Reinforcing the Formation

Hearing Lin Xiao suddenly bring this up, the three of them were taken aback.

Seeing their clueless expressions, Lin Xiao said to Liu Yunan, "Baldy, when you have time lately, could you help me gather everyone's opinions?"

Liu Yunan nodded immediately upon hearing this. "Alright! I'll go ask everyone over the next few days."

At this moment, Jiang Youfu, having finished chewing the roasted beans in his mouth, suddenly sighed. "I wonder if this corvee labor to repair the dam will be exhausting. Sigh, in the past, every time my dad came back from serving, he would lose a whole layer of weight, and that was just near our village. This time, the extra dispatch is to build a massive dam by a river far away. I heard my dad say that over a decade ago, my grandpa went once, and when he came back, he was just skin and bones. Moreover, a few people from our village who went back then never returned. I heard they fell into the river and their bodies were never even found."

Mo Yuanjiao was surprised. "Is repairing a dam really that dangerous?"

Liu Yunan chimed in, "Isn't it though? My mom told me that ordinary corvee labor is one thing, but for major projects like this, the death toll among conscripted laborers is extremely high. She said that once, when our country was at war with some neighboring nation, the frontline rations were burned. The imperial court urgently conscripted people to transport grain. Because time was tight, they worked the conscripts like cattle the entire way. By the time the delivery was done, the dead could have paved a road..."

Hearing this, Mo Yuanjiao fell into a rare silence.

He happened to know about the incident Baldy mentioned.

Because that grain transport was specifically to save his father's army.

Beside them, Lin Xiao also fell silent.

Jiang Youfu and Liu Yunan were completely unaware that their words had deeply touched the other two, and they simply continued to sigh.

After the conversation, Mo Yuanjiao took the Comprehensive Guide to Basic Artifact Forging Techniques and sat in a corner of the Artifact Forging Hall with Jiang Youfu and Liu Yunan to read it together.

Lin Xiao, on the other hand, left the Artifact Forging Hall.

Outside, the rain that had gradually lightened up had somehow grown heavy again.

He stood quietly in the rain, looking up at the sky in a trance, lost in thought.

Lately, he always felt a sense of unease in his heart.

Bean-sized raindrops smashed against his body and face one by one. He did not use his spiritual energy to shield himself, instead allowing the force of nature to strike him.

If it were the past, perhaps after being drenched like this for so long, he would find the beating rain a bit painful and cold.

But now, even without using any spiritual energy or circulating his qi, he felt absolutely no discomfort. In fact, he found it quite soothing. This rain, which would cause mortals to catch a chill and flood their fields, was nothing more than a gentle tickle to him.

After a long while, Lin Xiao suddenly turned and walked toward the Array Hall.

Since he believed that there was a high chance this dam would burst, shouldn't he do something about it?

At first, he only thought about how he should respond if such a thing happened, and perhaps how to offer a little help to the villagers along the way.

But just now, after hearing the words of Fuzi and Baldy, he suddenly realized that he was no longer an ordinary person.

Although he was merely a minor Foundation Establishment cultivator, and his cultivation was insignificant compared to those profound and mighty experts.

However, compared to mortals, he was already leaps and bounds ahead.

That being the case, when facing these natural disasters and man-made calamities, shouldn't he do more? Instead of still clinging to the mindset of powerlessness, content with merely securing his immediate surroundings and feeling that was enough?

He always remembered a phrase from his past life that was deeply etched into his heart.

In obscurity, perfect oneself; in success, benefit the world.

Although in this world of immortal cultivation, he was far from being considered successful.

But whenever he thought of those ordinary conscripted laborers, who were about to use their flesh and blood to build a dam across the massive Guyue River, facing the constant danger of a breach that could sweep them away to their deaths in the raging waters, he felt he had to do something, to do more.

Because with his cultivation, what he could achieve might be just a little bit more than what their mortal strength could muster.

His ability to cultivate and gain this power could be considered a gift from the world.

He was human. Even though he had begun cultivating immortality and become a cultivator, he still felt that he and these mortals were compatriots.

Therefore, he felt he had to do something so as not to waste his cultivation.

Previously, in the Comprehensive Guide to Basic Array Engraving, he had seen an array called the Reinforcement Array. He hadn't paid much attention to it then and hadn't looked closely, but thinking about it now, this array might come in handy.

Lin Xiao flipped through the Comprehensive Guide to Basic Array Engraving kept in the Array Hall and found the Reinforcement Array.

The Reinforcement Array was divided into three tiers: large, medium, and small.

The complexity of the corresponding array diagrams varied completely depending on the tier.

Since the object to be reinforced was a dam, Lin Xiao naturally chose the large Reinforcement Array, firmly memorizing its diagram.

He then approached the Kunpeng Array Disk, infused his spiritual energy, and began to engrave the array with intense focus.

This large Reinforcement Array was not a minor array like the Minor Cooling Array. Its diagram was complex, and the spiritual energy required for engraving was naturally much greater.

After Lin Xiao nearly depleted all the spiritual energy in his body, he obtained fifty large Reinforcement Arrays.

After storing these fifty large Reinforcement Arrays in his private vault, he hurried to the cultivation room to meditate and recover.

Once the spiritual energy in his body was fully restored, he immediately got up, descended the mountain, and hurried toward the dam on the Guyue River.

Although he didn't know where the dam was, upon entering the county town, he noticed that the first few batches of conscripts who had arrived were already being led by government officials toward the dam.

So, he only needed to follow the direction of that long, trailing line of people; the dam would naturally be up ahead.

When he arrived at the dam, he was stunned by the scene before him.

Spanning the broad Guyue River was a colossal dam. Surging river water on the other side cascaded down through openings in the dam. A vast, misty spray permeated the air above the water, shrouding the entire Guyue River and making it impossible to see in its entirety.

The dense mist turned the space above the Guyue River into a sheet of white; even Lin Xiao could not clearly see the opposite bank.

Facing that majestic dam standing tall amid the vast mist and waves, Lin Xiao felt incredibly small.

Yet at this moment, atop this magnificent dam, countless tiny figures were striving to carry out repair work.

Some of them were suspended in the air by hemp ropes, operating tools against the surface.

Below the dam, on the riverbanks, bare-chested men carried sacks of earth on their backs. Like ants, they were transporting repair materials up onto the dam.

It was already dusk. The distant setting sun behind the dam dyed the background in magnificent sunset hues. The ethereal, dense mist diffused the rosy light, painting the heavens and the earth, and recording this epic scene of humanity struggling against nature.