Liang Yan picked a room in the far right corner of the courtyard. Dust had accumulated thickly inside. He cleaned it up briefly, set down his luggage, and was about to sit cross-legged and circulate his energy when he suddenly glimpsed two people walking from afar on the path—one fat, one thin, both wearing gray clothes of the same style.
Liang Yan probed them slightly with his cultivation and discovered that both were only at the first layer of Qi Refining, and the spiritual power within their bodies was scant, barely a bit better than the physiques of ordinary martial artists.
When the two entered the courtyard and found an extra person, they seemed rather surprised. Liang Yan walked out of his room and saluted first, saying, “I am Liang Yan, a newly admitted Miscellaneous Duties Disciple. Please take care of me in the future, Senior Brothers.”
The fat senior brother smiled kindly: “So it’s a newly admitted junior brother, hehe. Junior Brother, no need for such formalities. My name is Li Dali, and he is Sun Qianli. Just call us Brother Li and Brother Sun. That’s how we usually address each other.”
Before Liang Yan could respond, Sun Qianli immediately interjected, “You two chat slowly if you have things to say, I’m going back first.” Saying this, he walked off toward his own room, and with a slap, shut the door behind him.
Li Dali smiled awkwardly and said, “Brother Liang, don’t mind him. Brother Sun’s physical foundation isn’t good, and us Miscellaneous Duties Disciples have heavy work. He always looks exhausted, and as soon as he gets off work, he goes straight to sleep.”
Liang Yan smiled slightly, indicating he didn’t take it to heart. After exchanging a few more words with Li Dali, they each returned to their rooms.
After a night of sitting cross-legged and circulating his energy, at the first light of dawn the next day, Liang Yan was already neatly dressed. He followed the map given by Master Zhou to report to the Rites Pavilion and Law Pavilion, receiving the sect’s rules and a set of gray Miscellaneous Duties Disciple attire.
By the time he hurried back to the pavilion in the middle of the Apricot Forest, Li Dali and Sun Qianli were already there, but Wang Yuan had not yet arrived. Liang Yan walked up and stood in line with the two. Li Dali gave him a friendly smile, while Sun Qianli still appeared indifferent.
The three waited for another incense stick’s worth of time before Wang Yuan appeared on the path, yawning, and sauntered over leisurely. Li Dali and Sun Qianli seemed long accustomed to this, showing no odd expressions.
Wang Yuan glanced lazily at Liang Yan and said, “You: Southern Spirit Wood Area, fifty bundles of spirit firewood. Carry water from the Spirit Spring on Splendid Peak, ten vats. Remember to deliver these to the Miscellaneous Affairs Office and register them under our Formation Meridian’s name. After you’re done, come to the Repository of Scriptures to clean.”
Then he turned to Li Dali and Sun Qianli and said, “As for you two, same places as always. If you understand, go get to work.”
The three received their tasks, went to the Miscellaneous Affairs Office to get their tools, and then split up, heading to their respective task areas.
Liang Yan followed the map and headed to the Spirit Wood Area. Before long, he saw a lush green forest, with trees so verdant and dense, all over five zhang in height.
He chose a relatively short spirit tree, swung his axe and chopped. With a “crack,” the axe blade only went in seven cun.
Seeing this, Liang Yan couldn’t help but click his tongue inwardly. ‘The technique I cultivate naturally strengthens the physical body, yet chopping this spirit wood is still so strenuous. Given the cultivation of those two, they’d probably need a whole day to finish their work. It seems the life of a Miscellaneous Duties Disciple is truly tough.’
Thinking this, Liang Yan silently circulated the nameless art passed down by the old monk. With all his might, he chopped down with the axe. This time, the axe sank in completely, nearly reaching the middle of the trunk. Only then did Liang Yan show a satisfied expression. He then withdrew the axe and chopped again.
By the time he finally finished chopping fifty bundles of spirit wood, it was close to noon. Without a moment’s rest, he hurried to Splendid Peak’s Spirit Spring to carry water. After everything was done, Liang Yan, enduring the soreness all over his body, returned to the Repository of Scriptures.
Wang Yuan seemed not to have expected him to finish the tasks so quickly. He gave Liang Yan a deeply meaningful look, and his attitude seemed to change somewhat. He only instructed him to clean the first floor of the pavilion spotless and said nothing else.
Liang Yan nodded and complied. Within two hours, he had cleaned the entire first floor spotless. At this time, Li Dali and Sun Qianli still hadn’t returned to report; clearly for them, the tasks of a Miscellaneous Duties Disciple couldn’t be completed as quickly as Liang Yan had.
‘The tasks are all done. I must seize the time to enter the Repository of Scriptures and study the way of formations.’ Liang Yan thought to himself.
The reason he worked so hard was actually to save more time to read the books in the Formation Meridian’s Repository of Scriptures. After all, he had that six-year agreement to keep. If by then he had achieved nothing in the way of formations, it would be like drawing water with a bamboo basket—all empty.
Liang Yan walked into the Repository of Scriptures. Although from the outside it clearly looked like a small pavilion, once inside it was surprisingly large. Inside, all sorts of texts were placed by category on rattan wood bookshelves.
Liang Yan had already spotted his target while cleaning earlier. He walked to the left side of the outer section, reached out and took a book with a yellowish-brown cover. On it were prominently written four large characters: “Introduction to Formations.” Liang Yan sat down cross-legged on the floor and began reading with great interest.
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye it was evening. Liang Yan took a deep breath and lifted his head from the book.
‘So the way of formations is vast and profound.’
Liang Yan muttered to himself, “At its core, formations are the application of a cultivator’s comprehension of the Grand Dao of heaven and earth to the manipulation of spiritual energy. Aside from some absolute formations from the primordial beginning, the formations created by later predecessors and masters can generally be divided into killing formations, illusion formations, trapping formations, restriction formations, and sealing formations.”
“But all things have spirit, and since all races began cultivating the Dao and seeking immortality, it has been countless tens of thousands of years. Among them were many brilliant and talented individuals who improved the original formations or even created their own. This complexity gave rise to countless variant formations with exquisite functions, no longer limited to the five major categories.”
“No matter how they change, they never deviate from the four essentials of formations: the formation eye, formation tools, formation patterns, and formation source. The formation eye is the core of the formation, akin to a person’s dantian, usually formed by a magic treasure or spiritual artifact. Once the formation eye is destroyed, the grand formation becomes hard to sustain. Formation tools refer to specialized instruments for setting up formations, analogous to the acupoints in the human body, typically formation plates, formation flags, formation pearls, etc., varying according to the needs of the formation. Formation patterns are the Dao markings engraved by the formation setter, like the meridians of the body. As for the formation source, it’s usually provided by spirit stones, but can also be substituted with other treasures rich in spiritual energy. The formation source is like the spiritual power within a person; if there is a dantian, acupoints, and meridians but no spiritual power flows within them, then it will have no effect at all.”
This “Introduction to Formations” could be said to be thorough and detailed, clearly explaining the foundational knowledge of formations, and it introduced Liang Yan into the gateway of the formation path.
Liang Yan had an astonishing memory. With one glance he could take in ten lines. In just one afternoon, he forcibly memorized the book’s essentials and then pushed the door open to come out.
At this moment, three people were already standing outside: Sun Qianli, Li Dali, and Wang Yuan.
Sun and Li had evidently just finished work and returned to report. They hadn’t expected that Liang Yan, a newcomer, would finish his tasks even before them, and were momentarily surprised.
What surprised them even more was that Liang Yan would spend time in the Repository of Scriptures learning formations.
One must know that cultivators in this world prioritize their own cultivation above all. Spending time in the Pill Meridian could still be justified, since some pills have heaven-defying effects, greatly aiding one’s cultivation and even breaking through bottlenecks—that’s why people are so obsessed with pill refining.
But the way of formations is intangible and elusive. Apart from certain specific times and occasions when it’s needed, in actual combat with others, its help is negligible, so very few are willing to study this path.
Even Sun Qianli and Li Dali, as members of the Formation Meridian, rarely cultivated formations themselves. Whenever they had time, they were almost always sitting cross-legged and refining qi, trying to break through to the second layer of Qi Refining. Moreover, they hadn’t chosen the Formation Meridian willingly in the first place.
Liang Yan didn’t understand their puzzlement and merely assumed they were curious about how he could finish his tasks so quickly. So he bade farewell to Wang Yuan and left.
Liang Yan returned to his dormitory, sat cross-legged and practiced through the night. The next day he again finished his tasks early and continued to bury himself in the Repository of Scriptures.
This Repository of Scriptures of the Formation Meridian was filled entirely with books related to formations, with no cultivation method manuals. Even the outer disciples of the Formation Meridian rarely came here; only once every ten days or half a month might someone visit to look something up. This worked to Liang Yan’s advantage, allowing him to read quietly alone in the Repository.
And so it went. Liang Yan used the morning for chopping wood and body training, the afternoon for delving into the formation path, and the evening for circulating energy and refining qi. In this leisurely manner, three months passed in the blink of an eye.
One afternoon, in the Formation Meridian’s Repository of Scriptures, Liang Yan was rocking his head back and forth, reading a black-covered book with great enjoyment. On the cover, outlined in gold, were six large characters: “Illustrated Explanation of the Eight Formations of the Wind Sovereign.”
As he read on, Liang Yan suddenly frowned. He flipped to the last page, channeled a trace of spiritual power into his fingertip, and after hesitating a moment, wrote on it:
“In the transformations of the eight formations, Heaven Covering is the vanguard of the troops, the master of the formation. If handled too hastily, it will be defeated from within. It should be hidden like a crouching dragon, not to be used except in a life-or-death decision.”
He thought further and wrote: “Earth Bearing moves upright as the vanguard, charging the enemy irresistibly, its uses inexhaustible. But a cornered beast cannot fight long; it can be supplemented by Cloud Drooping. Earth Bearing is square and upright, Cloud controls the four corners—strike then, and it will collapse.”
Then he continued: “Wind Yang is formless, attached to heaven; Cloud Drooping to earth. At first formless, Wind changes into a snake, Cloud into a bird, charging the Dipper and Ox, shooting at the Celestial Wolf. These four changes form a living formation. As for Dragon Flight, Tiger Wing, Bird Soaring, Snake Coiling…”
Liang Yan had been somewhat hesitant at first, but as he wrote on, he became more and more absorbed. Where his interest was piqued, his eyebrows danced and his brushstrokes became lively. He wrote at length, actually combining the eight transformations of the Eight Formations of the Wind Sovereign in pairs, deriving endless variations.
If a senior knowledgeable in formations had been present at that moment, they would certainly have been so shocked their jaw would drop and not close.
One must know that although the “Eight Formations of the Wind Sovereign” is not an extremely profound formation, it is by no means an easy-to-understand beginner’s stuff. It contains eight transformations: Heaven Covering, Earth Bearing, Wind Yang, Cloud Drooping, Dragon Flight, Tiger Wing, Bird Soaring, and Snake Coiling.
For each one, an ordinary person would not make much progress without a month or two of study. Yet Liang Yan, in just three months, could overturn the book and conceive of improvements. To call him a formation path genius would not be excessive.
Of course, Liang Yan himself was unaware of this. For the sake of his six-year agreement with the Pavilion Master, from his very first day in the sect, he had thrown himself into studying formations, forgetting to eat and sleep. Aside from work and cultivation, he was reading and researching, almost to the point of obsession.
Liang Yan wrote down his improvements to the eight formations at length on the last page. Suddenly, he felt that he was merely an apprentice of the formation path, yet here in the Repository of Scriptures, he was using his brush as his mouth to spout such wild words—truly somewhat laughable.
As he thought this, his face reddened. So at the very last line of the text, he wrote: “Crazy Scholar’s Absurd Words.”
After writing, he closed the book, looked out the window at the sky, and saw it was already dusk. So he got up, cleaned the Repository of Scriptures a bit, and then went out, heading back to his dormitory.