Chapter 474: Great Mastery
Chapter 475: Great Mastery
Lu Chengyun never imagined that just by showing Mo Hua the array a few times, Mo Hua would memorize the Spiritual-Pivot Array diagram and reproduce it.
A first-rank twelve-pattern formation, the absolute array of the Little Lingyin Sect, inherited from the Great Lingyin Sect over a thousand years ago—the Spiritual-Pivot Array!
Mo Hua was overjoyed. Wasting no time, he immediately began to study it.
The Corpse Mine was no place to linger.
He needed to master the Spiritual-Pivot Array as soon as possible so he could find a way to escape sooner.
And then there was Lu Chengyun and the Lu family.
Once he learned the Spiritual-Pivot Array, he could free his hands and deal with Lu Chengyun and the Lu family.
No matter what schemes Lu Chengyun had, he could not be allowed to succeed.
The Lu family had flaunted their power for so many years; they had to receive their just retribution.
The Ten-Thousand Corpses Array had to be destroyed, the Patriarch’s diagram seized, and the Corpse Mine along with the iron and walking corpses inside could not be left behind, or it would inevitably bring endless trouble.
Among all these tasks, the Spiritual-Pivot Array was the key.
With his mind set, Mo Hua began to focus on studying the formation.
His progress was rapid.
Earlier, he had already obtained parts of the Spiritual-Pivot Array diagrams from the walking and iron corpses, gaining a general understanding.
Having grasped the principles of the array, he had also tested the array’s application on Little Tiger.
Now, with the complete diagram in hand, he only needed to fill in the gaps and deepen his understanding.
Mo Hua spent some time memorizing the array patterns and practiced several times on paper first.
That night, at the hour of Zi, he slept, sinking his divine-sense into his Sea of Consciousness to continue practice on the Dao Monument.
The next day, he feigned exhaustion and a pale complexion, pretending his divine-sense had been overdrawn, and did not approach the array nodes of the Ten-Thousand Corpses Array.
Instead, he hid in his room, secretly practicing the Spiritual-Pivot Array while Lu Chengyun was unaware.
On the third day, he pretended to have recovered and went to the Ten-Thousand Corpses Array, crouching among a group of coffins to draw the array nodes.
After finishing, he returned at night to continue studying the Spiritual-Pivot Array.
But after a few days, Mo Hua noticed something was wrong.
This Spiritual-Pivot Array diagram seemed to have been tampered with…
On the surface, the array looked complete.
The highest-priority Spiritual-Pivot main array controlled the secondary arrays, which in turn controlled the base arrays.
But Mo Hua discovered that the main array had some missing patterns.
It was as if someone had left a “backdoor.”
These missing patterns were in someone else’s hands.
Unless these patterns were completed, the main array remained a backdoor.
The main array would no longer be a true main array, merely a secondary array.
Others could use this backdoor to bypass Mo Hua’s main array and control all the secondary and base arrays he had drawn.
Then the Spiritual-Pivot Array Mo Hua painstakingly arranged could very well become someone else’s “wedding dress.”
“Picking the fruit!”
“So sinister…”
Mo Hua shook his head.
This countermeasure was definitely left by Lu Chengyun.
But likely not only to guard against him.
It was probably meant to prevent anyone who saw the diagram, learned the array, and tried to construct a weighted system from doing so.
Whether refining corpses, crafting devices, or even making puppets and cultivation tools, anyone using his Spiritual-Pivot Array would ultimately be “usurped.”
Because Lu Chengyun possessed the main array with the highest authority.
“Good thing I noticed, or I would have fallen into Lu Chengyun’s trap…”
Mo Hua felt a chill and then puzzled over something.
What exactly were these missing patterns?
Where would Lu Chengyun hide them?
Mo Hua thought for a long time but had no clue.
Lu Chengyun was the head of the Lu family, the Corpse Mine was huge, hiding a few patterns would be easy.
“Should I use invisibility to spy?”
He shook his head.
With his current divine-sense and stealth, tracking Lu Chengyun was still too risky.
Even someone at Foundation Establishment would struggle.
Lu Chengyun was an array master, a sinister one, and suspicious by nature; following him would surely arouse suspicion.
Better to wait until his divine-sense became stronger.
“But what should I do then?”
The Spiritual-Pivot Array was right in front of him. He couldn’t just ignore it.
But if he learned and used it, he’d essentially be working for Lu Chengyun, which wasn’t worth it.
Even finding the patterns wasn’t easy.
Who knew where Lu Chengyun would hide them?
Suddenly, Mo Hua’s eyes lit up:
“Bronze coffins!”
Lu Chengyun wouldn’t leave a backdoor for himself too, right?
The arrays he drew in the bronze coffins must be complete and flawless!
Mo Hua’s eyes brightened.
The next day, as Lu Chengyun drew the arrays in the bronze coffins, Mo Hua quietly peered over.
Zhang Quan noticed and warned him with a glance.
Mo Hua stared back confidently, then turned to keep watching.
The Spiritual-Pivot Array Lu Chengyun drew was different from his own.
He used sinister techniques—bone as brush, blood as ink, corpses as array media.
His array layout also differed.
Time and again, he dipped the brush in blood, drawing the array on the bronze coffin.
The blood gradually faded, the array merging into the coffin.
Mo Hua didn’t quite understand the technique.
Fortunately, the inner patterns and principles remained the same.
He could still recognize the internal array patterns of the Spiritual-Pivot Array.
Lu Chengyun’s eyes glimmered green, focused entirely, not noticing Mo Hua; even when he caught a glimpse, he barely reacted, half-smiling:
“Little sir, how’s it coming?”
Mo Hua frowned, shaking his head:
“Too difficult… I can’t understand it…”
Even though he didn’t understand, he kept watching.
Array masters were like this—the harder it was to comprehend, the more they wanted to understand.
Lu Chengyun knew this and saw nothing amiss.
Mo Hua continued naturally.
He watched while mentally critiquing:
“This Lu Chengyun is so slow… I’ve been waiting ages. If it were me, it would already be done…”
“This stroke is wrong, and he hasn’t noticed yet…”
“Using bone brush, blood ink, corpse media… so much fuss…”
“Dragging it out…”
Finally, after a while, Lu Chengyun’s wrist twitched, his strokes quickened, leaving several array patterns.
Mo Hua didn’t recognize these patterns at first.
Matching them with the Spiritual-Pivot Array, he found they perfectly filled the missing backdoor patterns.
Outwardly confused, inwardly he was clear as a mirror. He memorized the patterns with a movement of his divine-sense.
Lu Chengyun instinctively felt something amiss but saw Mo Hua’s expression unchanged and relaxed.
The missing patterns were now in Mo Hua’s hands.
Returning, he used these patterns to fill the gaps, closing Lu Chengyun’s backdoor.
After a few days of study and adjustment, Mo Hua finally mastered the Spiritual-Pivot Array completely.
At the same time, his comprehension deepened.
The array’s principle was clear: it structured spiritual energy and precisely controlled it through the array’s core.
The key to this control was the spirit threads.
Splitting spiritual energy into finer threads allowed for more precise manipulation.
Moreover, similar Spiritual-Pivot Arrays resonated with each other.
Like a parent-child array, the child array’s energy fluctuations reflect in the parent array.
Main arrays controlled secondary arrays, which controlled base arrays, allowing a small divine-sense to command large numbers of corpses or puppets.
This utility of an array had not been seen in Mo Hua’s Five-Element arrays.
“Absolute arrays truly seize the essence of spiritual energy, rivaling heaven and earth…”
Mo Hua was awed.
Once learned, he tested the complete Spiritual-Pivot Array on Little Tiger.
He had a pile of Little Tiger puppets, prepared by Old Kui for testing.
He picked the largest, “Big Tiger,” and drew the main array on it.
He then drew secondary arrays on six or seven smaller ones.
Mo Hua used his divine-sense to control the main array, which in turn controlled Big Tiger.
The main array radiated to the secondary arrays, controlling the smaller puppets.
All levels of the array were displayed in Mo Hua’s Sea of Consciousness.
With a slight movement, Big Tiger ran clumsily across the table.
The array transformed spiritual energy into threads, activating the secondary arrays and pulling the smaller puppets along.
Seven or eight puppets ran vividly, chasing each other, full of life…
Yet controlling them consumed very little divine-sense.
If controlling zombies with the same method, step by step, one could potentially command thousands with a single divine-sense.
One person could lead an army.
Terrifying.
Mo Hua clicked his tongue.
He sank his divine-sense deeper to observe how manifested spiritual energy changed.
In his Sea of Consciousness, he appeared and focused, manifesting energy.
Soon, the spiritual energy became finer, finally forming “spirit threads,” like pale blue filaments or sticky lotus threads.
Spiritual energy became thread-like!
Just like the refined threads in the Spiritual-Pivot Array.
“This is what my master meant—deeper comprehension makes the manifestation truer.”
With a slight movement, the threads flowed as he wished.
Mo Hua pressed his fingers, instantly forming a fireball.
This fireball carried the thread-like quality.
It resembled a tangle of fiery red cotton, composed of compressed, intertwined flame threads.
The energy surged in order.
Mo Hua was stunned.
His real-world fireball and the one in his Sea of Consciousness looked completely different.
The real-world fireball was dark red, compressed, powerful, with slight signs of condensation.
The Sea of Consciousness fireball was bright red, with more delicate thread-like differentiation, stronger in dispersal.
For a moment, Mo Hua wasn’t sure which was better.
Should the real fireball converge toward the Sea of Consciousness version, or should the Sea fireball reflect the real one?
“I’ll ask Old Kui when I leave…”
Besides fireballs, his Flowing-Water Step also became more refined.
The step relied on divine-sense control over spiritual energy.
Stronger control made his movements more precise.
The Water Prison Technique manifested faster in the Sea, with tighter binding.
Previously, the locks were spiritual energy; now they became threads, then locks, tightly ensnaring enemies.
Most importantly, the arrays.
Mo Hua tested it.
With a movement of thought, he doubled his array-drawing speed.
In mere breaths, he could manifest a first-rank nine-pattern array using only divine-sense.
He devised a combo:
Freeze the enemy with Water Prison, then within a few breaths, manifest Golden Lock Array, Overturn Water Array, Wood Lock Array, Quick-Sand Array, etc., to trap the enemy.
Once trapped, the enemy was a living target.
He could bombard with fireballs.
Or manifest Earthfire Arrays to explode them.
Or form Molten Fire Arrays to melt them.
This combo was seamless, adaptable, and versatile.
For Foundation Establishment spiritual bodies, with a divine-sense no higher than twelve threads, one full combo could leave them near death.
Mo Hua nodded, satisfied.
Using the Sea as a prison and divine-sense as a weapon.
To confine and to kill.
The Sea version of himself was much stronger than in reality.
Mo Hua snorted: “This time, anyone who dares enter my Sea, one by one, I’ll kill them!”
For now, the Sea was empty; no spirits or ghosts.
He felt like a hero with no battlefield.
His hands itched; he thought:
“Need something to test on…”