Chapter 156: Nine Dragons Seal
Elder Shu had granted everyone free time to do whatever they wanted in the remaining days, as long as they returned to their lodgings at a set time and avoided trouble.
When she said this, she gave Ethan a particularly long look, though Ethan had no idea why the elder was singling him out.
While the others went out to explore the city or pursue other activities, Ethan, who had already rested enough, decided it was time to return to his previous routine.
Now that he had obtained the Blood Flower he desired so much, he wanted to plant it as soon as possible.
Once back in his room, he transported himself to his minor dimension.
Upon arriving, he sensed Zhong Hei\'s aura wandering in the forest near his herb garden.
Seeing that the creature was fine, he continued to the herb garden.
He wasn\'t worried about any dangers there.
After all, among the beasts in the area, Zhong Hei was undoubtedly the strongest, so the danger was relatively minimal.
That said, Zhong Hei had a tendency to cause trouble for others.
What if he ended up provoking too many beasts and they all ganged up on him?
Ethan believed Zhong Hei could handle himself even in that scenario, but one could never be too sure.
He had already noticed that his dimension seemed to change each time he improved, and who could say whether dangerous areas wouldn\'t appear at some point?
For now, he hadn\'t discovered any other life forms apart from those he had introduced himself, but that didn\'t mean it would always be that way.
Entering the herb garden, Ethan looked around, unable to suppress a feeling of pride at the beautiful sight before him.
Not because of how beautiful it was, but because in this area all the herbs were particularly rare and precious.
Seeing so many gathered in one place filled him with joy.
As he was enjoying the moment, he suddenly noticed a petal fall from one of the herbs.
"..."
[ -300 high-grade spiritual stones]
In his mind, an imaginary number appeared.
Ethan stood frozen as he watched the petal fall to the ground.
He had just lost 300 high-grade spiritual stones.
Shifting his gaze from the petal to the fiery orange flower from which it had fallen, he noticed something in particular.
Without hesitation, he sent out a thread of spiritual energy, catching that object.
The next thing to happen was that something went flying through the air, traveling several kilometers before crashing into a distant mountain.
The object, resembling a scarecrow, clung to the mountain\'s side before falling another thousand meters down.
Ethan, the cause of this sudden flight, glanced to the side at another scarecrow-like figure that had just appeared and said:
"I\'m fairly certain I told you all to be particularly careful with the herbs in this area, didn\'t I?"
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The scarecrow trembled in fear as a stammering voice emerged from it.
"Number 5 got lost and ended up working here," it said.
"What? Him again? Didn\'t I tell you to send him to the outer area of the garden to chop down trees from the forest? How did he end up here?"
"Number 3 doesn\'t know. One moment he was there, and then he wasn\'t," said the scarecrow.
Ethan, hearing this response, didn\'t know whether to laugh or cry.
These scarecrows were his creations, designed to keep his herb garden in order.
He had faced numerous difficulties in solving this problem.
That\'s when Bai Yu had come up with a solution.
She had taught him a soul technique that allowed him to create soul puppets.
These were essentially empty shells into which wandering souls were placed.
Bai Yu had explained the various uses of this technique, and the more Ethan heard, the more uneasy he felt.
She told him he could simply take the souls of animals and shape them to create these puppets.
She mentioned that human souls would work better, but Ethan had no intention of hunting people to steal their souls, so he used some beasts from the forest instead.
The downside of using beasts was that the final product\'s intelligence would be far lower than even a three-year-old child\'s, and while these souls could learn and grow over time, it would take many years.
As of now, all of them had less than 10 years of existence, so Ethan kept them away from the area with rare herbs.
Even a small mistake there would cause him to shed bitter tears over the loss of an herb.
Not wanting to give names to dozens of puppets, Ethan classified them by numbers.
At the moment, he was talking to Number 3, one of the few puppets with slightly higher intelligence than the others.
The one he had just sent flying was Number 5, the scourge of his herb garden.
Number 5\'s intelligence barely surpassed that of a three-year-old child.
He could follow simple instructions, but anything more complex would lead to disaster.
For this reason, Ethan kept him far away from anything valuable.
On the very first day, he had found part of his plantation in flames thanks to Number 5.
Ethan had been so furious he almost threw the puppet into the fire it had caused.
Had it not been for the fact that the little troublemaker had won Bai Yu\'s sympathy, Ethan would have dismantled him and reshaped his soul to make him as efficient as the other puppets.
At this point, Ethan had only one thing left to do, seal off this area.
He had never thought to do it before, as this dimension was his and no creature other than those he introduced could enter and steal his herbs.
He had never bothered to set up any defenses for the garden.
But now, with a walking disaster like Number 5, Ethan knew it was time to install them.
He sighed slightly as he concentrated some spiritual Qi into his hand and made a sign with his palm upward.
"Nine Dragons Seal."
As soon as the words were spoken, various symbols began forming above Ethan\'s palm.
First one, then two, then three, and so on, until they all gathered into a circle.
After a while, the symbols stopped appearing, and Ethan closed his palm.
The symbols shot out in different directions, forming a circle with a radius of 5 kilometers.
"Activate."
Immediately, columns of light of different colors shot up around him, and a thin dome-shaped barrier formed over the herb garden.
This was the Nine Dragons Seal formation.
It was a technique Ethan had learned from Bai Yu, which allowed for an almost absolute defense against any creature below the spiritual realm.
In other words, even a cultivator in the fifth stage of the mortal realm wouldn\'t be able to penetrate it.
Of course, such a barrier required a large amount of spiritual energy, but Ethan had set it up so that the necessary energy would be drawn from the surrounding environment.
Being in a small world rich in unused spiritual energy, he didn\'t need to maintain the barrier himself.
Once he finished setting up the defenses for the herb garden, Ethan went to the wooden platform with the conical roof and sat down in a meditative pose, ready to cultivate.
He had already stored up enough Qi, and now he needed to refine it, hoping to break through to the next level by the end of the month.