The next few weeks consisted Mo Hu's cultivation, mining, drafting a design for his material processing artifact, and expanding his understanding of the grand array protecting the island. His work in mining had cleared four additional floors below his cave and while each floor would have a purpose eventually, they were currently empty. The only exception to this was a room on the lowest floor, where Mo Hu had engraved a new spirit gathering array on the floor. The walls and ceiling also had arrays carved into them to prevent Qi from leaking out. This new design required less Qi to be gathered and provided higher quality Qi during mediation.
One day, while cultivating, Mo Hu felt his senses and strength increase. It was a quantitative change not a transformative change and as he was contemplating why it was different, he heard from Quanliyuan, 'Congradulations on advancing from Early Qi gathering stage to Mid Qi gathering stage.'
'What is this advancement you speak of,' Mo Hu questioned Quanliyuan.
'I almost forgot that you grew up in a common village,' Quanliyuan replied, 'As you know, the first stage of cultivating is the Body Perfecting Stage. But, this stage is a preparatory process and only exist to ready the body for the absorption of Qi. The Qi Gathering and subsequent stages after have what are known as minor realms referred to as early, mid, and late realms. As a cultivator of the Qi gathering stage advances, the Qi inside them at some point will saturate the body. The cultivator will then compress the Qi in their body which allows for more capacity and the compressed Qi will be of a higher quality. The compression process also strengthens the Meridians and Dantian and each time this happens it's known as crossing a minor realm.'
'This should affect my ability to create artifacts and arrays,' Mo Hu contemplated.
'You are correct, as you already determined before, certain runes or combinations of runes require a higher quality or quantity of Qi. This is difficult for most early Qi gathering stage cultivators because they don't have the quality or quantity required to create these runes. You, of course, are an exception to this with all the elements you cultivate in,' Quanliyuan explained, 'cultivators with multiple elements naturally have larger quantities of Qi, otherwise they wouldn't attract as much jealousy as they do.'
'I believe there shouldn't be many Qi gathering cultivators refiners or alchemists then,' Mo Hu theorized.
'That is somewhat true,' Quanliyuan agreed, 'most cultivators start their journey of craftsmanship during the late gathering stage. Just as cultivating has stages, the four main professions do as well. It starts with apprentices, then experts, masters, and for the lucky few, Sage or Saint level crafters.'
'Interesting, well it's time for me to finish my draft of the material processor.' Mo Hu said.
'Alright, just to give you an idea of your own skill level, I would rate your artifact refinement at the junior apprentice level and your array formations at the senior apprentice level. Both are practically unheard of at the Mid-Qi gathering stage.' Quanliyan finished.
Mo Hu nodded to himself as he considered Quanliyan's evaluation and sat at his drafting table. The artifact had already been designed in his mind but he always kept physical records of the artifacts and arrays he had created. During the time he was memorized runes he filled multiple scrolls with the different combinations and results of the researched tests for future teaching purposes. There were currently five floors beneath his cave, and he decided to build the material processing unit on the fourth level. Over the next two weeks he created stations for collecting, scanning, analyzing, crushing, separating, and storing the materials. He also developed a transportation system, that would move the materials through each station. The final phase consisted of setting all the arrays that would automate the process. Mo Hu added a function that would take dirt and stone and convert it to sand. He decided on this approach to recycle the debris from mining as not use sand from the beach and oceans. The unit was set up so he emptied his ring of debris into the collection containers and activated it. For the initial activation, he set the speed on low to ensure the process is correct and to get the most product in return. It would take several days to complete this task so he went back to grand array to study.
Mo Hu's plan to recruit workers hinged on his ability to move them quickly to the idea and he was forming an initial plan.
'The person holding the grand array control disk has the ability to teleport around the island and can even long range teleport if even energy is proud,' he stated, 'if I can refine tokens that recognized by the grand array, I can go to a city, hire the help I need and teleport everyone back as long as I carry enough resources to power to portal.'
As he followed the array's design, he thought about the instructions that allowed the disk to interface with the array.
'This should be the focus of the token, it needs to recognized by the array, but not able to control it,' Mo Hu suggested.
Isolating the specific runes from the grand array and the control disk in his mind, he began to test and modify the interface array. It only took a few hours before he created a small token that would allow the holder to pass through the long range teleport portal. The amount of tokens he could create would determine the number of people that he would recruit. He created fifty tokens that hung from leather necklaces and stored them away.
'I need a better way to travel, the raft I used to get here won't be of much use ,' Mo Hu speculated, 'with the wood I gathered from clearing farmland, I should refine a small but powerful boat that can safely travel back to the continent. I should also make a land based artifact to reduce travel times. The only thing missing is a power source.'
'Perhaps you could consider using spirit stones for this artifact you wish to design. Of course you can be traditional and have it powered by the cultivator,' Quanliyan contributed.
'I haven't found spiritual stones yet, but now that a broke through a minor stage I can mine closer to the vein. Alright, first acquire spirit stones, then refine a boat and cycle, then go recruit some people,' Mo Hu arranged his priorities.