Chapter 448: Inside the Baizhu Family

East Isle, Bai Zhu Family.

Li Qi was clearing clues outside the door.

For the past two days, he had been wandering the seabed of East Isle, collecting other intelligence.

He didn't know why, but this collection process was exceptionally smooth, with almost no other obstacles. Everyone seemed to have no sense of secrecy, and basically, they were all like the small farmers of Baiyue—extremely conservative, yet quite fearful of 'superiors.' Li Qi easily gathered a lot of information with little effort.

It's also possible that the things that needed to be kept secret simply hadn't spread, so the information Li Qi gathered was all inconsequential.

However… nothing is inconsequential.

Even trash intelligence can reveal a lot of things when analyzed from behind.

As Bai Zhu Zhaoyue said, the Bai Zhu Family indeed had some ties to ancient Shamanes.

But those ties… were probably similar to the extent that their ancestors eight generations ago were friends.

Now, with the Human and Shaman split, the Bai Zhu Family had completely severed ties with Shaman God Mountain and lived by cultivating pearls in the sea.

However, their business was still very large. Thousands of East Isles had pearl fields belonging to the Bai Zhu Family, especially since they had mastered a secret technique to cultivate 'Mother Clams.'

Mother Clams were not high-grade, only eighth-grade, and couldn't fight, but they could produce a large number of pearl clams. These pearl clams couldn't reproduce, but their pearl quality was extremely high.

This method established the Bai Zhu Family's current status. The Merfolk who cultivated pearls could only rely entirely on the Bai Zhu Family's clam seeds; otherwise, they simply couldn't engage in this industry. The Bai Zhu Family profited immensely from this, continuously sending large quantities of pearls to the land and beyond, supporting a large Family.

They truly were a large Family, with a fourth-grade Old Ancestor and several fourth-grade retainers. Their Family's influence spread across thousands of East Isles, with countless Merfolk serving as their de facto serfs. They could be considered 'nobles' to a significant extent.

In other words, the Bai Zhu Family, as a maritime Family that could supply the Human Race in ancient times, truly had some capabilities to have endured until now; they were not incompetent.

However… this was just an ordinary East Isle, so the Bai Zhu Family members remaining here were only one seventh-grade and the rest were eighth-grade. Most of them were only responsible for managing this ordinary business.

In other words, it was just a branch store of a large corporate group, with the highest position being a store manager, not even a regional manager.

"It's unlikely the Bai Zhu Family would be coerced by the Dragon's forces, but the local Bai Zhu Family head, when facing the Dragon's words, would likely find it difficult to stand firm. Whether by enticement or coercion, the Dragon should be able to manipulate a seventh-grade individual."

Thinking this, Li Qi silently entered the Bai Zhu Family's residence.

He planned to see how things operated here to deduce how the Dragon had made its move.

However, as soon as he stepped inside, he felt a strong Dragon Qi!

Undisguised Dragon Qi. The Dragon had definitely stayed here, and had even actively left marks or other body parts here; otherwise, such a strong Dragon Qi would be impossible.

Li Qi observed the Dragon Qi and then naturally walked deeper inside.

No one discovered him. In a state of being one with natural, Li Qi's aura was completely consistent with his surroundings. Although he didn't become transparent, there was a sense that 'he should have been there,' causing people to subconsciously ignore his presence.

It's probably… similar to that TV remote you can't find for the life of you.

It's clearly on the table, but besides your own mother, no one else can see it. Even if their hand touches it, they'll ignore it; it has perfectly integrated with the environment.

Walking through the Bai Zhu Family's residence, Li Qi could see that the surroundings were not luxurious at all, but rather quite ordinarily decorated.

Of course, it was only the decoration that was ordinary.

Li Qi had debated this matter with Liu Canzhi and Liu Donghe before.

Ornate or simple decoration is merely a 'decorating style'; true luxury lies in the underlying essence.

"A large Spiritual Artifact Formation? This residence is equivalent to an eighth-grade large combined Spiritual Artifact," Li Qi observed his surroundings and drew a conclusion.

This residence seemed to have borrowed ideas from the Human Dao. Even the paving bricks were made of Spiritual Artifacts. Although most were unranked or ninth-grade Spiritual Artifacts, these many Spiritual Artifacts formed a large Spiritual Artifact Formation, producing quite good comprehensive effects, already reaching the eighth-grade.

This was not a combat Spiritual Artifact, but one with a series of functions: regulating temperature, automated furniture, freely changing room layouts, immersive home illusion experiences, a series of processing tools, various novel experiences and cultivation vessels, and even including many processing workshops capable of producing simple tools and Spiritual Artifacts when raw materials were self-supplied.

To call it a residence… it would be better to say it was a greatly enhanced pleasure-oriented mobile base.

If this thing were thrown into the outside world, rooted in any eighth or ninth-grade world, and paired with someone who could skillfully operate this house, it wouldn't take long for this house to develop into a country.

In terms of combat, while this thing wasn't strong, its defensive capabilities were truly good.

However, there was still a gap compared to the Human Dao's extremes.

The Human Dao's houses also had these functions, but they were more than a cut above the Human Dao's.

For example, Human Dao houses couldn't be privately built; they could only be purchased already built or applied for planning and construction. The reason was that these houses had to combine into larger Spiritual Artifact Formations.

Even the paving bricks in the Human Dao were Spiritual Artifacts, but these were not just for making a large residence like the Bai Zhu Family's and being done with it.

For the Human Dao, what needed to be combined were—cities.

Each city was a set of large Spiritual Artifacts.

The buildings, greenery, parks, and various facilities within the city were all planned and were part of this large combined Spiritual Artifact. Each city was a high-grade Spiritual Artifact assembled from these parts, powered by the Human Dao Dragon Veins underground, and resources were uniformly allocated by The Axis of All Realms.

Normally, they maintained the normal operation of the city and its residents. When needed, they could be expanded at any time to become a multi-functional large fortress, capable of easily undertaking scientific research, war, or colonization and construction tasks. Even the residents within would become fortress staff, temporarily shedding their ordinary resident status.

Compared to this scale, the Bai Zhu Family residence in front of them seemed very petty.

However…

It could be confirmed that the Bai Zhu Family's residence was indeed customized from Tang Nation. As a Spiritual Artifact factory manager with his own manufacturing in Chang'an, Li Qi could even use special methods to read the customization specifications on it.

Bai Zhu Family…

Their foundation was deeper than imagined. Being able to buy a customized modular Spiritual Artifact residence from Tang Nation, their financial strength showed that their pearl cultivation industry was thriving.

Scrutinizing this large residence, which covered an area of about three or four li, Li Qi quickly arrived at its center.

Here, the Dragon Qi was most concentrated.

Li Qi was surprised to find that there were still a considerable number of pearl clams in this place.

These enormous pearl clams had five colors, all glowing at night for several feet, and their pearls grew in their bellies, waxing and waning with the moon.

The "Records of the Four Dukes of Liang" states: "Pearls in the world are divided into large pearls, small pearls, and miscellaneous pearls. Large pearls are like the Wish-Granting Pearl of Heaven and Earth, small pearls are like the Dragon Pearl, and miscellaneous pearls are like those from clams, snakes, cranes, etc."

"As for Wish-Granting Pearls, the best glow fifty li at night, the medium ten li, and the lowest one li. Wherever their light reaches, there is no wind, rain, thunder, hail, water, fire, blades, or various plagues. Dragon Pearls have nine colors, glowing a hundred paces at night for the best, ten paces for the medium, and one room for the lowest. Wherever their light reaches, there is no poison from snakes, vipers, or insects. Miscellaneous pearls each have five colors, all glowing at night for several feet, with no particularly extraordinary abilities."

The luminous pearls recorded in the books Li Qi could read were definitely top-tier of the top-tier. Ordinary pearl clams produced pearls that couldn't even be classified as miscellaneous pearls; they were just ordinary items.

But the pearls produced by the giant pearl clams seen in the Bai Zhu residence, with their five-colored glow and several feet of nocturnal luminescence, had clearly reached the level of 'miscellaneous pearls.'

These giant pearl clams that produced miscellaneous pearls were probably the 'Mother Clams,' right?

There were dozens of Mother Clams here, some producing pearls, some producing seeds. Next to them, some mechanisms were continuously collecting the seeds produced by the Mother Clams.

Li Qi could see that all these Mother Clams were surrounded by illusion Formations. They were all constantly flapping their shells, as if floating in bliss, but in reality, they remained trapped, unable to escape, and continuously producing the resources the Bai Zhu Family needed.

This was… the farmed Mother Clams?

He had thought they used some other method, but he didn't expect it to be this kind of thing.

All the Mother Clams were being bred through illusion Formations and the mechanism in the center of this residence? This was truly… against natural justice.

How did the Mother Clams themselves come into being? The seeds produced by Mother Clams should only give birth to ordinary pearl clams; they certainly couldn't give birth to Mother Clams.

"No, on the bodies of these Mother Clams… there's Dragon Qi? Is the birth of Mother Clams related to Dragon Qi?" A thought popped into Li Qi's mind.

So, he went deeper.

At this point, it was no longer a place one could enter simply by being one with natural.

The surroundings were filled with various mechanisms and illusion Formations, and there were different guards standing post and patrolling everywhere.

These guards were of little use; the strongest was only eighth-grade, completely incapable of seeing Li Qi.

The Formation, however… was a bit interesting. It seemed to have been set up by a master, combining the overall control, coordination, warning, and defense capabilities of the entire residence. Moreover, it used numerous eighth-grade Mother Clams as Formation bases. If a Mother Clam left, the Formation would react instantly. Without destroying the entire Formation Plate, it would be impossible to move the Mother Clams here.

Everything was done very strictly.

Only…

They hadn't considered an anomaly like Li Qi.

Although Li Qi was not a master of Formations, with his True Knowledge Dao Resonance, his eyesight was first-rate. He could clearly see the Formation's脉络, including the energy flow within it.

It was probably like… directly seeing the design blueprint of this Formation.

The master who set up this Formation was indeed very strong, perhaps even sixth-grade or above. The Bai Zhu Family must have paid a heavy price to enlist his help.

However… this master merely took money to make a Formation Plate for someone. Li Qi didn't need to confront this master directly. With the entire Formation Plate's design blueprint visible, breaking it wasn't too difficult.

Thinking this, Li Qi tried it.

Well… actually, it was quite difficult.

Li Qi realized he had overestimated himself; many things, even with the design blueprint, couldn't be accomplished.

What a precise Formation. The Bai Zhu Family was indeed a Family with a fourth-grade master overseeing it.

With the design blueprint, Li Qi knew the Formation Plate's weaknesses, energy core, and various conduits. He could violently dismantle this Formation, but to truly break it, Li Qi's skill level was still far from enough.

But then again…

One must know that this was the world, and here, the infrastructure was very complete.

Li Qi directly and openly took out his terminal and dialed Shen Shuibi's number.

"Hmm? What's wrong? Contacting me in the East Sea, be careful of the terminal's regulatory warning," the rabbit said on the other end of the line.

Li Qi could see that she was still weaving a Formation.

It was a super-large Formation capable of pulling an entire world cluster, able to cover a vast area measured in light-years.

A Formation master, wasn't there one right here?

Moreover, the master who made this Formation was probably like a younger brother in front of Shen Shuibi.

This was a genuine Formation master, the kind who could rub sand into integrated circuits.

"It's just ordinary communication. The regulation shouldn't be that strict, right? As long as the information volume isn't large, at most they'll just glance at it and won't pay too much attention, as the terminal is indeed convenient," Li Qi said with a smile.

Contacting Chang'an from the East Sea indeed carried risks, so Li Qi wouldn't casually contact them unless necessary, and certainly wouldn't activate the terminal just for idle chat.

This wasn't just about the terminal; other Dao paths would also closely monitor terminal signals to prevent any Human Race members from transmitting certain conspiracies in these areas via the terminal.

After all, the Human Dao's desire for expansion… was well-known.

However, such a small amount of communication wasn't a problem, because Li Qi wasn't planning any conspiracy, but he still had to hurry.

So, Li Qi said, "Jade, help me solve this Formation. I'll tell you why when I get back."

Shen Shuibi also knew that Li Qi's actions couldn't alert the terminal, so she didn't ask further. She just tapped a few times and marked a few locations for Li Qi.

"Following the form of the Southern Fire Qi, supplement its mixed Qi, proper Qi, and transformed Qi, to form its Qi together, and its Qi will naturally become chaotic," the rabbit said indifferently, with almost no emotional fluctuation.

Li Qi nodded, then put away his terminal, and then lightly tapped a few times, easily breaking the Formation. And… the entire Formation was still operating, completely unaware that a large opening had been torn in it.

Walking in as if strolling through a leisurely garden, Li Qi arrived at the center of the Bai Zhu Family.

Here, a Dragon scale was placed.

And it was stained with blood, steaming hot, clearly fresh.

Evidently, this Dragon scale was the source of the Dragon Qi here.

Next to the Dragon scale, a seventh-grade Merfolk was swimming.

Just after Li Qi entered, he suddenly looked in Li Qi's direction.