Purple Lightning Takes Shape

Deep inside the prefectural yamen, the Six Doors' temporary interrogation room blazed with light.

The delicate-looking man was shackled to a torture rack with specially made manacles, their surfaces covered in runes that suppressed Essence Qi. Mufeng held a yellowed ancient book and checked the man's account of the formation incantation word by word. The chubby boy fiddled with the four damaged command flags nearby, trying to unravel the formation's secrets.

"The Four Symbols Locking Spirit Formation needs essence blood as its catalyst, combined with spiritual objects from the four directions..." the delicate-looking man said weakly, blood still at the corner of his mouth. "The black command flags need Youming Cold Iron, and the white ones need Snow Mountain Cold Jade..."

Mufeng cut him off coldly. "We know all that. Tell us something useful, like... who's your inside man in the prefectural capital?"

The man gave a strange smile. "Do you really think I'd tell you, my lord?"

Outside, Ye Yun glanced toward the interrogation room from a distance and shook his head. These death warriors of the Youming Sect had all been brainwashed. Getting secrets out of them was harder than scaling the heavens.

Over the next few days, the entire prefectural yamen went on high alert, and all the constables were ordered to remain inside, ready to act at any moment. With nothing else to do, Yan Xiao Liu and the others often gathered in the rear courtyard to drink and gamble. Their racket could be heard across several courtyards.

Ye Yun, however, declined every invitation and stayed alone in the duty room. He took the copy of the Purple Lightning Thunder Seal from inside his robes. The four large cinnabar characters on its cover shimmered with a faint purple light under the lamps.

"Purple Lightning Thunder Seal..." Ye Yun softly recited the technique's main principles. "Draw on the thunder of the nine heavens and transform it into a divine seal that smites evil... What a boast!"

He sat cross-legged and circulated his Essence Qi according to the technique's instructions. At first, nothing seemed amiss. But when he tried to transform his Essence Qi into the power of thunder, a tearing pain suddenly shot through his meridians!

He spat out a mouthful of blood and hurriedly stopped circulating his energy.

"What a domineering technique!" He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, shaken. Cultivating this Thunder Seal was so dangerous that the slightest mistake could make it injure its user. No wonder no one in the Wang family had mastered it in thirty years.

But Ye Yun wasn't discouraged. He recalled the terrifying female ghost at the bottom of the well that day. If he hadn't happened to know the Soul-Suppressing Seal, he would have died long ago. The Soul-Suppressing Seal could counter evil forces, but it lacked the power to kill with a single strike. The Purple Lightning Thunder Seal, on the other hand, had been created specifically to exterminate evil spirits!

"Again!" Determination flashed in Ye Yun's eyes. He adjusted his breathing and guided his Essence Qi even more carefully this time, drawing it out thread by thread...

Three days later, a sudden blaze of purple light filled the duty room!

Ye Yun formed a hand seal, brilliant arcs of electricity dancing at his fingertips. The arcs wound and whirled like living things, crackling with a sound that made the heart tremble. The air filled with the smell of ozone, and the oil lamp on the table flickered.

Ye Yun gave a low shout and snapped his hands together.

All the arcs instantly drew inward, condensing in his palm into a purple Thunder Seal the size of a hand. Runes flowed across its surface, brimming with terrifying destructive power!

Ye Yun thrust the Thunder Seal forward.

A huge hole blasted through the wall of the duty room. Its edges were charred black, and arcs of electricity still danced across them! Fortunately, he had set up a soundproofing barrier in advance. Otherwise, the commotion would have alerted the entire prefectural yamen.

"What power!" Ye Yun was both shocked and delighted. That strike's destructive force was already comparable to a 7th Rank martial artist's full-power attack! It also had a special ability to counter evil and sinister things.

He suddenly remembered the battle at Black Wind Ridge. Every sword strike Zhuge Qing had exchanged with the bandit leader had carried magnificent righteous energy. He was clearly cultivating orthodox Daoist techniques. The bandit leader's Youming Saber Technique, by contrast, was sinister and bizarre; the black qi around his blade could corrode his opponent's Essence Qi.

What had impressed Ye Yun most, though, was the Four Symbols Locking Spirit Formation laid by the delicate-looking man. The man had been no more than 8th Rank, yet he had used the formation to trap Zhuge Qing, who was 5th Rank! Such a way of overcoming the strong with the weak was simply unheard of!

"The way of formations..." A fervent light flashed in Ye Yun's eyes. He remembered that the first half of the True Martial Secret Manual did indeed record some basic knowledge of formations. He just hadn't had time to study it in depth before.

There was no time like the present. Ye Yun immediately took out the manual and flipped to the pages on formations. They looked simple, but held the principles of heaven and earth:

"Heaven gives birth to wood at three; earth completes it at eight... The seven lodges of the Azure Dragon in the east answer to the breath of spring... Earth gives birth to metal at four; heaven completes it at nine... The seven lodges of the White Tiger in the west govern autumn's killing force..."

The more Ye Yun read, the more absorbed he became. So the way of formations was about borrowing the power of heaven and earth for one's own use. At their simplest, they could conceal one's figure; at their grandest, they could trap and kill powerful enemies. Their mysteries were endless.

Following the instructions in the book, he tried using a few ordinary stones to set up the simplest concealment formation. But no matter how he adjusted their positions, the formation showed no reaction.

"That's strange..." Ye Yun furrowed his brow and pondered. "I followed every step exactly..."

Then he thought of something and tried injecting his spiritual power into the stones. Something wondrous happened—the ordinary stones began to glow faintly, connected to one another by a mysterious bond! A concealment barrier three feet in diameter quietly formed. It was weak, but it worked!

"So that's how it is!" Ye Yun realized. "Formations need spiritual power as their catalyst! No wonder they demand such high talent!"

In the days that followed, Ye Yun immersed himself completely in cultivation.

By day, he studied the Purple Lightning Thunder Seal; by night, he delved into the way of formations. The walls of the duty room were covered in scorch marks, while the floor was strewn with markings from his formation experiments.

The Purple Lightning Thunder Seal brought the fastest progress. It seemed tailor-made for him, allowing him to cultivate with twice the results for half the effort. In just seven days, he could already form the Thunder Seal with ease, and its power had increased by at least thirty percent.

By comparison, his progress in formations was far slower.

"No, that's not right... The flow of energy here should be smoother..." Ye Yun stared at the stones on the ground, his brows tightly knitted. He was trying to set up a simple spirit-gathering formation, but it was always just a little off.

The way of formations was far more complicated than he had imagined. He had to calculate not only positions and angles, but also the time, the earth's ley lines, and even changes in the weather! Every detail affected the formation's effectiveness.

The most exhausting part was using his spiritual power. To set up a formation, he had to divide it into fine threads and precisely inject them into each formation point. This demanded absolute control over his spiritual power. The slightest mistake could ruin all his work.

Pfft... Ye Yun suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, and the stones on the ground shattered. That was his third failure of the day—he had tried to speed up the formation process, only to suffer an injury from the backlash of his spiritual power.

"So I can't rush it..." Ye Yun smiled bitterly and wiped away the blood. At last, he understood why formation masters were so rare—this was like dancing on the edge of a blade!

After resting for a while, he changed his approach and began studying the Four Symbols Locking Spirit Formation the delicate-looking man had used that day. He had only one damaged black command flag to study, but by comparing it with the records in the True Martial Secret Manual, he could still deduce many of its secrets.

"The Four Symbols correspond to the four directions. The Azure Dragon governs life; the White Tiger governs slaughter..." Ye Yun drew a complex formation diagram on the ground. But the Youming Sect's formation seemed to work in reverse, replacing the breath of life with death energy...

Suddenly, he thought of something and took out the black command flag to examine it closely. The runes on it looked haphazard, but actually followed a hidden pattern. When he tried injecting a thread of thunderous power, the flag suddenly shook violently, and the runes on its surface glimmered with a dim light!

"So that's how it is!" A look of understanding flashed in Ye Yun's eyes. "The flag itself is a small formation point! Combine four command flags, and they form a complete formation!"

The discovery thrilled him. If he could craft similar command flags, wouldn't he be able to unleash a formation just as powerful?

There was no time like the present. Ye Yun found some ordinary materials and tried to imitate the flag. But no matter how he carved the runes, the flag he made showed no reaction.

"So the key must be the materials..." Ye Yun mused. Youming Cold Iron, Snow Mountain Cold Jade... They were all rare spiritual materials. No wonder the formation was so powerful.

Though he couldn't replicate the Four Symbols Locking Spirit Formation just yet, the past few days of study had deepened his understanding of formations considerably. He could now set up concealment formations with ease, and his spirit-gathering formation could last half an hour.

What delighted him most was that cultivating formations greatly benefited his spiritual power. His senses were now sharper, and he could even faintly discern the paths along which Essence Qi flowed!