It was like an illiterate child suddenly being thrown into a scripture hall containing supreme Dao treasures, facing walls full of heavenly texts.

Dizziness.

Intense dizziness instantly overwhelmed Su Ming.

It was the helplessness of having one’s cognition completely crushed, the insignificance and fear perceived by a mayfly gazing up at the vast sky.

“Pfft!”

Su Ming spat out a mouthful of blood, his body swaying, nearly toppling over.

That divine sense connection snapped with a sound. The hovering black jade slip clattered onto the table, and the formation plate’s radiance also dimmed.

“Disciple! Guard your heart, concentrate your spirit!”

Lin Yu’s stern shout, like the evening drum and morning bell, forcibly pulled Su Ming back from that endless dizziness.

Su Ming gasped for breath, his hands gripping the table edge so tightly his knuckles turned white. His eyes were filled with shock and bewilderment.

“Master… what was that? Was that… the true Path of Formations?”

His voice trembled uncontrollably. “It’s… too vast. Compared to it, everything I’ve learned before… is like child’s play.”

A profound sense of defeat spread in Su Ming’s heart. He had once thought that, relying on the “Investigation of Things” method and mathematical deduction, he had already entered the hall of formation arts, even occasionally feeling smug.

But that brief glimpse just now made him fully understand that he had merely touched the threshold of that colossal gate, not even having pushed open the crack.

“Scared already?”

Lin Yu’s voice sounded in the Consciousness Sea, lacking its usual teasing tone, carrying a rare seriousness and… a trace of vicissitude.

“Disciple, what you just saw was merely a wisp of the surface of the ‘Cycles of the Celestial Stars’, a manifestation of the ‘Dao’ within formations.”

“Dizzy? Seeing stars? Feeling powerless?”

Su Ming nodded subconsciously.

“That’s right.” Lin Yu sighed softly, as if watching a fledgling eagle attempt its first flight. “If it weren’t so, that would be strange.”

“You need to understand, this path of immortal cultivation is inherently cruel.”

Lin Yu’s tone shifted, turning slightly cold. “Spiritual root aptitude, opportunities, destiny, and fortune are mostly predetermined by heaven. Your dual water-wood spiritual roots are considered above average. In a minor sect, you might be treasured. But in the Cloud Hidden Sect, before those true prodigies, you are merely ordinary.”

“Moreover, your Dao foundation is damaged, and you lack any heaven-defying, fate-altering bloodline inheritance. The road ahead… is arduous.”

“Your teacher is being frank with you. Without a great opportunity, the Golden Core realm might very well be the first insurmountable chasm of your life.”

Su Ming’s body shuddered, his face turning deathly pale.

The Golden Core… was that the end?

In this cultivation world where Nascent Soul cultivators could be revered and Spirit Transformation cultivators could be called ancestors, while Golden Core cultivators were considered local experts, they were still far, far from true “longevity and enduring vision,” from “roaming freely between heaven and earth.”

Could it be that in this life, he was ultimately destined to be just a slightly stronger ant?

“Unwilling to accept it?” Lin Yu asked.

“Unwilling!” Su Ming gritted his teeth, his fists clenched so tightly the joints cracked.

“Good! That’s exactly the unwillingness I want!”

Lin Yu suddenly laughed, his laughter carrying an air of looking down upon the world. “Heaven never seals off all paths! Since our innate bone structure cannot compare to others, then we shall carve out a path to heaven through acquired ‘skill’!”

“Precisely because of this, you must never view the Path of Formations merely as an auxiliary means to earn spirit stones and manage mundane affairs.”

“You must treat it as your ‘second life’! Your ‘foundation for establishing yourself’!”

Lin Yu’s words fell like hammers, striking Su Ming’s heart.

“Imagine, if you stop at the Golden Core realm, with a lifespan of five hundred years. An ordinary Golden Core cultivator is merely mid-tier within the sect, bowing upon meeting a Nascent Soul cultivator, yielding the way upon encountering a true disciple.”

“But!”

“What if you are a grandmaster of formations capable of setting up, improving, and even innovating new formations? What if you could increase the sect’s protective mountain formation’s power by thirty percent, boost the Spirit Gathering Array’s efficiency by fifty percent, and casually set up a trapping formation that even a Spirit Transformation cultivator would need time to break?”

“What would your status be then?”

The scene Lin Yu painted was like a beam of light, piercing through the gloom in Su Ming’s heart.

“At that time, even a Nascent Soul ancestor would need to show you deference! Because you hold the secrets of the sect’s foundation! Your words would be the law; the rules you establish would be the standard!”

“This is the glorious, righteous path of ‘approaching the Dao through skill,’ of ‘grasping destiny as a mortal’!”

“Therefore, from today onward, put away that shallow smugness, and don’t let that single glance just now frighten you out of your wits.”

“Cultivation is to strive for more time and a higher starting point, to delve into deeper formations; and achievements in formations will, in turn, nourish you, becoming your sturdiest armor, your sharpest blade, your loudest voice!”

“Do you understand now? My disciple.”

Within the meditation room, silence reigned.

Su Ming sat there in a daze, his gaze shifting from bewilderment, to shock, and finally settling into deep concentration.

After a long time, he slowly let out a turbid breath. The shock in his eyes completely dissipated, replaced by an unprecedented calmness and pragmatism.

It was the sedimentation after weathering storms, the enlightenment after recognizing the road ahead.

“Master, this disciple understands.”

Su Ming stood up and gave a solemn bow to the empty air. “This disciple does not seek to view all the flowers of Chang’an in a single day, but only seeks to tread firmly upon every brick and stone beneath his feet, building them into a ladder to heaven.”

Since he couldn’t comprehend that vast star chart, then he wouldn’t look at it for now.

Since he couldn’t fathom those infinite changes, then he wouldn’t try to fathom them for now.

He would look at only one point.

Only at the “damaged” place.

Su Ming sat down again, once more channeling his divine sense to probe into the formation plate.

This time, he no longer attempted to glimpse the whole picture. Instead, relying on the ability of “Perceiving the Minutest Detail,” he concentrated all his mental energy on that broken node.

Screening out distracting thoughts, unraveling the cocoon to extract the silk.

Avoiding the complex interweaving of Dao rhythms, he went straight to the material foundation bearing the runes—that core piece of jade marrow.

Under the microscopic view, the originally chaotic structure gradually became clear.

“Found it.”

Su Ming’s heart lake was perfectly clear.

At the point where the spiritual energies of the three-dimensional rune converged, he discovered a slight “crystal lattice misalignment” and a clump of “spiritual impurity” clogged like a blood clot.

It was this thing that was choking the throat of the entire grand formation.

“Since you are a ‘Spiritual Clog,’ then I shall employ the method of ‘guiding and channeling.'”

The corner of Su Ming’s mouth lifted slightly.

He once again mobilized his water spiritual energy. This time, the spiritual energy did not form a torrent, but transformed into billions of “spiritual needles” a hundred times finer than a hair strand.

With extreme caution, as if approaching a deep abyss.

The first wisp of spiritual needle probed in, gently nudging the misaligned crystal lattice.

The second wisp of spiritual needle followed, gently enveloping that clump of clogged spiritual substance.

Moistening things silently.

The “moistening” principle of water spiritual energy was brought to its extreme by Su Ming. He was like the most patient craftsman, smoothing out cracks bit by bit, guiding the spiritual substance back into the flow strand by strand.

This process was tedious, mentally draining, to the extreme.

Sweat had long since soaked through his heavy robes, pooling into a puddle on the floor. Su Ming’s face grew paler, but the light in his eyes grew brighter.

One hour… two hours…

Until the first rooster crow came from outside the window.

As the last bit of spiritual clog was dissolved, a faint, harmonious, clear chime sounded from within the jade marrow.

*Hum—*

Like a long-sick person finally able to breathe smoothly.

The radiance at the formation plate’s core no longer flickered, turning stable and gentle. That profound rune that had once made him feel despair, though still complex and difficult to comprehend, was now fully lit up, flowing with an intoxicating Dao rhythm.

Su Ming let out a long sigh of relief, his entire body as if fished out of water, slumping into the chair.

But as he gazed at the lit-up rune, he smiled expansively.

Though he still didn’t understand its principles, he had repaired it.

This sense of accomplishment made his heart surge more than a realm breakthrough.

“Good.”

Lin Yu’s voice sounded timely, carrying undisguised approval. “The quality of repairing ‘vessels,’ observing the ‘wounds’ of formations—this is your foundation for establishing yourself at present. Remember this experience. As for the principles of the void contained within that ‘Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation’…” Lin Yu chuckled. “That will be your starting point for peering into the ‘Dao’ of formations in the future.”

Su Ming reached out and picked up the black jade slip on the table. It felt cool to the touch, yet gave him an immense sense of solidity.

“Senior Brother Li… your life is saved. My path… has also widened.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep