"This killing formation shall be called the Gale Formation."
The formation laid out on the Void Ground was a fragmentary diagram Lu Qing had obtained from the formation diagrams presented to him.
Lu Qing had been curious as well. After working through ordinary formations, he had developed considerable interest in incomplete formation diagrams.
He simply took this opportunity to use Spiritual Power to alter several Formation Eyes. Otherwise, since it was called an incomplete formation diagram, it was naturally not whole; an incomplete one could hardly be reproduced exactly, stroke for stroke.
Lu Qing could tell that this remnant formation had originally been combined with other formations into a grand formation. But since it was incomplete, he shifted several Formation Eyes and turned it into a shrunken, weakened killing formation.
If it had been a complete formation, Lu Qing naturally could not alter it at present. But for a remnant formation, the difficulty dropped in a straight line. Besides, Lu Qing was not restoring it; he had instead followed a different path with ingenious ideas, fusing other formations into it.
"The Gale Formation—gales are swift, formless, and traceless. Once one falls into the formation, entering the wind means being refined away. There are seven Formation Eyes. To break the formation, one must either overpower it with force or outrun it with speed."
Lu Qing gazed in satisfaction at the formation on the Void Ground. In his eyes, he had spent three days pondering and tinkering with this formation before finally producing it. It killed without a trace; after death, even corpses and souls would be weathered away by the wind. Searching souls or tracking souls would both be impossible.
"Have all my talents been spent on these sneak-attack techniques?"
Lu Qing pondered for a moment, then decided to pretend he had not seen it. This formation could stay here and operate alongside the Cloud Mist Formation. They were simply made for each other by heaven and shaped for each other by earth.
Suddenly, his gaze turned toward a certain spot.
Just then, an invisible fluctuation appeared deep within a mountain range.
"A spatial fluctuation."
There was no delight in Lu Qing's eyes, only a trace of relief that it had finally arrived.
As for Spirit Terrace County, which had never appeared in the Divination, Lu Qing had in fact been quite curious about what exactly lay here.
He swept his gaze over the spatial fluctuation. The aura it emitted belonged to the Foundation Establishment realm.
He did not rush over immediately. Instead, he circulated power through his eyes and stared fixedly at that spatial fluctuation.
"So there is a hidden formation here as well."
Once he focused his attention there, Lu Qing discovered something strange.
There was a formation there.
But the power within it was weakening with every passing second.
This either meant that it was ancient and its formation power had been worn away by time, or that the formation itself had lost its Spiritual Power support.
Countless thoughts turned through Lu Qing's mind, though only an instant passed outwardly.
He activated the Cloud Mist Formation and, at the same time, merged his figure into the faint breeze.
Further into Spirit Terrace Mountain lay countless branches of mountains, large and small.
A wisp of breeze brushed past the treetops, swept over the stream, and finally came to rest beside an ancient tree.
At the same time, that wisp of breeze silently pushed open a formation.
Very soon, crackling sounds—like thunder and lightning—erupted.
For no reason at all, thunder sounded in broad daylight. The dull rumble was swallowed by the deep mountains and never reached beyond them.
Rumble.
It was like muffled thunder rolling.
A cloud of dust spread outward.
Only after a long while, when there was no further movement—
did Lu Qing finally transform from another distant mountain peak into a second wisp of breeze and arrive here.
The Calamity Avoidance Talent had not activated in the face of this unknown situation, which meant there was no fatal danger.
But Lu Qing was accustomed to layering several protections over himself before approaching. His Divine Consciousness could now cover the entirety of Spirit Terrace County.
Controlling formations from afar was no problem.
Among the killing formations he currently possessed, the Gale Formation had the greatest destructive power.
Since there had been formation fluctuations here, and since he had thought of something, there was a high chance that a Cultivation Cave existed in this place.
He released the Gale Formation. The two formations collided, directly destroying the mechanisms around the outer perimeter.
His eyes brightened as he immediately saw a Cultivation Cave revealed after the formation vanished.
After cultivating for a year, Lu Qing truly had never encountered a senior's Cultivation Cave before.
Once it lost the formation's concealment, the exposed area of this valley changed in appearance as well.
Earlier, this valley had been overgrown with wild grass.
But now, Lu Qing saw dozens of Spirit Fields here. Beside them stood a thatched hut, with wooden fencing surrounding it, while the thatched courtyard and the nearby Spirit Fields had long since fallen into desolation.
No matter how he looked at it, this did not resemble the secluded Cultivation Cave of some senior expert, nor a cave containing an inheritance.
Lu Qing narrowed his eyes and inspected the place inside and out with Divine Consciousness. He found nothing strange, nor any living person.
After thinking it over, he walked inside. Since there was no fatal danger, this place was still worth exploring. Of course, Lu Qing mainly wanted to verify an idea about his ability.
If choosing the reverse truly meant seeking fortune, would that not mean he could find harmless opportunities as well? The thought flashed through his mind, but Lu Qing quickly suppressed it.
For now, he would inspect what was different about this thatched hut.
Normally, a cultivator—especially a Foundation Establishment cultivator—would not particularly enjoy living in such a crude thatched hut, would they?
The interior had been swept clean. Several white bones lay piled atop a meditation cushion. Apart from that, there was only ordinary furniture. The wooden window stood open, and a desk faced the windowsill.
"At least a hundred years."
Clearly, these white bones had been left behind after the owner of this place died.
Lu Qing detected no wounds, only an aura of years declining into dusk.
Ninth Layer of Foundation Establishment.
Only one step away from breaking through, yet he had still died.
Lu Qing reconstructed the owner's manner of death in his mind.
Lu Qing's eyes were no longer what they had once been. There was nothing unusual here. At most, as the possessions of a cultivator, there were some books besides Jade Slips.
The paper was fragile. Once the formation disappeared, these books turned into drifting dust and scattered away.
"I am Carefree Master... Alas, cultivation is difficult, difficult, difficult."
There was nothing here. Perhaps sensing that his lifespan was nearly exhausted, Carefree Master had recorded his life story.
As Lu Qing read on, his brows rose. This Carefree Master was not from the Profound Heaven Domain. According to his account, he had originally been a Lineage Cultivator in the Grand Heaven Domain. Yet his Lineage had been destroyed during his youth, leaving him displaced and homeless. Later, he obtained an inheritance from a predecessor's Cultivation Cave. Relying on its cultivation technique, he successfully entered Foundation Establishment and cultivated directly to the Ninth Layer of Foundation Establishment, then slaughtered every enemy responsible for the destruction of his Lineage.
But after remaining at the Ninth Layer of Foundation Establishment for many years, he had squandered away his time until little lifespan remained.
In the end, he could only die with regret.
Lu Qing was only half-convinced by this record.
As for the inheritance cultivation technique, Lu Qing was only mildly curious. More than that, he felt that cultivating a Rogue Cultivator technique was inferior to directly spending contribution points to exchange for a top-tier technique. Techniques verified by countless people in major sects were more reliable than some unknown technique acquired halfway through the road. Even if he obtained it, Lu Qing would not cultivate it lightly.
Most of the Jade Slips recorded miscellaneous anecdotes and strange tales, including quite a few matters concerning the Grand Heaven Domain.
The Grand Heaven Dao Sect held the same status there as the Profound Heaven Dao Academy did here.
However, the Grand Heaven Dao Sect was undoubtedly a genuine sect. Its cultivators entered the world and left it again, while the Grand Heaven Domain was governed by the Grand Heaven Immortal Dynasty, which stood in a superior-subordinate relationship with the Grand Heaven Dao Sect.
Lu Qing read with great interest. It could only be said that every great domain seemed vastly different.
The paths they walked were also quite different.
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