The sun was high over Iron Cloud Mountain.
For the first time in years, Skyview Manor was loud.
Fatty Zhang, now officially "Mr. Zhang", was standing on the front steps, wearing a brand-new, slightly-too-tight Italian suit. He was holding a clipboard and shouting into a phone, looking every inch the stressed property manager of an eccentric billionaire.
"No! I don't care if the granite has to be imported from Italy! The boss wants black granite, he gets black granite! Overtime is approved. Just get the trucks up here!"
He hung up, wiped sweat from his forehead, and pointed a finger at a foreman. "And you! That generator better be silent. If I hear a single hum in the West Wing, you're fired!"
Fatty was a natural. He was protecting the "West Wing" with the ferocity of a guard dog.
Lin Hao watched from the balcony of that very wing, invisible in the shadows. He nodded, satisfied. Fatty was handling the mortal shell.
Now, Lin Hao had to build the spiritual core.
He turned and walked away from the house, heading into the 200 acres of private, dense forest that surrounded the manor.
The "Low-Grade" formation flags he had used at the warehouse were garbage. They had created a "dead zone," a patch of static that had attracted the BSA's attention. He couldn't afford that here. Skyview Manor couldn't just disappear from the map; that would be suspicious. It had to become uninteresting.
He walked the perimeter of the cliffside property. He wasn't looking for rare ores. He was looking for the earth itself.
He found a small mountain stream that cut through the property. He knelt and began to gather stones.
He chose them carefully. Smooth, round river stones, worn down by centuries of water. They were full of natural, earthy Qi. He gathered hundreds of them, piling them into a mound in a secluded clearing.
He placed his hands on the pile of cold, wet stones.
"System," he commanded. "Open $Object Upgrade$."
[Object: Pile of Natural River Stones] [Details: Smoothed by water. Contains trace Earth Qi. Mortal Grade.]
This was a massive area. 200 acres. A "Low-Grade" formation wouldn't cover it. He needed power.
[Upgrade: Mid-Grade Spirit Rank Concealment Formation (Array Nodes)]? (Cost: 3,000 UP)
Three thousand points. It was a steep price, a chunk of his "sister's fund," but security was the foundation of everything. If he was found, the money didn't matter.
"Confirm."
[Deducting 3,000 UP. 46,760 UP Remaining.]
The pile of stones shuddered.
They didn't melt or crumble like the warehouse debris. Instead, they glowed.
A deep, earthen-yellow light pulsed from within the rocks. Invisible chisels seemed to carve into their surfaces. Complex, flowing runes etched themselves into the stone, glowing briefly before fading back into the gray surface.
The stones were no longer just rocks. They were nodes. Anchors for a reality-bending field.
Lin Hao picked them up. They felt heavy, buzzing with a low-frequency hum.
He spent the next three hours running.
He used his [Level 7] speed to blur around the perimeter of the 200-acre estate. He buried the stones at specific, geomantic points, the "veins" of the mountain, creating a massive, invisible web.
He placed the final stone, the "Keystone", at the base of the main gate.
He stepped back. He channeled a pulse of his [Level 7] Qi into the Keystone.
HUMMM.
A low, subsonic vibration passed through the mountain.
From Lin Hao's perspective, inside the array, nothing changed. The sun was bright, the view was clear.
But he knew what it looked like from the outside.
If a car drove up the winding road now, they wouldn't see a brutalist mansion or a construction crew.
They would see... a dense, shifting bank of mountain fog.
And more importantly, they would feel a subtle, subconscious boredom. Their eyes would slide off the peak. Their GPS would "glitch" and suggest a U-turn. Their desire to explore would vanish, replaced by a sudden urge to turn around and go home.
It wasn't invisibility. It was irrelevance.
"Mundane entry denied," Lin Hao whispered.
He checked his balance.
[Upgrade Points (UP): 46,760]
He was secure. He was hidden.
And tonight... tonight he would finally have the points to change his sister's destiny.