for—heat dissipation and flow splitting.

"Node redundancy design."

Su Ming embedded a formation plate covered in honeycomb-like pores into the stone wall. "This formation plate usually only operates at thirty percent capacity. Once attacked, the remaining seventy percent of the pores instantly activate, shredding the attacking spiritual energy into fragments and channeling it into the underground river."

For three full days.

Su Ming was like a diligent spider, climbing up and down this huge cave dwelling.

He carved thirty-six recesses into the cave ceiling, each inlaid with a Star Pattern Steel bead purified by the Water Refining Method. He dug seventy-two trenches into the ground, filling them with Red Essence Copper powder, which had excellent spiritual energy conductivity, and sealed them with a special adhesive clay, leaving only a few inconspicuous air holes.

The most crucial step was the fusion of the formation cores.

Su Ming stood in the very center of the cave dwelling, holding in his hands that repaired bronze fragment he had brought back from Iron Wall Pass.

"This thing bears ancient Star Attraction Lines. It's most suitable as the main formation core."

He took a deep breath, formed hand seals with both hands. The true seal on his chest shone brightly, pulling the bronze fragment as it slowly rose into the air, precisely embedding itself into the central-most recess in the cave ceiling.

"Merge!"

Su Ming gave a low shout.

*Hum—*

A deep, resonant hum, like the low roar of a giant beast, echoed within the cave dwelling.

All thirty-six recesses in the cave ceiling lit up simultaneously, not with a piercing light, but with a faint, shimmering blue starlight, like fireflies on a summer night.

Beneath the sealed trenches on the ground, the sound of liquid flowing could be heard.

That was the earth vein fire energy being drawn up by the formation. After layers of filtration and conversion, it turned into warm earth energy, flowing beneath the stone slabs.

The originally cold, damp air within the cave dwelling abruptly changed.

The musty smell and dampness were swept away, replaced by a fresh, moist breeze carrying a faint fragrance of grass and wood. This wind didn't blow in from the cave entrance; it was the natural "breathing" generated by the formation's operation.

"Success?" Su Ming wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Although his face was somewhat pale, his eyes shone frighteningly bright.

"Not quite finished yet."

Lin Yu reminded him. "Go outside and take a look."

Su Ming walked out of the cave dwelling and stood at the edge of Gazing Star Cliff.

It was noon, with sunlight shining brightly.

But in Su Ming's vision, or rather, in the divine sense detection of any outsider, the Gazing Star Cliff before them... had vanished.

The originally abrupt and protruding cliff now seemed to have merged into the surrounding sea of clouds and fierce winds. The light there underwent a subtle distortion. When the wind blew past, it no longer encountered obstruction but slipped smoothly through.

If one didn't use their naked eyes to look closely, relying solely on divine sense scanning, this place appeared as a patch of void, or just a chaotic mess of fierce wind turbulence.

"Perfect camouflage."

A satisfied curve lifted the corner of Su Ming's mouth.