After a long while.
Qian Xin stared at the water pillars on the lake and rubbed her eyes. Once she confirmed she had not seen wrongly, she exclaimed, "Quick, look! Those water pillars seem to be glowing."
Wu Yin and the others had actually noticed the disturbance long ago. However, the light radiating from within the water pillars was simply too faint, and it had not triggered the slightest change in the formation's workings, so they had paid it little heed.
Hearing Qian Xin's startled voice, Wu Yin casually reassured her, "Don't make a fuss. This should merely be a normal phenomenon caused by the Azure Mountain Sect Master's Duckweed Formation covering the area and sensing the formation patterns within the water pillars."
Qian Xin nodded, convinced.
But then, the water pillars on the lake suddenly began to sway one after another. Strands of pale golden light rose from within them in succession, turning into balls of light that hovered above every water pillar.
The light emitted by the orbs was clearly not very bright, yet it appeared exceedingly dazzling. Stare at them for too long, and one's eyes would even be stung shut.
Once nearly every water pillar had an orb suspended above it, those pale golden orbs suddenly began to evolve again. Like kneaded dough being pulled apart, they split into thin strips, irregular in appearance—some long, some short, some thick, some fine. Their twisted, winding forms were bizarre in every conceivable way.
"This looks like..."
Zhe An's eyes shifted from doubt to certainty as he sensed them. "They are the disordered formation patterns within those water pillars."
Qian Xin looked at Wu Yin in astonishment. "Is this normal too?"
Wu Yin's expression became incomparably awkward. He gave a light cough. "This... perhaps after the Azure Mountain Sect