A month passed in the blink of an eye.

Su Ming’s life had settled into an unprecedented state of tranquility and routine.

Every day at the mao hour, he would go to the Accounting Office on time.

Manager Liu Tong had long since stopped his initial harassment and would even proactively hand over some of the cleaner, simpler ledgers to him.

The other few menial disciples were also quite polite to him, always respectfully addressing him as “Mister Su” in their conversations.

Within this small Accounting Office, Su Ming had earned himself a rare measure of respect through his professional competence.

He would efficiently complete his daily tasks within half a day.

The remaining time, he would spend in the Accounting Office’s library, flipping through the sect’s old archives that were covered in layers of dust.

They recorded the Cloud Hidden Sect’s various expenditures, resource allocations, and personnel changes over thousands of years.

To outsiders, this was just a pile of dry, boring numbers.

But in Su Ming’s eyes, it was a magnificent scroll depicting the entire operational veins of the sect.

He was like a dried-out sponge, frantically absorbing everything about this immortal world.

He even began consciously recording the regular resource consumption of different peaks and different affairs, silently constructing his own “sect operation model” in his mind.

Which areas had stable expenditures, which projects had abnormal fluctuations, which links might have redundancies or loopholes—he noted them all down one by one.

Every ten days, he would submit a compiled account analysis to Wang the fat man.

Each report would bring Wang the fat man a new surprise.

And these reports would ultimately be delivered to that secluded, tranquil room deep within the External Affairs Hall.

On this particular day, in the afternoon.

Elder Ma was sitting cross-legged in meditation when a steward from the External Affairs Hall hurried in with an anxious look.

“Elder, Disciple Chen from Formation Peak requests an audience, saying he has important matters to report.”

“Let him in.”

A moment later, a young man wearing Formation Peak disciple robes rushed in, his face full of agitation.

“Elder Ma!”

As soon as he entered, he began pouring out his grievances.

“You must do something about this! Those menial disciples the External Affairs Hall sent to our Formation Peak to maintain the Spirit Gathering Arrays are simply a bunch of idiots!”

He stamped his foot in anger.

“Tell them to clean the dust off the formation plates, and they’ll wipe off the core spiritual energy nodes! Tell them to replenish the low-grade spirit stones, and they can’t tell the yin-yang fish eyes apart, nearly causing spiritual energy backflow several times!”

“Just yesterday, the Spirit Gathering Array for Medicine Plot Ding was paralyzed by them again! Over a hundred newly sprouted Green Dew Grass plants had their spiritual energy cut off overnight, all of them wilted!”

“Our Formation Peak’s core disciples are too busy studying profound formations every day, how can we have time to follow behind them cleaning up these messes every single day?”

The young man grew more agitated as he spoke.

“Elder Ma, if you keep sending these utterly clueless good-for-nothings over, our Formation Peak will really just throw in the towel!”

Elder Ma listened, his brow tightly furrowed.

He had already heard about this matter.

The sect had numerous low-level formations, and the maintenance workload was enormous, indeed requiring a large number of hands.

But the Dao of formations was subtle and profound; even the simplest Spirit Gathering Array involved dozens of runic nodes.

Having a group of completely untrained menial disciples do it—it would be strange if mistakes *didn’t* happen.

But having Formation Peak’s formal disciples do these menial tasks would indeed be a waste of talent.

It had become a difficult deadlock.

Just as he was deep in thought, the door to the tranquil room was gently knocked.

“Elder, Su Ming from the Accounting Office requests an audience.”

It was Wang the fat man’s voice.

“Enter.”

Wang the fat man pushed the door open but did not enter himself. He merely stepped aside, making way for Su Ming behind him.

Su Ming walked in slowly, holding a bamboo scroll in his hands.

He first bowed respectfully to Elder Ma and then to the Formation Peak disciple, before presenting the bamboo scroll.

“Elder, this is the detailed ledger of spirit stone consumption for each peak of the sect last month, along with a comparative analysis against the same period last year.”

His voice was clear and calm, like a cool spring in this agitated, tranquil room.

The Formation Peak disciple was still fuming over the loss in the medicine plot, muttering under his breath, “…they don’t even understand the most basic ‘Three Powers Positioning,’ it’s simply…”

Elder Ma’s gaze, however, slowly shifted away from that angry face.

It landed on the bamboo scroll Su Ming had presented.

The densely packed numbers on the bamboo scroll were categorized in perfect order.

The destination of every spirit stone expenditure was clearly marked.

Loss rates, growth ratios, all data precise to two decimal places.

Chaos.

Order.

On one side, stupidity that couldn’t even grasp “Three Powers Positioning.”

On the other, meticulousness that could discern clear patterns from tens of thousands of dry numbers.

Elder Ma looked at Su Ming’s steady posture as he offered the scroll, at the clarity and focus in his eyes that didn’t belong to a menial disciple, and then thought of the well-organized, even subtly insightful account analysis reports Wang the fat man had delivered over the past month.

A vague idea gradually became clear.

He looked at Su Ming. This kid’s mind, wasn’t it just like the most precise formation plate?

Every number was a rune.

Every ledger entry was a formation line.

He could combine these things without the slightest error, making them operate smoothly.

This… wasn’t this precisely excellent material for learning the Dao of formations?

His immortal path was severed, making him “useless.”

But if this “useless” person could be trained into a special menial disciple proficient in low-level formation maintenance…

Wouldn’t that be “making the best of a bad situation”?

This move would both solve Formation Peak’s urgent problem and provide this kid with a skill to secure his livelihood.

Killing two birds with one stone!

Thinking of this, Elder Ma’s mind suddenly cleared.

He waved his hand at the Formation Peak disciple.

“This matter, I am aware. But it cannot be resolved immediately. You may return first. I will give Formation Peak a reply.”

Although the Formation Peak disciple was unwilling, seeing the elder had spoken, he could only bow and take his leave.

Only Elder Ma and Su Ming remained in the tranquil room.

Su Ming, having finished his report and seeing the elder had no other instructions, prepared to take his leave.

“Wait.”

Elder Ma stopped him.

Su Ming halted his steps and bowed. “Does the elder have further instructions?”

Elder Ma did not speak.

He stood up, walked to a dusty wooden chest in the corner, and rummaged inside for a moment.

Finally, he took out a jade slip that looked old, its color faded, even its edges somewhat worn.

He walked back and casually tossed the jade slip to Su Ming.

The action was like throwing away a useless stone.

“Your immortal path is hopeless, but your mind is still passable.”

Elder Ma’s tone was so indifferent it betrayed not a single ripple of emotion.

“This is the ‘Basic Overview of Formations.’ Take it and look at it.”

“If you can learn a little bit while doing your accounting work, you might be able to take charge of inspecting the illumination and dust-repelling formations on various peaks in the future. That would be a stable path for you.”

Su Ming instinctively caught the jade slip.

The jade slip felt cool to the touch, carrying an aura of weathered time.

He stood frozen in place, looking at this old man before him whose emotions never showed on his face, while a tidal wave of thoughts surged in his heart.

Formations?

The path he had previously contemplated was now placed before him so abruptly, so lightly.

He had originally thought about seeing if he could obtain knowledge of formations from Li Kai, but Li Kai’s nature was too introverted. Su Ming hadn’t managed to have more than a few words with him this past month and had planned to proceed gradually. He never expected a new path to appear just as one seemed blocked.

Su Ming tightened his grip on the jade slip in his hand. The cool sensation seemed to penetrate his palm.

He bowed deeply to Elder Ma.

“Thank you… Elder Ma.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep