Chapter 65: Breaking the Formation
After returning home, Mo Hua had dinner with his parents. Then, with his mother's help, he prepared some braised beef, pastries, and sweet rice wine. Once everything was ready, he locked himself in his room and began to focus on studying the art of breaking formations.
He first drew a fire-type array rune on paper. When the rune was completed, it glowed faintly red and gave off a subtle heat.
Next, following the method described in his book, Mo Hua drew a water-type rune adjacent to the fire rune's Kan position.
After he finished, the red glow of the fire rune dimmed, the faint fiery aura vanished, and when he touched it, the heat had disappeared completely.
That meant—the fire rune had been nullified.
Mo Hua's spirit lifted. He then tried out the other elemental runes one by one and confirmed that, indeed, the runes could be dispelled using the mutual restraint principles of the Five Elements.
Next came actual formations. Mo Hua spent some time drawing a Bright Flame Array.
The Bright Flame Array consisted of three array runes—it was one of the simplest kinds of formations.
When he used to transcribe formations for Manager Mo, the very first one he copied had been this Bright Flame Array. By now, redrawing it was effortless.
In less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a properly constructed Bright Flame Array appeared neatly on the paper.
Mo Hua stared at it, deep in thought.
When he had drawn this array before, he had merely copied it mechanically without deeper understanding. Now that he examined it carefully, he realized that despite its simplicity, one of the runes was meant to gather spiritual energy, while the other two were ordinary fire-type runes meant to keep the formation lit.
He began comparing everything to Bai Zisheng's explanation.
The rune that gathered spiritual power was the formation core (array eye), the Three Talents positions were the array pivots, and the paper used to draw it served as the array medium.
Mo Hua tore a small gap in the paper—and sure enough, the formation instantly deactivated. He then redrew the array and modified the gathering rune, causing the array to fail again.
"So this is what they mean by 'destroy the array medium and damage the array eye—thus breaking the formation.'"
"This method is… quite crude, really. Even if you don't understand formations, you could still use brute force to break one. But then again, if you don't understand formations, that's probably the only method available."
He paused.
"Then the formation within my Sea of Consciousness—what serves as its array eye and array medium?"
"The formation's spiritual power comes from its array eye—so the Qi Sea should be the array eye. And since the puzzle formation resides within the Sea of Consciousness, that must be the medium. Meaning, to break the formation…"
"I'd have to destroy my Qi Sea… and then cripple my Sea of Consciousness too?!"
Cold sweat instantly covered Mo Hua's body.
"Yeah, let's not do that…"
Breaking formations like that was far too reckless—it lacked all refinement and grace expected of a Formation Master.
He cleared his mind and redrew the Bright Flame Array, this time adding a water-type rune beside one of the fire runes' Kan positions.
After finishing, the array didn't vanish completely, but its light dimmed noticeably.
The dissolution had begun—but wasn't yet complete.
Mo Hua drew another water-type rune beside a different fire rune, and this time the array's glow faded instantly—the formation was nullified.
"Got it!"
Mo Hua's eyes lit up with excitement. Then a thought struck him:
"To dispel a fire-type rune, I had to draw two water-type runes. So, to dissolve the gathering rune, the array eye—would just one be enough?"
"The Five Elemental runes can be countered using mutual restraint… but what about a gathering rune? It doesn't really fit into that cycle…"
Mo Hua flipped through the array manuals Mister Zhuang had given him, and at last, he found a page describing the method for dissolving the Gathering Rune.
He read every line with great care.
As it turned out, the Gathering Rune did have a counter—the Spirit-Reversal Rune.
The Gathering Rune condensed spiritual energy, while the Spirit-Reversal Rune caused that energy to flow backward and scatter. One gathered, the other dispersed—perfectly fitting the cycle of creation and destruction.
However, Mo Hua had never learned the Spirit-Reversal Rune. Searching through his books, he found no diagrams of it—only brief written descriptions.
Those records said the Spirit-Reversal Rune was an advanced rune, often kept secret within powerful clans and not easily shared.
An advanced rune—hard to learn, and harder still to obtain.
Mo Hua decided to put that aside for now.
There was another method described, though—one could use a Gathering Rune to dissolve another Gathering Rune. By drawing a second Gathering Rune near the original, the new rune would absorb the spiritual energy of the original array eye, cutting off its power source and thus disabling the formation.
Mo Hua's eyes widened in admiration.
Using a Gathering Rune to dispel a Gathering Rune—that idea had never crossed his mind.
However, the text also warned that such a method was risky. The secondary Gathering Rune could absorb too much spiritual energy, fail to release it, and cause the formation to spiral out of control—leading to unpredictable consequences.
And if Mo Hua's guess was correct, the array eye within the puzzle formation in his Sea of Consciousness was his own Qi Sea. Whether he used another Qi Sea to absorb it or inscribed a Spirit-Reversal Rune within it to release energy—either option sounded like a death wish.
And neither was actually possible anyway.
Which meant—he couldn't dissolve the array by breaking the array eye.
Resting his chin in his palm, Mo Hua muttered to himself:
"Then I'll just have to study and dissolve each rune one by one. In the end, the real shortcut is having no shortcut at all. The cultivation world has evolved for tens of thousands of years—there shouldn't be any loopholes left."
He redrew another Bright Flame Array and dissolved it again—then frowned.
"This method wastes way too much paper and ink… Draw one, dissolve one, and if I mess up, I have to redo everything from scratch. I'm using more paper than I did when I was just practicing arrays!"
The issue of spirit stones was still pressing. Although the family's finances had improved thanks to the restaurant, they couldn't afford to waste resources. Every spirit stone saved was a future investment.
"That Dao Stele in my Sea of Consciousness should be perfect for practicing formation-breaking…"
Thinking this, Mo Hua sank his Divine-Sense into his Sea of Consciousness.
Within the vast void, the puzzle formation woven from threads of spiritual light still floated there, and the Dao Stele stood unaffected amidst it.
Skillfully, Mo Hua drew a Bright Flame Array upon the Dao Stele and then attempted to dissolve it. When he finished, the array dimmed exactly as it should.
When he erased both the array and the dissolving runes, his Divine-Sense recovered completely.
"As expected!"
Mo Hua was overjoyed. The Dao Stele wasn't just perfect for practicing formation drawing, it was also ideal for practicing formation-breaking.
Draw, erase, restore. No loss of Divine-Sense, no waste of paper or ink.
So he focused wholeheartedly on practicing formation dissolution within his Sea of Consciousness until the Hour of the Tiger (around 3–5 a.m.). Afterward, he meditated for an hour, feeling refreshed and clear-headed.
His father, Mo Shan, and his mother, Liu Ruhua, were early risers too. Mo Shan was heading to Black Mountain to hunt beasts, while Liu Ruhua prepared for the day's business at the eatery.
After enjoying a simple, warm breakfast, Mo Hua slung his food box over his shoulder and set off toward Mister Zhuang's residence.
(End of Chapter)