After getting back to his house, Alexei spent about twenty minutes sorting through the ridiculous haul they had pulled from that dead cultivator's storage ring, then headed to his bedroom.
The spirit stone windfall came at the perfect time. With that many mid-grade stones in his hands, expanding the underground farm was no longer just an idea. It was something he could pull off. He could add more lamps, build more terraces, and grow more crops under tightly controlled conditions.
His little mountain base was turning into a proper underground complex. Which was either impressive or deeply concerning, depending on how you looked at it.
According to the Eastern Territories Spiritual Flora Compendium, which Yan had lent him and which was way more technical than he liked, the whole spiritual plant ecosystem worked on a pretty simple energy conversion system.
Profound-tier plants needed at least twice the ambient spiritual energy found in the Eastern Territories just to grow properly. Even then, their efficiency was extremely low, converting only a small portion of that energy into pure spiritual essence. At best, they would attract a few minor spirit beasts, mostly birds, insects, and other creatures that were hardly worth mentioning in cultivation terms.
Earth-tier plants required triple the energy, with higher-grade versions needing anywhere from five to ten times as much. The top-grade Earth-tier plants could convert pure spiritual energy at a rate comparable to a Qi Refining cultivator actively meditating.
In demonic beast territories, plants like these were usually guarded by Core Formation-level creatures. It made sense. If you were a beast and found something that passively boosted your cultivation, you wouldn't just leave it lying around. You would stay close and guard it.
Heaven-tier plants needed at least ten times the standard spiritual energy, with top-grade specimens potentially requiring up to twenty times the baseline. Their conversion rates matched Core Formation cultivators.
In the wild, these were almost always protected by Nascent Soul-level beasts. Some of the older, more intelligent ones even tried to cultivate the plants themselves, collecting seeds and planting them in areas with decent energy flow. The success rate was apparently terrible, but they kept trying anyway.
And here was the interesting part that most cultivators didn't seem to understand: higher tier wasn't always better.
If a spiritual plant didn't get enough ambient energy to sustain itself, it would ramp up its absorption rate just to stay alive. That meant it stopped outputting pure spiritual energy entirely, sometimes for years, until conditions improved.
A low-grade Heaven-tier plant placed in an environment with less than five times the Eastern Territories' baseline energy was completely useless. It wouldn't produce any pure spiritual energy. At best, it might survive, but it would never flower or bear fruit, and it wouldn't help anyone cultivate.
Even at six times the baseline, the situation didn't improve much. That same Heaven-tier plant would only produce output comparable to a Profound-tier plant, making it highly inefficient.
Meanwhile, in that same six-times environment, even Earth-tier plants could produce several times more pure spiritual energy than a Heaven-tier specimen grown under normal conditions.
That was why Alexei, with Yan's help, had planned every terrace level in his underground farm for maximum efficiency. Each ring of spirit stone lamps created a different energy density, and he matched those conditions with the right tier of spiritual plants so they could grow at their peak.
At the moment, the inner sections near the densest lamp clusters were filled with high-grade Heaven-tier plants, while the outer rings gradually shifted down to low-grade Profound-tier varieties.
As for Yellow-tier plants, they were basically weeds. They didn't even require spiritual energy to grow, so there was no point wasting valuable underground space on them when he could just scatter seeds outside and leave them alone.
Even with this setup, the farm was already producing enough pure spiritual energy to support Qingxue's cultivation. She was at the Dharma Aspect realm, and her energy demands were absurd, yet it was still enough for her and everyone else in the Aureate Summit Sect combined.
More importantly, it meant they could cultivate without interruption and never worry about running dry.
But Alexei's obsession with expanding the farm wasn't just about helping other people.
He had discovered something interesting. Whenever he stayed in areas rich in pure spiritual energy, his cultivation would increase on its own. That meant he had stumbled onto the laziest cultivation method possible. He could just sit in a room full of spiritual plants, fish if he felt like it, and let the energy do the work for him.
If he could scale that up with more plants, denser energy, and better conversion, he might be able to push through cultivation realms just by staying in the right environment.
And if pure spiritual energy worked, then spirit marrow should work even better.
According to Qingxue, spirit marrow was simply pure spiritual energy that had been condensed into a solid form. In theory, that meant he could consume it and directly boost his cultivation.
The only problem was getting any.
Even with all the wealth he had gathered, he could only synthesize six top-grade spirit stones, while nine were needed to form a single piece of spirit marrow. He was still three stones short, and top-grade stones were far from easy to find.
He closed the compendium and tossed it onto his desk.
---
The next morning, Alexei woke up earlier than usual.
He sat up, stretched, and had barely gotten out of bed when someone knocked on his door.
"Alexei? Are you awake?"
"Yeah, give me a second."
He got dressed quickly and went to open the door.
Qingxue was standing outside, holding a small tray with two cups of tea, both still steaming.
"You're up early," she said, sounding a little surprised. "I brought tea. I thought we could go over the expansion plans for the underground farm before the monkeys arrive."
"You made tea?"
"Yan made it. I'm just delivering it."
He took one of the cups. It smelled like some kind of floral blend, way too fancy for his taste, but he wasn't about to complain.
"Thanks. Yeah, we should figure out the monkey situation before they show up with their entire brewing setup and expect everything to be ready."
They headed to the main hall together. Alexei sipped his overly fancy tea as he tried to estimate how much space a troop of spirit monkeys would need.
Once they sat down, Qingxue unrolled a map of the mountain's interior while Alexei went over everything he had to deal with today and started sorting out his priorities.
First, the spirit monkeys would arrive in three days. They were bringing a large amount of equipment, mainly brewing tools and their stockpile of monkey wine. He needed to prepare a proper area for them. At the very least, that meant living quarters, a brewing facility, and farmland for whatever ingredients they used.
Second, he needed to find a Nether fortress, kill Wither Skeletons, collect their skulls, summon the Wither, and take it down to get a Nether star.
Third, he had to assimilate the pile of magical artifacts and spirit stones they had collected. That could run in parallel with everything else since it mostly required time and experience rather than constant attention.
Fourth, he needed to set up a proper transportation network using the Nether.
The earlier tests in the Verdant Vine Mystic Realm had already shown that the Nether wasn't especially dangerous for cultivators. Most of the mobs were only around the Foundation Establishment level, which made them more annoying than threatening.
More importantly, those tests had confirmed something else. His Minecraft abilities didn't carry over through tools.
Yan and Qingxue had both tried using his pickaxe, sword, and shovel. The tools worked well enough. They were sharp, durable, and could break ordinary materials, but that was all they did. They couldn't mine blocks, access his inventory, or trigger any of the strange mechanics that made them useful in the first place.
That meant any cultivator entering the Nether through one of his portals would be heavily restricted. They could still open chests, collect items, and kill mobs for loot, but they wouldn't be able to break blocks or reshape the environment the way he could.
That was a huge advantage when it came to security.
The downside was obvious. All construction had to be done by him alone, which slowed things down more than he liked. Still, it was a small price to pay.
He stood up, stretched, and grinned.
"Alright, time to grind."
---
Later that afternoon, five men who looked middle-aged, but were likely much older, arrived alongside two elderly cultivators. They descended from the sky and landed in the open plaza before the Sect Master's Hall.
Zhengxing was already waiting for them with his hands clasped in greeting.
"Welcome. Please, follow me inside."
The seven visitors exchanged brief glances. They hadn't expected the sect master of such a minor faction to be at the early Nascent Soul stage, which was unusual for a place this remote.
Even so, early Nascent Soul was nothing special to them. Their expressions stayed neutral, polite but without any real respect.
One of the middle-aged men gave a short nod.
"Sect Master Qin, we will need you to gather all of your sect's cultivators. We have some important questions to ask."
The words sounded polite, but the tone made it clear that this wasn't a request.
Zhengxing didn't take offense. In the cultivation world, hierarchy was absolute, and these people were already being restrained by speaking to him directly.
He had seen far worse. Some high-level cultivators would simply release their spiritual pressure across the entire mountain and force everyone to gather in the plaza without a word of explanation. Compared to that, this was almost courteous.
"Hm... Please wait a moment."
He already had a good idea of what this was about.
If he was right, it had something to do with the headless corpse they had found in the forest.
The Aureate Summit Sect had a simple way of summoning its members when needed.
In the main plaza, just outside the Sect Master's Hall, stood a large bronze bell about two meters tall. It was graded as Profound-tier, which sounded impressive until you realized that pretty much every ranked sect on the continent had one.
The bell's internal formation arrays allowed it to vibrate the surrounding spiritual energy and project sound across vast distances. More importantly, anyone within range would hear it at exactly the same volume, no matter where they were standing. Someone right next to the bell would hear the same thing as someone a hundred kilometers away.
The transmission ranges were standardized: Yellow-tier bells could reach sixteen kilometers, Profound-tier reached 160 kilometers, Earth-tier could cover 1,600 kilometers, and Heaven-tier bells could theoretically broadcast across 16,000 kilometers, though no one had ever tested that because who the hell needed to summon people from that far away?
After three clear tolls of the bell, Zhengxing returned to the main hall where the seven visitors were waiting.
"Please be patient. Our sect members live fairly spread out across the mountain."
The visitors nodded slightly, settling into chairs on the left side of the hall without much comment. They closed their eyes and entered light meditation, conserving energy while they waited.
About seven or eight minutes passed before the first arrivals showed up.
A booming voice echoed into the hall before its owner even appeared.
"Sect Master, what's the emergency? You don't usually ring the bell unless something important is happening."
The seven visitors frowned slightly. Barging in while shouting was hardly proper etiquette, but then again, this was a remote sect in the middle of nowhere. Standards were probably different out here.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the hall as two men approached, their massive builds making them look like walking fortresses. They entered side by side, and their presence alone made the space feel smaller.
Curious about their strength, some of the visitors released faint probes of qi. The waves were soft, meant only to gauge their general realm without digging deeper.
Among demonic cultivators, that kind of probing would have been taken as an insult. Here, however, the orthodox cultivators treated it as normal. As long as it stayed a light scan and didn't turn into a forceful inspection, it was acceptable in a public gathering. Doing the same in private would still be considered rude.
Of course, a soft scan wasn't foolproof. Anyone with good control over their qi could interfere with it. Lowering one's apparent realm was easy, while raising it was much harder. In theory, it could be done, but only if the person had qi strength close to that level. Otherwise, they could only create a vague sense of pressure, not a convincing illusion.
Even so, most scans were still reliable. Few cultivators bothered to hide their strength, and many preferred to show it off. Appearing weaker brought no advantage in a setting like this, so most people let their true realm be seen.
One was at the high stage of Spirit Condensation. The other stood at the peak of Foundation Establishment, and the fluctuations in his spiritual energy made it clear he was close to breaking through to Core Formation.
Their mental ages were harder to judge. Somewhere between forty and fifty, perhaps. Their rough appearances suggested lives filled with hard labor and constant strain.
One of the middle-aged visitors glanced at them and thought they could just as easily be thirty. Body cultivators often aged in strange ways.
The blacksmith glanced over the seven visitors already seated in the hall, then walked to the right side and took a seat without saying a word. His apprentice followed and stopped behind him, arms crossed as he stood guard.
The hall remained quiet for another three minutes.
Then a man and a woman descended from the sky outside, each carrying a sword. They entered without speaking and took their seats beside blacksmith, closing their eyes as soon as they sat down.
The elderly visitors straightened slightly at the sight.
Another Nascent Soul cultivator had arrived.
The young man's spiritual energy felt sharp, tightly restrained like a blade ready to be drawn. Even sitting still, his sword intent was obvious. On top of that, he was already approaching the mid-stage of Nascent Soul, yet his mental age looked no older than his mid-twenties.
One of the elders narrowed his eyes. Nascent Soul before thirty was rare. This one clearly had potential.
The woman behind him was no less impressive. Her expression matched his almost perfectly, suggesting they were either siblings or shared the same master. Her cultivation was at the high stage of Core Formation, and her mental age seemed to be around twenty-one or twenty-two.
Another talented sword cultivator.
Less than two minutes later, a stern-looking man in administrator's robes arrived on a flying sword, with a boy riding behind him. The sword came to a precise stop in front of the hall steps, controlled so cleanly that several of the visitors gave slight nods of approval.
The man himself was at the peak of Spirit Condensation and seemed close to breaking through to Nascent Soul, likely within a decade if nothing went wrong.
Then one of the middle-aged visitors glanced at the boy and suddenly paused, doing a double-take.
The child was at the peak of Body Tempering. And he couldn't have been older than seven or eight.
The visitor mentally compared that to his own sect's recent batch of new disciples. More than half of them were still stuck at the Qi Sensing stage. The most talented among them had only just reached early Body Tempering and were still a ways off from advancing to the middle stage.
Under normal circumstances, it wasn't unusual for a new disciple to spend five or even ten years grinding through Body Tempering. Sixth-rank sects and above usually conducted evaluations twenty years after recruitment, cutting loose anyone who hadn't reached Qi Refining by then. Smaller sects took even longer, or didn't bother with evaluations at all.
Which made this child's achievement remarkable.
A seven-year-old at peak Body Tempering would be considered a genius even in a first-rank sect. At minimum, the boy had to possess a mid-grade heaven spirit root, possibly higher.
Across the entire continent, that might not stand out. But in the spiritually thin Eastern Territories, this was core disciple material for any second-rank sect.
What a waste, the visitor thought, shaking his head internally. Talent like that, stuck in a backwater sect.
Another two minutes passed before a young man dressed like a scholar entered the hall. He was another peak Spirit Condensation cultivator. Although he seemed a step behind the administrator in terms of reaching Nascent Soul, there was no doubt about his ability.
Seven or eight more minutes passed before the last group finally arrived. Two women and a young man entered the hall alongside a red-haired girl. The moment they stepped inside, everyone's attention shifted to the girl.
One of the middle-aged cultivators near the door stood up without thinking.
"Foundation Establishment?" he blurted out. "How old is she?"
The others quickly turned to look.
They all knew what the Eastern Territories were like. Spiritual energy was thin, resources were scarce, and cultivation was slow for most people. Reaching Foundation Establishment at seven or eight years old wasn't just rare, it was almost unheard of. Even reaching that level at seventeen or eighteen would make someone a top talent, the kind sects would raise as future successors.
Prodigies like that were supposed to exist only in the outer regions, where spiritual energy was denser and resources far more abundant.
Soon, their attention shifted to the white-haired man standing with her. He met their gazes calmly.
They couldn't sense his cultivation at all.
That only meant two things. He was either extremely weak or far beyond them. Given the situation, traveling with a Foundation Establishment child and two high-realm cultivators, the answer was obvious.
His spiritual energy felt unusually pure. Even from across the hall, it carried a clean, refined quality that suggested either a heaven spirit root or access to resources most sects couldn't afford.
The young man himself didn't look remarkable at first glance. His features were ordinary, but his white hair and unusual eyes set him apart in a way that felt anything but normal.
After seeing the red-haired girl, no one present believed he was ordinary.
One of the elders stood up, smoothing his robes as he composed himself. He put on a polite smile and looked toward the red-haired girl.
"Forgive the interruption. I am Elder Ming of the Thousand Winds Sect, a second-rank faction. Our sect has always valued talent, and we would be honored to extend an offer."
He paused, making sure his tone stayed respectful.
"If either of you young cultivators ever wish to join a larger sect with more resources, Thousand Winds would welcome you as inner disciples. We have training facilities, Spirit Condensation-realm instructors, and access to Earth-tier cultivation techniques."
Zhengxing's expression twitched as he watched the exchange unfold.
That guy was recruiting right in front of him, in his own sect hall.
Elder Ming was being polite about it, at least on the surface. He wasn't making demands or throwing around his cultivation base. He simply extended an offer, the same way any sect would when they came across exceptional talent.
Even so, it still stung.
The three cultivators from Wolf Mountain Sect exchanged brief glances. They had originally planned to approach the children in private after the meeting, offering generous terms in the hope of securing at least one of them before the others could act.
Now it seemed Thousand Winds had moved first.
Mengyao barely spared Elder Ming a glance.
She had no interest in his offer. The Aureate Summit Sect already gave her everything she needed: a teacher who understood her strengths, training resources suited to her cultivation method, and, more importantly, strange food that boosted her progress far beyond anything she had ever heard of.
There was no reason for her to leave.
What bothered her more was the seating.
In formal settings like this, the left side of the hall was the position of honor. Important guests sat on the left, while those of lesser status took the right.
Yet the seven outsiders had seated themselves there without hesitation, as if it were only natural.
In her eyes, they hadn't earned that place.
She kept her thoughts to herself. Yan showed no reaction, and since her master didn't take issue with it, neither would she.
Elder Ming continued to smile at them, waiting patiently for their answer.
Then his expression froze.
Cold sweat formed on his forehead as an overwhelming pressure descended on him. His knees bent under the weight, and his breathing grew heavy. Every instinct in his body urged him to kneel, to lower his head, and to submit.
There was a Dharma Aspect cultivator in this room.
"Elder Ming, what's wrong?"
The other visitors noticed the old man's expression and exchanged confused glances.
Elder Ming's face had gone stiff. His posture, which had been straight moments before, now bent slightly forward as if weighed down by an invisible force.
"I apologize if I have caused offense. I spoke out of turn."
Facing the cold, unfriendly gaze of one of the female cultivators, Elder Ming felt like his brain was short-circuiting.
What do you do when you try to recruit someone and accidentally target a Dharma Aspect Venerable?
Seeing the others still seated calmly beside him, unaware of what was happening, he turned and hissed at them:
"Stand up and show respect to the Venerable."
"Venerable?" The old men and middle-aged cultivators froze, then scrambled to their feet. "Dharma Aspect?"
Based on Elder Ming's reaction, the Dharma Aspect cultivator had to be one of the two women who had just entered. They didn't know which one exactly, and they weren't going to probe with their spiritual senses to find out.
Just from looking at them, both appeared absurdly young. Their mental ages couldn't be more than mid-twenties at most.
Nothing like the ancient Dharma Aspect elders in the Eastern Territories, whose minds had long since started deteriorating from age.
"Please forgive our earlier rudeness."
In the Eastern Territories, only about 1 in 1000 peak Nascent Soul cultivators ever managed to break through to the Dharma Aspect realm. People like them had almost no chance unless they ran into some incredible opportunity.
On top of that, a single Dharma Aspect cultivator could easily deal with more than a dozen peak Nascent Soul cultivators at once, as long as they were nothing out of the ordinary.
When the previously confident old men suddenly quieted down, Mengyao straightened her back a little, feeling a sense of satisfaction.
She knew of the Thousand Winds Sect. It was a fairly solid second-rank sect.
If she remembered correctly from her past life, all of its top experts, including the sect master, had been wiped out by the Ghost Sect during the war. If the Immortal Alliance hadn't stepped in afterward to stabilize things, the sect would have likely fallen apart on the spot.
Even then, their ending was not much better. She vaguely remembered that they eventually declined to a third-rank sect.
She had heard rumors that when the Aureate Summit Sect destroyed the Ghost Sect a century later, there had been a female cultivator involved who was already at the Tribulation Transcendence realm.
That cultivator had been described as powerful, composed, and devastatingly effective.
Mengyao suspected Yan's cultivation was already at the late or peak stage of Dharma Aspect, possibly even approaching Tribulation Transcendence. Even though Yan always insisted she was only at Nascent Soul whenever Mengyao asked.
She didn't believe that for a second.
She kept her expression neutral, but internally she was pleased.
When Qingxue saw that her act had the desired effect, she decided not to push the matter any further. She walked over to the right side of the hall and took a seat. Alexei followed behind her without saying a word.
That left the seven visitors standing awkwardly, unsure of what they were supposed to do.
By custom, a Dharma Aspect Venerable should be seated on the left. There was no way they could take seats above her, especially after getting on her bad side earlier. Sitting down now would only make things worse.
Sensing their hesitation, Zhengxing stepped in to ease the tension.
"Now that everyone from our sect is here, what brings you all today?"
"Ah, right. There's something important we need to discuss."
The topic shift gave them an excuse to move. Several of the cultivators stepped into the center of the hall.
"We have been pursuing a grey-robed cultivator. We wanted to ask if your sect has seen such a person pass through this area recently?"
"A grey-robed cultivator?" Zhengxing kept his expression calm. "I'm afraid you've come for nothing. We haven't seen anyone like that near our sect."
It wasn't exactly a lie. By the time they found the man, he had already been lying dead on the ground.
"In that case, we've troubled you for no reason." The old men didn't press further and turned to leave.
They already had what they needed.
The cultivator they suspected to be the Ghost Sect's leader had clearly died here. For them, it did not matter who had killed him. What mattered was that he was gone. With that problem resolved, they could act more freely and move ahead with their plans to attack the Ghost Sect's remaining forces.
"Please accept this as a small token of our gratitude."
Whether the sect admitted anything was irrelevant. Basic courtesy still had to be observed.
The leading elder hesitated for a moment, looking reluctant, before taking out a jade token from his robes.
Alexei's eyes lit up. Did they just drop loot?
"This is a credential for the Primordial Origin Tower. If your sect is interested, in one year's time you may use this token to send one disciple along with ours to train there. Our sect only received three of these tokens in total. I only had one in my possession. I hope your sect won't find it insufficient."
The other cultivators traveling with him all glanced at the token.
It was a credential from the Primordial Origin Tower.
Most sects below the third rank had probably never even heard of it, but its reputation was well known among the higher tiers. According to legend, the Primordial Origin Tower had been left behind by an ancient immortal sect as a trial ground for its disciples. The tower had 52 floors, and each one was a self-contained world guarded by spiritual beasts created by its formation arrays.
The higher one climbed, the richer the spiritual energy became. Even Tribulation Transcendence cultivators could gain tremendous benefits from training inside.
Of course, that only mattered if you could reach those higher floors.
Inside the tower, raw cultivation level wasn't the deciding factor. Instead, it imposed a form of suppression based on mental age, allowing only those with younger mental states to climb further.
Up to now, the highest floor anyone had ever reached was the twenty-ninth, and even that was already considered the limit for most Tribulation Transcendence cultivators. Beyond that point, only someone at the Celestial Bridge realm might be able to go further.
The problem was that such experts were almost impossible to find in the Eastern Territories, and even if one did appear, it was unlikely they would still have a youthful enough mental state to qualify.
Seeing the pained look on Elder Ming's face, along with the shock on the others, Zhengxing immediately realized how valuable this was.
"You are too generous," he said as he stepped forward to accept the token.
It didn't come away easily at first. He had to tug a bit harder before Elder Ming finally let go, and even then the old man looked like he was watching a piece of his soul depart.
Zhengxing stored the token in his robes, already planning to learn more about this Primordial Origin Tower later.
Elder Ming still looked reluctant to leave.
The other cultivators also seemed like they wanted to offer something to build goodwill with the sect.
A young Dharma Aspect cultivator meant limitless potential. On top of that, the disciples they had seen were all unusually talented.
If the Aureate Summit Sect only had some frail old Dharma Aspect elder on the verge of mental decline, they wouldn't be this eager to establish connections.
But after thinking it over, none of them really had anything else of value to offer on short notice.
In the end, they simply handed over their sect tokens to Zhengxing as well, providing a way to contact them or visit their sects in the future.
After that, they departed as quickly as dignity allowed.
"Uh... they're just leaving like that?" Alexei muttered, watching them go. "They said like ten words total, dropped loot, and left?"
"What else would they stay for?" Yan asked, smiling slightly.
"Hm... fair point."
Alexei glanced at the jade token in Zhengxing's hands, already wondering what kind of ridiculous cultivation trial this Primordial Origin Tower was.
Probably something designed to kill people in creative ways while calling it "training."
The brief meeting hadn't taken much time at all. By the time Alexei got back to his house, less than half an hour had passed since the bell first rang.
---
Over the next two days, Alexei focused on construction as he prepared for the arrival of the spirit monkeys. They would need a proper place to live, so he chose a site about thirty meters above the villagers' residential area, close to the spiritual plant cultivation zone.
The structure covered nearly 800 square meters in total and was divided into two main sections: a living area and a work area.
The work area was relatively small, less than 100 square meters, and was meant for brewing and storing spiritual wine. The rest of the space, more than 700 square meters, was reserved for living.
He split the living area into three parts: a cultivation zone, resting quarters, and a section of farmland for growing brewing ingredients.
The overall layout followed the same pattern as the villagers' homes, with a large open space in the center and individual living quarters arranged around the edges.
The central area measured 14x14 blocks, all covered in grass blocks, for a total of 196 square meters. At the very center, he placed a high-grade spirit stone lamp. Around it, he planted nine low-grade Heaven-tier spiritual plants and forty Earth-tier plants, creating a steady source of ambient energy for the monkeys to absorb.
Four blocks out from the cultivation area, he set up farmland for the monkeys, covering another 288 square meters. Beyond that, he added a ring of flowing water, both for practical use and to improve the environment.
Everything fit within the 225x25 block range of the single high-grade spirit stone lamp.
As for the living quarters, each monkey was given about nine square meters of personal space. For them, that was already more than enough. They didn't need much beyond a place to sleep and somewhere to keep their belongings.
For the entrance, Alexei carved out a separate opening on another side of the cliff, keeping it apart from the main residential access and giving the monkeys their own path in and out.
The entire colony ran on a single high-grade spirit stone lamp, keeping the setup simple.