Chapter 1306: Worry

Chapter 1305: Worry

However, forming a Golden Core still faced enormous problems.

Mo Hua thought it over carefully.

If he were to attempt Core formation again, the first step would be to nourish and temper his physical body and meridians, eliminate any hidden dangers that might exist in his Divine-Sense, and completely eradicate the aftereffects of the previous failed breakthrough. But this was not the most troublesome issue.

The most troublesome issue was still the killing intent embedded in causality.

The root cause of his last Golden Core failure lay in the fact that he had been “ambushed.”

A group of Heavenly Secret bigshots, utterly lacking in martial virtue, had ganged up to sneak-attack him, a mere Foundation Establishment junior cultivator.

Mo Hua had never imagined something like this could happen, so he had no defenses prepared. One moment of carelessness, and he had been utterly ruined.

Nor could he guarantee that, when he attempted Core formation again, those rotten old monsters wouldn’t target him once more.

If they messed with him again, then his next attempt at forming a Golden Core might still end in complete failure.

He had to find a way to solve this problem.

Suffer once, grow wiser.

From now on, he would have to learn how to outthink and outfight these old geezers.

And as for a solution, at present, the only one Mo Hua could think of was…

The Great Wilderness Straw Dog Fate Technique.

This was an ultimate causal art of the Great Wilderness, a forbidden technique that the ancestors of the Shugu Tribe never passed down.

It embodied the profound causal law of the unity of gods and humans, of nobility and humility coexisting:

“Deities are unkind, treating all living beings as straw dogs. Yet deities themselves are living beings; deities too are straw dogs.”

Mo Hua even suspected that this causal fate technique was the supreme art of that figure who vanished from the history of the Great Wilderness, taboo-like in nature… the Grand Shaman Priest.

Previously, this had only been a suspicion.

But after experiencing the covert scheme of Heavenly Secret powerhouses and the failure of his Golden Core formation, Mo Hua was almost certain of it.

Because this causality transference technique was simply too powerful, far stronger than he had ever imagined.

A single straw dog really could substitute for one “life.”

And no matter how terrifying the causal killing intent, it could only kill one “life” at a time.

This was a property of the laws of causality.

And this property meant that the Straw Dog Fate Technique effectively granted a certain degree of “death immunity.”

To ordinary people, this fate technique might be useless.

Because straw dogs are a form of causal defense; they possess no ability to resist physical or spiritual power attacks.

If caught in the real world, one would still be killed by blades or spells.

But Mo Hua was different.

His comprehension of Heavenly Secrets was astonishingly high, and his causal attainments had now caught up. As long as his causality was not seen through, it was nearly impossible for anyone to trace him in the real world. Whenever something went wrong for him, it always went wrong along the “causal line,” and only afterward did he get surrounded and killed offline.

That was exactly how things had gone in the Desolate Wilderness: he was punished online, so to speak, and only then was he captured offline by True-Person Huá in the real world.

Thus, for Mo Hua, problems of causality were problems at the root.

What’s more, the Great Wilderness Straw Dog Fate Technique was not just ordinary causal defense, but a far more sophisticated causal transference.

For Mo Hua, who was proficient in Heavenly Secrets, this was equivalent to gaining the ability to “manufacture lives” for himself on the level of causality.

He was like a “nine-tailed fox demon.”

Every time he made a straw dog, he gained an extra “life.”

Back in the Desolate Wilderness, circumstances had been rushed, and he had only had time to make two straw dogs.

One straw dog lured Elder You and various killing intents within the Desolate Wilderness.

The other straw dog neutralized the killing calamity that came from Heavenly Secret powerhouses.

After that, there was nothing more he could do.

The straw dogs were used up. The Golden Core formation failed.

Mo Hua was gravely injured, and caught completely off guard, he had no power to resist in front of True-Person Huá.

“If, back then, I hadn’t been in such a rush to form a Golden Core—if I’d prepared more thoroughly, made more straw dogs, transferred misfortune a few more times—could I have succeeded?”

Mo Hua couldn’t help thinking this.

But upon closer consideration, it didn’t seem that simple.

In a sense, forming a Golden Core under the identity of a Divine-Shaman was doomed to fail.

The identity of “Divine-Shaman” was far too sensitive.

And his divinity was far beyond the limit.

He was clearly a human, a being of flesh and blood, yet what he had done in the Great Wilderness was tantamount to imitating the gods of heaven and earth, spreading doctrine among mortals. And he was only at Foundation Establishment, his flesh-and-blood body simply could not bear that much incense and faith.

Therefore, this Golden Core formation was destined to fail.

If he had succeeded, he would have been bound to the Divine-Shaman identity, with a singular divinity.

From then on, he would only be the Divine-Shaman of the Desolate Wilderness, the Divine-Lord of the Great Wilderness, but he might no longer be “Mo Hua.”

That outcome might have been even worse.

Mo Hua sighed softly in his heart.

Since forming a Golden Core as a Divine-Shaman carried too much causality and led to the annihilation of my humanity, making failure inevitable, then he could only… form a Golden Core as “Mo Hua.”

“After all, I was originally just a human… just Mo Hua…”

But even if he formed a Golden Core as “Mo Hua,” those rotten old monsters might not truly let him go.

Mo Hua harbored no illusions, so he still needed to prepare more straw dogs.

“Make a few more straw dogs, withstand a few more causal killing calamities, avoid those ‘old things.’ And if I also have a bit of opportunity and luck on my side, then maybe—just maybe—the next Golden Core formation will succeed…”

“Maybe I really will… succeed in forming a Golden Core…”

With a plan in mind, Mo Hua gradually felt more at ease.

Fatigue slowly washed over him.

These past days, as a prisoner of the Huá Clan, racking his brains day after day, trying every possible way to save himself, had truly been exhausting on the mind.

Now that he had latched onto the “thighs” of people like True Person Zhuge from the Great Void Sect, he could finally catch his breath.

Mo Hua lay down on the bed and closed his eyes to rest.

Yet when he wasn’t resting, he felt utterly worn out. And when he actually lay down to rest, his mind was filled with worries, and he couldn’t fall asleep at all.

The failure of his Core formation lingered in his thoughts.

Scenes from the past kept surfacing in his mind.

Mo Hua opened his eyes, let out a slow sigh, and murmured softly:

“I wonder how things are… over there in the Desolate Wilderness…”

Although he could no longer acknowledge himself as a Divine-Shaman, and had to sever ties with that identity…

That place, the Desolate Wilderness, was still the “foundation” he had struggled to build for nearly ten years.

There were still many matters, many people, that weighed on his heart.

He didn’t know what would happen to the Desolate Wilderness after the sudden disappearance of the Divine-Shaman.

Would it continue to develop according to his ideals, or would it collapse and fall apart in an instant?

What about Dan-Zhu?

What would Dan-Zhu think? Could he follow his Dao-heart and shoulder the responsibility?

Would Big Tiger be in danger? Left all alone in the Desolate Wilderness, would he feel lonely?

When would he be able to see Big Tiger again, to pat its big head once more?

And there were so many others… the disciples he had taught, the people he had influenced…

Would the obedient and sensible Little Zha-Tu, and the diligent Elder Zha-Mu, be able to live on safely?

What of Lu-Gu, who had sworn loyalty to him, and Tie Shù-Gu, whose fate was uncertain and whose loyalty was hard to judge, how were they now?

The great chieftains, elders, and other high-ranking figures of the various tribes whom he had suppressed with divine authority, would they give rise to rebellious thoughts?

And the barbarian slaves he had liberated… what path lay ahead for them?

The systems he had established, the reforms he had implemented, would they be overturned again?

All that he had done in the Desolate Wilderness… had it truly been of any use? Could it really change the fate of those people?

Had everything he did… truly been right?

Mo Hua’s thoughts were a tangled mess. No one could give him answers. He could only sigh deeply in the darkness of the night.

When he was in the Desolate Wilderness, he had governed the overall situation with divinity—busy, constantly on the move, exhausted from running about, calm yet gradually numb.

Now that he had left the Desolate Wilderness and finally quieted his mind to look back, an indescribable worry and melancholy arose in his heart.

Life was often like this…

You keep pushing desperately forward, but only after walking a stretch of the road and turning back do you suddenly realize that what truly mattered might not have been the destination ahead, but the roads you hurriedly passed along the way.

Those roads are what forge a life.

The path of seeking the Dao is the very foundation upon which a cultivator achieves the Great Dao.

Mo Hua lay in the darkness, emotions hard to put into words.

“I hope the people of the Desolate Wilderness will be all right…”

The next day, Mo Hua rose early, sat in meditation to regulate his breath, rested his body for a while, and then went out.

He wanted to see if he could slip out of the guest quarters of the Privy Hall and go outside to gather some wild grass from the Great Wilderness.

With wild grass, he could weave straw dogs.

With straw dogs, he could activate fate techniques and transfer causality.

After the failure of his Golden Core formation, the two straw dogs he had painstakingly woven were both ruined. Now, Mo Hua didn’t have a single straw dog in his hands.

In terms of Causality, he was completely in a “no-defense” state.

Although for a long period before, he hadn’t practiced the Great Wilderness straw-dog fate technique either, and had also been in a “no-defense” state… but that was before.

In Tōngxiān City, in Southern Peak City, and within the borders of Qianxue Prefecture, both Mister Zhuang and Old Mister Xun had been protecting him in secret.

His own fate pattern also carried great baleful calamity, which would automatically defend him.

But all of that was “passive,” reliant on others.

Within the web of karma—who was harming him, who was protecting him, who harmed him only to end up killing themselves—many times, Mo Hua himself had been muddled and unaware.

But now the situation was different.

The dangers he faced were greater, and there might not be anyone who could protect him all the time.

Nor did Mo Hua wish to be protected forever.

He had to learn to control his own fate, to grasp the dangers within karma himself.

Before true danger arrived, he had to weave as many straw dogs as possible to withstand calamities—the more, the better.

However, Mo Hua’s request to go out was rejected.

Administrators Huangfu and Shangguan did not permit him to leave.

Mo Hua went to “negotiate” with Administrator Huangfu, but it was useless.

“You can’t go out,” Administrator Huangfu insisted.

He hadn’t forgotten—this was the “little ancestor,” the little “memorial tablet” personally designated by Old Mister Xun of the Great Void Sect.

Since it was a memorial tablet, it had to be enshrined.

What household’s memorial tablet would be properly enshrined, only to run outside on its own?

If anything happened, how were they supposed to explain it to Old Mister Xun?

That was the public reason.

Privately, both Administrator Huangfu and Administrator Shangguan were somewhat related to Mo Hua through connections and ties, and they genuinely liked this refined, gentle, and well-mannered “little ancestor,” handsome as a painting.

With the situation outside now complicated, and many people secretly eyeing Mo Hua like tigers watching prey, they were even less likely to let him go out.

Mo Hua sighed.

This way, he was once again effectively placed under “house arrest.”

It had been like this in the Huá Clan, and now that he had left the Huá Clan, it was still the same.

The Huá Clan confined him to harm him.

Administrator Huangfu confined him to protect him.

Mo Hua knew Administrator Huangfu meant well, and there was nothing he could say.

He could only settle for the next best thing and said, “Administrator, could you have someone gather some wild grass for me?”

“Wild grass?”

“The most ordinary, most inconspicuous kind, the sort that’s everywhere.”

Administrator Huangfu didn’t understand. “What do you want that kind of wild grass for?”

“I…” Mo Hua thought for a moment, then said, “To study the soil and water of the Great Wilderness?”

Study the soil and water?

Administrator Huangfu was still puzzled.

But it was only wild grass, there was no reason not to agree.

Given Mo Hua’s status, strictly speaking, let alone wild grass, even if he wanted to eat dragon meat, one would have to seriously consider it.

“All right, no problem,” Administrator Huangfu agreed.

Mo Hua clasped his hands and bowed. “Many thanks, Administrator Huangfu.”

Administrator Huangfu hurriedly pressed his hands down.

Mo Hua didn’t know about Old Mr. Xun’s letter, and Administrator Huangfu didn’t bring it up either. On the surface, he still treated Mo Hua as an ordinary disciple.

But he himself had to know his limits and not be disrespectful.

Administrator Huangfu said gently, “We’re all fellow disciples. If you count it up, we’re even somewhat related. There’s no need to be so formal.”

Mo Hua said gratefully, “I’m very thankful for the administrator’s care.”

“Not at all, not at all…”

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Mo Hua suddenly thought of a question. “Administrator, where exactly are we right now?”

Ever since he had been captured by that True-Person Huá, he had been kept confined. He could only roughly guess that he had been taken out of the Desolate Wilderness.

But where he actually was now, he had no idea at all.

And also…

“How is the war in the Great Wilderness…?” Mo Hua asked softly.

Administrator Huangfu was taken aback. He hadn’t wanted to talk much about it, but since Mo Hua had asked, it would be awkward not to answer. He considered his words and slowly said:

“At present, we are on the former site of the Great Wilderness Sect…”

“As for matters concerning the Dao Court’s war, given my position as a Administrator, I can only disclose a little. Confidential details can’t be spoken of. I hope you’ll—”

Administrator Huangfu paused, momentarily unsure how to address Mo Hua.

He couldn’t very well call him “little ancestor” to his face.

But calling him “little brother” would seem impolite, and more importantly, too distant.

Mo Hua seemed to notice his hesitation and said, “If you don’t mind, you can call me junior brother?”

After all, they shared the bond of having studied under the same sect.

Administrator Huangfu had graduated earlier; by rights, he was the senior brother, and Mo Hua would naturally be the junior brother.

Administrator Huangfu nodded. “Junior brother is good, junior brother is good.”

Mo Hua said, “Senior Brother Huangfu, please continue…”

Administrator Huangfu felt a bit closer in his heart, nodded, and said:

“Confidential matters can’t be told to you, but the general situation doesn’t need to be avoided…”

“Now it is Dao Calendar Year 20,047. Nearly ten years have passed since Yinghuo fell to the south, the Departing Fire surged to the heavens, and rebellion erupted in the Great Wilderness. Over these ten years, the Dao Court’s grand armies and the Great Wilderness royal court have fought without cease.”

“At the beginning, the Great Wilderness Sect’s unexpected rebellion caused the Dao soldiers to suffer defeat, provoking the Dao Court’s fury…”

Mo Hua nodded. That was around the time he had been separated from the main army and, led by Big Tiger, had run off into the Desolate Wilderness.

From establishing merit for the Dao Court, he had turned around and ended up “building achievements” for the Desolate Wilderness instead.

Truly, one could only sigh that fate toys with people.

Administrator Huangfu continued, “…The Dao Court was enraged and subsequently continued to dispatch additional forces to engage the Great Wilderness royal court.”

“But this time, the Great Wilderness royal court—no one knows why—has become strangely powerful. Whenever battles occur, bizarre incidents inevitably follow. In the Endless Abyssal Marshes, there are always inexplicable disturbances that make one shudder.”

“The Dao Soldier Command launched several major battles, yet none resulted in a decisive victory. With the situation deadlocked, the Dao Court had no choice but to issue an edict, drawing cultivators from the great clans and sects to reinforce the campaign and pacify the Great Wilderness.”

Mo Hua said, “Great clans shouldn’t have Dao soldiers, right…?”

“Naturally,” Administrator Huangfu said. “Unless they have received the Dao Court’s approval and an edict from the Dao Soldier Command, privately raising Dao soldiers is a capital crime. As for those sent this time—”

“They are elders from the various great clans and sects, backbone cultivators, as well as some prodigious disciples who have come specifically to temper themselves through the fires of war,” Administrator Huangfu said.

Mò Huà was slightly taken aback. “The prodigies of… the various great families and sects?”

Translator Notes:

Mo Hua unified the Desolate Wilderness which is part of the Great Wilderness.

Yinghuo(熒惑): The name of a celestial body, often Mars in classical Chinese astronomy.