Chapter 62: Anomalous Phenomenon
The Qi-Refining Realm was divided into three stages and nine levels — the early stage being levels one through three, and anything above that was considered mid-stage Qi-Refining.
Mo Hua was already at the peak of the third level, just a step away from breaking through to mid-stage.
After cultivating the Celestial Evolution Art for only half a month, he felt his Qi Sea fill completely, unable to refine any more spiritual power.
That could only mean one thing, Mo Hua was about to break through.
Ordinarily, breaking through required special heavenly or earthly materials to stimulate one's meridians and Qi Sea, thereby breaching the bottleneck and advancing one's realm.
But since the Celestial Evolution Art required no such materials, he should only need to continue cultivating.
Mo Hua still spent most of his time drawing formations, devoting just one hour each day to seated meditation.
A few nights later, while carving formation diagrams upon the Dao Stele within his Sea of Consciousness, sudden inspiration struck, and his Qi Sea began to surge violently.
He immediately withdrew from the Sea of Consciousness, sat cross-legged on his bed, and drew out two spirit stones, quietly absorbing their energy.
Within moments, he felt all his apertures open up, and his absorption rate multiplied severalfold. Before long, both spirit stones were drained of their energy.
Mo Hua felt both pained and delighted. Pained at the cost of the spirit stones, but thrilled that he was finally about to break through to mid-stage Qi-Refining.
He took out a few more spirit stones and continued.
Inside his storage pouch were several dozen stones he had saved, plus about a hundred given by his parents. They knew he was close to a breakthrough but didn't know when it would come, so they'd prepared them as a backup.
Those hundred stones probably represented half a month's profit from their little restaurant.
Calming himself, Mo Hua maintained a steady heart and began to breathe rhythmically.
The spirit stones in his hands shimmered with crystalline blue light, then gradually dimmed until their energy was completely exhausted, turning ashen gray.
One after another, they were consumed. After about fifty stones, his Qi Sea finally calmed. The spiritual power began to flow backward through his meridians, thickening and stabilizing throughout his body.
Just as Mo Hua thought the breakthrough was complete, fine threads of spiritual power began leaking out from his meridians, drifting along delicate channels toward the crown of his head, the Baihui Acupoint.
His heart clenched.
What's happening?
He had never heard of spiritual power leaking uncontrollably like this, let alone converging toward the Baihui!
But instead of gathering there, the threads reached the Tianmen Acupoint and, like strands of silk, began weaving together, stabilizing, then slowly seeped inward. The place they entered was none other than Mo Hua's Sea of Consciousness!
Suppressing his anxiety, Mo Hua projected his Divine-Sense inward, only to find faint blue threads of spiritual power drifting across his Sea of Consciousness.
These threads were tangled and scattered, like fine spring rain or strands of hair intertwining, forming a hazy, intricate blue veil.
Mo Hua was completely dumbfounded.
With his limited cultivation experience, he had no idea what was happening.
He tried circulating his spiritual power, it still moved normally.
But when he attempted to absorb more spiritual energy from a spirit stone, the moment it reached his Sea of Consciousness through the Tianmen Acupoint, it was automatically cut off. The energy couldn't complete a full circuit, couldn't be refined into spiritual power, and thus couldn't accumulate in his Qi Sea.
Which meant he could no longer cultivate... nor advance his realm.
Mo Hua sucked in a cold breath. "What do I do now…" he muttered.
He fell back onto his bed, his mind in chaos. After a while, he sat up again, forcing himself to think calmly.
"There's a Dao Stele in my Sea of Consciousness, but I didn't enter the Sea of Consciousness during cultivation, so it shouldn't be the cause."
"If it's not the Dao Stele, then it must be the technique itself."
"The technique was fine during cultivation, the problem appeared during the breakthrough."
"During the breakthrough, spiritual power leaked into the meridians and finally connected to the Sea of Consciousness, forming that spiritual veil."
"The veil is what's blocking the circulation of spiritual power. If I can remove it, spiritual power should flow normally again, and I can continue cultivating."
"So the key issue is resolving the veil inside the Sea of Consciousness…"
Mo Hua seized upon that realization, casting aside other distractions and focusing on the veil alone. He sank his Divine-Sense into the Sea of Consciousness and carefully examined the chaotic structure.
The veil was woven from faint blue threads of spiritual power. These threads seemed alive, drifting freely yet without order, sometimes intertwining, sometimes separating, chaotic and mysterious.
After observing for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Mo Hua flopped back on the bed, defeated.
"What is this thing?" he muttered. "I can't make sense of it at all…"
Once again, Mo Hua deeply felt the limits of his cultivation knowledge.
There was a saying: Knowledge is the ladder of a cultivator's progress.
Mo Hua couldn't remember where he'd heard it, but it suddenly felt profoundly true.
He tried to recall every bit of cultivation knowledge he'd ever learned, hoping for a clue, but the more he thought, the messier it got. His head throbbed, and in the end, he still came up empty.
Then, like a spark in the dark, a line from the Celestial Evolution Art came to mind:
"Unsuitable for non-Formation Masters."
Mo Hua sat up straight.
If it was unsuitable for non-Formation Masters, then it must have something to do with formation masters. Could that blue veil be… a formation?
Then he remembered another line: "The bottleneck lies in the Divine-Sense."
"The bottleneck lies in the Divine-Sense… unsuitable for non-Formation Masters…"
The bottleneck was the veil itself, existing within the Sea of Consciousness. It was called "unsuitable for non-Formation Masters" because the veil was a formation, one only a Formation Master could understand!
Mo Hua sank his Divine-Sense into the Sea of Consciousness again, observing the veil closely. Though the spiritual threads appeared chaotic, they were subtly connected, intertwining to faintly form rune patterns.
The threads constantly shifted, and the runes evolved along with them, combining into a living, flowing formation that changed endlessly.
Mo Hua's eyes lit up in realization, then dimmed again as he scratched his head.
This formation… he'd never seen anything like it!
The formations he knew at most contained six formation-runes, but this one... this one had dozens, maybe hundreds!
Worse yet, those runes were still shifting and transforming, forming formations he couldn't comprehend, which then morphed into even more incomprehensible ones…
Just looking at it made his scalp go numb.
"So this is the kind of ancient formation old cultivators practiced?"
"So this is what they meant by a strange and obscure ancient technique?"
A sense of awe welled in his heart, the wisdom of the ancient cultivators was truly astonishing. Even a mere Qi-Refining technique could inspire such fear and wonder.
At the same time, he silently mourned for himself. He had known this technique was "strange and obscure," but he hadn't realized it would be this strange and obscure.
After staring at the veil until his head spun, he finally admitted defeat, there was no way he could deal with this formation on his own.
Recognizing one's own limits was, at least, a form of wisdom.
Mo Hua sighed. "I'll go ask Sir Zhuang tomorrow."
Feeling greatly relieved, he pulled the blanket over himself and quickly drifted into a peaceful sleep.
(End of Chapter)