Chapter 773: Comprehension (I)

"Hey, that fellow is still keeping at it! When do you think he'll give up?" a man said with a laugh.

Nearly all the cultivators who came to the Forbidden Mountain to climb the Path to Heaven were interested in the Formation Dao. Of course, many of them had already attained considerable proficiency in formations before coming here. When they first began climbing, most would breeze through the first thousand meters, only starting to slow down around the thousand-meter mark. Yet Lin Zheyu had been here for nearly a month and was still lingering around nine hundred meters. His progress was so slow it was almost painful to watch.

"Don't underestimate others," a middle-aged cultivator beside the man said calmly.

Hearing the middle-aged cultivator's words, the man curled his lips, clearly unconvinced.

"This person is probably a beginner. For a martial artist who has only just begun studying the Formation Dao, this pace is passable. At the very least, he would rank somewhere around the middle. If he were willing to switch to the Immortal Dao and devote himself to studying formations, many sects and factions would probably be eager to recruit him. As for the Directorate of Celestial Observation, though, I'm afraid he wouldn't have much of a chance," the middle-aged cultivator said calmly.

Although the major sects and factions throughout Great Wei all trained their own cultivators in the Formation Dao, the Wei Family possessed the deepest foundation and greatest strength in that field. This enormous Forbidden Mountain alone was enough to leave every other sect and faction far behind.

Hearing the middle-aged cultivator praise Lin Zheyu like this, the man looked unconvinced. Even when he had first begun studying the Formation Dao, his progress had never been as slow as that fellow's. "Is he really that impressive? But when I'd only been learning formations for a short while, I climbed the Path to Heaven much faster than he is."

A middle-aged woman beside the man laughed. "Tch... Jiaqiang, don't let your martial uncle fool you... With your martial uncle's eyesight, there's no way he could judge that person's latent potential from this far away."

The beautiful woman chuckled and continued, "Your martial uncle just happens to know who that person is."

"Ahem..." The middle-aged cultivator coughed lightly twice without arguing, his face turning slightly red.

"Oh?" Zhang Jiaqiang immediately perked up. "Martial Aunt, please enlighten me!"

"I've never met him myself, but I've heard about him. His name is Xiao Yu, a newly risen martial arts genius from the Martial Alliance. I heard he has opened the three great divine repositories and awakened a spirit divine ability. Supposedly, it's a perception-type spirit divine ability. For cultivators of the Formation Dao, a perception-type spirit divine ability is an extraordinarily valuable ability to possess. As long as his natural talent for formations isn't utterly hopeless, and he's willing to switch to the Immortal Dao, even the Directorate of Celestial Observation would probably be willing to accept him," the beautiful middle-aged woman said with a smile.

Recently, many rumors about Xiao Yu had been circulating among cultivators. Among them were claims that Xiao Yu had awakened a divine ability, that his strength had increased at an astonishing pace, and that he was suspected of having obtained some tremendous fortuitous opportunity or treasure. The stories were told in such vivid detail that they sounded remarkably convincing.

"He's that impressive? Then his perception-type spirit divine ability, compared to the ocular art you've had us cultivate since childhood..."

Before Zhang Jiaqiang could finish, the beautiful woman cut him off. "Ahem. That's a spirit divine ability. How could an ordinary ocular art possibly compare? At the very least, it would take one of the most exceptional ocular-art cultivation secret arts to have even the slightest chance of matching it!"

Zhang Jiaqiang and the companions around him all sucked in a sharp breath. When they looked again at Lin Zheyu's snail-like figure, their gazes had completely changed. The Martial Alliance was not particularly famous in the cultivator world, but it was far from insignificant.

After all, it was a faction that possessed a mighty Deity Transformation realm expert. However, due to the peculiar nature of martial cultivation, immortal cultivators tended to feel an innate sense of superiority toward martial artists.

A cultivator dressed in green robes stared at Lin Zheyu's back and sneered. "Interesting..."

"Do you think the rumors are true?" a companion beside the green-robed cultivator asked with interest.

The green-robed cultivator shrugged. "Who knows? Whether they're true or not, it's better not to get involved in matters like this. Besides, with our strength, there's nothing we could do to him anyway."

***

Lin Zheyu knew nothing about what was happening at the foot of the Forbidden Mountain, nor did he care.

At this moment, Lin Zheyu was completely immersed in analyzing and breaking formations. Surging golden energy within his sea of consciousness poured into his spiritual Heavenly Eye. However, the golden energy recovered far too slowly to keep up with its consumption rate.

As a result, Lin Zheyu could only activate his spiritual Heavenly Eye at critical moments, clearly observe the formation, and immediately close it again. He would then recover the golden energy within his body while contemplating ways to analyze and break the formation.

Suddenly, Lin Zheyu's eyes narrowed slightly, and a trace of delight appeared on his face. Blood qi surged from his body into his joined index and middle fingers. Using his fingers as a brush and the power of blood qi as ink, he inscribed a miniature formation into the air. A dozen or so breaths later, the miniature formation took shape, but it lasted for fewer than ten breaths before dissipating into the void.

Lin Zheyu shook his head slightly. "Using blood qi to condense restriction runes and inscribe formations is far too difficult. This type of energy simply isn't suited to inscribing formations and restrictions."

His progress was so slow not only because he had started from such a low foundation and wanted to build it up solidly, but also because condensing restriction runes with blood qi was extremely difficult. Although both were forms of energy, blood qi and the spirit power cultivated by immortal cultivators were fundamentally different.

Blood qi primarily acted upon the physical body and served as its source of energy, whereas spirit power had a much broader range of applications. Using blood qi to condense restriction runes and inscribe formations was thousands or even tens of thousands of times more difficult than using spirit power.

Still, it's not as though there's no way around it... Lin Zheyu murmured inwardly.

With a thought, his essence, qi, and spirit fused with a strand of martial will, condensing into a hazy gray stream of true origin. He had not used this power in a very long time. As his strength increased and his martial cultivation gradually returned to simplicity and its roots in the physical body, true origin had been abandoned in favor of the most fundamental power of blood qi.

The foundation of martial cultivation lay in the physical body. As the divine repositories opened and the shackles broke, a martial artist's body underwent tremendous transformations and improvements. At that point, the power of true origin–no, for ordinary martial artists it was merely true qi–could no longer keep pace with the body's explosive growth.

The form of energy best suited to bringing out the body's full power was the most fundamental of all: blood qi. Thus, blood qi once again replaced true qi and became the most fundamental source of energy for martial artists.

Strands of hazy gray true origin flowed from Lin Zheyu's fingers as he once again inscribed the formation from before. Using true origin to condense restriction runes and inscribe formations was indeed far easier than using blood qi, but it still could not compare with spirit power.

"Break!" Lin Zheyu shouted softly.

The formation condensed from true origin suddenly floated toward the formation ahead, and the two collided instantly. With a soft pop, the formation on the Path to Heaven burst apart like a bubble, dissolving into specks of starlike energy. The formations on the Path to Heaven were all composed of restriction runes condensed from mana.

They were designed specifically for cultivators of the Formation Dao to study and practice. Compared with large-scale formations inscribed with high-grade materials and arranged in accordance with the flow of the earth veins, their power was thousands, or even tens of thousands, of times weaker. However, they were easy and inexpensive to construct, making them perfect for studying and practicing the Formation Dao.

Lin Zheyu looked toward the end of the Path to Heaven and murmured inwardly, One thousand meters... The Forbidden Mountain only opens for three months during each Ascension Assembly. I wonder how far I can make it.

It had taken him nearly a month just to climb one thousand meters. There was no helping it. His foundation was simply too poor. Comprehending the Formation Dao and integrating its underlying principles into his divine patterns was fundamentally different from systematically cultivating the Formation Dao itself.

The biggest difference was that he could not use Origin Force. In truth, integrating the Formation Dao principles he had comprehended into his divine patterns and incorporating them into the martial cultivation system was far more difficult than simply cultivating the Formation Dao.

This involved fusing two entirely different cultivation systems. Only because Lin Zheyu had used Origin Force in the past had he drastically shortened the process. Now, however, he could rely only on himself.

After resting for a dozen or so breaths, Lin Zheyu resumed his climb. The Forbidden Mountain was truly fascinating. Every blade of grass, every tree, and every stone had been condensed from restrictions and formations.

"Truly incredible... These flowers, plants, stones, and trees don't seem to be formations at their core. Instead, each appears to have been manifested from one, two, or perhaps three individual restrictions. To think restrictions alone could become this terrifyingly powerful!" Lin Zheyu murmured.

The more he observed and studied the Forbidden Mountain, the more terrifying its creator seemed. Restrictions were the foundation of formations. They were special restriction runes condensed from spirit power through unique methods and inscribed with patterns of the Great Dao. An individual restriction usually couldn't display much power on its own. In most cases, restriction runes were arranged together to form a formation before being put to use.

Yet Lin Zheyu could see that the stones, plants, trees, and soil within the Forbidden Mountain were actually composed purely of restrictions. Then, the power of the restrictions contained within all these plants, soil, stones, and other objects interconnected to form one formation and restriction after another. The resulting complexity was so overwhelming that even Lin Zheyu, with his spiritual Heavenly Eye, felt his head ache after only a glance.

It was a sign of information overload, of his soul being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what it was perceiving. In other words, with Lin Zheyu's current strength, he was not even qualified to comprehend the formations and restrictions within the Forbidden Mountain. He was still far too weak.

"Haah..."

Letting out a soft breath, Lin Zheyu calmed himself once more and cleared away the distracting thoughts in his mind. He turned his attention back to the new formation before him. The spiritual Heavenly Eye within his sea of consciousness abruptly opened, and the trajectories of flowing energy appeared within his awareness. This formation was the Wooden Man Formation, an extremely basic wood-attribute formation.

All the formations within the first two thousand meters were first-tier formations, and they could all be considered foundational formations. These basic formations covered nearly every attribute and encompassed virtually every type of formation. However, one did not actually need to break or unravel every formation to climb the Path to Heaven. A cultivator only needed to choose the branch of formations they wished to study and proceed along that path. This was what most cultivators did.

As for Lin Zheyu, he rejected none of them. He studied every formation that appeared along the Path to Heaven one by one, then unraveled and broke each of them. The reason was simple. He did not know which branch of the Formation Dao would be most useful in perfecting his divine patterns. Since that was the case, he might as well master them all first and decide later. If other cultivators of the Formation Dao learned what he was thinking, they would probably call him a madman.