Kunlun Cave Heaven.


    Zhou Yi took out an Array te from his storage bag, the Illusion Array, Trapping Array, Defense Array, and Attack Array, umting thousands of them.


    Half were arranged at the entrance, first ensuring the safety of the space. The rest were ced above and below, many of which prevented divine soul exploration, making it difficult for even a split soul to enter the interior of the Treasure Bead from then on.


    After the Illusion Array was activated, the sky appeared with the sun and clouds, and the distance turned into a vast horizon.


    In this way, it was just like a real world.


    Zhou Yi took out his bottom-of-the-box spiritual objects and, using all of his Artifact Refining heritage, refined the Cave Heaven into a protective Supreme Treasure for himself.


    "This is only the beginning, the subsequent continuous fortification will carry on, until it bes an impregnable world of Cave Heaven. Even if heaven and earth were to shatter, it would preserve itself and roam in the chaos beyond the sky…"


    As his cultivation level improved, there were fewer and fewer people in the world who could pose a threat to Zhou Yi. Thousands of yearster, the only thing that could eventually kill him would be the copse of heaven and earth.


    The likelihood of the apocalypse was minuscule, yet in the face of endless time, even the smallest possibility would be inevitable.


    Zhou Yi didn''t want to wait until the copse of heaven and earth to have nowhere to hide; he had long nned to build a refuge, and the Dragon Emperor Treasure Bead was just the opportunity!


    Another fifty years passed.


    Kunlun Cave Heaven was finally initially refined.


    Zhou Yi sat cross-legged by theke fishing, even though there were no fish in the water.


    The Spirit Ginseng doll squatted beside him, looking at the clouds changing in the sky and asked, "Immortal, when will the Jianmu tree begin to branch?"


    Zhou Yi closed the scripture and answered very seriously, "Wait until Kunlun Cave Heaven transforms into a world. With the sky reaching nineyers and thend spreading over eight wildernesses, Jianmu will naturally sprout branches."


    The Spirit Ginseng doll counted on its fingers for a long time but couldn''t make sense of it and asked again, "How should the Cave Heaven be erged?"


    "I''m not clear on the specifics," Zhou Yi responded, "but the most likely way is to refine simr spiritual objects to the Dragon Emperor Treasure Bead into it."


    Zhou Yi tried to set up the Micro Dust Formation, to shrink the externalnd and put it into the Cave Heaven, but it didn''t fit at all, losing the idea of stacking boxes infinitely.


    To shrink the thousand mountains into a speck of dust, in truth, the thousand mountains are still present.


    The Spirit Ginseng doll, who happily enjoyed the great drama without worrying about its intensity, said with shining eyes, "Does the Immortal n to dig up those old monsters?"


    "It''s not that easy," Zhou Yi said. "I have a deep karmic rtionship with the Dragon Emperor. It took so much effort, and only by a stroke of luck did I find the Blood Crystal. Other self-sealing old monsters havepletely hidden their tracks, their self-sealing objects may be stones or dead wood, and it''s difficult to detect them even when facing them!"


    The Spirit Ginseng doll listened while lying on the ground, rolling several times. After spreading its limbs, it lost hope in bing an immortal.


    "Because I cannot find them, doesn''t mean no one in the world can," Zhou Yi said. "Those old monsters of the demonic path, each has an immeasurable amount of blood on their hands; perhaps one day, they will let a mortal dig them out from some corner and study them as an unsolved mystery."


    The Spirit Ginseng doll didn''t quite understand but felt hopeful about bing an immortal again and immediately revived its energy.


    Zhou Yi didn''t continue exining and packed up the fishing rod and said:


    "I''ve been in closed-door cultivation for more than two hundred and sixty years. Now that my portable abode ispleted, it''s time to experience the bustling mortal world."


    …


    Northern Border.


    Dragon Coiled Mountain.


    The ce where the Founding Great Ancestor of the Great Zhou Dragon rose to power, he changed Serpentine Mountain to Dragon Coiled Mountain and held several grand sealing and enfeoffment ceremonies.


    Ancestor Zhou did not offer sacrifices to the vast sky and the fertile earth when climbing the mountain, but to the legendary Kunlun Fairy Mountain, reporting his achievements to the immortals, showing that he had fulfilled his mission.


    Later historiographies would define Ancestor Zhou''s consecration of Dragon Coiled Mountain as leveraging the fame of Kunlun Fairy Mountain, dividing and attacking the stubborn faction of the Imperial Court, while simultaneously reinforcing the correctness of his own rule.


    Subsequently,rge amounts of coal were discovered on Dragon Coiled Mountain, and the vicinity of Ancestor Zhou''s hometown, Depend-on-Mountain City, became increasingly prosperous and eventually grew into a key town of the Northern Border.


    On this day,


    It was the depths of winter, and the north wind was biting and cold.


    It had been snowing for three days straight, and thendscape of mountains and cities was a vast expanse of white.


    Dressed in a dark cyan Taoist robe, Zhou Yi performed qinggong to leap and glide, gazing at the dark and hazy smog in the sky, his expression was somewhat odd.


    By the time he reached the city gate, there was no guard on duty, allowing carts, horses, and pedestrians toe and go as they pleased.


    "Carts with bearings, tight and finely woven fabrics, it seems the world has undergone many changes," he noted.


    Once Zhou Yi entered the city, he found it bustling and lively, rivaling even the capital.


    He went about his usual routine and found a bookstore, where he opened a volume of the Annals of Ancestor Zhou and noticed the paper and ink disyed significant standardization; the handwriting was uniformly sized and the angles were consistent, oddlycking some artistic vor.


    "Zhu Kang really did it!" Zhou Yi eximed in surprise. Truth be told, when he had passed on the machinery to Zhu Kang, he hadn''t had much hope.


    The adoption of machines required more than just technology; it also needed ideological liberation and cultural umtion, neither of which were present in Cloud Continent.


    The Cultivation World had existed for countless years, traceable back to ancient times, and Cloud Continent had not changed since those times. While cultivators could easily create machines, there was simply no need to—mortals'' valuey in providing offspring with Spirit Roots!


    Dynastic changes, wars, gues, natural disasters, and cmities, no matter how many mortals died, none of these moved the Cultivation World to pity.


    There might have been some budding rebellions during these times, which in the eyes of the cultivators were unstable and seditious, easily crushed to dust by a flick of the hand, and the mundane world continued to be passed down and perpetuated through ancient systems.


    When Zhou Yi imparted the technology to Zhou Kang, he merely intended to nt a seed without expecting it to take root and sprout.


    Scanning the book with his divine sense, he quickly grasped Zhu Kang''s exploits after leaving Kunlun. Of course, the annals made no mention of Kunlun, instead, they described how Ancestor Zhou was bestowed with secret techniques by a Mo family descendant.


    Using the spinning wheel, Zhu Kang rapidly amassed a great fortune, forged connections, and established the Kunlun Firm.


    The Kunlun Firm''s cloths were high-quality and cheap, sold throughout all the countries of Cloud Continent, which aroused the envy of the Qing Kingdom''s officials.


    Initially, Zhu Kang only thought of earning silver and repeatedly gifted the Imperial Court officials, but this only led to increasing greed. Left with no choice, he embarked on a path of rebellion.


    He fought battles in the south and the north, and established the Great Zhou.


    The territory of Great Zhou was smaller than that of Qing Kingdom, and neighboring countries also upied part of Qing''s territory, with an areaparable to that of the millennia-old Fengyang Country.


    After ascending the throne, Zhu Kang, using the powers of the founding emperor, tried to implement machinery nationwide, but met fierce resistance from conservative,nd-owning nobles. Those who hit the columns of the court in failed persuasions, and even conspired with princes to rebel!


    The Founding Great Ancestor, who had risen through fire and blood, was no ordinary mortal!


    On one hand, Zhu Kang used the excuse of wars on the southern and northern borders, and on the other, he sought the assistance of a descendent of the Mo family, employing both strategies to promote machinery.


    "Appeal to war, borrowing the prestige of the Mo family''s sages!" Zhou Yi said with a slight nod, feeling somewhat as though he had underestimated the world. It was unfortunate that he had been focused on refining treasures at the time, otherwise, had he demonstrated his spells a few times, Zhu Kang could have borrowed the mandate of heaven and the implementation would have been even smoother.


    In the thirty years following Zhu Kang''s ascent to the throne, he was constantly struggling against the conservatives.


    Thebination of imperial power and machinery was not something the pedantic Confucians could resist. As the lives of themon people improved day by day, even the conservative factions began to divide.


    The benefits brought by machinery were too many to count, far beyond anything agriculture couldpare with!


    Advanced productive forces, like an unstoppable wave, could not be held back!