Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Unlocking the Gourd’s Secrets
After dedicating himself to refining tools, experimenting with arrays, and honing his cultivation, Lu Fan took a step back to spend some quality time with his wives. It was a welcome break, allowing him to reconnect with them after his intense focus on cultivation. He enjoyed their company, sharing laughter and warmth as they discussed their lives and shared dreams. These moments of reprieve reminded him of the balance he sought in life—a harmonious blend of strength, knowledge, and family.
Over the following months, Lu Fan noticed a remarkable change in his first wife. Through diligent practice, she had broken through to the Innate Realm, a significant advancement he was both proud of and intrigued by. She practiced the Century Wood Art, and her aura subtly shifted to reflect a deep connection with nature. Although Lu Fan was still exploring the mysteries of cultivation himself, he decided to support her progress in any way he could. As a token of his admiration and encouragement, he provided her with a Level 1 Wood Qi Beast Blood Stone. It was a precious item, charged with wood essence that would resonate with her art, enhancing her control over wood Qi and further bolstering her cultivation journey.
Having tended to his family, Lu Fan returned to his experiments with renewed focus. This time, his attention shifted to the mysterious storage gourd, an artifact he had acquired in the inheritance hall. The gourd was a unique item, with spatial properties and peculiar seeds stored within it. It had been a curiosity he hadn't yet fully explored, and now seemed the perfect opportunity.
He began by studying its internal structure, inspecting the seeds it housed and testing its capacity. While the gourd functioned as a storage item, its space was limited compared to his other spatial tools. However, subtle markings on its surface made him wonder if it held untapped potential. The thought led him to use his magnet experiment setup, as he'd observed other items revealing hidden properties under magnetic fields.
Setting up the gourd in the center of the array, he aligned it like a key within a lock. Once activated, the magnetic field surrounded the gourd, pulsing gently as he monitored for changes. Initially, there was no visible reaction, but Lu Fan was patient, watching closely for any shift. Days passed without effect, and he began to question whether the gourd had any latent properties at all. But his curiosity drove him to persevere, leaving the setup intact to see if time would yield results.
After a month of patient observation, Lu Fan was finally rewarded. He noticed a subtle expansion in the storage capacity of the gourd. It was a small but encouraging sign, revealing that the magnetic experiment was indeed influencing the artifact. Excited by this breakthrough, Lu Fan attempted to place additional materials into the array, hoping to amplify the effect further. Yet, none of these attempts produced noticeable results, leading him to believe the gourd's properties might be limited in terms of enhancement.
With this discovery, Lu Fan decided to take the experiment to a larger scale. He sought out another mountain—his last available option with a suitably flat area—and set up an even larger array centered on the gourd. This array was his most complex and expansive creation, stretching across the mountain's surface with intricate formations designed to channel and magnify the magnetic field's effect.
Once activated, the array pulsed with energy, resonating with the gourd as he observed closely. However, unlike his previous experiments with the Spirit Gathering Array that condensed spiritual water, the gourd array did not produce any visible Qi or other substance. The absence of these effects told him that the gourd's potential was distinct from standard cultivation arrays. It wasn't a direct source of power like his other setups, but it had the unique ability to expand its storage capabilities under the magnetic influence.
Curious to test its effectiveness, Lu Fan cultivated near the array, but without any direct energy gain from it, he eventually concluded that the gourd's properties were likely limited to spatial enhancement. Over the following weeks, he continued to monitor the gourd within the array, seeking even the smallest sign of change. Each day brought subtle yet visible improvements in storage, suggesting that the artifact thrived when exposed to sustained magnetic energy.
As the array did not generate Qi or anything else for him to directly use, Lu Fan's focus shifted to logistical concerns. The need for flat land to set up his arrays had become a constraint. Although the island was large, finding accessible, flat mountain surfaces suitable for his experiments was becoming increasingly difficult. He realized that if he wanted to continue creating larger and more complex formations, he would need to develop new methods for stabilizing the arrays without relying solely on the limited flat terrain.
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