Inside the cave, all was silent.
Qiong Xiao slowly opened her eyes, and a brilliant golden light flashed through them.
She raised her hand somewhat blankly, her jade-white palm facing upward as she quietly sensed it.
An unprecedentedly powerful force surged through every limb and bone, like an awakened dragon, filled with explosive might.
So this was the power of a Mid Golden Immortal?
Qiong Xiao's consciousness sank into her Purple Mansion. Looking at the immortal platform, now more than ten times sturdier than before, and the vast, mist-like pure Immortal Essence within her sea of qi, she felt as though she were in a dream.
Repair Dao Foundation, Increase Cultivation.
From a cripple whose path to the Dao had been severed, teetering on the edge of death, to a Mid Golden Immortal powerhouse with a stable foundation and soaring strength.
This earth-shaking transformation had taken place in less than the time it took to burn an incense stick.
And the one who had bestowed all of this upon her was the man seated cross-legged on the stone platform before her, his expression utterly calm.
Qiong Xiao's beautiful eyes completely lost focus as she stared blankly at Lin Feng.
Shock, confusion, disbelief.
All those emotions intertwined, eventually transforming into the utmost reverence and fervor.
In her eyes, Lin Feng's figure had completely overlapped with some indescribable, unfathomable supreme Great Dao.
She took a deep breath, suppressing the thunderous turmoil in her heart, then solemnly knelt on the ground and pressed her forehead deeply against it.
"Thank you, Master, for the Grace of Rebirth!"
This time, there was no longer the slightest trace of shyness or panic in her voice. Only awe and submission that came from the depths of her soul remained.
Lin Feng slowly opened his eyes. His calm gaze fell upon her. Seeing her immersed in the joy and excitement of her sudden surge in strength, he merely shook his head lightly.
That subtle gesture was like a basin of ice water, instantly extinguishing all the fervor in Qiong Xiao's heart.
She suddenly raised her head, her beautiful eyes filled with astonishment and confusion.
Master... shook his head?
Could it be that even such a complete transformation was still beneath his notice?
Qiong Xiao's heart tightened for no reason.
"Your realm has risen, but your understanding has not kept pace."
Lin Feng's voice was not loud, yet it struck Qiong Xiao's heart like a heavy hammer, stirring up towering waves.
"Your formations have only scratched the surface."
Boom!
Qiong Xiao's mind buzzed, going completely blank.
Scratched the surface?
The Thirty-six Transformations of the Heavenly Dipper Formation, her Innate Divine Ability, which she had possessed from birth, studied for endless years, and taken great pride in, was merely... scratching the surface in her master's eyes?
How was that possible?
An utterly absurd feeling rose in her heart.
After all, relying on these Array Techniques, she had been nearly unmatched among cultivators of the same realm. Even against a Grand Unity Golden Immortal, she had the power to fight.
Such a heaven-reaching method, enough to let her look down upon countless immortals, had actually been judged as... merely scratching the surface?
If even this counted as scratching the surface, then what qualified as true mastery?
Qiong Xiao's breathing stopped. She opened her mouth, wanting to argue, but the words reached her lips only to be forcefully swallowed back down.
Then she suddenly came to her senses.
Who was she?
And what kind of existence was the one before her?
A supreme existence who could reverse heaven and earth with a wave of his hand, rebuild her foundation, and make her cultivation soar past its bottleneck with a single thought.
How could she possibly fathom his vision or his level?
The methods she regarded as capable of reaching heaven and earth might truly be nothing more than childish tricks in his eyes.
At that thought, the trace of resentment and confusion that had just arisen in Qiong Xiao instantly vanished, replaced by even deeper shame and unease.
Yes, she had truly been like a frog at the bottom of a well.
Having just received a tiny, insignificant benefit, she had become smug and nearly lost her Dao heart.
Had Master not given her that resounding warning, she might not have known how far she would have gone down this mistaken path.
Having understood all of this, Qiong Xiao no longer harbored the slightest distracting thought. She bowed deeply once more, her tone incomparably sincere and even carrying a faint tremble.
"Qiong Xiao is foolish. Please guide me, Master!"
Lin Feng looked at her humble, eager expression, his face still showing little emotion.
He said nothing more and merely raised a finger.
An ordinary finger, slender and clean.
He lightly pointed it at the open ground before him.
There was no earth-shattering display of power, no phenomenon of laws manifesting. It was as though an ordinary man were idly pointing at the landscape.
Yet the moment that finger lifted, Qiong Xiao's gaze was firmly drawn to it, and she even forgot to breathe.
Buzz!
As Lin Feng's fingertip descended, a speck of faint light appeared in the air.
Then, using that speck of light as its starting point, strands of golden thread formed from pure spiritual energy began to appear out of thin air, intertwining and sketching themselves through the air.
Using his finger as a brush and spiritual energy as ink, Lin Feng began to evolve a formation in the void!
Qiong Xiao's beautiful eyes instantly widened, and her soul shook violently.
She recognized the very first rune all too well. It was the opening form of the Thirty-six Transformations of the Heavenly Dipper Formation!
But though it was the same opening form, the rune Lin Feng drew was utterly different from hers!
The formations she deployed relied on Immortal Essence for activation and followed predetermined paths.
But what flowed from Lin Feng's fingertip was not a formation rune at all. It was... the Dao! A tangible manifestation of heaven and earth's ultimate principles!
The first transformation, Heavenly Dipper Stabilizing Formation.
What Qiong Xiao had learned was to construct a stable space using thirty-six basic Array Cores, trapping enemies within it.
But with a sweep of Lin Feng's finger, three thousand six hundred fine threads of law interwove in the void, instantly locking down a portion of space. That space was no longer simply "trapped"; conceptually, it had been "stripped" away from the entire Primordial World!
Qiong Xiao's divine sense merely brushed against it, and she felt a terrifying force capable of crushing a Grand Unity Golden Immortal, filling her heart with horror.
How was this a trapping formation? It was clearly a formation of absolute slaughter!
The second transformation, Heavenly Dipper Illusory Formation.
Lin Feng lightly tapped his finger. Within that stripped-away space, light and shadow shifted, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind surged, and in an instant, a minor world evolved. Sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, vegetation—everything was lifelike, no different from the real world.
Qiong Xiao's scalp went numb.
Her illusion formation could at most create a few illusions that confused the mind.
But her master's illusion formation directly created a real world! Those who fell into it would likely never realize they were inside an illusion, even until death!
The third transformation, Heavenly Dipper Killing Formation...
The fourth transformation, Heavenly Dipper Thunder Formation...
Qiong Xiao had become completely entranced.
Lin Feng's demonstration opened the door to a new world for her.
What he demonstrated was no longer merely transformations of formations. He was tracing every transformation of the Heavenly Dipper Formation back to the most fundamental source of the Great Dao.
Why could such a transformation invoke slaughter? Because its core embodied the laws of killing.
Why could such a combination create illusion? Because its essence was the intertwining of the Daos of reality and illusion.
Countless obscure barriers that had once been difficult to understand and had troubled her for millions of years were resolved one by one under Lin Feng's demonstration, which pointed directly to their source.
She was like an elementary school student who only understood addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, suddenly watching a university professor solve the same mathematical problem using calculus and linear algebra.
That Dimensional Reduction Strike-like shock, that ecstatic glimpse of truth, made her entire soul tremble and ascend.
Lin Feng's finger moved neither quickly nor slowly, tracing profound and beautiful paths through the air.
The tenth transformation...
The twentieth transformation...
The thirtieth transformation...
As the evolution deepened, the profundity of the formation had already surpassed the limits of Qiong Xiao's comprehension.
She could not understand it, yet she was profoundly shaken.
She did not need to understand. She only needed to imprint the "Dao resonance" demonstrated by her master deep within her soul, and it would benefit her for the rest of her life.
When Lin Feng's fingertip evolved the thirty-fifth transformation, the void throughout the cave began to tremble violently, as though it could no longer bear the terrifying might contained within the formation and might collapse at any moment.
Qiong Xiao's face had already turned pale. Simply observing it made her feel as if her primordial spirit were about to be torn apart by that vast Dao resonance.
Finally, Lin Feng's fingertip placed the final stroke.
The thirty-sixth transformation, Heavenly Dipper Returning to Origin!
Buzz!
That terrifying grand formation, complex to the extreme, encompassing all phenomena of heaven and earth and containing every principle of creation, destruction, illusion, and annihilation, suddenly contracted inward the instant it took shape.
All light, all laws, all Dao resonance collapsed into a singularity countless billions of times smaller than the tip of a needle, then vanished completely.
It was as though the formation's evolution, which had been capable of destroying heaven and earth, had never appeared at all.
The Great Dao was simple; Return to Simplicity.
Seeing this, Qiong Xiao's entire body jolted, as though a divine thunderbolt of creation had struck the crown of her head.
She understood.
She completely understood!
The ultimate profundity of the Heavenly Dipper Formation was not transformation, not slaughter, not protection, but... returning to origin! It was evolving all phenomena, encompassing all phenomena, and finally returning them to a single point, becoming the original "Dao"!
Boom!
An unprecedented enlightenment, like a mountain flood and raging tsunami, instantly shattered the final shackle deep within her soul.
Two beams of dazzling, unseeable divine light of enlightenment suddenly burst from Qiong Xiao's eyes, piercing through the void.
The bottleneck that had troubled her for countless years, preventing her from pushing her mastery of formations to a higher level, was completely shattered by Lin Feng's casual point.
Qiong Xiao had no time to say a single word, much less express even a trace of gratitude.
Her body had already followed the instinct of enlightenment. She sat cross-legged on the spot, closed her eyes, and instantly entered a deep state of realization.
Brilliant Dao-resonant radiance completely enveloped her figure.
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