Chapter 1206: “Formation” and “Law”

Chapter 1205: “Formation” and “Law”

Mo Hua immediately closed his eyes, gathering his Divine Sense and releasing it outward, sensing the aura of famine between Heaven and Earth, and deriving the inner principles of formations.

A moment later, Mo Hua opened his eyes and frowned.

“I can’t derive anything—”

If the Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm could not calculate anything, that meant the aura of famine very likely did not contain the basic elements of a formation.

The construction like formation runes, the circulation of formation-pivots, the powering of formation-cores, and so on.

The aura of famine was merely a “Qi-mechanism” that brought calamity.

Indeed, Mo Hua did not see any trace of formation in the outward spread of the famine aura—no formation runes, no formation-pivots, no formation-cores.

But really—is it so?

Mo Hua’s expression grew solemn.

Was it because this spreading famine was not a calamity drawn forth by a formation, and thus the Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm could not calculate it?

Or was it simply because his own skill in the Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm was insufficient, unable to reach the hidden mysteries within?

Or perhaps—

Mo Hua’s gaze sharpened.

This spreading “famine” was in fact an entirely different kind of formation, transcending his scope of knowledge, thus leaving him with no way to calculate?

That possibility was also great.

Mo Hua looked at the desolate scene before him—famine spreading, plants withered, fields dead—and sighed.

The formations of Heaven and Earth are vast and profound.

The more he saw, the more he learned, the more he realized how little he knew. The more he lamented that within this world still lay infinite mysteries, countless ancient and wondrous formations.

Perhaps, in ages past, many strange formations existed in this same way—pervading Heaven and Earth in natural forms, traceless and frameworkless, unseen by anyone.

In time, they either perished and were lost to the world,

or, imperceptibly, drew down great disasters upon Heaven and Earth.

And as the people of the world were “blind with open eyes,” unable to pierce the mysteries of formation, they naturally could not understand the true essence of these disasters.

Mo Hua’s pupils deepened; suddenly he gained a clearer enlightenment.

The Dao Court’s unification of human-made “formalized” frameworks of formations—within his heart, they began to gradually dissolve.

Formation is mankind’s comprehension of natural Law, not merely the artificial categorization and summarization of “pattern-runes.”

But natural Law does not always manifest according to human definitions.

Some “formations” present themselves in purely natural forms, not even resembling what people call “formations.”

Yet often these natural-form formations are in truth the most powerful formations of all.

What a formation master truly ought to learn is not the formalized “formations”—not what lies in books, nor dogma.

Those are human-defined “formations,” not the natural “Law.”

A formation master should learn the natural Law of Heaven and Earth.

One must see the myriad things of this world with one’s own eyes, comprehend the Laws of Heaven and Earth, and not be shackled by form, nor bound by “knowledge,” but grasp the essence of formation itself.

Just like the Taotie visage he had once perceived in insight.

The dense Taotie runes seemed to be the construction of formation runes, but in truth were the Law-born incubation of a ferocious beast.

Or like the famine now spreading before him—no formal structure of formation, yet very likely containing the Law-core of formation.

Only, the method was too exalted.

Mo Hua could only faintly “sense” a little, but lacking the concrete knowledge and lineage of methods, he could not “apply” it in practice.

“Formation and Law… formation is the medium, Law is the core…”

Mo Hua took out a jade slip and carefully inscribed his insights word by word, so he could later revisit them, reflect, and deepen his comprehension.

A good memory is not as reliable as a poor pen.

Mo Hua was confident in his memory.

But since he had incurred the Fate-Bane Curse, with fierce ghosts dwelling in his Fate-Structure, backlashing his Divine Sense, he risked “amnesia.” Who knew when these precious “insights” might be lost to him?

Thus it was better to form the habit of taking notes.

After recording his insights into the jade slip, Mo Hua held it in his hand, and as his thoughts wandered, another doubt came to him:

The Taotie—connected with famine, connected with devouring—

But then, what about the Shugu Tribe’s Twenty-Three Rune Taotie Absolute Formation? What specific Taotie Law did it contain, and what precisely was its effect?

And further, what about the Twenty-Four Rune Taotie Twelve-Meridian-Spiritual-Skeleton Formation?

Did that Taotie Skeleton Formation also contain Laws related to “famine” and “devouring”?

But was that truly so?

These seemed like irreconcilable questions.

The aura of famine, the Twenty-Three Rune Taotie Formation, the Twelve-Meridian Taotie Skeleton Formation—

The causal logic and the Law-relationships inside were far too complicated.

Mo Hua pondered long, his mind a tangled mess, the two characters “Taotie” like a monstrous enigma, devouring his Divine Sense, leaving him unable to make sense of anything.

“I can’t resolve this by empty speculation. I still need something concrete, something real to study—”

The illusory requires a medium of the real.

Law requires the mediation of formation.

Even the Dao requires a vessel.

The Laws of Taotie are no different.

And at present, the only thing clearly containing the “power of Taotie” was the famine spreading before his eyes.

Mo Hua settled his heart once more, remaining at the “frontline” of the famine, observing its present state, analyzing its inner causes and Laws.

But his results were meager.

Taotie was a ferocious beast, famine was a great calamity, and Laws were all the more unfathomable.

Now this aura of famine had even slipped beyond the boundaries of existing formations, transcending Mo Hua’s knowledge of formations.

This was not something he could analyze just by will.

Even effort might yield no return.

Mo Hua’s brow furrowed tightly; after half a month wasted, he was still helpless.

Yet he was unwilling to simply give up.

After all, the “power of Taotie” had spread right before him. If he did not study it clearly, how could he justify himself?

“If this approach won’t work, then I’ll try a different line of thought?”

“What line of thought?”

Mo Hua sat upon a great stone on the cliffside, chin propped on his right hand, staring at the withered wasteland before him. In his mind, all his lifelong learning and cultivation experiences flashed past like a revolving lantern.

Suddenly, the image of the Arhatian Blood-Sacrifice Grand Formation’s collapse emerged in his memory.

“Collapse?”

“No, not right…”

Mo Hua recalled the Arhatian Blood-Sacrifice Grand Formation.

This was not his first time “collapsing” a great formation. But the Arhatian Blood-Sacrifice was different—it was not a simple “collapse.”

A Grade-Two Reverse-Spirit Formation cannot collapse a Quasi-Grade-Three Great Formation.

The Arhatian Blood-Sacrifice was not broken merely by collapse-force; there were deeper, more complex changes at work.

The Reverse-Spirit Formation’s collapse caused spiritual power and demonic power to clash head-on—righteous and evil opposed, yet also transformed into one another—leading to a deeper level of “dissolution.”

This change, Mo Hua had “derived” at the time, but even then, he had not fully understood.

In truth, while deriving, he had been guided by instinct—feeling that if he invoked the Reverse-Spirit’s power this way, manipulating the formation into explosion, the resulting force would be stronger, the contradictions and reversals more profound. So he acted on intuition.

The outcome was, of course, immense.

Even a Nascent Soul was forced to death.

Golden Core cultivators turned to ash in an instant.

The scene remained vivid in Mo Hua’s memory.

Heaven and Earth lost their colors, black and white interwoven, blue spiritual power and red demonic power contending, intertwining, beams of light piercing the heavens.

And in this process, spiritual power constantly transformed into demonic power; demonic power, in turn, was eroded and dissolved by spiritual power.

Within the opposition of righteous and evil, they transformed into each other, dissolving all things.

In short, it was a very complex, subtle, and profound change.

A little like the “yin-yang fish that form the Taiji?”

Mo Hua’s heart trembled. The exact principle, he could not say clearly, nor be sure if his guess was correct.

But the “framework” of contradictory forces created when the Arhatian Blood-Sacrifice collapsed—this could be borrowed as reference.

“Against one force, apply another, diametrically opposed force of formation, thereby inducing opposition and transformation—and through this, observe the root changes of the Law within?”

Mo Hua murmured inwardly.

Though unsure if it was feasible, it was worth trying.

He continued deriving:

“From the perspective of internal laws, the aura of famine can stimulate ‘vital activity,’ causing humans, demon beasts, and even plants—all living things—to become excessively hungry through over-activation, leading to the dissipation of vitality, and falling into the state of ‘death.’”

“Famine brings beings from life to death.”

“Then, all that’s needed is to use formations to reverse it—let death return to life, and preserve vitality.”

This was something Mo Hua had previously attempted.

The Yin-Wood Rejuvenation Formation—and it was effective.

But this only worked on “people.” Against the famine itself, it had little suppressive power.

Nor could Mo Hua observe the true essence of the famine’s aura through it.

“Besides the Yin-Wood Rejuvenation Formation, what other formations could be tried?”

Looking at the famine-stricken land before him, inspiration struck Mo Hua, and he suddenly thought of a formation:

The Profound-Earth Formation!

The famine calamity spread across the land, rendering it barren, withering plants, killing all living beings.

To suppress the famine, naturally one could also start with the earth itself.

And the formation that contained the vitality of the earth just so happened to be an Absolute Formation:

The Profound Earth Formation.

He had once discovered this Earth Sect Absolute Formation while traveling with his master through a mountain village.

He didn’t know whether it had been mere coincidence at the time, or if his master had already calculated that this formation would be of great use in the future. Mo Hua felt a trace of emotion in his heart, but he did not hesitate any longer. He calmed his mind, communed with the Dao-rhyme of the earth, and personally drew several Profound Earth Formations at the edge of the spreading famine aura to observe their effect.

On the Profound Earth Formation, the power of the earth’s profound virtue circulated, overflowing with vitality.

When the famine aura spread to the Profound Earth Formation, it was indeed obstructed. It was like grease meeting fire, hissing with white smoke, dissolving in a strange way.

Mo Hua’s heart leapt with joy.

But this process didn’t last long at all.

The Profound Earth Formation was soon “devoured” by the famine.

It was like how water restrains fire, but a small amount of water cannot extinguish a great blaze.

Life can restrain death, but a trace of vitality cannot suppress a vast tide of “death.”

What’s more, Mo Hua’s Profound Earth Formation was only of the first grade, unable to withstand the famine that was at least birthed from some kind of second-grade devouring-type formation.

But the problem was that Absolute Formations were something one could only encounter by chance.

Let alone a specific type of Absolute Formation.

Now that famine rampaged across the Great Wilderness, where was he supposed to find a second-grade Profound Earth Absolute Formation to learn?

Mo Hua let out a long sigh.

He tried other earth-based formations from the Five Elements, or the Gen trigram branch of the Eight Trigrams. Their grade was sufficient, but the results were extremely poor.

On the level of “laws,” ordinary formations simply could not compare to Absolute Formations.

The situation was stuck again. Mo Hua lay down on the ground. Beneath him was still a patch of relatively lush shrubs; a few zhang away lay the barren wasteland where famine had spread and vegetation had withered.

This was the boundary between “vitality and decay.”

And now, this boundary of “decay” was slowly, steadily creeping toward him.

It might be a few days, or it might be a month, before the famine spread to where he was.

The shrubs and bushes beneath him would wither, would die, and would meet their final “death.”

In Mo Hua’s heart arose a very subtle feeling.

As though he were lying right at the boundary between “life and death.”

“Death” was closing in on him.

And what he had to do was awaken “vitality” to oppose “decay.”

This was formation, this was law, but even more—it was like a kind of causality.

Mo Hua’s pupils shrank, his heart trembled, and his resolve grew deeper.

“Specifically—how should I do it?”

Frowning, Mo Hua pondered in silence.

After a moment, he took out his little jade-slip notebook, thought over his earlier insights once again, when suddenly a flash of inspiration struck.

“Formations are the medium; Laws are the core.”

Formations themselves had mutual engendering and restraining—like the Five Elements, like the Eight Trigrams.

Laws were the same.

Or rather, what truly engendered and restrained were not the formations, but the Laws.

It was the inner Laws that interacted, countered, and produced effects; formations only displayed this interplay of Laws on the surface.

Thus, to suppress “famine,” the essence was to use the Law of “Life” to restrain “Death.”

And to strengthen the Law of “Life,” one needed formations as the medium.

But formations were merely tools, mere vessels.

Even Absolute Formations were the same.

Absolute Formations contained stronger, deeper Laws, vastly different from ordinary formations—but in essence, they were still the manifestation of Laws.

As long as one grasped the transformations of Laws, in theory, one could combine an Absolute Formation with other formations to construct a Composite Formation.

Such a Composite Formation would have two frameworks.

One was the obvious, surface framework of basic formations, with formation eyes, formation pivots, single arrays, and array runes.

On the surface, it looked just like that.

But on a deeper level, there was another framework—an esoteric structure that ordinary formation masters could not perceive.

With the “Absolute Formation” as the Law’s formation eye.

With “Laws” as the pivot of the Composite Formation.

With formations of similar Laws strung together to form the Composite Formation.

This was essentially deconstructing the Dao Court’s standardized formation framework, then reconstructing a new Composite framework along the thread of one’s own comprehension of the Laws.

As this logic of formations took shape in Mo Hua’s mind, even he himself was shocked.

Study formations, comprehend Laws.

Then, with the Laws comprehended, turn around to deconstruct formations.

And with one’s own understanding of the Laws, reconstruct a new formation framework.

To win with no fixed move, unrestricted by rigid forms, able at any time to deconstruct and then reconstruct formations according to one’s own Laws.

One’s own “formations” were the vessels of one’s own comprehension of “Laws”!

This.. was what formations truly were?!

Mo Hua sucked in a cold breath. Even he felt that this idea of his was a little terrifying.

Clearly it was something he himself had realized, yet it left him a little incredulous.

He even began to wonder—had he gone astray again? Had he grasped some crooked reasoning?

Was this what formations really meant?

Was this truly what formation masters did?

When Master told me to walk my own path of formations… was this what he meant?

Am I creating my own “Formation Flow”?

Or am I forging my own “Formations” entirely?

Mo Hua was utterly confused.

He only felt that on his path of seeking the Dao, he was shrouded in a thick fog of confusion.

Without his master’s guidance, without Venerable Elder Xun’s teaching, without anyone to consult, he simply didn’t know where he had arrived.

Nor did he know what path each of his steps was leading him onto.

But he had no choice. Since he had already come this far, he could only grit his teeth and press onward.

“Most people cannot ascend to immortality—that means the path they tread is not the path of immortality at all.”

“Most formation masters cannot comprehend the Great Dao of formations—that proves their path is surely flawed as well.”

“The strong are destined to struggle forward in darkness. Their path is doomed to be lonely, unrecognized, and without light…”

Mo Hua could only comfort himself with such thoughts.

Afterward, he cast aside all hesitation, steeled his resolve, and, according to his own ideas, attempted to use the law of “Life” as the pivot, with the “Absolute Formation” as the core, to construct a compound formation that could condense the power of Vitality.

But once he tried, Mo Hua realized—it was nowhere near as simple as he had imagined.

Many of his ideas were grand, stirring the heart, yet when put into practice they became painfully “skeletal”: dry, arduous, and torturous.

The Profound Earth Formation was first-grade, an Absolute Formation.

Other types of Five Elements Earth Formations and the Bagua Gen Formation were of the second grade.

How should these be structured together? How to make them compatible? How to distinguish primary from secondary? How to sort out the flow of formation power?

Although these formations all contained a measure of the law of “Vitality,” they were fundamentally different.

Some nurtured vegetation, some generated life from water and earth, some gave birth through the interaction of earth and wood, and some decayed life through burial in earth.

These laws varied in strength, in scope, in proportion—how to “fuse” them became a serious problem.

And after fusing them, how to use the formation as a medium to stir Vitality, to make the land thrive endlessly and suppress the famine—that too was exceedingly difficult.

This consumed vast amounts of divine sense, requiring endless Heavenly Secret Derivations, ceaseless deductions, and countless attempts at matching before even a faint outline could emerge.

Mo Hua struggled painfully, his calculations exhausting him, his divine sense drained, his sea of consciousness stinging.

Yet inwardly, he instead grew calm.

For difficulty itself was proof he might be on the right track.

Moreover, the more he attempted, the more he researched, the more he failed, the more setbacks he suffered—the deeper his comprehension of the laws became, the clearer the transformations of law grew within his heart.

Using “formations” as the bridge and medium to draw upon the “laws.”

With “law” as the primary, and “formation” as the auxiliary. With “Law” as internal and the “formation” as external. With “law” as the intangible, and “formation” as the tangible.

Primary and auxiliary aiding one another; combining internal and external; intangible and tangible as one—only when formation and law were fused together could it be called true “Formation Law.”

Finally, after two full months of sleepless nights and painstaking research,

Mo Hua at last managed a rough attempt: constructing a system with the Profound Earth Absolute Formation as the law’s core, ordinary Bagua and Five Elements formations as the law’s formation medium, and “Life” as the law’s formation pivot—thus creating the Profound Earth Compound Absolute Formation.

This was also Mo Hua’s first crude attempt to comprehend “law” through “formations,” and then to construct “formations” through “law.”

(End of this Chapter)